DEMON'S SOULS A GAME FOR SONY PLAYSTATION 3

1. oh hey, this isn't so bad!

2. ...okay wait if I am reading this message from the US server administrators correctly I am basically playing on easy mode. Until about a week from now, when it will be flipped over into bastard mode for the rest of the month.

3. BALLS

4. YOU DIED

actually that could also be 1a

I actually didn't die that much! I may even still be in the single digits. I'm using a Thief, playing slowly + cautiously, and making sure to take some time blocking and watching enemies to figure out attack patterns. After that it's just been a matter of using the right weapon (I have a scimitar for soft things and a mail breaker for hard things) and counter, stab, Bob's your uncle (and is also dead). Groups can be a pain, though, and that first boss (the big writhing fuckpile of shield-spear-blob-things) is a GOD. DAMN. ASSHOLE. It doesn't help that I wasted all my firebombs on my first attempt and I'm too lazy to grind up a bajillion more souls so I can buy more.

yeah, you know I watched somebody play this when it was all white tendency and it's about, oh, half to a quarter as hard as it is on all black. Good luck with that.
Btw, do NOT try to grind before you beat the first boss. You start grinding after that.

http://kotaku.com/5666793/how-to-beat-demons-souls-in-under-an-hour

Now I will pretend that I have beaten this game.

Demon's Souls beaten from the beginning in 1 hour:

http://www.youtube.com/user/alternalw#p/u/3/KWi6t8Psv9w

0_0

Sequel, bitches!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc8fsve6u8M
YOU'LL DIED

fyi for anyone who has been keeping up, ^this is rebranded Project Dark. seems like they started out making something 'similar but different' and as Demons Souls kept blowing up (comparatively) the suits told them to make it 'similar but very similar' instead. The Cursed Crusade, due out this summer from Demon Souls' publisher, is also a notional successor, supposedly with some themes/elements retained.

"Dark Souls is not a sequel to Demon’s Souls by any means. However, it’s created by the same producers and director and so the ideologies, concepts, and themes have carried over and are similar. It’s a totally new game with similar concepts."
sounds like a sequel to me

apparently no online play as they dont want to have the upkeep of servers.....

I might have read that wrong....though.

servers offline May 31. if you haven't played it yet, now is the time.

is the combat in dark souls better than in demon's? i have no problem with pointless numbing difficulty (much love for etrian odyssey) but i felt like the camera and getting hung up on the environment contributed to way more frustration/death/soul loss than the deliberate system quirks (which i really liked).

via brief stints w/ both, i can say that they're the exact same game. almost. the sole difference is that demon's is set in a continuos, "open world" map whereas in dark you have a hub in which you select levels to travel to. it's like purgatory, kind of and is actually sort of nice just to set the controller down within and let the music play while you toast your freeze-dried egg mcmuffins you bought from costco

also, most people say it's easier in dark souls considering that when you die you don't restart w/ half-life

yeah no pause is a dick move (i know it's for online purposes but still)--there's a tension in having inventory management in real time and i appreciate that but no excuse for not having a regular old pause no-menu kinda option.

there are a number of significant differences in terms of world and mechanics but the gameplay is very similar in each.

no pause is great. coming back from the bathroom to find yourself being invaded by some asshole is a key part of the experience. you can always just quit to menu if having no pause is really riling you.

hmm... can you pause with the PS button? I never tried that.

game still runs. using the ps button will at least stop you accidentally hitting a shoulder button and jumping off a cliff tho...

maaaan i really wanted to play this but i guess i never will

otoh i feel like the day zero stuff would be a necessary part of the appeal, like playing smth like this knowing it is all already on gamefaqs would be kind of sad

The internet-enabled parts of this game are nice, but are they crucial? I never got far enough into the game for it to really matter.

coming back from the bathroom to find yourself being invaded by some asshole is a key part of the experience

read this wrong at first

Might as well bump this now in preparation for future bitching from me. Already worried that absentminded my bumping the square button and eating some half moon grass by mistake has doomed my first playthrough.

oh we have such sights to show you

everybody remember when you accidentally ate the grass and were like "oh man what if i needed that" and then
YOU DIED
YOU DIED
YOU DIED
YOU DIED
YOU DIED
YOU DIED

I DIED

I assume its natural to not know where to go or wtf is going on

yup

just go with it

Is there shit in all these barrels and grain sacks ever or am I just wasting stamina bashing away at them?

wasting stamina, but don't worry it's not a thing

I think this is fun? Maybe?

this interview with president of Sony's studios Shuhei Yoshida is kinda lol
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/10/shuhei-yoshida-interview.aspx?PostPageIndex=1

I feel one of Sony’s biggest software mistakes this generation was passing on publishing Demon’s Souls in North America and Europe.

Absolutely! Tell me about it! 100 percent agree!

How did it happen? Was it as simple as this game wasn’t going to sell? How involved were you?

For my personal experience with Demon’s Souls, when it was close to final I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game. I said, “This is crap. This is an unbelievably bad game.” So I put it aside.

Luckily, third party publishers, Atlus in North America and Namco in Europe [stepped in], and it really became a great hit outside of Japan.

We definitely dropped the ball from a publishing standpoint, including studio management side. We were not able to see the value of the product we were making.

yeah, ok, after sleeping on it, i am def down with the greatness of this game. at first (before i played it) all the "tough but fair" descriptions had the ring of lol noob defensiveness, but it really is accurate. its crazy to me that as a dude who gets fucking rageful when i have to do some platforming nonsense 15 times after i get the idea/trick and just want to get on with it that replaying the first world idk 8 times in a row last night NEVER got frustrating or boring, just more and more rewarding. also, the message mechanic is brilliant, and actually is like a salve for all the griefing bullshit in the gaming world (although yeah i know that can backfire, and we'll see what i think when some cock wanders in and pwns me for fun). still ruminating on some of the more interesting aspects of how the game is constructed (particularly the "throw you in and make you learn how to swim" vibe of hiding a lot of the item info in sub menus, never really explaining the guages but making them intuitive, deathtraps without warning, etc.) but yeah, the hype is totally legit.

a lot of the messaging stuff is griefing but of the "totally baffling" variety.

I really need to break this game back out; I loved it but at the time WoW was sucking up all my gaming time

i had my ass saved a bunch of times getting health spiffed from leaving a message in front of some crates hiding firebombs that said "valuable treasure ahead" and getting people to recommend it or whatever. its a great self-sustaining mechanic.

AND THEN I DIED

i am glad that i read some stuff online (and here) saying not to stress abt losing souls early on, i might have bailed if i thought i was fucked every time i didnt reach my bloodstain.

i ordered this the other day along w/ nba2k13 :)

nm i thought this was the dark souls thread

i gotta get in on this

you really do

dammit I wanna play this again right NOW but my parents are in town all weekend and staying with us

I suppose I could just give them the keys to the car and tell them to explore but it's the weekend of their 50th wedding anniversary so that might not go over well

YOU ARE A BAD SON

(with accompanying bassline/chaindrop effect)

http://demonssouls.wdfiles.com/local--files/enemies/mind-flayer.jpg

http://forums.demonssouls.info/images/ranks/Rank3-Fat-Official.png

are you playing this now?