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Bottom Tier News Update:

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Shameless Promotion Time! For those of you don’t know, I [Ragachak] am one-half of Bottom Tier with ColtronXL, a Youtube channel partnered with MMOHuts/OnRPG. We do Let’s Plays mostly, whatever is on our minds at the time, and review videos for the sites when called to give our opinions on things! Not always popular or even agreed upon but so what?  But I wanted to take this time to announce one or two things coming up!

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  • Weekly Battleborn series: This one’s going to be a bit weird since we filmed the first two episodes at once.  We’re going to be doing weekly videos for MMOHuts/OnRPG, focused on new characters, as well as highlighting other characters in particular missions, going through all of them. There will also likely be special guests! Right now we’ve booked the cosplayer Missyeru! Whenever she’s free, anyway.
  • TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan:  I mentioned how this is going to get buried, and it makes me sad. This is just for funsies, and we hope you guys check it out.

Where can you find more you might ask?  RIGHT HERE.

Bandai Namco Open House ft. – Necropolis, Eternal Crusade, and SAO: Hollow Realization

By Tyler Wood (Zelus_Craft)

 

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While at Bandai Namco’s Open House event last week we got our hands on preview builds for a bunch of games, including Necropolis, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, and Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. This’ll be a rundown about the games as well some quick initial thoughts.

 

Banner_Necropolis

Necropolis

First up is Necropolis, a 3rd-person action Souls-esque co-op game billing itself as a “Diabolical Dungeon Crawler.”  As the story goes, you and your party delve deep for rumored treasure within the Necropolis – the aging labyrinthian workshop of the powerful wizard Abraxis. One of Abraxis’ creations, the Brazen Head, is tasked with monitoring the Necropolis in its master’s absence. From what we can tell, the Brazen Head has heeded this task for quite some time, and the solitude has warped its sensibilities… and humor. Something sinister lies deep within the Necropolis, as adventurers have never reemerged.

 

Necropolis_Door

Go through the door and (probably) die to three dozen enemies at once.

 

The most striking thing about Necropolis is the cel-shaded art direction. Hairbrained Schemes created their own shaders and lighting effects for the Unity Engine to give it its own unique visual style. Necropolis also has its own physics system and method to generating levels. The closest thing that Necropolis has to an antagonist is the aforementioned Brazen Head who has a very laissez faire approach to maintaining the Necropolis. As a result, its humor is both whimsicle and dark, sort of like Portal’s GLaDOS.

 

Necropolis_Temple

Hyyaaaah!!

 

Necropolis’ control scheme is very, very similar to Dark Souls’; movement, item usage, attacks, blocking, and dodges are all mapped identically with the exception of ‘jump.’ Unlike Dark Souls however, there’s an on-person crafting system that utilizes enemy drops as reagents. Necropolis feels good to play, as good as Dark Souls does with a controller, and is played in much the same way: carefully, and without mercy.

 

 

Necropolis_Bridge

No no no no no no no no nonononnnoo

 

The killer features of Necropolis are the randomly generated dungeons, the hard-but-fair difficulty and death system, the online four-player co-op, and a more straightforward approach to the dungeon crawling experience. Taking a rouge-lite and Gauntlet approach to things, up to four players slay their way through dozens of enemy types with magic, weapons, and craftable items. Unlike in Dark Souls where you usually only encounter a few enemies at once, Necropolis isn’t afraid of spawning a whole lot more with huge aggro ranges. Permadeath and friendly-fire are always active, but if there’s a remaining party member then it’s possible for the whole group to recover. In leiu of the permadeath system is the Codex, which is a journal of sorts that keep track of stats, equipable character skins/outfits, and discovered potions. Necropolis streamlines the dungeon crawling experience by way of a tiered equipment system; weapons, shields, and spells are graded on a 0 to 5 scale for damage, but they all feel distinct enough that players will develop their own preferences. Normally in dungeon crawlers players spend a lot of time poring over their inventory and stats, delaying the party, but Necropolis doesn’t have that problem at all due to the simplified equipment tiers.

