OH MY GOD that second area you visit!

Sadly the first area clearly shows the light mechanic is broken. You can tell that area is supposed to be totally dark to make use of the torch but its completely lit in that weird look you see in the shots.

And LOL I got changed into a woman.

So far its super easy though as long as you dont fight a giant monster like an idiot.

As for me, its Souls so I love it. Its a near perfect formula,  I feel no franchise fatigue at all. What I am feeling is that the environments are not as interesting as DS1. I guess the graphics are supposed to be better but with the change in the lighting I notice that most areas look messy brown or grey. It just seems to me that there is more personality to the locations in dark souls 1. I guess we can kind of compare anor londo to that tower area, anor londor just felt so much more interesting.  Lost Bastille sort of reminded me of new londo, londo was more interesting.

That said the enemies are way smarter in this game. Makes each fight more interesting. There have been some neat new traps and new strategies needed to get by. So the gameplay seems to be better though not by much.

I just went through one of the most amazing gameplay sequences in all of Souls. If you dont want it spoiled go ahead and stop, i’ll be describing some moments.

So it takes place in the wharf which uses the light mechanic in a real way for the first time. This area is super dark, not the grey you see else where. So the torch becomes a useful item for the first time, but this is where it gets amazing. Enemies through oil bombs at you! So if you have the torch out and you get hit you go up in flames! Even if you dont have the torch out if they hit you with oil other enemies will shoot fire arrows at you! The enemies are using tactics and strategies that we have ever seen before in a souls game. Then there are this ugly ass monsters that are afraid of the fire, so if you get your torch you can run at them and they freak out, I have never seen enemies react to the environment in that way. There is a whole lot of cool stuff happening in this area, like a giant pirate ship being summoned. Oh and the ambush in the water bridge, enemies hide in the water, you can see them grabbing onto the sides of the bridge waiting for you, so awesome!

This game feels more alive then any souls game yet.

My copy was dispatched a few days ago.  I really hope it doesn't take three weeks or something to get to me like Tropical Freeze did.  Even though in terms of work and life in general it would probably be better if it took as long as possible.

I've just been sitting back, watching the whole lighting and graphic downgrade drama unfold. Here's my best old man impression: "Back in MY day, we didn't have no fancy lighting effects in our Dark Souls! We had King's Field! It had THREE colors: BLACK, GREY and RED... and we LIKED IT! DON'T BELIEVE ME?! WELL HERE'S A PICTURE!"

"FOR ALL YOU YOUNG WHIPPER-SNAPPERS WHO NEED FANCY GRAPHICS AND SPECULAR LIGHTING WITH REAL-TIME SHADOWS and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH..."

"STOP CRYIN' TO YOUR MOMMIES, MAN UP and ENJOY the GAMES YOU GOT, DAG-NABBIT!"

Yeah, foolz is right.  There's tons of brown.  And a bit of green ... And yellow.

Leo you made it worse.  This has more colors and looks better than DSII

I found a half way decent place to farm a few souls, if you have ranged attacks. Down the ladder from the Bonfire in the Tower at the Forest of Fallen Giants, you'll see an area engulfed in flames. Living in those flames is some sort of giant salamander, or lizard-thing. **Don't know exactly what it is because I've never seen it up close!** You can target it from the walkway just down the ladder. If you have spells like Soul Arrow, they reach it just fine. Just be careful as you cast your spell or attack, so that you don't step forward and fall off the ledge, as this means instant death! Killing this monster nets 900 Souls apiece and, early in the game, that's pretty good! Of course, you can just go up and down the ladder, resting at the Bonfire, respawning it each time and collecting the souls. I think you can get around 16000 souls, or so, before it stops spawning. Best of all you can go right back up to the bonfire after you are done, go right back to Majula and and use those souls to level up with little to no risk of dying on the way! The only downside to this is: Whatever this monster drops, you're not going to get it!

Started the game, reached Manjula.  Stunningly beautiful area!

I know it's still very early days but my first impressions of the game are not overwhelmingly positive.  It feels like a cheaper, worse knock-off version of Dark Souls made by a far less talented team.

I've just been trying to get a feel of it though for the time being.  Playing without and particular strategy or plan

Cmon Vader....help a brotha out.