DEMON'S SOULS A GAME FOR SONY PLAYSTATION 3

Oh blimey I've played so much of this now, I'm surprised to find I'm getting to the last stretch already.

My friend got this at the start of the weekend and she's already beaten the Tower Knight and Armoured Spider. It took me much longer to get that far

I think I'm diving into this as soon as I finish "Guardians." Now, I've never played a From game blind, because there is soooooo much shit I would miss or mess up that would I think negatively impact my enjoyment (and for that matter, they're generally hard enough even with guides and other help). But this being the first Souls game, is that true even from the start? Like, if you kill the thing at the place in the other place, that will affect whether or not you can do the thing at the other place much later in the game?

lol, I think this may be the hardest to play blind, at least if you don't want to miss too much. It's been awhile, but my memory is that they were happy to be esoteric on this one. On the other hand, I didn't really bother with 'world tendency', but the difficulty and knowledge curve still felt pretty steep without looking up a few things. Haven't played the remaster though.

I assume the remaster is otherwise exactly the same, right? I glanced at a guide already, and it outright says that apparently this one can't be 100%ed with one play, it needs multiple plays to get 100%. Of course, I never 100% anything, even though I know there are multiple endings to a bunch of them, but it implies there is stuff to be missed. Like, Sekiro, if I hadn't been following a guide I never would have known about all this late game stuff a certain path would take me, though in that case I didn't bother, because shit was getting *too* esoteric and challenging, and I'd had enough, lol.

Yeah, a blind playthrough could be fun if you just forget about world tendency and don't care about 100%-ing, only use the guide if you hit a wall (I know I banged my head on 4-1 for quite awhile, although I think I was fruitlessly trying to farm some rare upgrade material).

I've played this through more or less blind, only looking up tips and hints occasionally if I'm stuck or curious.

But recently I was compelled to go back and restart Elden Ring with a fresh game, this time starting as a Wretch

See, I'm kind of an anxious gamer, especially when it comes to these games. If I made it a substantial way through the game before realizing I'd be better off restarting, I probably would just quit the game rather than play through it all over again. I'd likely do the same even if the game crashed and I lost a save or something. I was watching some Elden Ring gameplay over the weekend, and there was so much I'd already forgotten that came flashing back that immediately put to rest any (pressing) desire to replay it. I was, like, wow, what a huge pain in the ass that part was, lol.

I think dl means replay, not restart in the middle of a playthrough. I think the worst that can happen in this game is that you leave a world in order to go farm grass somewhere else, and return when you're stocked up?

I also remember liking the structure once I got used to it, where you're meant to do the starting level of each different world when you're low level, rather than progressing all the through one before moving on to the next. That's how I remember it, anyway.

I played Elden Ring as a wretch on my first play through and it ruled. Every random drop felt like mana from heaven

@ Josh I don't recommend you play Demon's Souls entirely blind. The world tendency/character tendency mechanic is weird, frankly, and it's better you have some foreknowledge about it to spare yourself later frustration.

In a nutshell, it is attractive to "restore your humanity" (or whatever the game calls it, I forget at this time), so that your HP bar is restored. In practice, however, dying on a world while "human" has a negative effect on your tendencies, and it should be avoided. It is common practice to suicide yourself after every boss in the hub before moving on to the next world to prevent this eventuality.

Beyond that, idk, you could play blind, but Demon's Souls (more than other From games) does benefit from some guidance.

Prior to Elden Ring's release, I rated Demon's Souls far more favourably than a lot of other From enthusiasts, on the basis of Boletaria Castle alone. I still think 1-1 through 1-5 is one of From's greatest achievements and think of it as being as phenomenal as later community favourites (The Ringed City, Leyndell)

XPS yes, sorry, I meant re-play.

Demon's Souls does have a few "you should really kill this guy, he's bad news" moments. But I thought Dark Souls was a lot tougher and easier to make interminable mistakes in

I've never played the original but Demons Souls Remake turned out to be loads more fun than I expected. I rate it above Bloodborne and Dark Souls of the ones I've played.