 

Necropolis_Swamp

Everyone loves a swamp level.

 

It’s a nice happenstance that Bandai Namco would be publishing a Souls-like game in addition to Dark Souls III this year. Necropolis is currently in closed beta in an effort to polish up things in preparation for a summer 2016 release on PC, Mac, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. We’re looking forward to its release; it’s going to be fun for any souls players looking for a more cooperative experience when they’re done with Dark Souls III.

 

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Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade

Next up is Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade, a 3rd person action shooter from Behaviour Interactive. Eternal Crusade brings large scale goal-oriented battles to the table with 15v15, 30v30, and horde modes. Featuring four races (Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Orcs, and the Eldar) with their own subclasses, Eternal Crusade will have quite a bit of playstyle variety. For those who haven’t seen any gameplay, it’s like a brutally gorgeous mash of Gears of War and Battlefield, except with more death, honor and “WAAAAUGH.”

 

WH40KEC_01

Prepare to die, heretic.

 

Games Workshop is usually highly involved in ensuring a Warhammer Game maintains authenticity and likeness to the franchise, but from what we’ve been told they haven’t needed to be very hands-on because the developers over at Behaviour Interactive are fans of the Warhammer 40K franchise themselves. As such, have been keeping the game inline with the series’ universe on their own accord. In keeping with the theme, all sorts of weaponry ranging from bolters, flamers, and plasma weapons to psychic powers are already playable or planned for the game’s release. Upper echelon units like dreadnaughts and librarians may make a playable appearance, or so we’re told.

 

WH40KEC_02

Well, at least he died with a nice view?

 

Visually and gameplay-wise what we saw looked good. Eternal Crusade is simultaneously shiny and grimy; battle beaten combatants covered in shimmering scratches over muddy terrain is standard fare. Thanks to the Unreal 4 engine the skybox, lighting, and particle effects are appropriately active and vibrant. In other words, it’s true to the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K artwork and books. Meanwhile, gameplay is focused on weighty movement, melee combat, and holding the lines at a close to midrange distance against self-forming squads of enemies pseudo-bunker jumping between cover. Teammates can pick eachother up to prevent bleeding out, but reinforcement mechanics like drop pods haven’t (and maybe won’t) be implemented.

 

WH40KEC_03

Stand strong, my brothers!

 

As mentioned previously, Eternal Crusade will feature large teams and objective based maps and gameplay of up to 30v30 (hopefully even larger modes to come), but it’ll also have a horde mode featuring multi-man defense against an onslaught of Tyranids. Whether or not the horde mode will allow for multiple factions to engage the mutual enemy, or allow for PvP within it, has yet to be determined.

 

WH40KEC_04

A heavy bolder against several predators – that won’t end well.

 

It’s noteworthy that Behaviour Interactive has been highly engaged and transparent with their community, hosting weekly livestreams on Twitch and releasing VODs on YouTube. As it stands, two of the factions are currently playable (Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines) while the others are in internal testing. We’ve been told that a steady stream of content updates is scheduled to follow after the release of the game, and microtransactions related to character and loadout customizations have yet to be determined. Standing back a second, it seems like a match made in heaven – a well-established franchise, an enthusiastic developer, and a die-hard fanbase are combining to make a great game.

Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is planned to be releasing sometime this year, and it’s already available via Early Access on Steam ($39.99) with over 50,000 registered players.

 

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Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization

Wrapping it up is Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. Featuring an original story branched from the main series, supervised by Reki Kawahara, and a throwback VRMMO setting called Sword Art: Origin, this game will certainly turn some heads.

 

SAO_HR_Title_screen

Link start!

 

The story is still unfolding, so bear with us. Hollow Realization takes place after the main Gun Gale Online story arc and is set in a “new” game called Sword Art: Origin – which was built using Sword Art: Online’s servers (which if you think about it, is about as tactful as making a Twin Tower survival game for New Yorkers post 9-11 after how badly the whole Sword Art fiasco went for Japan). In the world of Ainground, instead of Aincrad, Kirito pursues a lead about someone returning to Sword Art: Online and is subsequently trapped, again, within the virtual world. Ainground shares many similarities with Aincrad, and many of Kirito’s friends show up in the game as well, somehow lured back into the death trap they once escaped. The mystery is further compounded by the introduction of a new AI, “Premiere,” who will “play a critical role in the story.” Clearly there’s some trickery afoot, and it’s up to Kirito to push through it.

