Dark Souls II will protect 'core' experiences

I would like to see more of what Demon's Souls was good at...more difficulty...more complex and mysterious yet logical and accurate stats, abilities, and items to decipher. I like realizing they had stats for everything, even stats you don't see, like poise. I would like the combat to likewise follow suit with these new abilities, new attacks, and new stats and become increasingly more complex. More mysterious atmosphere with top tier voice acting for every NPC. That was Dark Souls biggest weakness in comparison to demon's souls and the weakness of many successful games, they don't improve on what they were good at. There were so few new moves or attacks between the two. The mechanics were virtually the same. It was great that they gave a larger world to explore which was one aspect of an improvement of demon's souls, but also give more spells, more complexity, kind of like how castlevania improved in castlevania 3, there was a huge change in the battle mechanics of the three new characters you could play, while retaining the old stuff too or how WoW constantly adds new moves to its basic classes. I don't want them to lose what is already good. Just be more creative and add to it.

I hope to god that they don't dumb this series down as most developers have done to cater to a mainstream market for the almighty dollar. I'm a gamer that only gets enjoyment from a hardcore and difficult gaming experience that isn't linear and doesn't hold your hand all the way through. I personally enjoyed the ambiguity of Dark Souls and Demon's Souls. There are virtually no games out there on the market that target gamers who enjoy a difficult experience. I am hoping and praying that they don't fix what wasn't broken. If you don't like the ambiguity, weirdness, and difficulty of this series, stop complaining and play all of the other games out there - they are more than willing to be "straightforward and understandable."

Dark Souls needs the things that generic RPG's have like...an extensive crafting system, extensive dialogue and dialogue options with more people and more cities and civilization (it feels like were in some prehistoric period b/c there's hardly any people in the game), multiple alternate endings based on who you kill and dialogue choices, a more "human" story instead of the dead guy story, i liked Demon's Souls story better with a hero trying to save something instead of feeling dead the whole time. I think they should make classes more distinct, something WoW and Baldur's Gate have a strong grasp upon which allows people to identify and attach to their characters. Even though you pick a thief or Wizard in Dark Souls it doesn't play like a thief or Wizard. Another thing is there needs to be a unique, more dramatic backstab cinematic for different monstesrs. Nonetheless Hidetaka has moved the RPG genre ahead light years with his contribution of mood, atmosphere, combat. There is an authentic creativity to his world while not altering what we know as RPG worlds in a bad way. He has the right idea that everything needed has already been created and draws most of his lore from original Dungeons and Dragons. I thought skyrim...putting vikings and dragons together was cheesy and its weird that you can pick some cat dude.

Demon's souls and dark souls fits right in in terms of difficulty when compared to earlier console titles, like super metroid, or zelda a link to the past. It's good that more people are playing video games these days but it's annoying that the market has such a potent effect on developers. It seems like the only way we can get a pure game experience these days is if a game is still somewhat unknown, and obscure. I guess they call them the unwashed masses for a reason.

I have a few concerns with this now, after full researching it. I'm not going to rule this out until I play it though. Tomohiro Shibuya has his work cut out for him...

The core experience of Demon's and Dark Souls was that the game was NOT accessible.

Core experiences are irrelevant when the game can't even protect itself from it's own M-content...All considerations of what the game has to provide after that are completely meaningless, it is a game that can't be played and certainly not enjoyed the way it was meant to...

OR....

Instead of making the game easier, retain the current gameplay as HARD mode and add another even fuckin HARDER mode. Yes, I know, basically NG+, yes?

So "fuckin HARDER" mode will be 4 NG+'s harder than the playthrough you are already in, and it can be turned on anytime.

It's simple, From Software:

Step 1: Hope they (the whiny "mommy whys it hard?! i want e-z!" newcomers) didnt play Demons Souls (or even know what it is).

Step 2: Take all the Demons Souls copies sitting in warehouses and just change the menus/do almost inexistant aesthetic changes, and also switch out the box art for the upcoming Dark Souls II box art.

Step 3: Sell that lie (which is still the best game of 2009, but at least they will face its challenge like most of us did, or be mentally ass-raped) to the whiny newcomers.

Step 4: Make Dark Souls II as planned  for everyone who already loves the series and for the new people willing to accept its hardness.

Step 5: EVERYONES HAPPY!!!

don't like the idea of dark souls being "more accessible." i kind like the feeling that it takes somewhat of an elite intellect and reflexes to beat the game and solve its mysteries. if everyone can do it, that takes away a huge chunk from the experience. i'm not even saying i'm that group of "elite", but if you aren't then, i think its better that people have to go online and look up stuff from gamers who have gone before them and give credit to those who solved it first. i didn't think the game was very hard to learn in the first place, so i get really frustrated everytime this Tomohiro Shibuya makes a comment. He's clearly targetting the people who didn't like the game. Fire this guy please.

Invading Knight can't wait for DarkSouls 2...  My opionion for beginner players "go back and play skyrim" game of year! whatever... lmao  DARKSOULS RULE is The GAME OF THIS CENTURY!!!

just tried to play Dishonored for a day, was not very fun despite the high rating on gamespot. Demon's Soul's has ruined a lot of games for me including skyrim...i don't think i can go back to cheesy combat anymore

Better accessibility for newcomers can only be a good thing. I almost quit Demon's Souls when I first started playing it because, every time I loaded it up, I'd end up spending more time reading the wiki than actually playing the game.

I'm glad I didn't quit because I would've missed out on, in my opinion, two of the best games ever made. I had a much better time with Dark Souls but that was due to my time spent learning the ropes with Demon's Souls.

If FS can find a way to make things more understandable for newcomers, and at the same time not ram tutorials down the throats of veterans, then I'm all for it.

They have to do a better job of play testing for glitches this time, and there are way too many people who just run around trying for backstabs in pvp so they've got to make those harder to execute when fighting other players. Getting backstabbed multiple times in a row should not be possible, it really takes the fun out of pvp when thats all they try to do.

...just as long as it wont turn into a a diablo 3 POS....

...And I STILL don't know what the pendant is for

Lipservice.

A little obvious the first video didn't contain game footage, we know the difference between random scene CG and gameplay CG. Anyway, my best to DS II, please don't ruin it!

Tomohiro Shibuya. please fire this guy. Not only does he make inconsiderate stupid remarks about our beloved game, his only experience is Resident Evil Outbreak. That's bad!! Lets get a petition going. We can't let a guy with no credibility handle dark souls 2. Why is Hidetaka Miyazaki stepping down? We need to find someone who's designed some really good games. or make him feel the pressure of how good and great this game is and how many people will be cranky if he screws this up...he seems so clueless about RPG and fantasy lore in his interview. Why is he "learning" everything from Miyazaki? this game needs like the top experienced designers who know a lot about this stuff. Please come back and be the director Hidetaka Miyazaki!!

hopefully they make it twice as hard this time around