Evidence of combat changes from the trailer: ambidexterity and broken weapons

Hey everybody,
I was just re-watching the first trailer in HD on the official website, and noticed some interesting things about the fight between the hero and the masked assailants. I haven't seen them posted anywhere, so I thought I'd share.

At 0:32, the hero pulls a spear out of a corpse with his left hand, holding a sword in his right. This makes me wonder if he had thrown the spear, or if it just had gotten stuck in the enemy.

At 1:22, the hero is seen holding a spear in his right hand, while his sword is sheathed to his left. This is the opposite stance of what we just saw.

At 1:26, the hero is shown deflecting a blow with the sword in his right hand, and countering (riposting?) with the spear in his left. This is the only scene during the fight where he holds his sword in his right hand, so at first I thought that maybe the shot was just mirrored, but the leather strap on his back is consistent with the other shots, so yes, he (sort of) parries with his right hand.

At 1:30, the hero impales the assailant in front of him with his spear, held in his right hand, while his left hand is now empty. What happened to his sword? It also appears that he possibly just deflected the attackers blow with his gauntlet.

Now things get very interesting. As he impales the assailant, he is attacked on his back-right shoulder from behind. At 1:34, he brings his empty left forearm down on his spear, breaking it, while the tip is still in the foe in front of him. He turns to his right, his right arm sort of grabbing the enemies sword in his armpit, and sticks the splintered broken back half of his spear up through the face of the attacker. The first bunch of times I watched it, I thought it was his sword, but it's definitely the spear handle.

At 1:38, the hero drops the broken bottom half of his spear as he falls to his knees. His sword and scabbard are nowhere to be seen.

So... right-hand blocking, fighting with a broken spear, sheathed swords without two-handing. If the trailer is consistent with gameplay, I'm pretty excited about these.

The switching back and forth between sword in right and left hands is a bit perplexing though, but here is my take:

The hero prefers to fight with the spear in his right hand and the sword in his left, but had thrown the spear prior to the scene at 0:33, so had switched his sword over to his right (dominant) hand until he retrieves his spear, at which point he switches back (off camera). I think that at some point during the fight, his sword is knocked out of his left hand. The deflection at 1:26 was my first guess, since the sword gets knocked back, but it is clearly still held in his left hand during the riposte, so it must be after that, but before 1:30. Once his sword is gone, he continues fighting with his spear, even breaking it in a moment of desperation to stab the guy behind him. By the end of the fight, he is overwhelmed, holding only the broken bottom half of his spear. I don't know what happened to the scabbard- perhaps is disappears when not in use?

All of these things have me very excited that Dark Souls II will build on the complexity of hand-to-hand combat. Has anyone gleaned anything else about combat mechanics from what little we've seen?

It is always interesting to speculate, but we have to remember that this is only a CGI trailer, it could mirror the things we see in game or it could be totally unlinked to the actual game.
I'm waitin for the first gameplay footage before I speculate any further.
I hope we see some news on Dark Souls 2 on the next E3.

Weapons whose tips break off into the enemy causing bleed damage for some time. or weapons whose blades shatter and regrow causing immense bleeding damage. .... Just gunna leave this right here ;D

As Juutas said, this is only a CGI trailer, nothing on it can be taken into account, we have to wait for some gameplay to see if it will actualy live up to it, and if it does...then oh boy!

ClassicBlaze wrote:As Juutas said, this is only a CGI trailer, nothing on it can be taken into account, we have to wait for some gameplay to see if it will actualy live up to it, and if it does...then oh boy!

Of course, of course! I think I was mainly excited to have just noticed that he breaks his spear and stabs the other masked attacker with it, since I thought it was a sword at first.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if they are hinting at new gameplay. The CGI trailer for Demon's Souls showed parry-riposte, roll dodges, and summoning, while the Project Dark/Dark Souls trailers showed bonfires and hollowing in their CGI segments.

On the other hand, the knight in the Demon's Souls trailer has about 4 or 5 phantoms summoned by the end, so... everything with a grain of salt. Similarly, the Dark Souls trailer showed the elite knight hanging out with Tarkus and Anastacia around the bonfire, and the Project Dark trailer had a hollow warrior with Patches, Siegmeyer, Laurentius and a robed girl. Those scenes obviously don't quite happen in the game, although many of those characters do wind up hanging around Firelink Shrine.

