So...Dark Souls 2

[NeoGoomba]

Dark Souls 2 begins it's jolly release tomorrow. Anyone else here plan on picking it up? I thought the first was a pleasant surprise, and I dug it quite a bit. I actually have high hopes for the sequel, which is something I haven't had for a "current-gen" game or whatever since like...urm, Mass Effect 2?

[TheFeniX]

I "had" to skip the first game due to a couple issues. Namely being that I was done with Xbox gaming and even though there's a decent amount of co-op in the game, I never could determine how it works without a purchase and there were much better options available at the time. This is a shame because I was a huge fan of the King's Field games.

I'm hoping to get DSII on PC at some point because WoW is starting to get old. But since our new house still has the telco wires just hanging off the brick, Internet in general is going to be an issue. Sure, my wireless tethering works, but 5GBs goes fast.

[dragon]

On the first one I got fed up with the constant dying that I eventually gave up on the game. From the reviews I've read the new game is just as death happy as the first.

[TheFeniX]

Personally, From Software shying away from any kind of an easy mode is one of the regrets I have for not buying DS1. But I've heard of issues with the PC port and the multi-player turned me off what with the players with access to better gear being able to roflstomp inexperienced players.

DS2 development was started with PC in mind and the co-op system not neutering voice chat like the first one did. That was a serious annoyance with me for CoD: MW2. I guess for PC it's moot since there's a variety of third-party VoIP options.

[dragon]

I dont mind a game having challenge but DS1 went overboard. I'll still pick up a copy of DS2 though.

[Mr Bean]

I dont mind a game having challenge but DS1 went overboard. I'll still pick up a copy of DS2 though.

Reminds me of this comic
The comic in question

I own the Prepare to Die edition of Dark Souls 1 but I've yet to play it. It's in my list but so is a lot of other things.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I was intrigued by everything I'd heard about DS1's predecessor, so I picked up DS1 when it came out on PC. And it was the most staggeringly atrociously horrific game port I'd ever had the misfortune of "playing," as if the developers wanted to elevate "port" to new levels of bad and punish PC users for choice of platform. I've since heard that they've patched things a bit, but I haven't had the willpower to reinstall the game.

So, I'm wary of any sequels.

[Oskuro]

From what Yahtzeee has been babbling about recently, Dark Souls actually gets good once you punch through the first few areas. Which I didn't.

I did like the game in concept, though, and the fixes made it playable on PC, but wasn't feeling it back then and haven't picked it up since.

As for DS2, I'm worried... As explained by Jim Sterling in one of his Jimquisition videos, FROM Software going all "we're going to make DS2 more AAAish than its predecessor" makes me dread they'll screw it up by, ironically, losing the game's "soul".

We'll see, I guess.

[NeoGoomba]

From what I've seen already, FROM hasn't really "cheapened" the game to make it more accessible. Learning the game and the plot is a little less obtuse compared to the first DS, but that's about it as I see it so far. Haven't had much playtime yet. The almost absurdist plot of DS1 was a big turnoff to a lot of people, but I found it rather intriguing filling in all the gaps with the clues scattered around.

The PC port of DS2 should be much better compared to DS1. FROM even admitted that they totally half-assed the port for DS1 and said from day one they wouldn't do that for DS2 (FROM has been pretty open with mistakes and miscues from DS, which is refreshing).

[TheFeniX]

Meh, supposedly the co-op in DS2 is basically "pray to the same God and hope you get matched with your buddy." Something about not wanting friends to make the game easier by talking and planning. Pass....

DS2 was built from the ground up on PC from what I've read and has it's own team for both console and PC. Take from that what you will, but it usually means at least a decent optimized PC game.

[Oskuro]

The Co-Op thing bothers me. I really like to have friends come over so we can play Coop games over LAN, and Dark Souls would be a great game to coop in. Making the game harder when more players connect is hardly rocket science.

I'm guessing they want to push the competitive aspect of player invasion mechanic, which I can't fault them for, as monetizing dickiness is a winning move every time.

[Dread Not]

Dark Souls II has been my most anticipated game of the year, other than the Witcher 3 (assuming that comes out in 2014). Sadly I really can't afford to buy any games at full price right now, and as if to add insult to injury, the prices of games at launch in my area have gone up an extra $5 or more.

