@zeik: Circle strafing in the direction of your enemies off-hand has been a quite successful go-to tactic for me. Circle strafing the Old Dragonslayer made him really easy as he kept forward charging. The pursuer took me two tries and I also simply strafed to the right and would occasionally roll when he charged up his sword. That fight was a close call because right near the end, with only about 1/5 of his lifebar left I got the dreaded red text that my shield was about to break, and I fat roll so dodging my way through this was not an option. Right before my shield completely broke I decided on a suicide run to hit him as many times as I could, hoping my lifebar somehow endured until he died. It was quite spectacular: he was one hit away from dying and I was on the end of my stamina with one swing left. I see him begin his heavy attack animation and start frantically hitting RB - I was just barely able to squeeze in my attack before his swing connected with me ending the fight.

It was the most satisfying boss battle of the game so far.

I feel like each individual level is much less significant than it used to be, given that that there are more stats you need to invest in and a lot of the equipment seems to have stricter requirements than they used to. In Dark Souls you could get by fine just investing a bit into health and then dumping the rest into endurance and your offensive stat of choice. (At launch you could even neglect the offensive stat, since elemental weapons were king.) I'm noticing the difference the most with my Sorcerer. In the last two games it was very easy to make a hybrid Magic/Melee character, but in this one I have to pump a shit load of points into offensive stats to even use basic weapons.

Do you have low adaptability? That affects a ton of stuff including how quick you raise your shield and drink your flask. I fought the pursuer and was able to heal just fine with a little space between us.

Pound for pound I'm probably having the most fun I've had with a souls game. I kind of ruined Dark Souls with wikis and an excessive amount of grinding (I fought Ornstien and Smough at over SL100 with a +5 Artorias Greatsword), and Demon's Souls for me is hard swings between hair-pulling-ly frustrating and stupid easy depending on my build.

My prior Souls experience has given me enough knowledge to be dangerous to my self. I'm not totally baffled by the systems, but enough is new and different that I'm just discovering new stuff rather than drowning in systems and information.

@demoskinos: My adaptability is 15 and I was having a real rough time drinking with enough time to raise my shield back up.

Well huh don't know what to tell you. I have similarish stats and haven't had too much of a problem. Although, I've still been killed my fair share of times trying to heal especially at the beginning of the game.

I can tell I love the game, and framerate drops and long loading aside(can't wait for the PC version), I like it alot more than the first. I'm not super far in, only played 3 or 4 hours and down like 4 bosses, but that wouldn't change what I like about the game and the changes I generally enjoy.

I like the blend of Dark Souls and Demon Souls the game has, leaning more in favor of Demons Souls which I overall liked more from a mechanical standpoint, than Dark Souls.

I'll probably play a ton of it still on console(maybe even complete it if I have enough time) but I'm mainly awaiting PC so I can get over these technical hurdles that definitely do hinder even more enjoyment I would get from the game.

This is easily one of my favorite games of all time. I feel super powerful, but the game world seems equally brutal. The combat feels really tight to me, love love love it! :D

I LOVE THIS GAME SO GODDAMN MUCH!!!

I just wish that the blue covenant got more action. Maybe people just aren't being invaded too much yet, but I want to dish out some justice! I am the Batman of Dark Souls (in my eyes)

Yes and no actually, despawning enemies are a major plus for boss runs but the unnecessary changes to animations are a drag, giving the enemies even more of an advantage which has led to quite a few cheap deaths. I find it extremely irritating to get gangbanged in a small ass hallway with your weapon constantly being impeded by the walls while they have no problem not only passing thru walls but each other as well.

@afabs515: Yeah, I'm waiting for things to pick up for the Blue Sentinels as well. I won't see myself as Batman though, as I actually just want to give ganking a try as I'm new to pvp in the souls games.

Anywho, I'm loving this game so far. I feel like I'm having more fun in the early stages than I did with DkS1. The animation changes have taken some getting used to, but even when I was struggling with it I preferred it to the old ways.

Sounds like 90% of the problems people are having is related to low Adaptability. Up that to AT LEAST 20 and many of the annoyances of slow recovery times and animation delay disappear.

The early game is VERY good about giving you multiple places to go. From the start I believe you get 3 unique paths to explore, and within a couple bosses you get access to 2 or 3 more. If you're getting stuck on a boss, I'd say to just leave and come back 20-30 soul levels later.

