DARK SOULS 2

[CMoon]

Those images are fucking awesome! I can't comment on the rest. A big team might mean faster/better production and no stupid bugs like input lag. It might also mean that ideas become more distilled. I think it's way too early to have an opinion of any kind, but I'm glad it isn't in Lordran. Maybe we can see some part of it off in the distance?

I like the comment about 'similar dimension but more dense content'. There are a few places in Dark Souls where I feel the developers got lazy and we end up with big open areas that aren't even worth exploring. Other areas feel compact and incredibly well thought out. Yes, give me super-dense souls please!

[cj iwakura]

By the way, the Monster Hunter thing is a mistake. Same name, different guy.


These directors worked on ACE according to GAF.


Anywho, art looks amazing. Hopefully Miyazaki gone won't affect things, but it's good he wants to do new stuff. Also looking forward to improved Covenants. That was the one thing Dark Souls had serious flaws in.

[Jonathan Ingram]

From Edge Magazine:

The new directors, Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, are indeed the From Software staff who previously directed the Another Century's Episode series. The decision to have the two directors replace Miyazaki was a company decision made by both From Software and Namco Bandai Games to help move the series forward in a fresh direction.

Not getting my hopes up after reading this. Another Century's Episode R for the PS3 was fucking awful. And what`s this new "fresh" direction they are talking about? Like Ninja Gaiden 3 fresh?

[sjewkestheloon]

I am eagerly looking forward to this, and I hope that it is only as different to Dark Souls as that game was to Demon's Souls. I also agree that the denser map is a good idea.

As for the other slightly worrying comments, I reserve judgement. I try not to pre judge this sort of stuff as it sound like appeasement more than anything.

Thankfully if it does turn out a bit disappointing we still have two of the best games of the generation to turn to for a complete lack of comfort.

[Almighty]

yes!!!

loved the first two games

[CMoon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB0LXzDfLKs

New 'podcast' from Epicnamebro discussing the Edge article. I rather agree that while this is greatly lowering my expectations, it could still be a great game.

[Marc]

Those images are fucking awesome! I can't comment on the rest. A big team might mean faster/better production and no stupid bugs like input lag. It might also mean that ideas become more distilled. I think it's way too early to have an opinion of any kind, but I'm glad it isn't in Lordran. Maybe we can see some part of it off in the distance?

I like the comment about 'similar dimension but more dense content'. There are a few places in Dark Souls where I feel the developers got lazy and we end up with big open areas that aren't even worth exploring. Other areas feel compact and incredibly well thought out. Yes, give me super-dense souls please!

I always found it odd that a game could vary in quality so much as to include both Sen's Fortress and Lost Izalith. One is the most hair-tearingly brilliant environment I've ever played through, one is a half-baked, half-finished mess.

[evil_ash_xero]

Actually, this Edge interview has killed my interest in this game almost completely. I'll wait and see what I hear when it comes out, but right now it's crossed off my must buy list.

[Weak Boson]

While I'm disappointed they booted out Miyazaki and feel profound grief for the games' vision of no compromise I'm still somewhat interested in this game and have hope for the series.

The thing about accessibility was the main concern but they've been talking about limiting the options at the beginning of the game, so it sounds like the plan is just to better prepare the player for the adventure. Offering a better tutorial is the only way I can think of to make it more accessible without necessarily compromising the game. How much it will actually detract from the adventure remains to be seen but even though I enjoyed flailing about when I first started playing the game was still fun after I'd got my bearings.

But Dark Souls was always going to be a tough act to follow so some experimentation is not unwelcome. The fact that they say it's the direction they want to move the entire series is the most disquieting thing. I mean, someone said I could play a game where you play as Gwyn's firstborn and you get to see his story - there's no two ways about it, that sounds cool. It would have to flout some of Dark Souls's rules but it might still be good. Like ENB said, Dark Souls Gaiden might be a good way to look at it, let's hope it's just that.

Of course, the game I really want is one that's ten times harder than Dark Souls - I played that game to death, so anything less wouldn't be a proper continuation. It would have been unrealistic to expect that, though.

[CMoon]

Man, my opinion keeps changing on this everyday.

What's impossible to avoid is the emotional reaction to the decisions From/Namco are making, as though they don't even understand why the soul games have been successful or don't really care about their fan base. I don't want to dwell on that, but its always in the back of my mind--that same pattern where you almost don't want anything you like to become successful.

As far as writing off this game. Honestly, I think it will still be a good game unless they ruin it purely through bad design/mechanics. I say this because of the strength of the combat engine. Imagine 3rd person skyrim with Souls' combat, and you suddenly realize how great a game that would be. Would it be a Souls game though?

What keeps going through my mind though is the many different ways I play the Souls games. Yeah, I don't like the idea of the story being more direct or a character archetype being foisted on me, but far worse to the gameplay would be if they force you down a particular path with character builds. As long as my 'son of Gwynn' can a 250 lb chick with 40 points in resistance, or I can still do soul level 1 runs, glass cannons, tank builds, etc. etc. then Dark Souls 2 will be a game I want to put some time into--but that comment about limiting player choice has me scared. I'm still anxious to see how this game turns out, but virtually everything From is saying at this point is the opposite of what any fan of the series wants.

