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[soontroll]

I never took interest in DS1 until recently, but I'd like to try DS2 first because it's new and exciting....and i'm just weird like that.

Depending on how much free time you have, you can potentially finish DS1 before DS2 comes out.

 

[Tain]

Dark Souls 2 definitely has lower quality textures. Maybe it's the new GI light map stuff taking up that texture memory.

It's definitely a surprising trade-off, but I think a lot of the areas in DS2 look better.

 

[Speevy]

I always thought that with more games, the Souls universe would either become so grimy and dark that it wouldn't appeal to most people, or so medieval fantasy-inspired that fans would think it had gone soft. I never thought there would be a graphics debate since so much of the Souls' visuals are attributed to fantastic art design.

I think this is a case of a game that had to get released because the generation is waning.

 

[Crab Milk Mickey]

Except you can't really know that until you see the textures at high resolution, which the console version doesn't have. That is the entire point of the comparison. THat's what Dark Souls 1 textures looked like on consoles before DSfix.

But you can already know that, by virtue that Dark Souls II on consoles doesn't run at sub-HD anymore (which the original did on the same platforms) and the textures overall still look consistently murkier than DSfix Dark Souls 1 at 720p, barring some exceptions here and there. Just take a look at the direct-feed screenshots Namco / FROM themselves have published (likely taken at a higher resolution as well) and you can conclude the same thing. This was already visible with the pre-downgrade gameplay reveal too, in all fairness.

I mean: I understand why texture quality took a hit. They're pushing more graphical tricks like dynamic lighting, much better particle effects for spells, vastly improved water and so forth, so they had to sacrifice something.

That is so strange as From said they doubled the art team early in development.

I wonder if they bit off more than they could chew with this one. There are numerous inconsistencies between development and release.

This is the impression I got, yes.

 

[Kieli]

There's a theory that this game was developed by a B or even a C-team.

If you look at the credits, a lot of the "heads" were replaced or new.

 

[CountAntonius]

There's a theory that this game was developed by a B or even a C-team.

If you look at the credits, a lot of the "heads" were replaced or new.

It a really disrespectful claim given that they had enough talent to make one of the best games of this generation. It's almost like people think only one set of people have talent and they picked these new guys off the streets. It's ridiculous and show how badly people want to find any reason to shit on it.

 

[antitrop]

Generally speaking, Dark Souls II's texture quality is not comparable to that of the first game's. Some areas are still finely detailed, but don't expect another gap like the .gif you posted just by bumping up the resolution. SweetFX et al isn't going to change this. This isn't limited to the environment either: returning armor sets look worse in Dark Souls II as well.

I fully expect this, even if we won't know 100% for sure until the end of the month.

 

[EatinOlives]

Unbelievable that Dark Souls II happens to look worse than DS1, especially after From insisted so much that they were working really hard to have a large graphical leap between the two games.

What the hell happened?

 

[RK9039]

There's a theory that this game was developed by a B or even a C-team.

If you look at the credits, a lot of the "heads" were replaced or new.

Someone posted a chart of that. Most of the "heads" weren't replaced, they just increased the amount of people working on the game and replaced some people here and there.

 

[TheCongressman1]

I always thought that with more games, the Souls universe would either become so grimy and dark that it wouldn't appeal to most people, or so medieval fantasy-inspired that fans would think it had gone soft. I never thought there would be a graphics debate since so much of the Souls' visuals are attributed to fantastic art design.

I think this is a case of a game that had to get released because the generation is waning.

From what I have experienced so far the art and design just isn't up to the level it was in the first game. It's very inconsistent.

 

[Vazra]

Granted Eternal Sonata has a fixed camera angle but the textures are much more clear and exhibit a sense of uncompressed texture-levels of detail. Not only that but the lighting is very distinct and the shadows are well represented. Dark Souls II looks like a hackneyed job at trying to show some level of graphical finesse when it doesn't.

You are talking about different art directions and IIRC Eternal Sonata was very linear and the maps were mostly small corridors so of course they can get away with putting the texture quality they have. If you wanna compare Dark Souls with another game pick something on similar to Dark Souls. Eternal Sonata modeling is basic for most of the part except the characters but the textures are great thanks to the corners they cut in order to push such visuals. Dark Souls has more things going around the stage for most of the part.