It's strange going back to Elden Ring and thinking "You know what, this is maybe my favourite game of all time, but there are things that Demon's Souls does better or which are missing from this one". One example is the boss fights, which while none of them are especially hard, tend to be a lot more memorable

i'm playing dark souls 1 on ps3 for the first time now. i'm really bad at these games, the only other one i've played is demons souls which i ragequit after a couple days stuck on temple knight. i'm improving slowly and really enjoy it though. the battles are insane. i beat chaos witch queelag the other day and it was so satisfying. i look stuff up constantly without shame

I feel like Elden Ring got the inventory/stats mechanics down pat, finally, every weapon feels usable and worthwhile

Dark Souls has the best first half but such a tedious second half that I grind my teeth thinking about playing through it again

Dark Souls 3 remains spectacular. If I had a steampunk gene in me I might like Bloodborne more… the main game pretty much ruled but the labyrinths were annoying and bad

It’s interesting, I realized recently that so much of Elden Ring’s appeal (for me) was the inventory management stuff, which felt very much like an old school roguelike. Managing stats and optimum gear like gaming is just data processing, very appealing. I got back into ADOM as my dn might indicate

this game is the best

Seriously, DO NOT READ WALKTHROUGHS OR FAQs for this; this game is absolutely about fear and discovery and immersion. I read one thing about magic and it sorta spoiled the moment later. Just figure stuff out.

― I AM NOT ONE TO PURSUE GAME, MY FRIEND - NO, INDEED. (forksclovetofu), Monday, November 2, 2009

Alright, here we go! (Quickly dies to first boss.)

you're doing it right!

I am not used to a From game looking this good, I'm finding it kind of distracting (is the excuse I'm going with). Anyway, unlocked my first shortcut.

Haha, yeah it does look pretty great, even compared to ER. Funny as well because most of the scenery is a variation on "grim stoney rainswept medieval fort" but somehow they manage to make it look stunning

I'm so used to a certain degree of From janky, but this is so smooth. What's wrong with my game, it's totally broken!

I was kinda sad that Elden Ring didn’t have the same extreme dialogue-following face behaviour. Patches just doesn’t hit as hard in Elden Ring!

Yeah, in my reply I'm sad Patches isn't totally demonic

*replay

So, in my totally early hours, what should I be spending souls on? Or should I be saving them up? I haven't fought any real boss yet, just getting used to fighting various scrubs and/or getting two shotted by the knight with red eyes.

I dunno. Might depend on what build you've got. I found I naturally ended up putting points into things once I had a particular weapon in mind. I wouldn't scrimp on Endurance for this game, is the thing I would say, because item and equipment load are a real thing I'm constantly aware of

Yeah, the more things change ...

Anyway, I'm so early I'm not sure I can even level up yet.

Beat the first boss, got a taste of a couple of the worlds. Gonna focus on upping my stats for a bit, at least while I get used to the gameplay. Kind of fascinating to me that From has been doing similar variations on the same impenetrably esoteric fantasy world for so long, with I guess Bloodborne and Sekiro the biggest digressions. I should look up some reviews of the original Demon's Souls release, must have blown/broken some minds.

Tower Knight down! Is every path to a boss a run? Are there ever checkpoints/bonfires in this?

There are no checkpoints, iirc? Oftentimes you can open a shortcut though. Tower Knight is such a great boss!

The big "oh" was realising that the original Demon's Souls release did not have any gear-option to make the swamp area navigable... you had to slog through and suffer. The reissue brought in a (still, fairly well-hidden) ring to make it less of a blargh. It's probably my favourite swamp level! But I can't imagine doing it without a ring

I've been playing a bit of Dark Souls 1 again recently. The boring sections seem less boring now, mostly because I guess I know just to motor on through. Blighttown is actually pretty charming this time around!

a lot of the games and levels kind of blend together for me now, lol. I bet if I played them all a second time I'd be really surprised by how much I've forgotten.

Lost my first substantial chunk of souls doing something stupid, serves me right.

Man, it took me FOREVER to get throug hto the Tower Knight and beat him. Think I bounced off and did another world first. Then someone told me you can actually run the whole of the bridge without doing all that fiddling about in the underground route

It's been awhile but yeah I think some of the 'stage 3' bosses have runbacks, but others put you right at the boss. Luckily most of them aren't too long, or have shortcuts you can unlock.

I played this on a borrowed PS3 and definitely remember Miyazaki's first poison swamp, it was almost touching how unforgiving it was. It made for some good tense moments though, trying to get some item or reach a checkpoint before succumbing. Didn't know they added a ring in the remaster!

xpost That was my belated realization, too. I was so sick of the underground route, and the dogs, and the tedium. But then I realized I can just let the dragon do my dirty work and make a run for it. And then later, in true Souls fashion, spend 15 minutes shooting it with arrows from a safe perch until I killed it.