Late game it becomes much more linear in an annoying way. Not bad by any means, but it's sort of the anti-DS1 in that the early game is super open but once you get the 4 big souls there's a pretty rigid series of areas you need to tackle with a couple of optional bits here and there.

NG+ on the other hand... Oh man. I kind of cruised through the first play through with only one or two real setbacks, but NG+ is nearly impossible for my build in spots (and I honestly don't see how any build could get past certain bosses). I like the idea of changing more than just health and damage values for a second playthrough, but it seems like they went a bit far with adding extra enemies to boss fights and whatnot. It's a shame, because there's apparently a story payoff for beating NG+, but I don't know if I have it in me to ever see it.

@waffles13: There's superbosses in NG to fight before you go on to NG+; and in general you'll probably need one of the best weapons in the game with a good build to do well.

I was fighting the Sentinel's and was getting frustrated to where I had to stop playing for a bit, then decided to go explore more and found other places before returning. I'm currently in the Undead Crypts and having a blast. Stuck on the boss though....should beat him tomorrow! I like it a LOT more than DaS, which because of the community I grew to not like. I love Demon's Souls and glad DaS2 brought back some things from it =D

EDIT: As Petiew said, the leveling seems a bit weird. I'm level 115 now with roughly 35 hours. seems a bit fast.

@fredchuckdave: There's definitely an area or two I missed; I was just super jazzed to go on to NG+. I didn't realize that the Flexile Sentry was going to be the hardest fucking thing in the world. It's super demoralizing.

I started a new character with a similar (but slightly more mobile) build. Hopefully that (combined with FULLY completing NG) will be enough to power me through NG+.

@waffles13: Save your effigies up then, you can't get into one of the areas without one for each and every life (don't have to be human, have to literally offer up the effigy).

Having tons of fun. Took the week off but didn't get it until almost Thursday. Spent a TON of time exploring and figuring out where to go, dooming my way through walls, but still making good progress, even though aside from a STRENGTH bow, my dex build sort of seems foolish. Got three respecs though so I can change my mind whenever on that.

I really am. I think it has too much influence from Demon's Souls, which I think is decisively lacking compared to Dark Souls, but I'm still having a ton of fun with it. It's the first game in about a year to get me to play more than an hour or two for more than a few days, as I expected it would be.

I do have some issues with the design:

• The shield delay is too long for some enemies to properly signal their attacks.
• The world feels incohesive. In DaS, I felt like I was exploring a single world, above and below, often getting glimpses of areas I had already been or would eventually get to. Now, I feel like I'm exploring set levels.
• There are too many bonfires and a lack of shortcuts. These only serve to exacerbate the feeling of level isolation.
• The framerate is quite choppy on my PS3Slim; nothing to interfere with the gameplay, at least not like in DaS, but it's still noticeable.
• Explosive Hollows are too powerful. At level sixty, a single one fully drains my stamina, usually staggering me. If a second is close behind (as they always are), he kills me instantly. This forces me to use cheap--and, more importantly, boring--tactics to defeat them.

EDIT: A ton of people are talking about how the game suddenly became much more fun when they ditched their shield and began dual-wielding. This is also an issue; both strategies should be equally viable, they shouldn't partially break one half of their combat puzzle to suit the other.

@mlarrabee: I very much disagree that shields are not viable. They are very viable, they just aren't as amazing as they used to be. (Especially most medium shields, which were kind of stupidly good before.)

The main difference here is that you can't just sit there and tank every hit with your medium shield and still have enough stamina to attack and evade. If you want to do that you need a Greatshield now. Medium shields fill more of a lighter defense role now, where you're blocking a few lighter hits here and there but evading (or parrying) the massive hits as much as you can.

Getting used to the changes to medium shields was probably my biggest hurdle with this game, because my go to strategy in the other games was to find a good medium shields and block just about everything. Looking back I think that's why I had so much trouble with the early parts of the game, but once I adjusted I've done much much better. And frankly I think it's a smart change, because I shouldn't have been able to tank hits as well as a did with just a lightweight medium shield. Greatshields seemed so pointless before because medium shields took hits as well as I needed and could still parry.

