It’s more organized looking. As if the aesthetics of the menu affect the gameplay anyway.
Not sure what exactly is upsetting about the poise system or why it’s shitty at all. It gives almost every item in the game a whole new dynamic when considering what you’re going to use in your arsenal. And the only other player interaction I tried was summoning someone to my game, and it worked exactly like in previous games and I had no problems whatsoever doing so.
If you take a step back and re-read what you just said, then you either don’t play very many games or the bias against this game is literally dripping off of you. Weakest boss? Really? I can easily name a dozen bosses that were leagues easier than this just between Demon AND Dark Souls…come the hell on. You couldn’t have butchered a description of that fight any better.
[details=Spoiler]First of all, you enter what appears to be a circular room before even entirely knowing what the fuck it is your fighting. Yes, most of us probably knew what this boss was about beforehand considering it’s one of the only ones we’ve seen footage of. But it’s not really fair to factor that into the mix considering any amount of foresight can get you worlds ahead. That’s been a staple of the Souls games since day 1.
Anyway, this room is filled with dozens of enemies that can’t be killed, witches, and above all a giant flaming horseman enemy whom which you have to run to the exact opposite end of this narrow circular corridor, your only means of protection literally being a small crevasse on the side every now and then. Oh, and keep in mind that most of these little corners are already occupied by skeletons
So after fighting through all of this the first few times, you’ll probably eventually find the switch at the end which closes a gate to put the boss into a state where he can actually be hurt. I’m not sure what you really expected: either an invincible boss or…? Just because he’s now hurtable doesn’t make him weak. This wasn’t nearly the most challenging enemy I’ve faced in this franchise but it certainly wasn’t close to the easiest. It was ONE boss. Out of an ENTIRE new Dark Souls game. And he still had moves that could easily OHKO you WHILE BLOCKING unless you just spent the entire beta grinding your character or something.
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I agree for the most part. FPS is definitely better, but besides some of the new weapons like the Ultra Greatsword (which, I fucking LOVE by the way) the movement animations seem the same to me for the most part. Running is definitely faster, shield blocking is a little less responsive but that was intentional.
Purely a matter of preference. Some prefer to give up their speed for range.
Agreed!
I thought this too at first, but the more I played the more I started to realize that I couldn’t really rely on them even with the small amount of movement you’re granted while using them. Unless you take two or three, which is way too much time to use up usually in the heat of a battle, it’s not really healing you at that fast of a rate. If they just make the drop rate for them a little lower, I think it’d be pretty balanced and a nice addition.
Well, I mean…yeah. Lol. But you’re supposed to be able to get torches, and you can also sometimes break a window to let light into a room. Not really sure why I couldn’t find any torches though, would have been useful in some of those super abysmal cave areas…
It did. This was one of the intentional changes alongside things like the shield reaction time and running speed.
For me, overall, the beta left me pretty satisfied. I’m now fully confident From will make a very enjoyable Souls game. I like most of the changes they made, although some I didn’t quite understand…nerfing rolling is whatever to me, but shield reaction time? I fucking rely on that shit. It gets me fucked because sometimes I’ll think I blocked something and I’m actually just taking damage. Also I don’t know if it was just this area of the game, but goddamn it is scary dark. The fact that you can’t get a torch confuses me to no end, but…somehow I managed without one. I’m sure there will be areas in this game (ala Tomb of Giants) that actually REQUIRE a light source, though. Excited to see how pretty that looks.
Which brings me to the issue of the graphics…they’re definitely different from before. The models definitely have a ton of more detail and fluidity in terms of their movements, but some of the things in the environment just…either look as good as Dark Souls 1 or slightly worse. Which is confusing to me because they did a really good job detailing people. It is just a beta, though so…can’t really make any judgements of the graphics based on it. Who knows, the final product could look drastically different. And a lot of the environments actually looked solid still. Those dark forests with the grass shifting in the wind was a pretty nice atmosphere. Can’t wait to see some of the even more insane areas.
The game, on its basis, feels like a souls game. Moreso like Dark Souls fortunately, which is my favorite out of the games. I like to think of this beta as merely a hundredth of the insanity that the rest of Dark Souls II will be. It’s obvious that they’ve changed a lot of the basic aspects to make it harder solely based on said aspects, such as losing more and more health upon each death, slowing down some reaction based gameplay which forces you to think ahead, getting rid of kickstun, ect ect…you have to consider these things even regardless of how easy you felt these bosses were. Because we all know full well From is going make bosses that take advantage of your disadvantages. These were not those types of bosses, which is where I think the disconnect is. And who knows, maybe they’ll buff the Chariot Executioner and the Skeleton Lord in the final game. This is the exact point of a beta, after all.
I guess you’ve never played Demon’s Souls. 
