I need it now.

SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

Also, happy to see that the PS3 version appears to both look and play well. Though I'm sure there'll be one area that brings the framerate to a crawl; wouldn't be a console Souls game if there wasn't!

Okay, they made that multiplayer session come together incredibly easy, jesus. Man, I cannot wait to check this out.

I'm hooking the videos directly into my veins.

Damn it. I was going to make that joke.

My God, the animations for this game are fucking stellar; it makes Demon's Souls' appear stiff by comparison. The gameplay, from what I can tell, looks just ever so slightly more snappier, too.

Everything about that mage looks rad as shit. The wait to be able to play this is killing me.

That was a perfect ending on the 2nd video. With no phantom buddies around the host was getting pounded until she decided to run. I liked that the enemies went ranged when she took off. She thought she was safe to chug estus, but there was a dude hidden and he took her out.

I noticed that a whole bunch of healing items were being used in the first video and phantoms were able to chug from their own Estus. I hope that's only available in the demo. You can't have everyone chug estus.

I also saw that the host was able to light the bonfire with phantoms present. I always thought that the reason why you weren't able to light them was to prevent you from check pointing your way with a phantom crew. You had to lose the help and light it yourself.

Are you happy with it?

This game is looking really good, graphically. While having some pretty good art direction the souls games have never really excelled in that regard, so it's nice to see them realize that.

They went with grid menus! Awesome. The graphics and animations look great.

Edit: Sub-menus according to weapon types! Even better!

Some observations:

1. One of the class is literally "dual swordsman." Wonder how viable dual wielding is now.

2. Torches as an actual item, and more areas with very limited visibility, though they feel more natural than Tomb of the Giants, which was quite gimmicky.

3. Sorcery has a lot more variety to it, and is it just me or did the mage in the first video cast a pyromancy with a catalyst at a point?

4. When you summon white phantoms, their hp actually show up as HUD elements, instead of just staying over their heads.

5. Duration of white phantoms in the first video was about 10 minutes, and they were both killing as many things as possible. Not sure those were large or small summoning signs.

6. A revamped inventory system that is like a standard MMO inventory as opposed to a long list.

7. What seems to be three different slots for your left and right hands.

8. Stones of Ephemeral Eyes are back (directly turning you back into human form, as opposed to doing it at a bonfire.)

9. Basic walking speed seems to be faster.

10. Healing items other than estus flasks that seems to drop fairly often. The guy was popping consumable crystals that acted as regen that healed rather quickly. Said crystals were dropping off the big sickle wielding enemies quite often.

11. Red Phantom versions of enemies can and will still destroy you.

12. New back stab animations are rad.

13. Parries seem to come out a bit slower with that kite shield than in previous games.

You mean, just the gameplay? Because I'm hoping this is a test build where a majority of proper textures, shaders and lighting isn't implemented yet. I also hope some of the sound effects are just stand-ins. The original Demons Souls was really revolutionary, Dark Souls built upon that foundation with it's own unique style, but seeing the same sound cues for summons, standing up from a bonfire etc is starting to sound a bit too familiar. I'm scared they're chasing the success with iteration rather than innovation.

I like the grid inventory menu, should make navigating it fast much less of a pain.

Not a fan of the bright multicolored icons all over the stats menu, I much preferred the darker more monotone stat menu of the previous games, it fitted thew games aesthetic more.

I'm disappointed that so many of the armor sets and weapon designs are the same. I don't want to see them again. I'm tired of them, and it doesn't make sense if these games are separated by several hundred years.

I wanted another spiritual successor, with a new name.

Yes, I think they should have gone with a whole new setting. I enjoyed the aesthetics of Demons Souls much more, well, I enjoyed that game more overall but thats just a matter of taste. I thought Dark Souls was very brown most of the time and I disliked most of the bosses. That said it was still a good game, but I'm seeing way too many similarities between Dark Souls 1 and the footage from Dark Souls 2. The overwhelming feeling of Deja Vu coupled with the fact that they apparently didn't feel like doing anything to the targeting system hinders my excitement for this release. It's more Dark Souls and that's cool, I guess, the novelty has simply worn off for me.

I really shouldn't watch these so everything is a surprise when I play the game but I can't resist.

Oh, this was a thing? I could have played it at Eurogamer Expo! Instead, I just watched people play it for a bit, I would have shot more video of it if I had known that this was a thing.

#things

The story and the way details about the world were told to you throughout Dark Souls is why I love it so much, so I don't know how much we'll see of that until the release. Still, in terms of the gameplay, it looks great. Different enough to look new, but still similar enough to be what I recognize as Dark Souls.

Someone hold me...

Spear? rofl

Anyway it looks like Dark Souls 1.5 which is what I wanted.

It looks so pretty.... dark and foreboding, in a good way.

don't forget this is a beta built...the characters are very buffed compared to the actual game...plus the beta sees only former DaS player play...they already know the drill...when you will have to deal with players new to the franchise...you will probably think they help the mobs more than you ^^

THE MAGIC LOOKS GOOD AT LAST...I always hated the dull magic animations in DaS...this time around, they manage to render some power to the casting animations and the spell have some weight to them when they hit...the sounds seem pretty awesome too...the backstab animation with the spear is delightfully gore...but the large swing with a soul sword-thing is the best...love it!

plus the mage does a sort of a souls arrows rainat one point on a mob located on an lower level...you can also get damaged with your own fire spells: the big sort of fireballs hits the caster back after a second if he stays there...but apparently not the other players...I may change my usual orientation and drop my melee build only for some magic this time around ! Woot!

@humanity: Agreed. The first thing that hit me was how this is literally Dark Souls 2, down to the bonfires and sound effects. I hope these are just stand-ins for now, but I was also really hoping for more of a difference in setting, like the jump from Demon's to Dark. That said, the new magic looks cool. Hopefully they get rid of the use system and don't hoard all the awesome spells/miracles for the end game.

@yummylee: Like half of Demon's Souls had a shitty framerate; but one zone in Dark Souls had it and it was the end of the fucking world.

Uh the person playing/filming sort of sucks at the game. The spear animations look.... uh weird. Like he is just sort of shaking his arm or something. Otherwise looks fine. New menu's are nice, maybe a little too bright. Looks like Dark Souls.

Can you like, uh stop posting utter garbage?

To be fair, Blighttown wasn't the only place that had framerate issues, it's just the worst. I've definitely had more sporadic framerate issues in places like Firelink.

I seem to recall Demon's Souls' framerate was perfectly fine for the most part; certainly not what I'd consider to be 'shitty' in any case.

Right forgot, you can only post if you blindly love everything that is Dark Souls 2. My mistake, I apologize.

There was one area where Demon's Souls had some frame rate issues but it really wasn't that bad. Dark Souls had the same FPS as Demon's on console so I don't really get the comparison? Both were in the 25-30 range majority of the game. One area in Dark did have complete crap framerate but it got fixed. Even still it was an area you should have taken really slow anyway and as long as you did the FPS issues didn't really effect you.

@karkarov: Er, I wasn't comparing the framerate between Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, if that's what you're thinking.