[Dark Souls III] Let the speculatin' commence

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Op zaterdag 20 juni 2015 19:14 schreef StateOfMind het volgende:
Vanmiddag Bloodborne uitgespeeld, dus laat maar komen
Duurt alleen nog zo lang

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Op zaterdag 20 juni 2015 19:17 schreef Donderkonijn het volgende:
voor iedereen die dat het kasteel uit 2 vind: Das echt duidelijk Anor londo qua architectuur. Als je de trailer goed bekijkt zie je ook de undead burg ervoor liggen.

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Op zaterdag 20 juni 2015 20:33 schreef Donderkonijn het volgende:

[..]

De trailer. Qua layout herkin ik zo Undead burg, het stuk waar de Firelink Shrine zit, en Anor Londo.

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Op zondag 21 juni 2015 22:31 schreef RickoKun het volgende:
Ik ben bij de eindbaas van Bloodborne afgehaakt toen kwam the witcher 3 en heb ik BB niet meer aangeraakt.
Zal ik wel weer doen als ik in ben voor een NG+.

Wel hyped voor DSIII tho. DS2 niet gespeeld, DaSo en BB hebben me erg kunnen bekoren.

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Op vrijdag 18 september 2015 13:12 schreef StateOfMind het volgende:
Dat ziet er toch weer heerlijk en vertrouwd uit

Om de een of andere reden kies ik eigenlijk nooit voor een Cleric, hoewel die later als je eenmaal flink geleveld bent heel gaaf zijn.

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Dark Souls 3 is like returning home, only somebody has knocked out a dividing wall and transformed your living room into a veritable paradise.

I played Dark Souls 3 at Tokyo Game Show 2015 and it was the most relaxing appointment of my entire trip.

I’ve played all the Souls games so far, including Bloodborne if you want to lump them together. My personal favourite is Demon’s Souls, but I think all things considered the first Dark Souls is the best one.

Bloodborne wrecked me: it’s a very different style of play, favouring aggression and speed, and while that kind of play is more than possible in the core Souls series it normally comes after you’ve developed a build specifically for it.

I am a big fan of slow and shielded (and stealth and cheese and over-levelling and everything but white-knuckle action) and playing Bloodborne for editorial deadlines nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. Firing up the Dark Souls 3 demo at TGS, picking the Knight build and immediately slamming my finger into place on L2 felt so, so good. I was safe at last.

Of course, I wasn’t actually safe: this is a Souls game, after all. In the short, linear section I managed to explore during my time I was ambushed at least half a dozen times.

Every one of these little spats delighted me. Even on high alert I was taken by surprise at least once, when a crossbowman perched on a ledge overlooking a gallery sniped at me from behind (just to brag a little, I rolled at the first twang of the string and dodged the shot, and I’d been so careful in advancing towards the decoy foes ahead that I had no trouble dispatching him).

But that’s just one example; baddies were constantly popping up from side paths and behind cover to give me a piece of their minds, and also their spears and axes and enormous swords, ah ha ha.

It was such a small area that we can’t draw conclusions about overall level design and layout, but I enjoyed exploring multiple loot-filled dead ends as I progressed in one direction, before my time ran out. It was nice to be alerted to these interesting locations by attacks as well as through searching.

Because I’m a veteran (although not a very skilled one) I survived every ambush encounter, but I suspect the difficulty had been tuned downwards for demo purposes – this is a pretty common practice.

But even if the baddies were hitting a little less vigorously than usual, they still held my interest. The most common grunts I encountered seemed built on a larger scale than in past games, and had more interesting move sets.

You know how in Dark Souls those first guys have three or four well-telegraphed moves that leave a few frames (a wind-up, a leap) for you to take action after they start? Well, these new guys don’t give you that gap. Their attacks come much more swiftly and unpredictably, which is great fun, and perfectly suits the sword-and-board approach.

Stamina management means Souls players have always had to balance shield use with attacking and rolling, and find openings to drop their defences and refill the gauge. This leads to precise fencing, circling and feinting to find openings in the enemy’s guard.