 

[wutwutwut]

I was playing the PS3 ver at a friend's yesterday and dear god the framerate and load times sucked. Looking forward to the PC version.

(I never played Dark Souls 1 on PS3, only on PC.)

 

[Eusis]

Something worth remembering is that From has historically been there at or near launch for every generation launch from the PS1 in Japan onwards, with this latest batch of consoles being the biggest exception with nothing (that I know of) immediately in the pipeline. Perhaps Dark Souls II was meant to be this and whether or not it was it really should have been, at a minimum as a cross gen title but I think it's the kind of game that early adopters WOULD want most anyway. Even if it got blasted for basically looking like a prettied up PS3/360 game it probably would've at least had the lighting people wanted, nevermind 1080p and/or 60FPS.

Of course, this probably runs into the problem mentioned before about the size of the game, though in this case it may also be Namco being Namco, and From was relatively under the radar before anyway so they probably weren't particularly concerned about leaving behind fanbases or anything.

 

[Big_Al]

Unbelievable that Dark Souls II happens to look worse than DS1, especially after From insisted so much that they were working really hard to have a large graphical leap between the two games.

What the hell happened?

Ambition and Budget vs Release Date and time they had ?

 

[Despera]

Unbelievable that Dark Souls II happens to look worse than DS1, especially after From insisted so much that they were working really hard to have a large graphical leap between the two games.

What the hell happened?

In what way does it look worse? So far I think it looks better for the most part.

 

[Tain]

Unbelievable that Dark Souls II happens to look worse than DS1

Better lighting (better light maps and ssao), smoother performance (360), lower-resolution textures. I'm not ready to say that it's worse-looking overall.

 

[HeelPower]

You are talking about different art directions and IIRC Eternal Sonata was very linear and the maps were mostly small corridors so of course they can get away with putting the texture quality they have. If you wanna compare Dark Souls with another game pick something on similar to Dark Souls. Eternal Sonata modeling is basic for most of the part except the characters but the textures are great thanks to the corners they cut in order to push such visuals. Dark Souls has more things going around the stage for most of the part.

Souls are probably some of the best looking open world RPGs on consoles.I think they do a really good job on this front.

I can only think of GTAV as a game that looks amazing and is open world on consoles.That was a 265 million$ game five years in the making.

However, I amnot knowlegable on the technical aspects of development, so maybe other games are technically better.I do enjoy looking at these games.

Earthen peak is the one area I genuinely thought was ugly in DS2.

 

[Maxwood]

It's gonna be my first Souls experience, I ordered it from cdkeys.com.. it's only £19.45 there.

Woah, that's cheap! Not region-locked or anything?
Anyhow, whatever it might be, thanks for the tip. Bookmarked.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

cdkeys.com is legit, right? If GMG doesn't come through I will just use my card there.

 

[Alo81]

cdkeys.com is legit, right? If GMG doesn't come through I will just use my card there.

Assuming it's like most keys sites, you'll get an international key as long as the game isn't region locked.

It's not official in that they're not official sellers of Steam keys, like Steam, Amazon, GMG, etc. They buy them cheap from other countries then resell them for a profit.

Generally, you'll get your key but it does have a shady feeling to it. When it comes to something like Dark Souls II, I'd rather order from a genuine seller so I know that more of my money is actually going to devs(more appropriately publishers).

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Assuming it's like most keys sites, you'll get an international key as long as the game isn't region locked.

It's not official in that they're not official sellers of Steam keys, like Steam, Amazon, GMG, etc. They buy them cheap from other countries then resell them for a profit.

Generally, you'll get your key but it does have a shady feeling to it. When it comes to something like Dark Souls II, I'd rather order from a genuine seller so I know that more of my money is actually going to devs(more appropriately publishers).

Yea, I know what you mean. Hoping GMG comes through to save me a bit of money, I'd rather pay the extra $6 or so (It's $33.15 on cdkeys) and give them my business because I love GMG.

 

[takoyaki]

It's gonna be my first Souls experience, I ordered it from cdkeys.com.. it's only £19.45 there.

Thanks for the tip! You just got me to double-dip. £19.45 seems like a fair price if you've bought the game before on console.

 

[Orthogonal]

I was playing the PS3 ver at a friend's yesterday and dear god the framerate and load times sucked. Looking forward to the PC version.

