Dark Souls 2: YOU DIED HARDER

yup, that worked

good lookin' out

black armor addition = a tin and a CD I will never listen to y/n?

I would have probably bought the full blown special edition if it had been the same as the Dark Souls one, the art book was cool and the intro strategy guide was actually useful but it seems like the DS2 one is standard issue £100 plastic tat for suckers

i think it's like five bucks more for the special edition, figgered fuggit

really? my "black armor" edition didn't cost anything extra, but i guess that's because i pre-ordered way early. the tin case looks pretty neat at least:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/02/24/unboxing-dark-souls-ii-collectors-edition

yeah, it was the only option i saw for pre-order. i'm happy to get the soundtrack, maybe i can use it for another mix.

thanks for the tip upthread re: changing shipping to 1-day and then back to 2-day. so weird that it works!

1 WEIRD trick etc etc

yeah, np! found that tip on the internet. hopefully it comes through next Tuesday.

I pre ordered the standard game, might see if I can upgrade to the black armour version...

http://www.edge-online.com/news/prepare-to-dine-inside-tokyos-dark-souls-cafe/

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/19bryayr8456njpg.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPO8l4ir_Jo

pc/steam release is april 25 but who cares right ps3 master race lololo

☼

\[†]/

lol just saw a DSII ad on TV (during an episode of Star Trek, appropriately enough) soundtracked with "Where is my Mind?" by the Pixies

love it

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/02/14/dark-souls-2-uk-cinema-spot

nice

yeah that was the one!

there's another one soundtracked by Jethro Tull. who's picking the music to these?

anyway, the day is here. hopefully i can get some time in tonight. busy week unfortunately.

plz to report back. I got one half of my Amazon order (records & CDs today) but no DSII. Hopefully by the end of the week...

bummer. looks like my Amazon order is being shipped through UPS and is marked as "out for delivery", so mine should arrive today.

reviews seem solid so far. DS1 range. hard to rate a game like this without proper exposure to multiplayer though.

I'm in the UK, so I think it's due to ship slightly later over here. I'm away at the weekend too!

amazon telling me that game and STRATERGERY GUIDE are on the way; i am wondering if i need to sleep/eat/work for the next week... and more importantly should i finish DS1 first.

mine should arrive today, won't have time to check it out but i'm considering taking the day off tomorrow to get my car fixed and play it. :)

forks, if i were you i would play some DS2 while it's hot so as not to rush through the end of DS1. maybe switch back when you hit an impasse?

yep. plus it's way more fun to play it when it's new and everyone else is playing it in and DYING over and over.

mine comes in the mail today, but i won't have time to play it until friday at least.

man it's crazy how much is already on youtube (not that i watched any of it, i want to go in as blind as possible now that it's here [except for this thread])

this is the tull one i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-tl-pJAR4

intrigued by the idea that I can take a break from Dark Souls and come back to it later; I guess they don't seem very mechnically different at the basic level

not sure if ploughing through and trying to do Sif, Nito, 4Kings and Bed of Chaos in the next two days would satisfyingly get it out of the way or drive me insane and make me not want to play DS2 for another year

I think the everyone in the same boat day 1 you died hijinks are probably the key factor either way tho

i loved demon's souls, never got into dark for no real reason, i was resisting this but fuck you people. into the great unknown. faith based build here i come.

this is demons souls-ish in a lot of ways, judging by the beta test i played. you know you want to give in!

I'm thinking I might go for a magician build this time round

i have no idea what i'll do. in games like this i always make the (boring) mistake of not specializing in anything and having fairly balanced stats, although i tend to go for dexterity. i guess it's because i'm not likely to play through the game multiple times with different character builds, so i want to be able to try out most of what the game has to offer in my single runthrough

my strength build seemed to work for me in DS1, i think i need that margin of error that comes with being able to block big attacks without consequence, but i feel like i should at least try something different this time.