SAO_HR_Combat

Hollow Realization is the most MMO-esque of the Sword Art Online games thus far with a familiar HUD layout, party chatter, ability hotbar, mob pods and bosses, and AI-controlled parties hunting and questing nearby. Though it’s not actually an MMO, you will still be able to cooperatively play with up to three friends in a party (though everyone plays as Kirito in the main game – we’re not sure exactly how player customization or multiplayer works yet). Hollow Realization is said to also feature a seamless open world, and from what we saw in our hands-on demo this is true.

SAO_HR_Equipment

Hollow Realization plays like a 3rd person Action/Adventure RPG, and very similarly to the past games with real-time inputs (read: some button mashing), dodging, and the ‘switch’ mechanic leading into combos. There’s a whole bunch of abilities ranging from counters, more powerful and frequent attacks, as well as jumps and dashes to make both combat and world traversal more manageable. By default, movement feels a little slow, so we anticipate players spamming their jump and dashes, and consequently draining their SP meter, to get around more quickly.

SAO_HR_Combat2

In the demo we played the HUD is a bit distracting, and overactive in combat; too much of the interface edges toward the center of the screen, and the HUD elements are not well situated in the corners or customizable like in an actual MMOs. Character callouts – whether in Japanese or English – and damage numbers are claustrophobic as the floating text overlays itself above important information like healthbars and pretty much everything else. On the other hand, the equipment HUD is clean and focused. There’s a real need for uniformity and polish for the combat HUD to provide a better play experience.

 

SAO_HR_Field

Lookin’ pretty good.

 

Fans of the series will be delighted to see the visuals in Hollow Realization; it’s clearly the best looking SAO videogame to date. Fans will also be glad to know that the game will feature both Japanese and English voice acting with optional English, Spanish, and French subtitles. Though it’s not an MMO, it’s one step closer to what we’ve all been waiting for, and will keep eager players entertained.

No firm release date has been announced yet, but Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization is scheduled for a release on both of Sony’s active platforms later this year.

DiscStorm Review: Murdering Hipsters with Frisbees

By Jason Harper (Hhean)

DiscStorm Review

Ah, the frisbee. Great for messing about in any park, beach or aunt’s house. DiscStorm tries to lever that iconic circular bit of plastic to make a frantic top-down shooter.

I think from just looking at the screenshots you can tell that this isn’t a very serious game.

The controls are easy to pick up. You move about, throw frisbees, deflect frisbees or pick up frisbees in the air. I rather wish that last one was mapped better, as currently the three main buttons are easy to access on a keyboard, but on a controller the “pick up” function is bound to one of your face buttons, which is a real pain as your thumb needs to flick between it and the right analogue with some real speed if you want to catch anything. In addition to this, the controller’s movement and aiming feels slugging compared to the keyboard and mouse, likely due to some kind of odd scaling going on with the analogues sticks.

Usually in a game like this you would want to keep on the move, so the limited directional inputs of the keyboard would be a big hindrance, but accuracy takes a precedent due to the low ammunition count, tight spaces, and either high enemy count (In single player) or very fast moving targets (In multiplayer). It doesn’t matter if you can plod around with precision if the enemy are busy hurling bits of plastic at you from one corner of the level to another.

As a result, the mouse and keyboard becomes a great option, since you can see exactly where your shots are going using the mouse cursor. However, this has two rather annoying downsides. The first is that all the menus are only navigable by keyboard, and don’t accept any mouse input at all, which is a clear hold-over from the intended controller input. I’d say it’s the mark of a poor PC port, but this is a PC exclusive. The second issue is that when playing locally, either you fight over who gets the keyboard and mouse, or you all agree to use the worse input method, greatly diminishing what should be the game’s real strength.

