Only one?..Damn!

Sorcerer. I have no clue what all the classes do though, would need to consult a wiki for that. The list seems longer, but it might be my memory playing tricks.
The black armor edition gave me a lot of weapons and shields I can't use for a long time. No clue yet if they're worth it.
The game does have tool tips now when you press help, but it's mostly vague or obvious stuff. Still not very useful for deciding what to do.

My biggest gripe from dark souls is still there, too easy to leave the menu selector open, then not being able to fight. At least O closes it now. That was my nr 1 cause of death in Dark souls. So far my nr 1 cause of death is falling off ledges in DS2.

Oh and discard must be drop. I tried use a shiny bauble in a nest similar to Dark souls but that just consumes it, with no further explanation. That is what irks me with the dark souls games, no feedback most of the time.

I should know most of this stuff from playing dark souls through 3 times, either my memory is failing or I play too many games :) I vividly remember the geometry of dark souls, yet the mechanics are all pretty hazy. It will be fun to add a new souls world to my memory. Hopefully iy will measure up to the wonder I felt in Dark souls. I guess I will refrain from using fast travel as much as possible.

They become four before you have to face the second boss.

its hard....

It is fantastic, bigger world then demon souls and dark souls combined. Cool movesets, decent scaling, fast travel, cool monsters and bosses. One negative I could say is that their might be a lot of bosses that act the same way and it might get annoying. Did pve mostly, seems there is still some pvp trolling though.

Depends on the route you take, but you soon find a ring that decreases the health loss when hollow. And with 4 ring slots it isnt a waste.

LIEES! i'm at 3. Depends on you're pathing really.

Just search around a bit. There are 5 doors that open with the soldier's key. Many goodies can be found, including a flaming longsword and other stuff. The game is easier, one can see it sooner or later. The "easier game" argument is further bolstered by the... ability to raise the difficulty level:

Instead of assigning traditional difficulty levels, the devs cleverly opted to set the whole game in a bit easier scale, give a learning curve and making it friendlier to the uninitiated via many dialogues with npcs. For the hardcore fans, there is the ability to throw bonfire ascetics in a bonfire to permanently raise the difficulty of associated enemies. In addition, one can choose the champions covenant (that's the name more or less) to further increase the difficulty.

All in all the game is incredibly balanced, amazingly smooth and truly fun to play The pace is such that urges the player to constantly move, search, discover - and of course - die. The masters will master it, the newcomers will love it. I can't stop playing enough to type a post.

just a heads up to any going to Belfry Luna, if you're not confident in yor skills to fight other players then play offline, a covenant is located who's sole duty is to inaved who steps foot in there. Iwas invaded by 4 people, beat 3 out of the 4.

Spent over 400 hours playing Dark Souls. Wanted to get this one... Yet the problem I have with the franchise is the framerate and the level of lag. I know the framerate is much better this time, but I personally wanted to wait for a PS4 release (if it comes) where hopefully they would improve the framerate to 60 FPS and thus severely improve the responsiveness of the controls. If they don't release it for PS4, I will get the PS3 version when it is cheap.