I wasn’t going to make the thread, but it looks like if you buy it from the Japanese XBone store and switch to English and DL it… you have Dark Souls 3 in English.
There’s no ‘official’ Dark Souls 3 thread, so, whatever, here it is too. I am excited that it’s coming out next month. So freaking excited.
I’m actually a bit surprised they elected to stagger this release in NA, this isn’t a terribly crowded month and this sort of thing already gets streamed so aggressively
Oh well! I’m excited, though not as much as for hyper light drifter. I’m sure it’ll be better than 2 at least, which for its flaws was still pretty compelling at the time.
@Felix please abuse your mod powers to make sure that whatever thread is created for it is called “Tripping the Hyper Light Fantastic” kthnx
I watched a bit of Japanese player’s stream yesterday, there’s some really cool monster designs in there.
I think I’ve reached peak Souls though, personally. It’s clearly the same sort of thing I’ve played four times before already. I’ll play it again, but I’m hardly frothing.
re: Hype levels
I’m really just hoping that this is a greatest hits version of Dark Souls. It seems like it because of Miyazaki’s involvement. Tbh I’d rather have a Demon’s Souls remake, but hey, whatever.
Yeah, maybe this is the last word, ultimate version of Dark Souls. It hasn’t really been presented that way though, I’m more getting the vibe “this is the game between Dark Souls 2 and Dark Souls 4”. I’d have been more excited if this was called Demon’s Souls 2 too.
This is becoming the long-running canonical action-RPG series, much like Final Fantasy was the canonical JRPG series (outside Japan at least), and I think it would do well to likewise shake up mechanics and setting style every game. They did exactly that with Bloodborne, but because they had to market a new brand name as well, maybe it was felt to be a major business risk they can’t try every year.
The genius of Final Fantasy is that they made whatever the hell they felt like and put it under the existing brand name, and I don’t see why From shouldn’t be doing the same. They really seem to feel unnecessarily hamstrung by titles, Miyazaki seems to genuinely think Demon’s and Bloodborne are in a different series from Dark Souls… because they’re not set in Lordran or something? It’s kind of weird.
Is there anything preventing me from downloading the Japanese PS4 version? Is the Xbox advantage just that it’s in English?
I think ‘Souls’ and ‘FROM’ essentially mean similar mechanics and ideas but reinterpreted which would be exactly like action RPG version of Final Fantasy methodology. In fact, to us cool kids this game is essentially Souls 5 even though the game is called Dark Souls 3 so we know it’s borrowing from the Final Fantasy playbook.
Payment might be weird. Maybe? I think there are online retailers that will sell you physical JPSN cash cards and just pass along the code without actually sending you anything real. Anyone with more knowledge than I do should chime in here.
Eurogamer has a video showing the Xbox framerate real choppy so maybe I will wait.
That’s correct, you’d have to buy a J-PSN card (which you can do electronically at certain online retailers, play-asia being one of them I think), fund your J-PSN accounts wallet and make the purchase. No word on if the Japanese PS4 release has English text though? I’m not expecting it to.
I am a little irked at Bandai Namco for now making me wait 3 weeks to play this game while they’re giving it out to gaming “personalities” for them to broadcast over the internet. Seems in poor taste, especially given that a large portion of (at least my) enjoyment of the game comes from figuring out it’s world unspoiled.
Don’t let DudeBroShieldGun’s streaming hurt your enjoyment of Dark 3. I think the only DS spoilery stuff I’m going to encounter is anything in this thread, and I’m OK with that.
Skipped Bloodbo because fie on having to purchase a Playstation 4, but I will try not to skip this
My crafted person in 2 was Eartha Kitt, I dunno how I’m supposed to top that but
I’m really looking forward to Dark Souls 3. I am buying a PS4 to coincide with its release. I’m also looking forward to finally trying Bloodborne. Fortunately, I know next to nothing about either game so I will be able to go in blind.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the number and variety of areas in Dark Souls 2. That aspect of the game remains pretty impressive to me. If that game is the low point of the series, it’s still better than just about anything else out there.