DiscStorm Review

The entire single player captured in one screenshot

Single player is a repetitive load of nonsense. Maps with similar layouts and enemy types are recycled so many times I swear I started to see the wear and tear on the sprites. As an aside, if you are shoehorning zombies as an enemy type into a game that is not explicitly about some kind of zombie apocalypse scenario, you are utterly scraping the bottom of the creativity barrel.

Every level follows the exact same format. You fight a wave of mobs, then a mini-boss, then another wave of mobs, then a tougher version of the same miniboss, then yet more mobs, then the boss. One of the levels even draws attention to this format, and makes a joke about how bad it is. It’s like the designers of the game are trying to pass off poor design by saying “Hey, at least we have a sense of humour over how bad this is.” I’m honestly not sure if I find that endearing or grating.

Some of the boss fights are interesting, while the minibosses swing between entertaining and frustrating. There is an encounter with some sirens where you have to drag a cannon about at a snail’s pace while avoiding a screen-full of projectiles that was more irritating than it was difficult.

Maps are the same size and shape, but do vary in terrain. This is okay in multiplayer, but in the single player it feels rather cheap and samey. Once you have fought in one letterbox shaped area, you kind of feel like you’ve fought in them all. What annoys me the most about this is that the frisbee is pretty much the icon of wide, open spaces, and yet you space the whole game in cramped environments. Giving the player some room to breath would have helped the game incredibly.

DiscStorm Review

You’d best start believing in Faustian stories, Miss Frisbee. You’re in one.

If the controller’s controls didn’t emulate pushing a greased up fat man around a mattress, the local multiplayer would be pretty good.  You fight a series of small bouts on the various different maps, each with a special rule on them. Beyond simple deathmatch you have one hit kills, capture the flag, collecting coins (or discs), king of the hill and a few others besides. These add a good amount of variety to the way each match is played, and give the game longer legs than it would have had otherwise. On the other hand, I do think that these different mode are almost a concession that the core play hasn’t been made to feel as good as it could be, and so is trying to distract the player with some shiny objects.

When not actually in a match though, the game still is stumbling all over itself. As far as I could tell, you can’t pick which levels to play on, or select if you want to enable/disable any game types. So if you really enjoy the factory level, and maybe want to do some high stake one-hit-kill nonsense with your friends, well screw you. You’re doing deathmatch on the pirate boat. The other rather annoying problem is that once a match is done, you get booted straight back to the main menu, so everyone then has to reselect the multiplayer option and get their characters in order before going at it again. A “Replay” button would have helped the flow of things greatly.

The music is the highlight of the game. Hands down. No question. While a few of the tracks loop quickly and feel a bit bland, they seem to be largely confined to the menus. The map specific tunes are a great listen that nail the old SNES days far better than the aesthetics.

I came into DiscStorm happy to get up to some real silly nonsense, but it’s unfortunately just a bit bland. You’re better off playing Towerfall: Ascension or Titan Souls. Both are games that use a similar mechanic where you are using a limited number of projectiles that you often need to go and retrieve, only the idea is better executed. Towerfall even did a similar format to its singleplayer content, with its maps being used for both singleplayer and multiplayer, and dealing with waves of enemies. It manages to handle this to create a great experience that’s best had co-op, while also delivering on some frantic local multiplayer action. This game is really only worth a look if you’ve played both, are tired of them and are looking for something much worse, but still similar enough to scratch an itch.

DiscStorm Review

A rare photo of that time Hitler fought mecha-Sauron while dressed as a lumberjack.

Overall Rating – Poor

It’s worth wasting a few hours on once the game drops below $5 or so. It may be worth the investment once online is added in a few months, since its competition lack that functionality. Only other reason is you really enjoy this kind of thing, and want something cheap.

Graphics: 2/5

It looks like something you’d find on Kongregate. Tries to go for the SNES look, but doesn’t quite get it. The UI doesn’t fit the theme, the larger scale character art doesn’t fit the sprites, and a number of the ‘pixels’ haven’t been scaled properly, so the look of the in game characters and environments don’t often work. Loads of recycled assets in the single player.