Nice thing about this one is you can apparently completely re-spec your character (not sure how this works) a few times per playthrough.

yeah, i'm gonna jump in while it's hot (if only to be able to discuss with you guys) and put DS1 on hold until this gets beaten. it might be 2016!
my understanding is that the respec is a very expensive and very rare item
early reviews are universally positive and most writers mention "after 60 hours of play..." so i think this is gonna be fucking awesome
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/dark-souls-ii/critic-reviews

the respec thing seems most appealing for NG+...that's what i wanted to do in DS1, to use all those spells and gear that i acquired but couldn't use because of my build.

Pre-ordered this and have it on my PS3 HD waiting to be unlocked at midnight on Friday. I'm both excited and apprehensive.

goddamit UPS, I was here what is this "an attempted delivery has been made" shit

Delivered
Delivered on: Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Package was left in or near the front door

:)

what are the fundamental differences between demon's souls and dark souls

yeah, i'm curious about that as well since i've never played demon's souls.

demons = 5 worlds connected by hub and stages are unlocked by beating bosses, checkpoints before each stage, healing items accumulated while playing
dark = continuous open world, bonfire checkpoints scattered throughout, healing flask which resets at bonfire

from what i can tell ds2 is a combo of all of the above minus the locked stages

so did you have to do the worlds in a specific order, or was it more like a mega man game?

no you can skip around the 5 worlds but the progression between stages is done in order

mega man is not an incorrect way of looking at it.
demons souls is a less complex and fully realized game but still excellent and it has totally the same aesthetic

Lol, there's gotta be like a dozen bloodstains in the main hub area showing people launching themselves off of the surrounding cliffs.

so dark is just less linear? is that more satisfying?

dark is put together like a puzzle. everything in the distance eventually comes to the foreground. the faraway mountain, the castle over the hill, the seemingly bottomless pit are not only actual places but interconnect to the world you are painfully familiar with in ways that, as each connection is illuminated, make you feel like you've discovered a hidden door in your living room that goes back to your fourth grade classroom. that's the secret truth behind dark for me is that it is not so much an adventure game or a fighter as it is a series of complex logic puzzles and games played out at rapid speed while you explore a giant jigsaw world trying to figure out how to connect the pieces so that you can see the final solution.
demons is, again, a bit more like megaman that holds your hand. You do some backtracking but the worlds are separate boroughs, generally unlinking. There's been some worry that 2, with its interlinked "bonfires" or warps leans closer to demons than dark and that's a real concern but most of the reviews i'm hearing suggest that you can actually hoof it from place to place and that interconnectedness is still there... the bonfires seem to primarily be for greater ease of use and less grinding. or maybe not. i won't know until UPS DELIVERS THE FUCKING THING, very annoyed about this.

i died

this is gooood. managed to squeeze in about 6 hours. time for sleep.

haha yeah. i wouldn't have guessed you need to do that without a hint. there's a bit in Fallen Giants area that's a bit like that. The Pursuers are nails though. I had to literally clear a whole courtyard of enemies until they stopped respawning to make that even close to a fair fight

Skeleton Lords toppled on second try (although I got a bit of help from Creighton and the Large Club). Man that was a fun boss fight! And I enjoyed the Huntsman's Copse even though it was VERY SCARY! More than once, I thought I'd totally cleared an area when one of those hooded thieves would sneak up behind me - and they hit hard!

Okay, hot take time. The more I play DS2 the more I believe DS1 is actually the outlier in this whole series. If anything, DS2 picks up where Demon's Souls left off, with more NPC interactions, a similar plotline, and a hub and spoke map system. Miyazaki is also correct in saying there's a lineage between DS2 and Elden Ring.

One thing I like best of all about DS2 is that unlike DS1, Bloodborne and a few others, I have never once felt the need to grind in order to get past a certain area. There was only one bit, in the Huntsman's Copse before you get to the Undead Purgatory where there are something like five meaty Silent Hill bastards who jump down from these towers, and who I decided to clear out entirely so they couldn't respawn. It took a while, but it was worth it. Other than that, I've so-far found it the perfect level of difficulty. I genuinely prefer playing DS2 to DS1 so far.

Iron Keep. I love this level. I hate this level. It's easily one of the toughest areas I've ever played in any Souls game.

