As noted last week, Dark Souls II is looking quite spectacular for a work in progress. FromSoftware is toiling away like mad to give fans what they want and MORE, with the focus being on getting to the good stuff (combat and survival) faster, eliminating some of the overly tedious backtracking and beefing up the visuals, enemies and overall level of challenge to new extremes. Casual players looking for a simple hack & slash and those not wanting the thrill of barely making it past some brutal death traps, enemies and bosses will want to tread lightly here (or tread not at all), but everyone else looking for the King of Pain and willing to roll the dice here will be in gaming heaven (and more often than not, hell) when this one ships out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 once it’s all done…

For anyone who plays, however… expect to feel DESPAIR (and frequently, if you rush around like Kratos on a caffeine jag)…

If there were ANY doubts that Dark Souls II would “go casual” among the pack of journalist-types who attended Namco Bandai’s Global Gamers Day last week here in NYC, those were squashed VERY flat by the mighty throwing of one VERY large axe by an enemy during a demonstration of the game. While the team at FromSoftware’s main design goal is to make the game more “accessible” to players, to the producers that word (which means “casual” to some gamers) meant accessibility ONLY in terms of making sure the game’s pacing put players into even MORE dangerous situations much faster than in Demon’s Souls and the first Dark Souls. Fetch-questing for NPCs has been minimized and backtracking through enemy infested areas is out (although you CAN choose to explore anywhere you like), replaced by a refined warp system and areas where surviving enemies and the insanely deadly environments will become your primary challenges. Continue reading →