Game News Dark Souls II Gameplay Videos and Interview

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Dark Souls 2; From Software; Yui Tanimura

There have been some new gameplay videos released for From Software's Dark Souls II, showing off the four starting classes: Warrior, Sorcerer, Temple Knight, and Dual Swordsman. I will embed the Warrior video and link to the other ones:

Sorcerer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu9vgT13MV8
Temple Knight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDBt00Z9iIg
Dual Swordsman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKZfVnaooqc​

Aside from that, there's also a new short interview with Dark Souls II's director Yui Tanimura over at GameInformer, who stresses that balance is "the most important part of this game":

You’re a new director for Dark Souls. What are you going to do to make it your game? What will define Dark Souls II as a Yui Tanimura game?

Throughout the game, there are going to be a lot of different small things that I will direct and will be implemented due to my personality or direction, but the biggest part I feel that will characterize this game as the game that I directed will probably be the game balancing. I take care of a lot of the balancing of the game – with the difficulty, the trickiness, of the frustration that you feel. I intend to spend a lot of my time trying to balance placements of the enemies, the parameters of the enemies so that players can face that difficulty, face those challenges, but also conquer enough to sense that satisfaction. Balance is probably the most important part of this game and I feel responsible in balancing the game, and tuning it to the finest details so that Dark Souls II will be the best experience so far in the series that we’ve created.​

Do not disappoint me, From Software. Or else!

 

[LeStryfe79]

Your avatar is getting old, Bee.

 

[hiver]

Sorcerer seems cool.

 

[Kron]

The sound effects and weapon impacts seems pretty off.
And The Witcher 2 still had better combat than this.

 

[ghostdog]

 

[Xi]

The sound effects and weapon impacts seems pretty off.
And The Witcher 2 still had better combat than this.

Not even close. W2 combat was terrible.

 

[Mrowak]

The sound effects and weapon impacts seems pretty off.
And The Witcher 2 still had better combat than this.

Dude, seriously. I am sort of chief TWitcher 2 fanboy here, yet even I wouldn't go that far.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Hmmm.

 

[Necroscope]

I have a soft spot for TW2 myself, but the combat is just utter shite.

 

[Mrowak]

I have a soft spot for TW2 myself, but the combat is just utter shite.

Now that's another extreme. I can name many titles with worse combat than TW2 (TW1, for example). Let's just say that in this field alone DS beats the crap out of TW2 in melee.

 

[Necroscope]

I don't say that TW2 has the worst combat system EVER, nevertheless it is annoying as hell and cripples the game pretty severe.

 

[hiver]

I dont know... seems to me like there is as much rolling around here as in Witcher.

 

[Necroscope]

Describe TW2 combat without saying a word.

Spoiler

 

[Xi]

The entire reason people like Dark Souls is because the combat system is fantastic. That's one of it's best features. If you mash buttons you 100% lose in Dark Souls. In TW2 you can mash buttons all day - and win.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

I'm liking the improved lighting and cloth material touches, but I hope the poise feels more... like trudging similar to the previous games. Looks way too light when the characters are moving, though their attack animations look pretty solid (and I saw some familiar halberd moves). Spells look a bit more interesting as well.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Considering From Soft is a shitty developer besides Miyazaki's two pet projects, I don't have a ton of optimism for this project. Will probably be moderately above-average action game just by virtue of inheriting the combat system, but I've been given no reason to believe the new devs even understand what made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls good in the first place.

Maybe they'll let Miyazaki take a crack at Tenchu, or even better another small-scale original project.

 

[Random]

Considering From Soft is a shitty developer besides Miyazaki's two pet projects, I don't have a ton of optimism for this project. Will probably be moderately above-average action game just by virtue of inheriting the combat system, but I've been given no reason to believe the new devs even understand what made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls good in the first place.

Maybe they'll let Miyazaki take a crack at Tenchu, or even better another small-scale original project.

U wot m8

Are you daft?

Armored Core is the best fucking mecha simulator ever!

 

[DalekFlay]

Dual sword rollergirl FTW.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Considering From Soft is a shitty developer besides Miyazaki's two pet projects, I don't have a ton of optimism for this project. Will probably be moderately above-average action game just by virtue of inheriting the combat system, but I've been given no reason to believe the new devs even understand what made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls good in the first place.

Maybe they'll let Miyazaki take a crack at Tenchu, or even better another small-scale original project.

motherfucker they understand it enough. they are the same team that made des and das and the new chief seems in interviews enough autistic(like every proper weebo game designer) it is his first big title and i bet he is 24/7 in his basement working on every fucking detail in this game. they had like a year to make das and almost 3 years to do das2.
anyway there is going to be old monk style boss (from demons souls). motherfucking pvp boss. server based not p2p game.

 

[The Vanished One]

My only concern is that if the PC port isn't better optimized than the first game's I may not be able to play this, at decent settings anyway. I can barely run Dark Souls at 1920x1080.