Yes i am having alot of fun , the game is even better than the first Dark souls because there are alot more bosses and challenge and the environment is overall better and more dark

@zeik: Shield are viable for about 85% of the game on NG, can't say for NG+; there are maybe 6 dodge-only bosses.

pre-4 souls is kinda dull, bosses are more or less hack and slash and there is WAY to many knight hallows that make it less intreesting than DS1, but it gets better later on

About 20 hours in and around level 75 (had some trouble with the sentinels because I forgot this is a Souls game and there's always another way to handle any situation if you're getting your ass handed to you) in and I'm still having fun, and it seems like I'm gonna be having fun to the end... and then again with a different character.

Sure am!

After now finishing the game I take back my comment on not enjoying it half as much as Dark Souls. The environments and level design towards the end of the game are simply amazing. Looking back I think it was just the lack of knowing exactly where to go next that was annoying me and making me dislike the constant teleporting. I know I had some other things I could have done, but I finished it in just over 37 hours, so I dunno where the 80 hour figure comes from, unless that's to 100% the game or something... I look forward to going with a completely different playstyle when the PC version comes out, and I'll not marathon it like I did on PS3. 9/10 (was 7 for a good while).

@mlarrabee: I'm using a shield and finding that strategy perfectly fine for those who prefer it. I do think the delay between blocking-attacking/attacking-blocking is too large leaving me very open for no apparent reason - this is going beyond animation priority, it's like priority on top of priority. I'm steadily pumping adaptability so maybe that will change over time. Quite honestly I don't see the point in dual wielding, but I was never a fan of the mechanic in any game really. To me the games have always been about carefully using a shield to methodically progress forward. The limited healing and increased stagger susceptibility makes me think that a devil may care playstyle with dual swords is more trouble than it's worth. Then again, if thats your thing then thats your thing. As I personally prefer Demon's Souls I find some of the cues they took from their original great vision to be good. Not being able to teleport between bonfires for the first half of Dark Souls was ridiculously pointless. I would be all for going to healing grasses if the system was implemented better but now it's a weird middle ground between estus and healing items.

Agreed on exploding hollows, especially if you have a short range weapon. Framerate on the 360 has been surprisingly really great, going above 30 FPS in certain areas and hardly ever dropping below. The load times seem exponentially shorter compared to the PS3 as I've never seen a tool tip rotate on a loading screen even once.

Decided to do a 2hand/duel-wield/no-shield for my second run. Oh boy is it a different game. My heart start jumping every time an enemy swing anything bigger than a stick my way. So exciting.

I've finished the game solo with a heavy melee build, and I'm about 1/4 of the way through on a new run with a Company of Champions sorcerer class. At this point I think this is my favorite Souls game of all three. The only area I felt was cheap and not a challenge-to-overcome type of thing was the Shrine of Amana, and I really enjoyed pretty much every other area. I think the mechanical changes they made are pretty much all for the better, especially for PvP, where the health stuff is really much more balanced.

The only place where I really got stuck (lost) was after finishing 3/4 of the early game big bosses, and having no idea about Huntsman's Copse. With the ability to instantly teleport between bonfires, I totally forgot about that small area you needed to return to for access to that area.

I think the part I actually like the most are all the sly callbacks to Dark Souls 1. (like Tark and Najka, so fucking cool)

I fucking adore this game

I just made another thread about it, but I really, REALLY hate boss fights that throw nagging weaker enemies at you, and DSII has a LOT of those. Most boss fights, it seems. It seems so damn lazy on top of being boring and frustrating. I like the rest of the game, but bad boss fights are a huge fucking let down in a Souls game.

@afabs515: I think the problem is that there aren't *enough* invaders compared to Sentinels. Every time I invade a game a Sentinel gets summoned almost instantly. The Sentinels are available to join very early, while it can be a bit before you find a few cracked red eye orbs or the covenant that distributes them. It'll probably stay clogged as long as people are playing, unless they change the way that stuff is set up.

Like all souls game's they kick your ass in the beginning, then you find things like the cling ring that make your experience far more manageable and it becomes the best game ever made. I am loving this game just like the previous games.

Played from 12-3 in the am last night and literally played all day today/tonight. Haven't done that in a long time. Love this game.

I don't know if I have it in me to enjoy being punished anymore. I think the game is fantastic and I love watching others play it but yeah... apparently I've lost my taste for screaming at my TV.