[LtC]

New 12 minute gameplay video by IGN:
http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/04/10/da ... inute-demo

Interview regarding the gameplay video:
http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/04/10/ev ... rk-souls-2

[Hibachi]

Wow.

It does look good and I'll be there day one. My only concern (and i could be a masochist here) is that it looked like hits did not do as much damage. The health bar looked quite long though so maybe reading too much into.

This is easily my most anticipated game so I guess i'm a bit precious and scared that it could be ruined with a different director but at the moment and after watching the footage, I think that this is understood in the dev team.

The section where they showed the rope bridge made me very excited because you know you're going to get across and explore what's in the distance. That's part of the magic for me.

Anyway, can't wait now.

[Weak Boson]

Ahh, not sure if I want to watch this. I mean if I do I can just tell I'll end up combing over every second of footage on this game that seeps out. Do we have a release date? How long must we endure this?

While I deliberate might I say, having been interested in it since release but unable to play it, I finally got to play Demon's Souls today. Just killed Phalanx and I'm loving it already. Makes me hopeful for Dark Souls 2, actually, because even if it doesn't turn out to be the gleaming flawless gem that the first was, getting some 'new' Souls gameplay from Demon's has taught me that even on a bad day these games are just awesome. Not saying Demon's Souls is giving me the impression of Dark Souls on a bad day, it's too early for me to tell, the point is that even it does turn out that way it's still gonna be a hell of a ride. Yeah feels good to be sinking my teeth into a 'new' souls game.

EDIT: Well I watched it. Some things I like (dual wielding), nothing I didn't like, but some things that could be causes for concern. I don't want it to be cinematic or gimmicky. Some of the things they showed would be great if they were just a taste of the many secrets and dynamics of the game, and totally lame if they were set pieces.

[dcharlieJP]

From Software and Namco Bandai Games to help move the series forward in a fresh direction.

well, you have to admire thier nuts - Dark Souls moved things on a fair bit from Demon Souls, and it doesn't look like there's -that- much "fresh direction" in the trailer to be honest.

Then again - we know Miyazaki is directing a new project - that could well turn out to be Demon Souls 2 for PS4 ... or something new and exciting.

[CMoon]

Wow, that's an interesting concept--Miyazaki not directing Dark Souls 2 so he could instead work on the PS4 installment.

Big questions I wanted answered still haven't been--are we locked in on the type of character? I'd have loved to see some other armor or any indication that there's a lot of freedom in this department. Still, it is far more likely that Dark Souls 2 is probably VERY close to Dark Souls and this isn't the big sell out we were all worried about.

There are a couple moments of the video where I thought the combat looked a little floaty, but I really don't think there's any way to judge from such an early video. If anything I'm incredibly encouraged and dcharlieJP has made me hopeful that instead of abandoning the Souls series, Miyazaki has perhaps been pushed ahead to work on a future iteration.

[LtC]

Remember it's just a demonstration and the game isn't most likely even half finished right now. It's likely a high level character with high level armor and/or they haven't adjusted the game balance yet.

In the first Dark Souls demos you could choose to play as Solaire or Black Knight. If I had to guess the character in the trailers and the character played here is most likely an NPC and they're using it just because it's somewhat of a signature armor set of Dark Souls II right now having appeared in the reveal trailer before. I'd be very surprised if they took away the character creation that was in Demon's Souls and first Dark Souls.

[Cuilan]

The "key-face" mechanic reminds me of the key-gates from King's field 2 and 3 (and to a lesser degree, the warp shrines in 4). This is a good thing, since the more like King's Field the Souls series becomes, the happier I am.

I'd be very surprised if they took away the character creation that was in Demon's Souls and first Dark Souls.

In the latest screenshots, they show off different armor sets, including ones from Dark Souls 1, like the Elite Knight set.

[Zaarock]

Looks like this one will be a bit more cinematic and stuff with the emptier areas and emphasis on graphics. I'm actually sort of disappointed they didn't change the combat much(who knows yet though)

I didn't like that bridge part much, it looks like a forced "cinematic" death(unless you can turn back near the end), dark souls had maybe a couple of those but there should at least be an illusion of chance of escape instead of just oh you died, didn't that look cool. Otherwise looking promising to me.

And yeah the player character was just for the demo.. notice how he had a lot of healing items (instead of estus which they said would be back), and carried a ton of weapons at once but only seemed to get slow movement when wielding the greatsword.

Didn't the director say there would for sure be character creation in one of the interviews? I could swear there was.. I think it was the one with both directors. edit: nah, they didn't. I don't see them removing it though, if anything it would just turn off fans of the series and DkS sold pretty well.

[dcharlieJP]

Remember it's just a demonstration and the game isn't most likely even half finished right now.

