Demon's Souls

[Devia Eleven]

A very stand-offish game with requirements that not many people like. I decided to rent it from Gamefly just recently, (planning to buy soon), the game seems very unforgiving and long. This game itself expects you to basically learn on your own.

 

Upon starting up the main adventure, your character is extremely weak and inexperienced. After 4-5 hours of learning how the game works, and cautiously using the stamina bar, the game's difficulty lifts up a bit. This game has an Online log filled with players who are either playing at the moment, or that have died recently. (I think) It's a never ending dungeon crawler, with blood spots around the dungeons, blood spots from other particular players, where you can summon a ghost of their player, and the game will replay how and where they died.

 

It's very useful for people who don't use guides, while I myself tend to use guides because Demon's Souls method of dying is not so instantaneously recoverable.

Your health cuts in half temporarily, and you lose all of your experience points, (Souls), so you'll have to go all the way back to where you died, and touch your bloodspot, to get all of your souls back.

Instead of selling all of the items you collect over the course of time, you are only able to deposit them into the Stockpile "guy", you’re able to increase stats so that you can carry more weight while moving. I'm really enjoying this title, and I just defeated my third boss.

 

Being able to walk through the first dungeon, and get one hit kills, lets you know that you've gotten stronger.

 

I'll be back later.

[Agozer]

This game's difficulty is through the roof. There's a lot to like if you invest the time and effort needed to learn the game properly.

[Devia Eleven]

The first instance of frustration came over me not too long ago when I died in the same dungeon, three times in a row due to very small mistakes. I got blindsided by a mage around the corner and I had no idea it was there, hence me rushing through to get my other Souls back.

 

The second time I was ambushed by nearly 11 skeletons in a jail cell with no type of large radius, multiple hit attack to get all of them off of me, and the third, I simply just fell off the stage. So I ended up losing around 20,000 souls, that I could have used to upgrade my weapon, or my stats. The constant, non-progression feel makes me want to turn the game off at times.

[Agozer]

Kind of the same deal in my case, although far earlier in the game. The game certainly doesn't hold your hand at any point, but rather beats you into submission in the crudest manner possible over and over again, until you slowly start to grasp at the concepts of what hopefully guarantee your survival... until you get your ass handed to you again, somewhere down the line.

 

...

 

With far less souls and an ethereal body with half the HP.

 

EDIT: Have you taken a gander at that one Japanese dude playing who makes the game his bitch in ~50 minutes? I suggest you don't if you like to find things out on your own or if you can't handle that soul-crushing realization of how much you suck at the game. Well ok, it does give you a number of good tips, but the guy boosts through the enemies and bosses with such speed that you probably won't have time to soak it all in.

[Devia Eleven]

Kind of the same deal in my case, although far earlier in the game. The game certainly doesn't hold your hand at any point, but rather beats you into submission in the crudest manner possible over and over again, until you slowly start to grasp at the concepts of what hopefully guarantee your survival... until you get your ass handed to you again, somewhere down the line.

 

...

 

With far less souls and an ethereal body with half the HP.

 

Absolutely.

 

Demon's Souls is an absolutely terrific game when you haven't died within the course of 3-4 hours of pure level grinding. Dying, really, really sets me off, especially after I've, over and over again, collected 14,000 souls doing dungeon runs, and then upgrading my weapons and stats. And when you take down exponentially tough enemies, around 2-3 of these guys, (Tentacle Head Wizards), you start to rack in butloads of Souls, and when you die twice in a row, there's really no reason to keep playing this game.

 

If you don't have any resurrection items on hand, (I collected 6, now I have 1 left), your health will be cut in half until you come across another miracle.

 

EDIT: Have you taken a gander at that one Japanese dude playing who makes the game his bitch in ~50 minutes? I suggest you don't if you like to find things out on your own or if you can't handle that soul-crushing realization of how much you suck at the game. Well ok, it does give you a number of good tips, but the guy boosts through the enemies and bosses with such speed that you probably won't have time to soak it all in.

 

I tend to do this after I complete said game. If I watched it now, I would probably be so embarrassed, that I would quit.

 

It was the same case with Ninja Gaiden II, I was able to enjoy myself watching some guy juggle enemies in Ninja Gaiden II and make the bosses seem like nothing. I can be embarrassed whilst knowing that I've completed the game more than 4-5 times before.

[Agozer]

It was the same case with Ninja Gaiden II, I was able to enjoy myself watching some guy juggle enemies in Ninja Gaiden II and make the bosses seem like nothing. I can be embarrassed whilst knowing that I've completed the game more than 4-5 times before.

Heh, I'm still struggling with Chapter 1 on Mentor. God, what an unforgiving bitch of a game Sigma 2 is.

 

Hopefully you can put up with Demon's Souls, because it's an incredibly rewarding feeling when you finally make progress after being stuck in a rut for so long. Those tentacle-headed wizards = game-breaker. Mostly.

[Devia Eleven]

It was the same case with Ninja Gaiden II, I was able to enjoy myself watching some guy juggle enemies in Ninja Gaiden II and make the bosses seem like nothing. I can be embarrassed whilst knowing that I've completed the game more than 4-5 times before.