Though honestly looking at some of the feedback from the final product, I'm thinking it might not be so hard waiting for a price drop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykbT03r_9Zo

I'm rather astonished with how much was changed from the original demo. I've always been more about the series' gameplay, so the visual downgrade wouldn't bother me so much if not for Digital Foundry's analysis of the game's performance. Framerate hiccups in areas like Blighttown were a major sticking point for me in the original Dark Souls, as were other issues like the excessive bloom off the lava in Lost Izalith that made it really difficult to see. To now see that even after all the downgrades, it's incredibly disappointing to see the PS3 version has a rather substandard framerate and the 360 version has screen tearing up the wazoo. I'm definitely going to see how the PC version fares before making any purchasing decisions.

[TheFeniX]

Wait, the one on the left is what is was VS the right being what the release looks like now? Holy shit, I thought I was looking at something like 360 vs Xbone. It barely looks like the same level. Yeesh.

Whatever, guess we're going the Beth route on this one: the community makes the game not look like shit.

[bilateralrope]

Framerate hiccups in areas like Blighttown were a major sticking point for me in the original Dark Souls,

Just how bad was the framerate drop ?

I kept hearing how the console versions were getting single digit framerates. Which, if true, makes me think that the PC port was the better version, despite all its problems, because it could handle a playable framerate.

[Zinegata]

Picked it up and have been playing it. So far it seems to follow what made the first two games (Demon's Souls and Dark Souls) work - which is that while combat can be frustrating, by dint of observation and perserverance you eventually "get" how to beat the enemies and it becomes quite satisfying to do so.

Also, what's often been missed by many reviewers (Yahtzee being a notable exception) is how impressively interconnected the levels are. If you pay careful attention to the first level of Demon's Souls (which I feel is still the best in the series) and manage to finish it, you'll be inevitably impressed by how every single door and gate is actually used by the game. Sure, you might not be able to open it now, but later on you'll have an opportunity to unlock it and it becomes a shortcut to the latter parts of the level.

So far Dark Souls 2's levels seem to be emulating this pedigree, albeit I do kinda feel that some of the levels feel more contrived (e.g. convenient tree trunks to cross chasms) than the very organic placement of the gates and doors in Boletaria Palace.

[SylasGaunt]

Meh, supposedly the co-op in DS2 is basically "pray to the same God and hope you get matched with your buddy." Something about not wanting friends to make the game easier by talking and planning. Pass....

DS2 was built from the ground up on PC from what I've read and has it's own team for both console and PC. Take from that what you will, but it usually means at least a decent optimized PC game.

Co-oping in DS2 is, with a bit of prep, far easier than in DS1.

In DS1 the co-op process went something like 'drop your summon sign and hope nobody grabbed it first', or 'Hide it and hope nobody grabs it'.

In DS2 you can do it that way, but a bit of soul saving near the start will let you buy the engraved name ring. You and your buddy just decide ahead of time which god you want to set it to and the ring makes your summon sign invisible to anybody not aligned with the same god and blanks all the summon signs from other people who aren't with the same god. I've been playing a co-op session like that for the last six hours with a friend where one of us would drop a summon sign fight to the next bonfire or boss, fast travel back and repeat. The ring is kind of a hefty investment initially but nothing that can't be had with a minor amount of soul farming.

There is still the risk that you might just happen to be near someone wearing the ring and having it set on the same god, but it cuts down on being summoned by the wrong person a LOT. In fact once we got the ring I think the longest delay we had was something like 5 minutes, and part of that was from me having a brain fart and forgetting I was hollowed. What makes it even better is that you can have two friendly phantoms.. so once you summon your pal if you want a third guy to round out your group just take the ring off and all the other summon signs reappear.

As not wanting people to plan.. uhm.. then they shouldn't have included voice chat in this one.


As for my opinion.. it's still Dark Souls. It's a bit more accessible yes, but it's still plenty difficult (the in-game death counter in the hub town was up to over 12 million deaths last time I looked), and there's been some clear gameplay improvements (like none of the stats being completely useless).

[Dread Not]

Framerate hiccups in areas like Blighttown were a major sticking point for me in the original Dark Souls,

Just how bad was the framerate drop ?

I kept hearing how the console versions were getting single digit framerates. Which, if true, makes me think that the PC port was the better version, despite all its problems, because it could handle a playable framerate.

The original PC version looked rather muddy and fuzzy due to a capped resolution, and the frame rate was also capped at 30 fps. A mod from a fan fixed those issues pretty quickly, though I'm not sure an official patch was ever released. The GFWL inclusion didn't help either.

