Yes! YES! I still want to see how the game plays, but that trailer was great. It looks like Resident Evil 4 with more horror, so of course that means I want it. Those IGN screens / concept art look pretty incredible. Come on Mikami, give us some more details soon.

The Resident Evil Within, I am totally there!

[QUOTE="lamprey263"]I don't think having Bayonetta 2 on the Wii U is gonna help them on the sales end. And for all we know Nintendo might have strong-armed the Bayonetta rights from Platinum just by publishing the latest game; happened to Tecmo after Fatal Frame 4.juradai

Probably few other publishers were willing to invest the money in such a project. It was either them or nothing at all. I don't think their sales are going to be any better for console exclusive niche action title, but I doubt Nintendo expected the Wii U to do so poorly as far as sales go.

If anything, having Bayonetta 2 on their system will at least get me to buy it sometime down the road.

Regarding the difficulty between the two, I honestly felt that Dark Souls had the easier intro, but eventually became more difficult than it's predecessor, specifically the last third of the game just kicked my ass to hell and back. I'm also referring to Dark Souls before From patched in a few changes to make things a little less frustrating. Off the top of my head...

• Summoning and invasions were borked from the beginning, so trying to get help from other players almost never worked

• Humanity was actually incredibly rare. Few enemies dropped it, only some of the later bosses dropped them along with Homeward bones, so the most reliable way to earn them was to summon or invade, which leads back to the first issue/challenge. It got to the point where you really had to decide the best way to utilize your humanity when it came to kindling bonfires, because there wasn't enough to go around, at least that was the case for me.

• Shops had less items, and some of the more important ones, like curing cursing status, was left to the Pardoner in the Bell Tower. On top of that, curses could stack, so if you really screwed up, you could be stuck with 1/8 of your health trying to find a cure. I believe this was patched fairly quickly, so it wasn't a big issue.

• Lost Izalith was terrible pre-patch. I'm pretty sure there were more "zombie dragon leg" enemies around, but their range for locating you was enormous, so almost all of them would run up to attack you. You basically had to rely on magic and them attacking each other to continue. It wasn't really fun, but now you can simply stroll on through unless you purposely attack them.

Demon Souls had the benefit of easier exploits when it came to magic and a much more reliable summoning system. After my initial struggle coming to terms with the controls and everything, I didn't end up doing too badly. There was always someone to help out or get assistance from, so I didn't struggle nearly as much, even when I didn't understand a lot of the more obscure mechanics and stats. I'd say Dark Souls is a lot easier now thanks to all the tweaking From has done, but those last areas of the game still get me one way or another (f'ing Bed of Chaos, argh).

[QUOTE="_Dez_"]

[QUOTE="c_rake"]

Been looking around at story theories. Popular speculation is that this game takes place after the "bad ending" of Dark Souls and that the rest of the world is feeling the effects as a result. That would explain why there's demons outside of Lordran, I suppose. Not to mention the look of abandonment that permeates the the environment. Only, weren't the bonfires supposed to be extinquished as a result? Whatever the case, that would make for an interesting story for sure.

Minishdriveby

I haven't really heard any theories so far, but I'm under the impression that this might take place at an earlier time frame, especially if dragons are playing a more prominent role in the story. Maybe something that takes place during the whole dragon war thing that was mentioned at the beginning of Dark Souls. That's the first thing that comes to mind.

Right, I need to check the Q&A again, but I thought they mentioned that dragons were going to play a bigger role, which led me to think this was sometime in the past. The only dragons we actually saw in that first reveal were merely skeletons, so the idea is pretty far fetched. I'm not sure if the Darks Souls 2 reveal trailer shows a dragon or a wyvern, to be honest. It doesn't look like any of the drakes in Dark Souls.

Been looking around at story theories. Popular speculation is that this game takes place after the "bad ending" of Dark Souls and that the rest of the world is feeling the effects as a result. That would explain why there's demons outside of Lordran, I suppose. Not to mention the look of abandonment that permeates the the environment. Only, weren't the bonfires supposed to be extinquished as a result? Whatever the case, that would make for an interesting story for sure.

c_rake

I haven't really heard any theories so far, but I'm under the impression that this might take place at an earlier time frame, especially if dragons are playing a more prominent role in the story. Maybe something that takes place during the whole dragon war thing that was mentioned at the beginning of Dark Souls. That's the first thing that comes to mind.

In that Q&A, when he asked the guys about making the game more accessible, they never said anything about making the game easier, but they want the game's underlying mechanics to be better understood by the players and still maintain that rewarding sense of progression. Sounds good to me.

Saw the video, I think everything looks pretty great and pretty much what you would expect from a Souls game in terms of gameplay. Visuals look pretty current gen to me, which I'm fine with. I was really impressed by that castle with all the Wyverns flying around. Doesn't look like they're compromising the challenge either. I really hope they show more footage with gametrailers on Thursday.

Saw this on Gaf, surprised Rragnaar hasn't posted them yet. New screens! Definitely looks current get, but they still look great.

Edit: Deleted, cause I don't know how to resize this stuff.

The screen makes me think more of Demon's Souls art style than Dark. I kind of want this to have the more horror-ish vibe that permeated the first game, but it doesn't really matter. Can't wait to see what they have in store.

Damn, where the hell is all that spending going into if they need 5 million to make a profit/break even? That's nuts!