Loving the game 20 hours in. The best thing about it - I had about the same curve I had with the original Dark Souls. I spent about 3-5 hours getting destroyed, making stupid mistakes, mishandling my stamina, mistiming dodges and shield usage, and all the rest. Then I took down the Pursuer after 15+ tries, pumped some stats into ADP, and everything clicked again. Since then it's been all great - some setbacks, some frustrating levels and bosses, lots of deaths, progress and learning the game - classic Dark Souls fun.

I really agree people should put stats into ADP if they're getting frustrated with shield raise timing and staggering. There's stats to deal with that. It's just that it's not Dark Souls, and you can't pick up a 100% physical shield, dump points into END, and be a defensive king. I tried to rebuild my Dark Souls character at first, and it didn't work at all.

That's interesting. I still havent even been invaded by a red spirit yet. But hopefully they do change it a bit. I don't think I like the way that you have to be in the Covenant of the Meek to have the blue sentinels help you out. It seems like a bit of an unnecessary restriction to me.

Doesn't have the same charm as DS1, but PvE is still satisfying and I'm playing much more co-op than I did with the previous game. That said, I'm 60-plus hours in at SL140 and am ready to finish things up.

i wasn't, then i was, then i wasn't, then i beat the last giant and now i am i guess? it really seems to come in fits and starts. i'm trying to do battlemage but i'm wondering if i'll have to just respec in the end for full on sorcerer, or i'm not doing it right. or "get gud" maybe?

btw i'm at like over 9 hours so i'm guessing i'm also proceeding way too slowly. part of that was just leaving the game in idle though.

i also feel like i need to grind souls and level in order to make the game manageable. but i guess that comes back to "get gud" like everything else, eh? ;)

i'm not really sure where to head at this point. heide's tower of flame?

After 75 hours and completing the game once and about 80% through on NG+, I really don't think this one is gonna have the same staying power for me. I mean, I think it plays better than the previous games by leaps and bounds, but the world is just so uninteresting to me, the characters don't have the same impact as Demon's or Dark Souls' cast, and the boss encounters are probably the most boring and uninspired in series history. There's just no excitement or sense of pacing or world to keep me coming back.

From made the safest game they possibly could and unfortunately a feeling of safety isn't something that really fits with a Souls game.

I enjoyed the game a lot, and I think it's definitely good. But as you say, there is a lot of broken bullshit and unbalanced pve/equipment. That really drags some of it down. And it's also lacking the atmosphere and sense of cohesion that made the first game so excellent. Oh well, I'm a little frustrated and disappointed, but I still enjoyed the game a lot. The core gameplay and feedback loop is just too good to be overshadowed by the bad parts.

@ripelivejam: Heide's tower is a pretty good bet. Or you can try to unlock some doors near the Last Giant.

I also can offer this. As vague as it is, the advice "get gud" kind of does apply here. I find that on certain days, I die to a boss maybe 50 times in a row, don't make any progress and then call it there. And that's part of the experience but on the days where I kill several bosses and storm through hellish landscape after nightmare world? Those are the days that stick in my mind as the most fun.

Also don't feel like you need to follow any sort of pace right now. It can take a little while to get used to the subtle and not so subtle differences mechanically from the previous games (by Dark Souls standards a little while can be several hours). It's fun to make progress but remember even when you're not beating bosses or reaching bonfires, you're still learning and getting accustomed to everything. Best of luck, bearer of the curse!

I wasnt then i pumped adp and lo and behold the game is growing on me.

Now that the crows gave me a second old whip i cant help thinking indiana jones run!

Didn't like it on the PS3 much, felt kinda shitty and I think my left stick on the dual shock 3 is kinda busted. Not a good experience at all. Killed 5 bosses and left it.

Loving it with the DS4 on the PC. Have had kinda limited time for playing lately but I'm making progress.

412 hours in and still enjoying myself. One sl359, another sl271, another at sl112. While some of my playtime is frustrating due to the dumbass delay between button inputs (should be able to go from R2 to r1 smoothly and quickly) I just have to remember to slow my twitch reflex from time to time.

Did we have to dig up an almost two months old thread for this?

The only other thing this guy have posted is this by the way:

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/dark-souls-1482941/

Lots of it.

Absolutely. The Soul Memory mechanic is kinda grimy at higher levels, and the hitboxes are occasionally broken as fuck in online, but definitely having fun.