Namco on Dark Souls 2 marketing: "treating it as a massive AAA title, would be nice to attract Skyrim players"

[F0X]

Thaimasker said:

F0X said:

Thaimasker said:

F0X said:

green_sky said:

+1. Well said. I love the atmosphere and would like to play but i don't have the time and patience for it. 

B-but you're not allowed to love the game for its atmosphere, story, ect.! It's completely and utterly defined by brutal difficulty. [/sarcasm]

 

without the brutal difficulty that atmosphere wouldn't exsist. 

Not necessarily true. The aesthetics of the game would still be grim and depressing regardless of actual difficulty.

Aesthetics /=/ atmosphere. DS isn't about sitting there and soaking up the view. Don't even try to argue that Difficulty/achivement isn't the bread and butter and the major selling point about the game. as for the lore. That itself is hard to find and pick apart. If you don't have the patience and time to play the game well then you surely won't to figure out the lore by yourself

True, but it's not lacking in opportunities to soak up the view. Figuring out the lore is immaterial - vagueness is more unsettling than knowing the truth. As for difficulty and achievement, I think you're grossly overestimating how easy From Software would have to make the game in order it to appeal to a broader audience. Toning it down a notch and removing at least some of the penalty for death would still make it harder and more rewarding than the competition, but still more accesible and new-player friendly than before.

Actually, I think it should work just like Fire Emblem (again, an RPG series well-known for punishing difficulty) in which there's "Classic" and "Casual" modes - which are essentially the same difficulty level, except "Casual" is basically the equivalent of letting players pause the game and not be so harshly penalized upon death.