Also:

What are some of your favorite current games?
A couple of the games I really was hooked on was Diablo, and recently Skyrim.

I may have to try Skyrim now.

 

[deuxhero]

Looks like I'll be an moonlight/enchanted rapier/estoc+shield mage again my first time in

Do not like the animation for obtaining souls. Looks too much like something to dodge.

Considering From Soft is a shitty developer besides Miyazaki's two pet projects, I don't have a ton of optimism for this project. Will probably be moderately above-average action game just by virtue of inheriting the combat system, but I've been given no reason to believe the new devs even understand what made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls good in the first place.

Maybe they'll let Miyazaki take a crack at Tenchu, or even better another small-scale original project.

U wot m8

Are you daft?

Armored Core is the best fucking mecha simulator ever!

And Lost Kingdoms is the best children's card game playing princess simulator ever!

My only concern is that if the PC port isn't better optimized than the first game's I may not be able to play this, at decent settings anyway. I can barely run Dark Souls at 1920x1080.

PC will be the lead platform with 60 FPS.

 

[AN4RCHID]

Considering From Soft is a shitty developer besides Miyazaki's two pet projects, I don't have a ton of optimism for this project. Will probably be moderately above-average action game just by virtue of inheriting the combat system, but I've been given no reason to believe the new devs even understand what made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls good in the first place.

Maybe they'll let Miyazaki take a crack at Tenchu, or even better another small-scale original project.

motherfucker they understand it enough. they are the same team that made des and das and the new chief seems in interviews enough autistic(like every proper weebo game designer) it is his first big title and i bet he is 24/7 in his basement working on every fucking detail in this game. they had like a year to make das and almost 3 years to do das2.
anyway there is going to be old monk style boss (from demons souls). motherfucking pvp boss. server based not p2p game.

It's not the same team at all. For one thing, there are far more people working on DSII, and larger teams often mean unfocused messes. For another, instead of the guy who made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, this game is being directed by the animu hack who made this shit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_hfpnMbYf4. AC hasn't been good for a while, Tenchu has sucked for ages now, ACE has always been shit. FromSoft used to be good on the PS1. Now they are not - besides Miyazaki's babies. They've already confirmed DSII will be more accessible, straightforward, and easier (even if the PR tried to take that one back). So.

Your timeline is way off, too. They released Demon's Souls in third quarter 2009 and Dark Souls a little later in 2011, so that's a little more than two years with an established team working in an engine that they had just created a game in. Prepare to Die launched third quarter 2012 created by the same art and design team that made DSI. DSII is launching sometime at the end of 2013, so those folks will have at most a year to churn out a sequel, working in totally new engine, with a significantly bigger team, with a new management structure including two directors, AND pressure from the suits to make the game more commercial. That is a recipe for catastrophic failure. This is all assuming their engine even works, which is very far from a sure thing. FromSoft generally don't make their own engines, and their games tend to be technically very poor. Creating a new multiplatform engine AND a AAA game for that engine in at most two years time (assuming they started development of the new engine RIGHT after DaS1, which is highly unlikely), is a fucking herculean task, especially for a relatively small, inexperienced company like FS. Look at what happened to Obsidian with Onyx/Alpha Protocol.

I hope the game is good, but my expectations are tempered to say the least.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

They've already confirmed DSII will be more accessible, straightforward, and easier (even if the PR tried to take that one back)

you are so 2012 it aint even funny. its old news from one shitty edge article, already like 20 times explained to retards that cant understand that having a better tutorial or explenation to covenants stuff doesnt mean easier game.

DSII is launching sometime at the end of 2013

what is internet???

 

[AN4RCHID]

lol, yes, the PR has been very adamant that DSII won't easier, just more straightforward and accessible. But here's the thing, bro: Dark Souls was never hard in the first place. The only reason it was hard at all was because it was so goddamn opaque. You take that away, tutorialize and funnel players along a more straightforward path, and even if the fights are just as hard as in Demon's Souls, the game won't be challenging at all. That's also why the online messaging system worked, and a big part of what made the game so rewarding; because it was fucking mysterious and not at all straightforward or accessible.

Looks like it did get pushed back a few months. So, great, they have about a year and a half versus over two years for Dark Souls. Not exactly the 3 years vs. 1 year that you were claiming originally, is it, you dumb piece of shit? With a new engine, largely different team, and without the creative force behind the last two games.

Keep riding that hype train, bud. Maybe Tanimura will even live up to his idols, Skyrim and Diablo.

 

[AN4RCHID]

There were things that were a little bit time consuming or a little bit tedious that we wanted to streamline – sort of carve away all the fat so we could really deliver the lean pure expression of what Dark Souls tries to communicate, which is the sense of satisfaction of overcoming. In terms of accessibility, what we meant was a more streamlined experience to deliver the more pure essence of Dark Souls.

It's gonna be so streamlined! That's never a bad thing!