I did the Vendrick fight with the Giant Souls in my inventory (not hot bar), and it was a piece of cake. Either I'm way better than I have any right to be, or they work in inventory.
@sunbrozak: Once you meet the queen she pretty explicitly tells you what your next objective is any time you talk to her. Also, all the King's Doors are very clear about what you need to open them, so once you find the ring it's pretty obvious where you need to go.
Early game is definitely way more aimless, but the Emerald Herald basically lists all the places you need to go, and each branch definitively ends with a Primal Bonfire so there's no questioning whether or not you went the right way. I personally really like how open the early game is; it gives you a ton of options when you get stuck and need a change of scenery.
@sterling: I've seen the bit about Great Souls boosting damage elsewhere, but I'm pretty sure that was debunked. I fought him with all five Giant Souls but none of the Great Souls and took him out in about four minutes with just a Halberd.
@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+.
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.
@golguin: My first playthrough was a heavy character, so roll speed didn't matter a ton, it was just the massive delays getting into/out of the roll that was the killer. Around 20 was when it started to get better, but I went all the way to 30 and it still felt like it kept improving.
I understand the need to bundle it with a controller, but at this point there are four USB based controllers out there in abundant supply made by companies that are devoted to hardware. Hell, the Sony ones are Bluetooth already. Unless you're going to make something crazy like the Steam controller, why not just put a gigantic sticker on the box that says "Buy a real controller, goddammit"?
I'd argue it's tied for the most important stat alongside endurance (for my tanky build at least). I don't even roll a ton, but when I need to roll, I usually need to roll fast. Also, it dramatically decreases the amount of time it takes to get a shield up after rolling/getting staggered, which is essential as a greatshield user. I was having real trouble with the controls for a while before I realized what adaptability was.
Dead Space 3. If that game hadn't been made by a post-Mass Effect 3 EA, people may have been mildly disappointed but it wouldn't have gotten a fraction of the hate it did. Yeah, the story wasn't great, but if you can deal with the rampant Deus Ex Machina near the end it's totally bearable and neat in spots. The coop character's presence was kind of weird at some points during the single player campaign, but beyond that I didn't feel like I missed anything when playing alone. The microtransactions were totally optional and it wasn't until the second playthrough that I even knew they were there. The crafting was cool but even if you hated it you could just slap together a Plasma Cutter and call it a day.
Also, come on guys, Dead Space was never scary. I'm a total puss when it comes to horror games and movies, but DS1 was mildly unsettling at points and nothing more. I'd argue that DS2's creepiest parts are creepier than DS1, and DS3 has a few good ones as well; they just don't make up the majority of the game.
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