Real gameplay footage can't come soon enough! I still remember the excitement of seeing the plunging attack onto the Taurus demon shown in the Dark Souls trailer!

I'm with Juutas and here's why:

The concept of an action scene with a player character would be near impossible I feel while keeping with why we all love the Souls series. All of us feel connected to the character because it's our character. Even during cut scenes. For instance, I have some decent pics of a warrior ready to take on Sif. They feature a Great Scythe and Bloodshield in them. Why? Because it just so happens that's what I was using.

This is easy in Dark Souls scenes because all they need is to show the character. There's no attacking or combat shown so the scene is universal to anyone.

To do an action scene like the trailer while keeping in this spirit would require that the scene be conducted with all permutations of weapons and armor to reflect the character OR require that you enter an area with only "x" and "y" equipped. So unless they can realistically simulate the same battle with someone on a bow only challenge run.....

My guess is still that what they've been showing us is an example of the promise that the story will be more developed this time around. My bet is that this is an integral NPC in the game who we either follow or need a lot of backstory on (like Artorias to some extent).

Spoiler:

skarekrow13 wrote:I'm with Juutas and here's why:

The concept of an action scene with a player character would be near impossible I feel while keeping with why we all love the Souls series. All of us feel connected to the character because it's our character. Even during cut scenes. For instance, I have some decent pics of a warrior ready to take on Sif. They feature a Great Scythe and Bloodshield in them. Why? Because it just so happens that's what I was using.

This is easy in Dark Souls scenes because all they need is to show the character. There's no attacking or combat shown so the scene is universal to anyone.

To do an action scene like the trailer while keeping in this spirit would require that the scene be conducted with all permutations of weapons and armor to reflect the character OR require that you enter an area with only "x" and "y" equipped. So unless they can realistically simulate the same battle with someone on a bow only challenge run.....

My guess is still that what they've been showing us is an example of the promise that the story will be more developed this time around. My bet is that this is an integral NPC in the game who we either follow or need a lot of backstory on (like Artorias to some extent).

Spoiler:

Yeah, I totally agree that combat of that complexity would be pretty darn near impossible with the variety of weapons we're sure to have!

That said, I'm willing to bet that it's not merely a coincidence that they showed us both competent dual-wielding and fighting with the broken shaft of a spear.

...also, to be fair, some of the riposte animations in Dark Souls were ludicrously inappropriate for their weapon geometries.

*coughcoughGREATSCYTHEcoughcough*

No one. And I mean no one.....should be able to get up after THAT animation.

Now maybe half of someone could.


Dutchman, I wouldn't be surprised if it showed some new things we could do at all actually. As long at it feels as fluid as the current mechanics I say bring it on!

At least, if you're going to use that animation, I want to see entrails. Come on.

I always picture this whenever I see it. Warning!! The video below would likely be rated "M" for "mature"

Spoiler:

The CGI trailers in my opinion are very vague. The Demon's Souls one showed us 5 phantoms, but showed us about summoning and Co-oP. Dark Souls CGI showed us those characters you mentioned who didn't have a cutscene ALL together but were included into the game. So while i doubt they will have moves like that i will assume this advanced combat is their way of hinting to us "Get ready for some FIIIIIIIINNNNNEEE combat"

Good catch, I pointed that out in my trailer analysis vid. I'm not sure about broken weapons, but I'm pretty convinced we'll see improved dual wielding and maybe left-handed ripostes.

Note that a third party company made the trailer.

DE5PA1R wrote:Good catch, I pointed that out in my trailer analysis vid. I'm not sure about broken weapons, but I'm pretty convinced we'll see improved dual wielding and maybe left-handed ripostes.

Note that a third party company made the trailer.

Cool, can you link to the video? Also, interesting about a third party making the trailer- I didn't know that. That does not boost my confidence in the trailer-as-gameplay department.

Thanks for your interest. Sorry in advance for the lack of vid quality, I'm still new to video editing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcdkR-B67dk

I agree with Juutas, we will just have to wait for more gameplay, which will most likely happen at E3
I've heard that From has been confirmed is this true?