Dark Souls II Previews

We have rounded up a couple of additional previews for Dark Souls II, and the first is a Simon Parkin piece published on The Guardian:

The tweaks to gameplay are subtle. The game now allows for regional matching, so you can play alongside players from your nation should you prefer. There are now two ways to jump in the game both of which are more easily executed than in the past. Melee damage is determined by your distance to a target, increasing as you close in, a development that adds further subtlety and nuance to what is already the finest combat system in video games. Your character, chosen from a clutch of classes, can equip four status-affecting rings instead of two. This is a game without a pause button, but while you’re delving about in menu screens your character is now shown on screen, so it’s easier to notice if you’re being attacked while changing your equipment, for example. The inventory has been overhauled for simpler management, and a ‘˜Soul Vessel’ item allows you to reset your character’s parameters (where before you were forced to begin the game afresh with a new character).

New items allow you to alter the game’s difficulty. One, when burned at a bonfire, will increase enemies’ power in the vicinity. Another item increases the capacity of your Estus Flask, the item that replenishes your character’s health. There are improved ways to ward off other players who would invade your game and wreak havoc (including punitive measures for those who continually murder other players: it’s possible for these spoilsports to see their health capped as low as ten per cent of its capacity).

Strategy Informer has the second and last preview:

A couple of new items to mention. The Name-Engraved Ring allows you to choose a god to worship, which will operate much like the slightly nebulous Covenants did in the previous game. Players who worship the same god will find their chance of being summoned into each other’s game improved. Adding a more reliable co-op mode is an idea that makes sense to me, although if you’re going to allow players to group up I ‘d say go the whole hog, rather than nebulously improving their chances. In other multiplayer news, you can now be invaded while hollow. No more reducing your humanity to avoid nasty intrusions into your world, now you’ve always got to keep a wary eye out. That said the developers clarified that if you avoid hassling other players the chance of you being invaded will be greatly reduced, so there is some comfort.

The Soul Vessel is another new trinket that changes things up. By taking it to a special area in the game, you can redistribute your character stats and even your class. I’m less sold on this one, to be honest. The choices made during character creation and levelling feel like they should have permanency. I’m worried that the Soul Vessel will encourage players to game the system by changing class to suit particular areas, which would slightly spoil the challenge of the game. That said, I’m sure that From Software won’t make altering your character that easy. There’s no concrete information on how the item works, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it cost a prohibitive amount of souls, or make you pay for the benefit in some other horrible way.