If they're determined to make the storytelling more opaque, I'm hoping that they take their cues from Metroid Prime or Marathon or something, rather than sticking cutscenes everywhere. Multiple, fragmentary, conflicting accounts embedded in the environment. An engraving here; a journal page there. Similar details to those in the item descriptions right now. The documents in a hidden shrine built by remaining worshipers of Gwyn's firstborn (for instance - or something else which doesn't quite mesh with existing information) won't necessarily agree with those elsewhere, and it's up to the player to reconcile these fragments and assemble them into a narrative. Maybe have a journal that's updated with the snippets you've come across, assuming that you've already purchased it; don't just hand the story to players on a platter. Okay, Gwyn's firstborn wore a crown that menaces with spikes of bread. But what does this mean? Can the source be trusted? Another source said he had a wheat allergy - which is the truth? Or perhaps the bread isn't wheat-based?
They're going to go full-on JRPG and Dark Souls 2 will be 265 minutes of pre-rendered cutscenes with no speech, intermixed with running down various fancy corridors and hitting the A button over and over to kill enemies that politely wait their turn to attack you.
What I'm worried about is that Scamco is going to turn the game into Tales of Elder Scrolls. Long cutscenes between huge, empty maps filled with trivial enemies. And DLC costumes. So many DLC costumes.
A thought - initial trailer prominently depicts an environment similar to the Painted World; snowy mountaintop of similar features, including a bridge which is nearly identical to the one leading into the Painted World. What if the Painted World is just that - an entire world? An entire plane of existence created as a dumping ground for Lordran's exiles. The frosty mountaintop ruin area is just the section of this that happens to be accessible in Dark Souls, but there's a great deal beyond that small section. The broken bridge doesn't need to be some metaphysical boundary; perhaps the painting just spits people out there. From supposedly had bigger plans for Priscilla in their initial concepts than what they did with her in Dark Souls - supposedly, she was an important protagonist. As opposed to chilling in an empty room and dropping some nifty but impractical gear after an easy fight. That in mind, it really wouldn't surprise me for them to do more with her and her environment. "Without hope, without light" - you're trash. Just one of the many to have been left here to die. The fire may have been linked - or the age of fire ended - outside, but in the Painted World nothing has changed. Presumably, it's not as easy for exiles to leave as it is for the Chosen Undead coming in from Anor Londo; one would expect that, say, King Jeremiah would have already done so if it could be done. Instead, his frozen corpse sits at the exit - he tried to escape and he failed. It'd also explain why they're so reluctant to reveal the name of the game's setting. Unlikely, but it's interesting to consider.
It's possible they are reluctant to reveal the name because it's something known. It's also possible they are reluctant because all of their naming people are coming up with stuff like LORDRAN LAND OF LORDS and they want to workshop that stuff a bit. They have unambiguously stated in print interviews that it is a different world altogether, albeit one that will surely have a bunch of call backs to the previous games.
That's true; as much as I like the game, I do chuckle whenever I hear "THE LAND OF THE ANCIENT LORDS: LORDRAN, LAND OF THE ANCIENT LORDS."
I would put a small amount of money on it being a prequel, possibly set around the exodus of the gods or Gwyn's Kindling. Based on nothing more than the trailer, I think someone's leaving Lordran either by choice or exile and they're looking for something in a neighbouring land (please be Carim). Which gives them ample opportunity to make you Gwyn's firstborn (or one of his followers) and annoy everyone.
Time to vote for the game tagline. Via Facebook. I abstain in the name of fuck off social networking, and just concentrate on making a good sequel. Anyway, we all know the enduring prose from the game comes from awkward translation.
Demon's Souls translation (ie I need the rewards that upvoting this sign will give, please "evaluate" it).
Saw this posted elsewhere: Excited for #DarkSouls2? Tune into @ign tomorrow 4/10 12PM PT for our world premiere 12 minute gameplay reveal. twitter.com/lynchtacular/s…— Casey Lynch (@lynchtacular) April 9, 2013
I am late to this. I disapprove of their musical choice. I would have taken the Ralph Stanley version without accompaniment.
