As I walked into the room which contained Dark Souls 2, I was not sure what to expect. But I knew there was only death in there. Death found me, and I became its play thing - to do with as it pleased...

What is Souls?

If you haven't played Dark Souls, firstly I am sorry and you should. No game is as important to me as the Souls series, for about a hundred reasons. But, most importantly, it's a game that rewards you for your skill and experience. Souls is a total mind shift on how you sit down to game. It's just beautiful in every way.

How hard is the new Souls?

There were rumours that this much anticipated/dreaded sequel had become more 'accessible' - a FILTHY word to dedicated Souls players - but I am no longer concerned. HARD GAME IS STILL HARD + extra mean. I spent a few hours with the E3 demo of the sequel that's due out next year so I haven't seen too much. But as I awoke at the first bonfire, all those emotions tied with being helplessly lost, alone and afraid washed over my body. I've missed feeling scared. It's wonderful to have the unknown ahead. And that death is around each corner.

What happens in new Souls?

I was feeling pretty cocky after making my way through some standard, slow-moving goons who didn't hit me once.



Yeah.

There's a new backstab animation, but everything felt right. Then I lit a torch and headed down into a darkened room, only to run back out as a Turtle like mini-boss came charging at me, destroying all aforementioned confidence in a single charge.

He reminded me of how many attack patterns each enemy can have in these games, including a one-hit-kills backwards flop making backstabs impossible. OH GOD THAT CHARGE WITH WEAPON RAISED! I AM STILL THINKING ABOUT IT.

He took a couple of goes before being downed along with his sidekicks, and then I was able to continue on. The area itself looked very Souls and felt very Souls - much like the Undead Burg starting area in Dark Souls. This location was full of little pillars, ambushes and tiny bottlenecks to teach you lessons and it shows that From Software is thinking hard about every step you take in the world. Every breakable crate and barrel placement is on purpose.

Souls boss

After a rather nasty ambush by three phantoms, I warped to another zone for a boss fight. On the way, you're faced with a large bunch of rock statues that come alive plus a caster right behind them. Once again, everything is there for a reason.

There are pillars to avoid the caster, a bottleneck to slow them down and a tiny room to trap you. It's promising level design that pushes you into a corner if you don't act quickly.

Then I met the Mirror Knight.



And with it, sadness.

This heavily-armoured, medium-sized boss was beautiful and his giant DEVASTATING swings reminded me of battling Havel the Rock in Dark Souls. That is, if Havel had a giant electricity Area Of Effect swipe AND could spew mini knights from his fancy shield.

Souls is just full of cool ideas like this, and watching a little guy bust out of a mirrored shield was one of those things you want to talk about later with friends. I tried a few strategies - rolling with two-hander and slow-paced blocking - but I wasn't able to get him below half-health before I decided to call it quits. The twist with this boss was that you had to be always keeping an eye on the slow tough big guy while fighting the fast, weak, little guy. The Mirror Knight can hit you at all angles so you're constantly switching targets and crying. And you're always under pressure to manage your stamina.



Impossibru.

The most exciting thing about this boss is something we won't see until launch because apparently the mini guy is going to be a summoned human player. I'm already afraid of this fight and now I'm genuinely upset about going through it again (in a good way). I believe this is what Souls players want more of - interesting and different human interaction to mix things up. What's more fun than fighting another player who is just trying to get by in this harsh world? Doing it in a boss fight and being a jerk about it.

One of my all-time greatest gaming memories is BECOMING the boss in a particular fight in Demons Souls. MORE OF THAT PLEASE FROM SOFTWARE!

Final thoughts

It's impossible to judge or extrapolate any meaningful opinions on this short demo, but I'm going to anyway. Wheeeee...

The gameplay trailers for this game look incredible, but this PS3 build visuals didn't look any better than the last two games from my perspective. That's not a bad thing though, the last games looked great. Conceptually, and in construction, this was right up there and like I said - you can never trust early code on frames/lighting etc. But yes, PC is probably where this will shine brighter (literally). I just hope it has a bigger PC community come launch (which it should).

Based on these few hours - I feel this game is in good hands because it feels like Souls. There's the sense of familiarity and the crushing pain of failure. I had my basic set of skills - drop down attacks, backstab, leap attacks - but that's all worthless until you know your enemy. And that's how it should be.

Hold me.