Funnily enough - i remember playing Demon Souls at TGS prior to it coming out and that demo was pretty horrific performance and tuning wise.

Final game turned out pretty awesome.

From have been pretty great when they hit form this gen - Chromehounds, Demon Souls, Dark Souls - and the next Armored Core V looks to be basically ripping out the Chromehounds online and dumping it almost exactly into AC.

[MX7]

Looks exactly the same/pretty awesome. That huge dragon skeleton looked particularly great.

[Zaarock]

From have been pretty great when they hit form this gen - Chromehounds, Demon Souls, Dark Souls - and the next Armored Core V looks to be basically ripping out the Chromehounds online and dumping it almost exactly into AC.

Agreed. Hopefully Verdict Day won't have region specific servers, V is pretty good but the online system didn't work outside japan because of much smaller community. The stupidest part is that the Free Battles were peer to peer and playable with servers down, yet still region locked.

[LtC]

Looks like this one will be a bit more cinematic and stuff with the emptier areas and emphasis on graphics. I'm actually sort of disappointed they didn't change the combat much(who knows yet though)

I didn't like that bridge part much, it looks like a forced "cinematic" death(unless you can turn back near the end), dark souls had maybe a couple of those but there should at least be an illusion of chance of escape instead of just oh you died, didn't that look cool. Otherwise looking promising to me.

And yeah the player character was just for the demo.. notice how he had a lot of healing items (instead of estus which they said would be back), and carried a ton of weapons at once but only seemed to get slow movement when wielding the greatsword.

Didn't the director say there would for sure be character creation in one of the interviews? I could swear there was.. I think it was the one with both directors. edit: nah, they didn't. I don't see them removing it though, if anything it would just turn off fans of the series and DkS sold pretty well.

Yeah, the areas did look emptier. If I remember correct in the Edge interview they said that while the game area wouldn't be much bigger from the first game it would be a lot more packed with stuff. If I had to guess I'd suppose there's some sort of system in place where the areas change under some circumstances. Like for example night-day cycle, going from past to future or maybe seasons changing. Kinda like there was difference between areas under different world tendencies in Demon's Souls, only in a bigger scale. I suppose the indicator would be the new icon in the HUD but I'm just guessing.

As for the combat I doubt anyone really expected or hoped them to change the combat much. They focused on making the combat better from DeS to DaS and it looks like they're doing the very same thing here, which is a good thing in my opinion. There was new stuff like deflecting projectiles with a weapon, the torch and unique movesets for dual wielding (?).

For the "cinematic" death I think it only looks that way because they've added a falling animation and because walking animation seemed to change when you entered the bridge. You can probably still walk away when the Drake first appears but it will drop the bridge if you walk too far. There were similar cases in the previous games where you would die for sure under certain circumstances if you went somewhere you shouldn't. Like 1-1 of DeS if you went to take the treasure when the red drake was resting on the cliff or the DLC content of DaS if you went to where Kalameet boss fight was without having it first shot down.


Also here's to hoping they'll actually do a simultaneous worldwide release this time.

[Cuilan]

There was new stuff like deflecting projectiles with a weapon, the torch and unique movesets for dual wielding (?).

Not only that, but you can see in the video that it'll be possible to use bows while moving at the same time.

I think all of these changes will affect the combat quite a bit, especially in PVP. But only time will tell if this is for better or worse.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

+ shooting the monster through the gate
+ better shadows/lightning
+ greater desctructibility
- disappearing bodies
- framerate dips, tearing

Looks engaging enough.

[CMoon]

Some quick thoughts from ENB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY_r8T6Es54

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm not afraid they'll mess it up. I admit I wouldn't even worry if it was made a wee bit more mass-market, in regards to the character presentation for instance I don't see how a more traditional kind of storytelling device would be terribly resented. The previous game was cryptic to the point of being thematically nonexistent. "Oh look, there's a big enemy here!" "HISTORY" "ok I'm sure there is a deep history to this big guy who chases me off the tops of staircases"

[cj iwakura]

Tell me if they fixed the Covenant system to be actually worth something for the other 70% that aren't Sunlight or Forest Hunters.

[Squire Grooktook]

I'm not afraid they'll mess it up. I admit I wouldn't even worry if it was made a wee bit more mass-market, in regards to the character presentation for instance I don't see how a more traditional kind of storytelling device would be terribly resented. The previous game was cryptic to the point of being thematically nonexistent. "Oh look, there's a big enemy here!" "HISTORY" "ok I'm sure there is a deep history to this big guy who chases me off the tops of staircases"

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I always thought the Souls series was a combination of Metroid Prime style "lore for players who look for it" and oldschool rpg style "figure it out for for yourself."

Like it left little details around to pique your interest, but never explained it properly so the players end up using their imaginations, interpreting things for themselves, and telling their own story.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, it is a refreshing throwback in ways.

[dcharlieJP]

Apparently PC lead with that version at 60fps , console versions at 30fps.

PC Dad's win again