That was my exact thought, and to test it out I did in fact pull up the good version of the song to listen to while I watched the video on mute. Even without actually syncing it up in any meaningful way it was like a jillion times better.
Okay, so it definitely looks next gen. Did we know it was going to be developed for PS4/720 already? edit: oh my god. I thought I could not possibly be more excited for Dark Souls 2. I thought wrong.
Wow. That looks fantastic. The graphics look miles better. Although I've gotten used to Dark Soul's graphics, my wife was correct when she described everything as muddy during her attempts to play it. That, on the other hand, just looks dark.
Further along in the playthrough: "You shot him in the head, so he's pretty upset now." Dark Souls developers are the coolest developers.
I'm debating if I want to watch these or not. I forget what the postulated release day was, but I hope that the PC release day is simultaneous with the console or that it's at least 6 months after the console's launch date.
I wanted to at least see that they weren't screwing things up; it doesn't look like it. Now it's time for media blackout until release because by gosh discovery was a hugely significant part of DS.
I'm still wearing a stupid grin because of that. And I'm one who who views the pervasive sense of desolation in the Souls games - that disaster has struck and even the most glorious achievements of man are now in ruin - as one of the core reasons why the series is so special. Doesn't matter, that glorious set-piece is ridiculous and awe-inspiring. Anor Londo x 100. I also enjoyed the new combat mechanics I saw. Large creatures bashing through walls to pursue you, parrying projectiles with weapon swings, the implication that there will be more common but temporary sources of light (torches were shown) but of course you have to one-hand a weapon to use them... all that lends itself to the idea that the game's control scheme can be very simple while still lending itself to in-depth combat. I hope they didn't stop there.
Things I was curious about from the videos -He said estus still exists in video 2. The only healing on display was from the expenditure of a normal consumable-like "healing stone". I'm not sure how the two could exist together since they dictate fundamentally different approaches to resources. I'm going to assume that we're not going to go back to a limited inventory. -The upper left symbol stank of covenant marker. I can't wait to see what those end up being, and I hope they do bring in some elements of world tendency. -Darkness: presumably it's based around deciding which areas you want to illuminate permanently or semi-permanently vs which ones you want to torch through. Real curious about the options there and the resource management along that aspect. -Protagonist: so far, they are pretty covered up, but in the transitions you see only a glimpse of shiny stuff that could be glitching and could be something else, underneath and in the gaps of the gear. Are they sticking with hollow or is there something juicier being concealed there? -Combat: loved the backstab slam from the enemy. Leads me to ask to what degree that kind of innovation will enter PvP. I tend to favor orthodox fighting styles as opposed to pursuit of criticals, so that would be a cool way to spin the re-balancing. Not sure, then, if that means that parries and backstabs are no longer in business. -Combat-missile deflection. You can do that to a certain extent with parry, now. This is a whole different ballgame. -Combat-two weapon style combo apparent early in the 2nd video. Not that I want encourage an influx of RA Salvatore fanboys, but I'd love to hear more about how different types of weapons play off each other. -Encumbrance- This guy had a ton of gear, and a somewhat slow walking speed. However, his roll was pretty nimble and non-clanky. I can't wait to see more details on that.
I would love to see backstabs (especially PvP lag-backstabs) go entirely, and parries redone into something lower risk and lower reward with a chance of counter parry. Definitely the weaker part of Dark Souls for my tastes, along with the constant rolling.
Sure, and nor do mine. Rolling can certainly be effective though, and so it seems quite common! I just find it silly, and would be happy to see the combat focused on something else.
Honestly I'd have to see it with the new (i.e. functional) netcode to even take a guess at how to balance/rebalance parries and backstabs. As it is parries are often a crapshoot and backstabs are... well...
Tricky across the net, no doubt. Still games like Street Fighter 4 do a reasonable job of it, so I have some hope. I'm not really worried about parry balance per se, I'd just like something more fluid and less invulnerable cut scene, with a chance to counter parry. That's a large part of what actual sword fighting is about, and Dark Souls just doesn't have it. Hard to time parries with a huge recovery time made viable via a massive arbitrary damage multiple just feel wrong to me.