(I never played Dark Souls 1 on PS3, only on PC.)

That's what I'm looking forward too most. I hear load times in the digital version of the game on PS360 fairs better, but it will still pale in comparison to my SSD. That's probably as big of a reason to upgrade to PC version even if some of the other hot button issues aren't resolved.

 

[wutwutwut]

That's what I'm looking forward too most. I hear load times in the digital version of the game on PS360 fairs better, but it will still pale in comparison to my SSD. That's probably as big of a reason to upgrade to PC version even if some of the other hot button issues aren't resolved.

We were playing the *digital* version off of a fast (custom) hard drive. Load times were still well over 10 seconds.

 

[Garcia]

We were playing the *digital* version off of a fast (custom) hard drive. Load times were still well over 10 seconds.

That's exactly why anyone considering playing the PC version should avoid the console releases. Loading times in (PC) Dark Souls never go above 4 seconds (HDD). I suppose SSDs are between the 0-2 secs range.

 

[Durante]

Dark Souls 2 definitely has lower quality textures. Maybe it's the new GI light map stuff taking up that texture memory.

It's definitely a surprising trade-off, but I think a lot of the areas in DS2 look better.

I wouldn't expect that to necessarily be the case in the PC version. One thing from has explicitly mentioned regarding the PC version of DS2, beyond resolution and framerate, is texture quality. They have never lied about the PC version of either the first or the second title.

(And it would make sense in terms of the production pipeline to keep higher res textures for the PC version if you are required to downscale them for consoles due to memory limitations. Unlike maintaining separate versions of the whole lighting engine, it's a minimal overhead)

 

[Grief.exe]

We were playing the *digital* version off of a fast (custom) hard drive. Load times were still well over 10 seconds.

CPU processing on even the current gen consoles is woefully inadequate, let alone last-gen.

Digital helps to speed up the reading times, but there are still other bottlenecks.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

GMG was unable to honor my request for the 25% off coupon. Hmm..

Where to go from here.

 

[JaseC]

GMG was unable to honor my request for the 25% off coupon. Hmm..

Where to go from here.

Nuuvem. BRL$85 = ~USD$38

 

[Nags]

Yeah that's exactly what I'm doing. I wonder why the expectations are unrealistic though, since FromSoft was fond of advertising this 'unrealistic' expectation multiple times until one to two months before release as if it was the real thing.

Things change in game development. Do you really make this much of a fuss over every game that doesn't look exactly like its promotional material? I don't give a shit if anyone buys the game but the whole #youlied bullshit is embarrassing.

 

[Tarin02543]

As I couldn't stand the wait anymore I bought DS1 on Steam (finished the game on ps3) to fill in the gap.

This game plays wonderful on my mechanical keyboard, I use IJKL as camera control. Anyone else who plays like this (no mouse)?

 

[Trace]

As I couldn't stand the wait anymore I bought DS1 on Steam (finished the game on ps3) to fill in the gap.

This game plays wonderful on my mechanical keyboard, I use IJKL as camera control. Anyone else who plays like this (no mouse)?

You are the first person I have ever seen that can actually use the keyboard controls. Props to you, I couldn't stand it and needed to use my DS4

 

[soontroll]

Things change in game development. Do you really make this much of a fuss over every game that doesn't look exactly like its promotional material? I don't give a shit if anyone buys the game but the whole #youlied bullshit is embarrassing.

I can understand that things change during development. However, a downgrade as bad as this (it's not that it isn't exactly like the promotional material, it's that it's nothing like the promotional material), and advertising the game in the pre-downgrade form until the end of Jan for consoles and a weeks ago for PC when they removed the steam screenshots? And how they made a shitty statement about the console versions and haven't yet had the decency to say anything about why the PC version is downgraded too? That's not acceptable to me.

I did the same for BF4 after DICE fucked me over with BF3 and will do the same for every other company/game whose practices I don't like. Why do you care if I don't support them?

I didn't take part in the #youlied twitter thing since I don't have an account.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

Nuuvem. BRL$85 = ~USD$38

An angel has answered me. Thanks, forgot about them!

Can you walk me through making a home address and purchase (I live in the US)? I do not have a Paypal account, but I do have a debit card.

DSII is region free so far right? Edit: actually seems like the checkout page is letting me go through with creating another paypal, so it might work without filling out the addresses on the Nuveem profile.