Controls: 2/5

The game plays like ass with a controller, and while it’s better on keyboard, you tend to slide around like a drunken ice skater.

Features: 2/5

The single player is short and repetitive. The local multiplayer is good for a few rounds, but lacks the variety of Towerfall. There’s no online at the time of writing, though it will be coming later.

Sound/Music: 4/5

Great music that really nails the best of the SNES era.

Rising Thunder Alpha Look

By Jason Harper (Hhean), Yup he’s back!

 
Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

Rising Thunder is a PC exclusive fighting game with free to play and netplay in mind. It wants to be an accessible gateway into the fighting game genre for those who aren’t familiar with it, which is a good move since the PC isn’t the platform of choice for the more established fighting game players out there.

Picking up the game for the first time will feel familiar to anyone who’s even briefly played street fighter 4. The pacing to a match, the speed of attacks and the movement of the character is all very similar to Capcom’s powerhouse of the genre.

This pacing similarity doesn’t extend to the controls, however. Instead of the six button array of light, medium and heavy attacks split between punches and kicks, you have an array of eight buttons. Only three of these actually relates to a character’s normal attacks, which are simply categorised as light, medium, and heavy normal attacks, with no differentiation between when a character punches or kicks. This makes the remaining buttons unusual for fighting games, as special attacks aren’t done by pressing a series of directions then a normal button but instead are assigned to three other buttons. This reduces the time between picking up the game and entering a match dramatically, as you only need to spend a short while in training messing about with combos before being fully versed in a character’s tools, and happy to take things online. Even throws and supers are bound to their own buttons, which can be a blessing and a curse. Supers are much easier to thread into a combo, as they have harder inputs than a normal special in most fighting games. Throws on the other hand I find a bit harder to deal with, as the button needed to use and tech them has to be a bit out of the way rather than simply hitting two buttons my fingers would normally be over anyway.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

Even the game’s combos are far easier than other fighting games. There’s very few links, and they’re not necessary as most practical combos are done with target combos, special cancels and juggles. Even then, the windows for cancelling into a special from a normal is pretty huge, and most of the juggle combos are built so you can just mash the button you want until the move comes out. There are numerous exceptions to this rule, and we’ll likely see some more complicated stuff as the game ages, but for now it’s pretty easy to pick up, even if you didn’t know the basics before giving the game a go.

This leaves the game to focus on the neutral game, moving back and forth while fishing for combos using normals, or keeping the enemy under control using projectiles. The game’s neutral is a grounded affair, much like street fighter. The air is a dangerous place to be, since your jump trajectory and timings are predictable (Unless you’re playing one member of the cast, Vlad). No hops, no super jumps, air dashes or other shenanigans here.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

This is the game’s biggest strength, and its biggest draw. Since all execution in the game has been deliberately simplified, no one is going to screw up a combo; any losses caused by something getting dropped are going to be exceptionally rare. Wiggling back and forth, measuring your opponent’s attacks and reading their habits will win you every match of Rising Thunder. It’s a great way for people to just pick the game up and immediately get to experience what fighting games really are about at their core – controlling the right amount of space at the right time.

Reversals on most of the cast are pretty bad, so pressure can be hard to shake off once your opponent is on top of you. This makes the neutral game even more important, as getting a single opening can lead to the match swinging hard in one player’s favour for a while as they go for a variety of mixups and throws. That said, the huge advantage of all the game’s reversals is that due to no longer requiring an input they are incredibly reliable, and come out quicker than in other games due to the decreased time it takes to execute the move itself. Doing a predictable action (like a jump in) will result in it being punished with absolute consistency by a good player who’s looking out for such tricks.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

The way a character glows to show they are invincible or armoured is a nice touch that allows you to know when you’re losing and how. In most fighting games, you simply need to know that a particular move gives you invincibility either through trial and error, or looking up a guide online. Well, or it looks like a shoryuken. This works really well both ways. If your opponent falls for the trap of hitting you while you’re not able to be damaged, they know why they lost. However, it also lets them know the exact moment they can smash your face in if the attack whiffs. Even if I were tepid on the rest of Rising Thunder (which I’m really not), I would want this visual indicator included in more fighting games.