In Dark Souls 3, fencing feels better than ever. Something about the timing of the animations on sword swings feels weightier, as if each blow is delivered with all the force of the body behind it. It’s like time – hovers, in the transition to the downswing.

I don’t know how else to describe it. It doesn’t slow you down. It just feels more real. It feels great.

It also feels like a natural evolution of core Souls combat to date, which serves to highlight the difference between Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Where cousin Bloodborne has founded a new family name, Dark Souls 3 is the brighter, shinier child of Dark Souls 2.

And what an heir it is. The first thing I noticed when I arrived in-game was my character’s armour – the cloth wrappings between plates, the ragged chain mail dripping from the hem of the surcoat. The chain mail in particular got me; I have a real thing about how chain mail is depicted in game, and seeing a detailed texture showing individual links and watching it ripple with movement pleased me greatly. You can tell this is the first Dark Souls game built specifically for new-gen – and that From Software learned a lot making Bloodborne.

I was also really impressed by the sound design. I rely on sound a lot when playing Souls games, and even in the noise of TGS while using Sony’s demo station headphones, I could tell that 3D positioning has improved. One other related touch I enjoyed was the huge number of non-hostiles about the place; I murdered them all, of course, just in case any of them turned out to be baddies just biding their time, but their moans and movements help to disguise the approach of genuine threats, which is unsettling and awesome.

Dark Souls 3 doesn’t feel precisely like Dark Souls 2. The combat has been finely tuned to even better reflect the brutal risk-reward reality of hacking away at each other with crude lumps of sharpened metal. The trademark ruinous world setting is brighter, clearer and more beautiful than ever before.

It was like one of those home renovation reality shows where someone comes home to find their crappy ex-council house has been rebuilt into an architectural marvel: familiar, yet dazzling. Dark Souls 3 made me feel at home, but also surprised me – and delighted me.

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Op zaterdag 17 oktober 2015 12:07 schreef cherrycoke het volgende:
had iemand trouwens DS3 stress test keys gekregen? 3 emails en niks.

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Weapon arts hebben vanaf nu net als spells en miracles een blue pool die leegloopt. Elke ability heeft ook een andere cooldown die niet zichtbaar is voor de spelers, waardoor je geen ketting van spreuken kan maken. Het lijkt erop dat je spreuken gaat gebruiken om het gevecht te openen of af te sluiten.

Fakkels gaan niet meer uit en de wapen durability is erg hoog. De fakkels gaan een nog grotere rol spelen in deel 3 dan in eerdere delen. Er is simpelweg niet genoeg licht en vijanden gebruiken dat in hun voordeel. Het eerdere trucje om het aura van je personage te gebruiken, werkt niet meer.

Het gevechtssysteem is niet zo snel als dat van Bloodborne, maar dit is zeker wel de snelste Dark Souls tot nu toe. Back stabbing is terug en je hoeft geen 'charge attack' te doen om het te activeren. Vijanden staan deze keer vrij snel op na een back stab en geven je weinig tijd om aanvallen uit te voeren.

Wanneer je doodgaat in Dark Souls 3 verliest je levensbalk zo'n 40% van zijn totale lengte. Deze mechaniek heet 'ember' en je hebt het wel of niet. Als je je ember behoudt, blijft je levensbalk zoals die is en als je ember verliest gaat deze omlaag. Je kunt zien of je ember hebt door de oranje gloed die je personage omringt.

Je moet altijd uitkijken voor vijanden die plots tevoorschijn komen. Elk moment lijkt het wel of je aangevallen kan worden. Door de donkere levels en stiekeme vijanden zul je vaak schrikken in de game en honden zijn nog steeds erg lastige vijanden.

De game is enorm en geeft het gevoel dat je in een grote wereld rondloopt. Veel gebieden die je ziet in de verte kom je later tegen in de game en je kan daar zelfs al vijanden zien lopen.