One thing I will say: Thank From for incorporating that system where if you fight an enemy, like 15 times, they eventually disappear forever because it gives us hope that even if an area is CRAWLING with enemies, you can eventually clear it out as I did here, and a few other places.

It's pretty tedious to have to do this, but also there's something kind of satisfying about progressing slowly through an area and really getting used to the tight spots, the enemy placements, and what to expect.

Jump scares a plenty too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bl-QKvPddg

Love it! Not least because my retention for these games is shockingly low, despite all the time I put into them, so watching any playthrough is surreal, as each nudges from the slumbering depths of my brain barely remembered echoes of my own gameplay.

God this game gets tough. and there was me thinking Drangleic Castle was the final area - every time I went through a fog door I expected to be fighting Vendrick, but NO! Of course not, this is FromSoft. DS1 didn't stop when you rang the two bells. Elden Ring doesn't finish when you get to the foot of the Erdtree. These games keep on giving. And boy do they give.

The weird thing about DS2 is how short and concentrated a lot of these areas are - they're just often incredibly tough. I enjoyed Iron Keep and Drangleic Castle, but I was kind of expecting a bit more of them after hearing so much about them. You can pretty much go through both of them in a night each, and these are main areas of the game.

The other thing about DS2 (and DS1 and a lot of the other games), is that you can spend an enormous amount of time playing through and having NO CLUE what the story is, only for a character (Wellager) to dump an incredible amount of lore and science on you in one big go right in the last quarter of the game.

Similarly, I find on my first playthrough of these games that I'm pretty much always running a strength build and wielding roughly the same weapons and armour all the way through. Upgrades being so scarce, and the fact you only really get the chance at magic abilities a good way into the games means I'm reluctant to put souls into INT/FTH when all I'm running around with is a sword or a hammer. And while I've been playing this game for several hours now, I only have two re-spec items I can use, so what if I HATE being a caster?

It's funny. I assume these games are designed in a way to encourage you to try new builds out in NG+, after which the lore in general should make more sense, but the first time I play them I generally feel that the lore and story is backloaded, or it only really comes apparent AFTER the fact.

I've hit a big wall at the end of this game, similar to where I got to in Bloodborne where I have the choice between several very tough bosses or I could just skip over to the DLC early.

Vendrick is causing me grief. I know what I have to do, just stick to his left side and don't get too greedy with the attacks, slowly chip him down. Trouble is, I always ALWAYS end up making a tiny mistake and getting two-shot before I know it.

Alternatively I could go and fight that big dragon and get another Giants' Soul, but it's a long run to that boss and I've heard he's a real pain to fight.

Or I could just spare Vendrick and journey on to the Throne of Want, but I lasted all of 15 seconds in the ring with the Throne Watcher duo, and apparently the ending is different if you don't fight Vendrick first.

One last thing I could do is go Dark-diving or whatever it is, but the idea of slogging through dank sewers fighting really tough enemies for a few random rewards isn't thrilling me.

Wow, had to google Vendrick because I had absolutely no memory of that boss! Same thing with Ancient Dragon, lol. Or Throne Watcher Duo. (Wasn't one of the DS2 criticisms was that the bosses weren't that memorable?) Anyway, I vaguely remember a couple of the DLC bosses being great, if challenging, but the thing to keep in mind is if *I* managed it, you can do it!

Vendrick is slow and technically an easy fight, but he has SO MUCH HP that really the challenge is just managing to stay in there without getting caught by any of his wide sweeping attacks. It's easier said than done though - he has a blind spot where he can't get you, but as soon as you're out of it he'll chop you down. Plus the run back is boring to have to keep doing. The run backs in this game are pretty annoying to be honest.

Ancient Dragon is... a dragon. I am so bored of dragons in these games and I don't want to fight them. Plus the run back to this guy is with the big golem dudes and the lion-head people so the only advantage to killing it is to receive a Giant Soul to make Vendrick easier.

Only gave the Throne Watchers a quick go, but it seemed like an Ornstein & Smough gank duo type affair.

