Gadgetory

today's video is made possible by a ver media with all gameplay captured using the a ver media game capture HD two what's up tech fans kevin here on TECA tomorrow now one of my favorite games got a sequel this past week dark souls 2 but sadly those of us that want to play on PC are gonna have to wait till April 25th to get our hands on it well I decided why let that stop us we went ahead and picked up the console version we're going to let you guys know our thoughts on it so you have an idea of what to expect when it does come out on pc and what it does we're going to pick that up too so we can bring you an update in terms of how it performs and if there's any major changes compared to the current version so let's go ahead and check it out now before we dive right into what makes this one different from the others let's go ahead and take a moment to cover the basics of what makes a Souls game for those you guys that aren't equated with them Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are both known for their intense difficulty using a mixture of RPG and action game mechanics but with the important difference that your character isn't some flurry of crazy combos but rather you have to take your time carefully timing your attacks or else enemies are just going to wreck you you start off by picking a base class that is really just a starting package of items and stats and then you go off killing big enemies to get more power learn about the world's history and directly through items and NPC conversations and generally just tend to die again and again and again along the way now at first glance Dark Souls 2 looks a lot like the first game obviously there's some different equipment and new enemies but visually it's very much the same however once you get into the mechanics there's a lot of changes some of them might newton some of them much larger and we're just going to cover the ones that really impacted my experience with this one first off the game takes note from demon's souls and that every time you die you're max hell is going to decrease eventually to a cap of having it this of course makes dying often a very very bad thing making you all the easier of a target for enemies now just like in the first game you can use an item to restore your humanity and have full health again which also comes with a number of other benefits like being able to do co-op but in doing so you also increase your risk of being attacked by other players which will cover a little later the game does add consumable healing items which at first seems like it'd make the game a lot easier but the main reason for this is because your main healing item the Estus flask only comes with one use at the beginning you'll have to find a certain fairly rare item to up this number making healing early on something you really want to do as sparingly as possible the game's combat well looking very much the same features a lot of changes in its timing bringing if your shield actually takes a moment and rolls no longer have as many invulnerability frames as they did before making caution a bit more warranted in this one stats in this game have also been changed up a bit splitting up the formerly incredible and always necessary endurance stat into two separate ones forcing players to spread out their points a little more evenly now there are two really big changes the game that aren't really inherently good or bad they're just different and depending on who you are this may make or break your experience with this one compared to the first first off there's the fact that now once an enemy dies enough times they'll eventually stop responding so for instance let's say there's a boss they're having some trouble with and you keep fighting the same three enemies on the way to him well once you run through this enough times those enemies are just going to stop appearing and make the game a lot easier now on the one hand this does make the game a lot more forgiving and less difficult if you die often almost like it's throwing you a bone which some people just really aren't going to like on the other hand it also restricts how much you can farm enemies you can't just kill the scene guys over and over again to get a lot of souls or a lot of items now if there are enemies that do have a particularly useful item that you need to use throughout the whole game there is an item you can use to reset the respawn rate and make the enemies tougher but they are limited resource you're not going to want to be spending them left and right now the biggest change in this one that really does make it feel different from the first game is how much more nonlinear it is now this isn't to say the first Dark Souls was exactly linear but there was a very obvious suggested route you had to take to follow through the main story that showed increasing difficulty that's not really is true in this one right at the start there's two pads you can take from the starting town and it doesn't really take very long at all to open up three more routes before even fighting your first serious plot related boss now the nice thing about this is that does make the game feel a lot more open the sense of exploration is really great because you feel like you can just take your time going wherever you want and see what the game has to offer with its numerous different environments such as hauntingly beautiful ruins traditional fantasy forests or just a straight-up insane underworld now the downside to this though is that it makes the game's difficulty curve a lot more inconsistent oftentimes you'll find yourself fighting really difficult enemies early on only to fight pathetically easier ones in late game because you took another route that you ended up skipping and are now way to overleveled for it so overall how nonlinear it is is either a really good thing are really bad thing depending on what we want out of the game on the one hand it's going to make it a lot easier at times but on the other it gives you a much more complete sense of exploration being able to take time finding useful items complete side quests and discover the numerous covenants you can join now speaking of covenants this leads us to the games last major aspect it's multiplayer just like in the first one you can do co-op with friends by summoning them or being summoned by them and you can invade other players to kill them to try and get a little boost in souls now one of the nice new changes this game though is the inclusion of a special ring that actually makes it significantly easier to intentionally co-op with friends rather than just random people you simply both have to equip the ring pick the same God and you're summoning signs become way more likely to show up in each others worlds now just like in the first one there are nine different covenants whose membership alters the way pvp and PVE work now some of these are very similar to ones from the first game like the heirs of the Sun whereas others have a slightly different or expanded use like the blue sentinels who can actually be summoned to other worlds immediately in response to other players being invaded making them a sort of protector for those players that just don't feel skilled enough to handle PvP on their own I really like the approach they took with a lot of covenants in this one each one has their own flavor and unique little spin on how multiplayer works and it's worthwhile joining each one just for a little bit to see what they all have to offer so when all is said and done the one big important question that I think a lot of souls fans go back to for this is is this one as difficult as dark souls well the answer is yes and no overall the game does feel easier but this is partially due to the fact that it's so much more nonlinear you have a lot more time to power level and the fact that if you've played the first game you're not dealing with the same level of learning curve the game has some levels and bosses that are definitely on the easier side but it comes right back at you on occasion with a section or boss that just frustrates you without end even when feeling a bit easier it's still difficult enough on average to keep a Souls fan happy and the more forgiving opening makes it a much smoother introduction to the series for those either haven't played any of them personally I love this one I liked the nonlinear more exploration approach to feel to it and the fact that it's easier for me to co-op with actual friends rather than random strangers just made it a much more fun experience those who who are already dark souls fans I highly recommend this one it's worth picking up right away on console right now if you can or if you want to wait for the PC one picking it up on April 25th unless of course the nonlinear or desponding changes i mentioned earlier really turn you off and if you're not a dark souls fan this one might actually be a good way to get into it because if it's smoother opening and more forgiving difficulty at the start giving you time to actually learn how to play the game at least worth checking out sometime down the road once it goes on sale or after a price drop so that was our view of the console version of Dark Souls 2 once again once the pc version does come out we will bring you guys an update on how that one performs and if there's any major changes from this review if you want to go ahead and grab a copy for the console right now though we do have a link posted in the description and while you're down there if you enjoyed this vid please make sure to hit that like button if you're not a subscriber yet then you want to be one so we've got more reviews in the way including titanfall until then I'm Kevin protecting tomorrow and we'll see you next time and be he will