As for the console version, if there are any dips below 10 fps, they're very brief, usually due to destruction physics or alpha effects in an area where the frame rate is already being strained. I would estimate general play in the areas like Blighttown varies between 15-25 fps. It's still playable, and I'd estimate it's a small step up from something like Shadow of the Colossus. It's not Odin Sphere or anything.

It's just a bit of a drag that the same issue has persisted over three games, and arguably gotten worse. The dropped frames in Demon's Souls were localized to fairly small areas that were light on combat. Dark Souls was a much larger, lengthier game, so you might expect a few more instances of frame drops, but having entire stages of the game stutter consistently can really impede progress. And now improvement in Dark Souls II appears minimal, despite the fact that it's on what was supposed to be a better more stable engine.

I'm sure I'll still get a ton of enjoyment out of DSII when I can afford it, but I doubt any other release this year will top it in terms of disappointment.

[NeoGoomba]

So after a few days, I'm enjoying the hell out of DS2. Any complaints about some of the new features making the game to "easy", like life gems and bonfire hopping right out of the gate have been erased by the challenge. A lot of encounters I'm seeing involve multiple combatants, and most enemies either move fast, or have long-reaching weapons, which make controlling the battlefield a little harder. The abundance of healing gems is negated somewhat by the constant max-hp penalty you get as a Hollow. I've also seen a lot of nice little callbacks to DS1 already too.
Spoiler

The Crestfallen Warrior is back, with a nice throwaway line about the Fire Keepers. And I just had a boss fight against Orenstein (thankfully no Smough...yet). I'm thinking the Cathedral of Blue is some smashed part of Anor Londo from DS1. And since all of this is happening, I'm assuming the Chosen Undead from DS1 chose to light the Final Flame instead of becoming the Dark King.

Graphics aren't really any improvement over DS1 that I can see. But I find myself not caring since so far the challenge and the gameplay is Souls enough for me.

[Tanasinn]

I definitely don't like the bonfire hopping, just because it tends to fuck with immersion and yet is so difficult to resist.

It's disappointing that they had to cut back on graphical promises, but not surprising, considering the game is being made for garbage hardware. There's some speculation the PC version, which has been in development since the beginning, will cleave closer to the original ambitions. But I don't really care either way as long as the art direction's good, the gameplay's fun, and the story's thought-provoking and subtle.

[NeoGoomba]

I will definitely agree with you that the bonfire hopping does kind of kill the immersion. One of the "feeling of dread" inducing factors for me in DS1 was the first half of the game before you get the ability, and you are forced to go something like three or four dungeons deep for a goal without any resupply (Like the "joy" of the Depths->Blighttown->Demon's Ruins->Lost Izalith run).

Still, I'm loving this game even if it may seem like a super expansion rather than a straight up sequel.

[dragon]

Well I picked a copy up and died like half a dozen times in the tutorial area and gave up. Guess I am no good at these types of games looks like I wasted my money

[Vendetta]

Bear in mind that Dark Souls 2 is the game that has a global counter for the number of times people have died.

You're probably supposed to die half a dozen times in the tutorial.

[Lord Revan]

I dont mind a game having challenge but DS1 went overboard. I'll still pick up a copy of DS2 though.

the problem is that a lot of developers seem to think difficulty as an ON/OFF situation where you either got "push X to win" games or "you must be insane to think this is enjoyable" games but nothing in between, worst of the lot is games with blatant "fake difficulty" where you have essentially memorize what to do in each encounter separately as the game will change the internal rules just as you got used to them.

[Vendetta]

From what I know (Dark Souls has stupid controls so I didn't play much, shoulder buttons terrible for melee controls) Dark Souls isn't even that hard outside of boss fights (which are frequent).

DS2 I hear to be quite build dependent, some bosses you will find rock hard because your character build isn't appropriate for that boss, but some you might squash p. easily because your build works on them.

(If I wanted "hard fighty game" I would play DMC3 some more)

[Tanasinn]

It's the exact opposite. There are less than 5 difficult bosses that are really, genuinely difficult in Dark Souls, and almost all of those have an easy trick to get around their difficulty. Even the levels, though, aren't bad if you take it slow and think about your surroundings.

Dark Souls is a game that expects you to observe and learn, whether by dying or being cautious. It has very few total bullshit moments (Bed of Chaos, anyone?), so if you lose, it's no one's fault but your own.