Dark Souls III - Hands-On Preview @ Birth.Movies.Death.

[HiddenX]

Alex Riviello (Birth.Movies.Death.) has explored the new Dark Souls III battle arts system, dragons, and death:

Listen, I only died seven times in an hour.

Bandai Namco stopped by NYC this week to show off an early playable demo of Dark Souls 3, the grand return of Hidetaka Miyazaki to the series after he sidestepped the second installment to focus on Bloodborne. Like Bloodborne, this game is a next-gen only affair, coming to the Xbox One, PS4, and PC early next year, and it’s all the more gorgeous for it.

The first thing you need to know is that the game is absolutely beautiful, full of stunning vistas and creatures. The second? It’s just as relentlessly brutal. It’s been months since I’ve laid hands on a Souls game and my rustiness led me to die time and time again, by everything from knights to dogs to a pissed-off religious acolyte.

Playing the game with an audience is an interesting thing. The pressure of knowing another person is waiting in line can make you do silly things, as it did to the writer in front of me who, after whittling down a boss to a hair of health in an impressive display, handed the controller to me after thinking he had perished in an attack. He hadn’t. I handed it back and he scrambled to save his life but that moment of hesitation cost him his life, for real that time.

Dark Souls would be the ultimate arcade game, really, sucking up everyone’s quarters and attracting a whole crowd of gawkers. The small group of writers gathered talked together about rumors they had heard as we played - there was a shortcut to unlock, and a dragon to find, and wasn’t there some sort of frost giant mini-boss, maybe down to the left? It was the game’s messaging system turned into real life, just the perfect example of how deep and satisfying these games are.

Exploring the medieval castle I found the dragon for myself, which wasn’t hard. It envelopes the top of a number of buildings completely, occasionally leaning over to breathe (incredible-looking) fire at a corridor, a real Demon’s Souls throwback. You need to run through the area quickly to make it through unscathed, and can even lure enemies into the area for some quick kills. Along the way I kept finding these crazed worshippers that ignored me unless I attacked them, which I managed to do until one on the top of a roof splurted some sort of tentacle and smacked me right off of it. [...]

More information.

 

[sakichop]

Can't wait for this. The more I hear the more excited I get. My main gripe with the series it's it's silly multiplayer.

I love the messages and getting startled countless times by other people's ghosts running through my game. However making it so difficult for me to co-op or pvp with who I want is just ridiculous. Beating a boss or vanquishing an invader would be much more sweet with friends rather than with random strangers.

Currently playing bloodborne and it's good but my heart is with dark souls. I miss encumbrance, variety of weapons and armor, the real feeling of weight with weapons and armor and actual rewarding exploration.

Encumbrance and weight really adds another layer of complexity to the combat IMO and is sorely missing in bloodborne. I remember fights that I needed to go in full plate armor and kite shield with fat rolls to win and others I went in with no armor, a dagger and buckler and other fights ran the gamut in between. Outfitting was crucial and you were forced to make compromises. In bloodborne I throw on whatever sometimes changing for a small elemental protection boost but in never really feels necessary.

Anyway to me the dark souls series is the pinnacle of ARPG's. The balance between weapons, armor and character progression make it a joy to play. The rewarding exploration, great atmosphere and variety and creativity of the monsters is icing on the cake.

Yes, I'm gushing a bit but I've really come to enjoy this series.

 

[Pessimeister]

There's a good host of us Souls fans here on the Watch. So much so that at one point I even came up with the idea of having a Watch Guild to assist players through difficult parts of the game. I offered to help Ovenall in particular, but he never did get back to me on that one.

Having played with a close friend and enjoyed many memorable co-op bouts in the first two games as well as the fleeting moments of anonymity of helping others out through particular fights, I've seen both sides of the coin.
Dark Souls 2 improved the summoning mechanics and made it much easier to summon a friend. Whilst DSCfix previously worked well for the first game, with the death of the vile Game For Windows Live, the Steam servers have superseded the need for this fix. Despite being a little inconsistent, my mate and I completed our recent play-through with only the occasional glitch/waiting queue here and there. Providing you observe the rules, it's not that hard to get right.

I'm definitely loving the sound of the more elaborate and involving boss fights in the preview. The battle arts make combat sound more dynamic as well; though I do hope it doesn't become too excessively speedy. Again, many thanks for posting and not keeping it Hidden, MrX!

Edit:
Can we not turn this thread into a wimpy whine about controllers again? Oh wait. Too late.

 

[Voqar]

I've never got into this since any game on PC that recommends controller is immediate fail in my book, and I doubt this installment will be any different.

 

[Ovenall]

I've never got into this since any game on PC that recommends controller is immediate fail in my book, and I doubt this installment will be any different.

They design games for controllers nowadays. It's 2015, a controller is like 30 dollars. I just don't understand the stubbornness.

 

[Brumbek]

They design games for controllers nowadays. It's 2015, a controller is like 30 dollars. I just don't understand the stubbornness.

Totally agree with you. Why must people make an issue out of things that can co-exist? Controllers are great for many types of games. I probably play 50/50 KB/M games and Controller games. You're missing out if you don't use both.

Anyway, DS3 is a must-buy/play of course. Here's hoping it delivers and innovates. I still wish they'd implement more traditional co-op so I could help some of my less hardcore friends.

 

[SirJames]

The best part about playing with a controller is having your feet up on the desk.

 

[Lemonhead]

...and if you use the mouse fix mod for the original Dark Souls it works fine with K/M. Ok, I admit that DS1 was a shitty port on the PC but it was such a great game that it was easily overlooked.

Great game series. Can't wait for DS3.

 

[sakichop]

There's a good host of us Souls fans here on the Watch. So much so that at one point I even came up with the idea of having a Watch Guild to assist players through difficult parts of the game. I offered to help Ovenall in particular, but he never did get back to me on that one.

Edit:
Can we not turn this thread into a wimpy whine about controllers again? Oh wait. Too late.

Watch guild, sounds like a great idea. I'd be game for that.

Sorry I have to chime in on the controller V M&K.

I played 350 hours between dark souls 1&2 on PC with M&K. I beat both of them and can say they are easily playable if your willing to go through the trouble of getting it to work effectively. I had to use 3rd party program, mouse and gaming keyboard to get it to a comfortable state for me. Testing and configuring to me hours.

I have recently played 65 hours of bloodborne with a controller since its PS4 only. To no surprise the game is completely playable with the controller.

The controller does not however offer any advantage or ease of use over M&K setup once you get M&K setup obviously. My main gripes with the controller are camera speed and accuracy, if you pan the camera to the left and then immediately to the right the camera will continue left for a split second and the go back to the right. After using a mouse for so many years and being used to changing direction instantly this took a bit of getting used to. I can say though that after 65 hours I'm used to it and it's good enough to play the game.

My other problem and it more my problem than the controller but my hand sweat a lot when playing theses games and quite a few times my finger has slipped off the analog stick.

I will say that playing with the controller is not as bad of an experience as I thought it would be but I'd still prefer to play with M&K givin the option.

So I'd say that both input devices are more than capable to handle this kind of game and people should play with whichever one they are more comfortable with.

 

[DArtagnan]

A sensible coop mode would be just the kind of thing to finally get me to appreciate these games.