Not many games make me yell at the screen or cheer when I win. Through virtue of a well-crafted challenge, Dark Souls III became one of those games.

Dark Souls’ plot has always been opaque to anyone who doesn’t want to do thorough online research, but as far as I can tell, the player’s character wakes up at the end of the world (again).

This time, though, it’s not your job to save the dying world; instead, you need to drag the four Lords of Cinder back to their thrones and make them do it. That’s the general idea of what’s going on, as far as I can tell.

Dark Souls has been updated in several way for its final outing. First, the player is no longer undead/human but rather unkindled/kindled. Functionally, the two systems work the same. In an unkindled state, there are fewer healing items, but the player is safe from player invasion; kindled gets more items but is open to a world of grief dueling other players online.

The levels are not connected to each other as they were in previous games, but they feature more shortcuts and branching paths to explore and double back on. Weapons also come with a special abilities that can make battles easier, such as smashing straight though an enemy’s shield. This is just meant to be another tool rather than a revamp to the entire combat system, though. It’s balanced by limited uses and being unable to hold a shield, making the player open to attacks.

The most significant change is that bosses will change their attack patterns halfway through a fight. In a series in which the key to victory is learning patterns and poking holes in them, this a pretty big change.

Despite making the fights more difficult, I liked this a lot. It made me feel I was battling something intelligent rather than rehearsing the same moves (hint: Prioritize dodge rolling over blocking. That was a habit that took two hours to unlearn).

Dark Souls has always been difficult, but this installment feels significantly more difficult than the other games did. Perhaps the FromSoftware people figured anyone picking up this game is a veteran at this point, so they felt free to ratchet up the difficulty. Maybe the AI’s programming just got smarter. Regardless, even the non-boss enemies felt more dangerous this time around.

Despite the increase in toughness, Dark Souls III still has the series’ trademark hard-but-fair attitude. Move slowly and cautiously, check your surroundings, and don’t try to fight more than you can deal with. Patience and observation will serve you well on your journey. Prepare to die, but you can still overcome the challenges.

I think Dark Souls III may be my favorite of the series. I like that FromSoftware managed to find a way to update the formula but still kept the spirit that made the Dark Souls series stand out.