Heh, I'm still struggling with Chapter 1 on Mentor. God, what an unforgiving bitch of a game Sigma 2 is.

 

I've beaten Mentor on Sigma 2, (not easily), but Mentor for Ninja Gaiden II is un-doable, seriously, I think it's impossible, for me anyway. The difficulty was toned down for Sigma 2, but most of it is still there.

 

 

Hopefully you can put up with Demon's Souls, because it's an incredibly rewarding feeling when you finally make progress after being stuck in a rut for so long. Those tentacle-headed wizards = game-breaker. Mostly.

 

After a long day of work, I just finished this boss, for an idea of where I am in the game.

 

(This is not me playing).

 

[Devia Eleven]

I'm 23 hours in at level 45 and the difficulty is as grueling as ever. Fighting two bosses at once on a narrow strip of land is not easy, especially dodging their attacks whilst trying to not fall off the stage by accident. I died 3 times at the same boss. I used up all of my revival items, so I had to join another anonymous person's game Online, and help him or her defeat the boss at hand, (was a cake walk considering my level), I got my original body back, and summoned two guys stronger than me, to help me with my own boss fight, which ended up being a breeze with their help.

 

I was actually ready to quit, on the route to the boss, there is a Black Phantom, Tentacle Head Wizard Monster, on a swirling set of stairs without any hand rails, (you could fall off of them with one wrong small step), with the small staircase, there is no where to dodge roll or strafe, and you can't hit it with arrows or use magic spells, because it will run up to you close range, grab you with telekinesis, and impale you. (And it'll do this over and over until you die). It has the advantage of ranged attacks and ranged grabs, luckily, right before the last time I fought the boss, the bastard stumblingly fell off of the staircase by accident.

[Agozer]

I'm 23 hours in at level 45 and the difficulty is as grueling as ever. Fighting two bosses at once on a narrow strip of land is not easy, especially dodging their attacks whilst trying to not fall off the stage by accident. I died 3 times at the same boss.

Was that the boss where you fight two gargoyle-looking creatures on a bridge of some sort?

[Devia Eleven]

I'm 23 hours in at level 45 and the difficulty is as grueling as ever. Fighting two bosses at once on a narrow strip of land is not easy, especially dodging their attacks whilst trying to not fall off the stage by accident. I died 3 times at the same boss.

Was that the boss where you fight two gargoyle-looking creatures on a bridge of some sort?

 

Yes, it's not fun at all.

[Devia Eleven]

I've come to a point in the game, where it looks like there's no hope for my character. I've reached this boss, that is for the most part, complete melee based. He also has the ability to de-level you, if he grabs you you'll go down one level. I'm at level 79 and before I was at 82. The strategies I've watched on YouTube aren't working for me, because I don't have the correct items / stats / abilities to emulate.

 

I've lost around 120,000 souls because I've fought this guy 4 times, and I've lost all of them. It doesn't help, that on the route to this boss, there's a Blue Dragon who blows fire on an entry way every 5 seconds, and there are also enemies on the same walk way, that can attack you, while you've already gotten most of your health taken away by the fireblast itself. I've used up all of my revival items, and now I'm thinking about grinding to Oblivion, and collecting recommended spells before returning.

[Agozer]

Hahahah, that's just wrong. In all fairness though, I'm amazed that you've had the patience to get that far.

[Devia Eleven]

I'm a bit surprised myself, thanks for that.

 

I've decided to purchase the game, it only costed me $22 for Gamefly to ship the game case, cover, and booklet to my address since it looks like I'm going to be spending a bit more time with the game than I originally expected.

 

I made a tl:dr worthy thread in the Demon's Souls wiki forums, in hope that someone is going to help me. I'll wait it out by playing Lords of Shadow, a game that I've neglected to play since I've been knee deep in Demon's Souls for so long.

 

Even though I've gotten extremely far, I'm still appalled on how many times I've died, and how many souls I've lost, even though I've leveled quite a bit from randomly farming for items to upgrade weapons. I only have one dungeon left until I complete the game, but personally I want to be able to grind to a point where not many of the enemies could touch me if they tried. There's a new game plus, like Chrono Trigger, or Chrono Cross, the only downfall being that the difficulty of the game increases by 50%. It kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me.

 

I'm going to buy this game and put it on the shelf until I get another more free time or another well deserved weekend off from work.

[Devia Eleven]

Upon my request for help, there was one lad who was generous enough to add me in PSN, and help me in my trials towards the 2nd hardest boss in the game. Once he joined my game, I got killed twice by two Black Phantoms, (online players that invade your game to kill you), after that, we made light work of the boss, while the boss aimed on him, and momentarily me, we took that blind spot to attack him from behind, and he didn't stand a chance.

 

He effortlessly helped me out of the hole I was in, and even gave me 40 revival items like it was no big deal as well. I got some weapons and started grinding, and now I am still grinding. There's no reason to complete the last dungeon without fully milking the easy experience in the fourth dungeon first, I don't want to be unprepared on my first NG+. I have a four day weekend coming up, this will be the time.

[Agozer]

Like so many have said before me, the true potential in Demon's Souls comes from the "feature" that allows you or others to join a game in progress and help out, or on the flip side, invade a game and slaughter whoever was playing.