The most technical thing the game has is its Kinetic systems. Before a match begins you are given the option of picking between two ways of spending the Kinetic bar that fills during the course of a match. Kinetic Deflect is the same as the Burst found in many anime fighters, allowing you to slam any two special buttons at the same time to blow an opponent off you, even mid combo. This would be a great defensive tool if the combos in the game’s combos were a bit longer and hit that much harder.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

Currently though the only real option is Kinetic Advance, which allows you to cancel any attack into a dash or jump, making your character go from the active frames of their attack to neutral instantly. This allows you to do some pretty heft extensions on a character’s combos, and also lets you backdash out of unsafe moves. Bursting seems less appealing when you can simply have this great combo tool while also being able to backdash cancel a reversal to get you out of any situation you please.

While I like having the ability to customise your loadout in this manner, I think it would be better if the player could have access to both these options during a match. As it stands right now there’s not really a choice between them, but in the rare times where a Deflect would be needed, it would be more satisfying to bust it out and understand that you just spent the resource that could have led to the big damage that brings you back into the driver’s seat of the match.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

The online play is structured as a best of three matches, with each match being a best of three rounds. This longer format lets you get enough time with an opponent to begin to learn their tricks. If you lose, you genuinely played worse than the other person, rather than getting caught off guard by a new gimmick and having your opponent run off with their matchmaking points.

The netcode is currently solid, but not as stable as I would like in a fighting game explicitly built with netplay in mind. It holds up in most games, but slowdown isn’t unknown. The worst problem in the alpha is one where after a match is done, a desync error can occur that resets the match counter to 0, nullifying the previous victory entirely. Having had this work both for and against me online, it’s a rather frustrating problem that hopefully will get ironed out as the game closes in on release.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

Overall the game is surprisingly polished right now. The cast seem fairly well balanced, with no obviously dominant character just blowing up the competition. The only real indications that the game is just an alpha is the lack of features, with the big omissions being no custom lobbies for playing with friends, and no LAN or local support for taking it offline. More minor quibbles are the lack of stage and music variety, and the lack of dummy options in training mode. However, given just how early a stage the game is currently in, these are all likely to be added in the future, along with a few new members of the cast.

Given the ease of access alongside a decent depth found through spatial control, a good match pace and a small yet clearly varied cast of robots, Rising Thunder is looking like a really good fighting game. I think I’d be saying that even if it was charging full price, so the added benefit of it being free to play at launch can only sweeten the deal.

Rising Thunder Alpha Impressions

Now I think I’m going to afford this game a rare honour – I’m going to go straight back to playing it after I’m done writing this. As should you, as by the time you’re reading this, the game will be open for all to experience!

Dark Souls III Press Event Recap

By Tyler Wood (Zelus_Craft)

Dark Souls III Early Access

“Make Napa Valley the Sun Yours”

Last week Bandai Namco invited me out to one of the more beautiful parts of California: The Napa Valley. I was one of the many press, Youtube stars, and streaming sensations invited to wine, feast, and fight to prepare for the first Dark Souls III hands-on demo. You best believe the sun was praised (thank you sun, for your gloriously incandescent 102°F weather) because it was a great time.

Dark Souls III Early Access

“After an afternoon of build up it was finally time to… fight eachother?”

The demo we played strongly resembled what was shown behind closed doors at E3 a couple of months ago, and a couple tiny bits from the announcement trailer appear in it as well.

Dark Souls III Early Access

Atop the crumbling Wall of Lodeleth I began with a familiar set of plate mail armor, a straight sword and shield, and a stock of Estus Flasks. Without any friendly faces to assist me, I was on my own. Down and to the right were two seemingly dead-end corridors populated by the resident undead soldiers, archers, and attack dogs. Down and to the left lay a withering dragon and docile, praying hollows. Once, one of these praying hollowed transformed into a large, black, aggressive gelatinous slime with thick tentacles that whipped around wildly. Beyond the deceased dragon were twisted multi-level towers branching off into small courtyards and other wall tops with yet more undead and hollowed. In the most inconvenient of locations lurked what appeared to be patrolling Balder Knights whom would repeatedly stagger and destroy all who opposed them.