Honestly, I don't come to these games for the bosses really, so I might just summon for the THrone Watchers. You can't summmon for Vendrick, but I think it's just a matter of patience.

Ooh, Vendrick is one of the few DS2 boss fights that I have a strong memory of. Like you say, it's pretty unique among Souls bosses...slow, 'easy', but a pure test of patience due to the HP and damage. The Getting Over It of boss fights?

Other DS2 bosses that left a strong impression...Chariot, Pursuer, Covetous Demon (because it was so shit, iirc), and some of the dlc ones.

lol forgot about Covetous Demon, that's a good if obnoxious gimmick. Also Pursuer, that's kind of a cool enemy; if I recall correctly, Dark Souls 2 has a lot of things that pursue you. The DLC has that crazy op knight, right, and also an NPC gank squad?

Pursuer is fun. The first time he shows up it's intimidating, the second time it's like "fuck, again"? And every subsequent time it's like, ah, hello old friend, let us dance.

I've noticed that this game seems to have generally pretty easy bosses? And the tough ones all appear to be optional. Aside from my first dozen rounds with Pursuer, the Old Iron King and Smelter Demon are the only ones who have given me substantial trouble. All the rest went down in one to three attempts. TBH I didn't even fuck with Chariot Executioner. I'm now at Shrine of Amana, so perhaps they get tougher from here.

no surprise that I can't remember which is which, but I think certain respective souls games might punish you for the wrong build. like, some games really favor strength, perhaps most of them. but I want to say a couple are really really hard to do if you don't have ranged abilities. can't think of any boss that can't be demolished with a good strength build, though. I've always played with strength builds, though iirc elden ring and the DLC, it's so big and you acquire so many souls that I eventually built up some magic range powers I used a lot as well.

I've found my one cool trick is to max out a hammer and to mostly use that. hammers are very trusty in this game

I stubbornly play dex melee in all of these games, but I think the katana build in DS2 was underwhelming and I may have done strength. It's been so long though that I really can't remember (also unlike any of the other games).

The first time I played any of these games I went quality build, but honestly the mechanics are so arcane I wasn't sure what I was gaining from the dex, aside from certain weapon requirements. I steadily shifted more strength and played the rest of the game, and other games, like that. It's all about damage output, health and stamina. I would usually have an upgraded bow for range, too. Sniping sneaky enemies hiding above me, or cheesing big monsters trying to eat me. Everything in this game is designed to be stacked against you - one-shot damage, infinite stamina, and so on - so I have no qualms giving myself every advantage possible.

xps I too have been hammermaxing. Magic Mace has been my best friend. The only drawback is the relatively limited range

Another thing I've often found in DS2 is to champion agility over armour. If you're struggling with an area, take your clothes off and dual-wield*

CONTEXT, PEOPLE. please!

Haha. I was dex-pilled by watching early pvp videos for the original Dark Souls, where the lesson was that it's better to be able to swing 3x with decent damage in the time it would take to swing a huge weapon once for big damage. Also you're less committed with faster weapons (shorter recovery time after swinging), so I find it more fun to be able to move in and out, and try and get parries/backstabs for big damage (although that doesn't apply to a lot of bosses obv).

Then again my first playthrough of the Elden Ring DLC used the anvil hammer, which was a blast.

Fecking Vendrick. I swear he's getting harder!

I have a question about Bonfire Aescetics. Not sure I totally understand how they work. I accidentally followed the advice of someone who was clearly trolling on a Reddit thread, who said that a good way to get a fifth Soul Of A Giant was to use a BA at Black Gulch and fight the two giants in that hidden cavern again. It doesn't work, obviously. But I wonder if the BA might have actually buffed Vendrick now? Surely not - he's in a totally different area, right?

Oooof... So after trying and failing to beat Vendrick, I decided to take on the Ancient Dragon. Talk about a long way around. That was a stressful hour-or-so of run-backs and getting one-shot by his gigantic hitbox. Managed it in the end, and managed to kill Vendrick not long after.

I don't recommend watching this, but if you want to hear me swearing and complaining for the best part of 2 hours, be my guest ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mppgj-hXISQ