 

[Gurrry]

Ive said it before but I feel as though the art direction in this game suffered massively due to it going to a T rating.

I know I cant look too much into it, but you can just feel/tell that everything isnt as dark and demonic as the first games. There were many spiritual undertones in DeS and DKS that simply arent there in DS2.

 

[SargerusBR]

Ive said it before but I feel as though the art direction in this game suffered massively due to it going to a T rating.

I know I cant look too much into it, but you can just feel/tell that everything isnt as dark and demonic as the first games. There were many spiritual undertones in DeS and DKS that simply arent there in DS2.

There's stuff in DS2 that rivals Silent Hill, that T rating is a joke.

 

[symphonask]

DS2's best areas look better than DS1's best areas and DS2's worst areas look worse than DS1's worst areas. DS1 is more consistent while DS2 is bigger.

People will have differing opinions on its quality but I don't think anyone can deny that DS2 isn't a worthy sequel. I can't wait to play it again on PC come April 25th.

 

[nbthedude]

Ive said it before but I feel as though the art direction in this game suffered massively due to it going to a T rating.

I know I cant look too much into it, but you can just feel/tell that everything isnt as dark and demonic as the first games. There were many spiritual undertones in DeS and DKS that simply arent there in DS2.

Yeah ESRB comes down pretty hard on lighting and tone.

. . .

 

[Garcia]

There's stuff in DS2 that rivals Silent Hill, that T rating is a joke.

I only literally went WTF at two specific parts in the whole game:

Spoiler

Creepy toad boss and that homage to Silent Hill monster holding off the caged milfanito

. Other than that, there aren't any other creepy moments worth mentioning.

 

[Vazra]

Ive said it before but I feel as though the art direction in this game suffered massively due to it going to a T rating.

I know I cant look too much into it, but you can just feel/tell that everything isnt as dark and demonic as the first games. There were many spiritual undertones in DeS and DKS that simply arent there in DS2.

The game still has gore, still has some boobs covered by hair. There are grotesque monsters still. The rating on the Soul games were done poorly as they ae T material as it never had extreme gore or sexual content.

The rating isnt the problem perhaps the content (I dont have a problem with the mood of it tbh)

I only literally went WTF at two specific parts in the whole game:

Spoiler

Creepy toad boss and that homage to Silent Hill monster holding off the caged milfanito

. Other than that, there aren't any other creepy moments worth mentioning.

Spoiler

Lost Sinner with the lights off

can be creepy.

 

[Backfoggen]

Ive said it before but I feel as though the art direction in this game suffered massively due to it going to a T rating.

I know I cant look too much into it, but you can just feel/tell that everything isnt as dark and demonic as the first games. There were many spiritual undertones in DeS and DKS that simply arent there in DS2.

You have not played much of Dark Souls 2.

 

[AJLma]

The game still has gore, still has some boobs covered by hair. There are grotesque monsters still. The rating on the Soul games were done poorly as they ae T material as it never had extreme gore or sexual content.

The rating isnt the problem perhaps the content (I dont have a problem with the mood of it tbh)

Spoiler

Lost Sinner with the lights off

can be creepy.

Spoiler

Lost Sinner

without the lights was a fantastic boss.

and as a Dex/Faith Mage

Spoiler

Shaded Woods

kept me on my toes until I learned the layout.

DS2 is about as creepy as DS1 IMO, and neither really compare to Demon's Souls. Hopefully for whatever next-gen sequel they're working on they don't hold back.

 

[YianGaruga]

Found on the internet. Might be real, might be fake

 

[komplanen]

Having the option to disable camera motion blur is good but the best thing is to disable motion blur all together. DS1 had some ugly ass motion blur.

 

[Poimandres]

Ohhh I hope that list is real!

 

[Timu]

Found on the internet. Might be real, might be fake

2nd to last one is interesting...

 

[impact]

Found on the internet. Might be real, might be fake

WTF no lighting options? Cancelled preorder and signed boycott petition.

 

[UnrealEck]

Someone will probably pick that image apart pixel by pixel to see if it's doctored.

 

[popyea]

Found on the internet. Might be real, might be fake

Hype if real.

 

[HRose]

Found on the internet. Might be real, might be fake

It's missing "better lighting".