Giant spider down! I love how from the very start, From is begging the question: is it really cheesing if they provide the means to cheese? Which is to say, if enemies can hide and hit you from range, is it wrong to do the same to them in a game that gives you bows, magic, etc? (The answer: hell no, whatever it takes, if I want to do a future naked and afraid run of any of these games, I will).

Those bloody dogs in the tunnel though

Serious Bloodborne Unseen Village vibes in the spooky prison, with lightning and mindflayers/brainsuckers and atmosphere. It would be awesome if Blueprint remade Bloodborne, but I doubt it'll happen.

Aw man, that was one of my favourite bits of the game.

I surprise myself that I enjoy levels like that and also Stormveil in Elden Ring, because my IRL sense of direction is awful and I get lost and disoriented really easily. I'm really bad at observing landmarks. But there's something about the super-windy architecture of these places that really hits my buttons

I got lost sooooo much. At one point I fell down a deep hole and died, but had so many souls it made it worth my while to retrieve them, and it took me *forever* to find my way back. I do kinda like when that happens, though, because you run the level so many times and kill everything so many times, that when you finally get your bundle of souls you end up with a huge total. Then you level up, though it's hard to take your revenge on gravity.

i've been playing demon's souls for the first time for the past month or so. as i live in a state of playstationlessness i am playing the 2009 version thanks to rpcs3 and online via the archstones. i have a patch so it can run at 60 unmotion-blurred buttery smooth frames per second.

i've made my way through all the x-1's and x-2's, and i was trying not to use guides, but i broke that rule so i could figure out how to access 1-3. i know from the king's field days a bit of from software apocrypha that they want players to use guides (and take advice from online messages where possible) but it's been a nice playing nearly totally unguided. it makes the world feel a bit more overwhelming and a lot more full of wonder. but it has also meant i've killed more npc's than ever before - patches after the pit, the person who drops gloom armour in a cage above the swamp in 4-1 - and meant i've just lost other npc's - the glowing gold fella in 1-1 - and that i'm basically still using the equipment that i started with or found early on. oh also wtf is world tendency. maybe after i beat the game i'll have a read about that before ng+ or re-rolling.

playing on emulator also means i can pause if needed, which honestly, is a nice addition to the gameplay. it's not something i use very often but i love being able to just pause if needed. also the archstones tracks your deaths for you which is fun.

boletaria and latria are some from highlights for me, just remarkably designed, so many times in my first 1-1 run through boletaria where i knew that as i turned a corner i'd end up on a balcony looking back where i came from, just a lovely and well thought out experience.

oh also wtf is world tendency

i've looked it up multiple times and still don't know lol

i love boletaria and think about if often

Moving right along in this and having fun. Seems ... slightly more forgiving than its successors? Maybe? It's neat to see what From kept and tweaked and what they discarded for later games. And of course there is the amusing cognitive dissonance of the first game being essentially the most technologically advanced. Though I will say, as much as I like the graphics and loading times, my fave advance of the PS5 may remain the controller. It's both cool and helpful to have status effects conveyed via haptics; in the middle of frenetic boss battles I often find myself missing whether or not, say, my weapon is still on fire or glowing or whatever, but this way I can actually feel it while I'm focusing on other stuff.

Being able to hear audio in 3D is also a major boon. In 1-3 I could hear the red-eye knights before I could see them

Dragon God boss ruled, reminded me of an "Ori" boss level. Not hard, as such, but stressful and totally epic/metal.

Well, pretty sure I just killed my first NPC. I was in the first zone (1/3?), where I killed a fat guy and unlocked a gate, and it opened up to a rush of red eyed knights that I quickly slaughtered in a panic. But one of them I suspect was my guy. Serves him right for dressing like the baddies, the big dummy. Hopefully I didn't screw up anything major.

In another zone I almost killed Patches. I thought he was a devil monster thing, and because he was hiding behind a shield I didn't see his face (with all my wild melee technique) until it was almost too late.

I take it back, he's not dead! Must have slipped past me in the heat of battle and hid, the coward.

Lol just got to that guy. You already saved him twice! Cruel to end him there!

I put this down for 6 months after dying in that poison swamp, not from poison but by 5 giants guarding an item I now acknowledge I will never get. This is definitely the most forgiving souls game, finding it very very easy right now (comparatively).

I think I’m nearly done? Have four arch stones in every zone except the 1st. I’m scared of this final boss because I saw him drain Dunkey’s levels back to like zero. Is that a real mechanic? Will be so pissed if it is.