Above a parallel set of walls rested a live dragon, breathing fire into corridors toward wherever it detected movement. Down below, in a large courtyard where all the paths eventually converged, stood a pair of hall doors protected by a nearby hulking beast suited in shimmering golden armor. Along the way down to this courtyard and beast were occasional gravesites that could be lit. Once illuminated in a blue flame, the epitaphs would reveal some tidbits of the world – hardly substantial, but interesting nonetheless. Inside the hall doors skulked the boss – the Dancer of the Frigid Valley. Further still, beyond the hall and under the Wall was yet another boss – a hidden one.

Dark Souls III Early Access

“’Dancing’ probably means something different where she’s from.”

Depending on how the descent to the inner courtyard fared, different weapons such as a greatsword and dual scimitars could be acquired, alongside an overabundance of green blossoms, throwing knives, charcoal pine resin, and firebombs. Each weapon set differed in their utilization – this is called Weapon Arts. The scimitars had a spinning attack while the greatsword had a launching attack that could send enemies upward. Depending on the shield equipped in the offhand, or if no shield is equipped at all, different stances could be entered which enabled greater damaging blows and other benefits.

Dark Souls III Early Access

“The new weapon arts are both flashy and extremely deadly.”

Aside from the additions of Weapon Arts, very little in Dark Souls III is much different from Dark Souls I and II with the exception of the movement speed. Movement within Dark Souls III is much faster paced than before but it’s quite as fast as in Bloodborne. The demo build I played lacked any inventory and leveling menus, so I couldn’t test exactly how equipment weight and endurance/dexterity/agility points affected movement speed, but the overall base movement speed is certainly higher than before. Weapon Arts spice up the combat a little, and it’s refreshing to have new attack options available without making the combat itself much more complex. Beware of Weapon Arts with regards to shields though – not all shields can parry; some have stance mechanics instead.

Dark Souls III Early Access

“The ready stance has a tight window of usage – be careful.”

The demo build was generally stable, but the framerate varied wildly in some parts. The framerate typically stayed put at a nice 60 on the provided computer (some model of Razer Blade), but near an elevator and in between some rooms it tanked below 30 and would hitch every once in a while mid-fight. Textures throughout the demo seemed muddy, but were somewhat saved by the specular mapping. There was also a distinct lack of any options menu and any form of anti-aliasing. Blood and other effects like sparks and fire looked completely unchanged from the previous titles too. In its current state Dark Souls III is not much to look at up close, but the overall openness and design of Wall of Lodeleth was great.

Dark Souls III Early Access

“Muddy, jaggy, and flat texturework made better by specular mapping and ambient lighting.”

There was a lack of multiplayer in the demo build, too. Though this is not too much of a surprise because something like that is usually left until the later stages of development, but it would have been nice to see if the multiplayer was changed from the other Souls games.

From Software is still not big on upfront story telling so if you’re interested in the lore then you’ll need to comb over every aspect of the game as you play through it or wait until the community drafts up some presentations and summaries. In the demo, all of the story elements I experienced through short gravestone epitaphs and a 15-second cutscene introducing the Dancer of the Frigid Valley fight.

Dark Souls III Early Access

“Sadly, you could not actually reach this dragon in the hands-on demo. :c”

My time with the demo was short-lived – less than 90 minutes if I recall correctly, but a more seasoned player wise to From Software’s way of hiding shortcuts could probably complete the demo in 25 minutes. Visual nitpicks aside, it was a very enjoyable experience and exactly what I expect from a Souls game. I sincerely hope that From Software will take the time to polish the graphics and steady the framerate before releasing the game early next year.

Full Gameplay Image Gallery:

Napa Valley Event Gallery:

Questions or comments? Post them below!