I don’t think pure scale not in service of a vision or an experience is particularly notable or admirable, in this decade. And the scale still pales in comparison to, say, GTA V or World of Warcraft or Skyrim (most huge games are naturally Western).
DkS1 used its scale to create a sense of vertiginous verticality, depths-within-depths, and to play area themes as counterpoints to each other (Miyazaki has stated that most of the concept art was guided by a triad of the heavenly pure, fire/hell/dragons, and death/darkness/decay). DkS2 may be even bigger but it’s pretty much just a bunch of random stuff.
I have never tried a GTA game or World of Warcraft, but I think that Skyrim is a good one to compare. While it has a large, well-realized world, I didn’t find Skyrim’s areas as distinctive and creative as those in Dark Souls 2. I certainly don’t find myself thinking about them as I do those in the Souls games (including 2). Skyrim may have a purer, more cohesive world, but it’s also a less interesting one.
While Dark Souls 2’s structure is not as impressive and its individual areas are not as memorable as those in Dark Souls 1, the game still contains surprises that I appreciate such as the ultimate depth of that “well” in Majula. And the shifts in design between areas gave me the impression of a significant journey at times, even if some might in reality be retreads or additional tacked-on set pieces. Most of the criticism I can come up with regarding Dark Souls 2 is only in relation to the other Souls games.
When I think about Dark Souls 2 as a massive and slightly misguided fan-game rather than an official sequel, I like it a lot more. It feels like a theme park game about Dark Souls. There’s love in it, and some fun to be had, and the sum of its parts are exactly what they should be, but not much more.
Just a reminder to everyone who may not be aware that From Software made like literally twenty Armored Core games within a decade, so yeah, get ready for more Souls or Souls-likes beyond Dark Souls 3.
Not too excited for this – law of diminishing returns, etc. – but I will play it. More than anything else, I’m interested in how aggressively it will realize the series’ entropic theme. If this is just another [D]-Souls world + more detail than ever I’m going to be kind of disappointed. I want to get a profound sense that these are the last moments of the age of fire, and that humanity is well and truly fucked – or maybe transforming into something else.
I can’t wait for every review to talk about how Miyazaki’s involvement magically made this better than it otherwise would’ve been, even though nobody’ll be sure about what he did, exactly. Gotta jam that auteur theory in there, baby.
Yeah, and I wish they would go back to it. I really liked the AC4 series, but that is never coming back. But no, they like $$$ and will continue to, so expect Souls-likes for a long time.
Well, to be fair, SB was all over this in reverse with 2, so it’s not gonna be a surprise when it happens with 3. Also hilarious is that Miyazaki’s first game he was sorta head of was AC4A, but SOULS.
I think the auteur theory thing w/r/t Miyazaki is stupid too, but i can see where it came from considering that his coming to work on Demon’s Souls is generally agreed to be part of what elevated that game, and DkS2 is a weaker entry that lacks his involvement. Correlation doesn’t imply causation but you try explaining that to the games layman.
I too passed up Bloodborne because it was a choice between buying a PS4 or having any money ;_;
i hope to come back and play it at some point, because “lore”-wise and plotwise it sounds incredible and possibly the best the series has done yet.
That is partly I’m not too burned out on Souls. Also because, beyond anything else i can say about DkS2, it just doesn’t feel the same. @yarusenai just put it really well over in the “Games You Played Today” thread:
i loved dark souls so much that i am now playing dark souls 2
and uh wow it handles like ass
i modded it to get rid of the analog stick dead zones on the pc port so it’s a little better now but i still think the movement feels nowhere near as grounded or solid as the first one. i feel like the friction was turned down by 33% or something
also my character walks like he’s clenching his buttcheeks rly rly hard? i might try to weigh him down just so i don’t have to see that animation
Not to retread the dead-ass “2 is inferior” argument that i’ve seen played out all over the internet – i’m just hoping that Dark Souls 3 injects that weighty kineticism back into the series, while balancing it with the zippier combat and more aggressive enemies Bloodborne looks to have introduced. Previews and trailers i’ve seen have me cautiously optimistic that this will be the case!!
also, this opening cinematic (spoilers obv):
good golly /mops brow