Demon's Souls

Only game I ever bothered to import. There's no words for how awesome this game is. Quote from a friend:

"It's not your normal game that features the arrow-ridden corpse of the main protagonist on the cover".

the TUTORIAL kills you.

I borrowed this off a friend who imported a Korean copy. The entire game was in English, but the box and manual was all in Korean. It says something about how compelling the game is that I wanted to keep playing it despite how completely inaccessible it consciously tries to be. It's not inaccessible through poor desgn or anything like that, but you can never quite shake the feeling that the game hates you and wants you to be unhappy. I didn't try any of the co-op multiplayer, but I did have my game invaded by someone who killed me so quick that I didn't even really get a good look at him.

The souls you take from defeated enemies function as both your experience and our cash in this game. When you die (and you will die a lot) you drop your souls where you fell, meaning you have to go back into the dungeon and pick them back up again. All the monsters will have respawned however, which means you run the risk of losing all your souls again on the corpse run, and the kicker is that if you die a second time, all the souls you dropped from the first death go poof. It can be pretty aggravating in a game where ANY enemy can kill you if you're off your game. Not to mention silly deaths from falling or traps. It's a game that resolutely refuses to hold your hand and presents not so much a learning curve as a learning cliff-face. With lots of loose rocks. And monkeys at the top throwing shit at you. Not literally, but you get what I mean.

Put it this way... one of the early levels puts a goddamn dragon in front of you guarding some treasure at the end of a long, narrow outcropping. Make no mistake about it. There's no trick. He will fry your ass if you make a play for the goods. This leaves you with an unrecoverable corpse for your temerity. If you skip the dragon's perch and take the alternate path, the same dragon will perform strafing runs on you as you try to run along a castle wall with no protection. The game gives you about a millisecond of spare time to cross between cover as this shrieking, screen shaking bastard of a dragon tries to fry you, and while sprinting from cover to cover, the normal enemies take great pleasure in attacking you from melee or range. Get hit once, and you're pretty much done.

Graphically the game is absolutely stunning, and the couple of bosses I have seen were particularly remarkable. It's not for everyone, but if you're the kind of person who liked the kind of "fuck you, players!" challenge games like Ninja Gaiden present, you'll eat it up.

I've long suspected many gamers are closet masochists. Perhaps this will be the game to confirm it.

It's a shame it's a PS3 exclusive. I'm of the opinion that there aren't enough games like Ninja Gaiden, so anything that's equally brutal--yet so satisfying--gets me pretty interested. Not interested enough to buy a PS3, though, so I'll just have to experience this one vicariously.

Over on another thread in another forum, someone posted the Eurogamer review for this, which I believe gave it either a 9 or 10 and basically said it will fucking destroy you without mercy. It will kick you in the balls until you throw up and fall over and then kick you in the head until you die. When you come back as a ghost to retrieve your body, it will then exorcise you and drag you to hell. And laugh the whole time. And somehow, you'll like it, love it and come back begging for more.

I don't think I'm hardcore enough for this game.

I'm intrigued by it, but only in an observer's way. I want to hear people talk about playing for two hours, getting totally cool shit, saving the world and, "I was walking back to town to trade in my sweet loot and a fucking boulder A GODDAMN BOULDER! fell off of a cliff and killed me and I lost all my progress!"

'Cause apparently, shit like that happens in this game.

Considering this from the guys that made the under rated "Ninja Blade", a really fun b-grade action game, plus the seamless nature of the 4 player co-op, I really should give it a shot... but I don't have time anymore to be frustrated by games with over the top difficulty. The video's on youtube look pretty cool (getting a real oblivion-y vibe with the dungeons though) but yeah, too many other great games make for too little time for a game that requires you to get sodomised by it to properly enjoy it.

It's difficult, but don't get me wrong... it's never unfair. You'll get used to running around with your shield up. You'll get used to reading the advice from other players that's scrawled on the ground. You'll start paying attention to the instant replays of other players' deaths when they pop-up in front of you. The main reason I think a lot of people get stymied by this game is that they go into it thinking it's like a traditional RPG that awards exploration and risk-taking.

Demon's souls is not like that. It rewards careful, methodical, and conservative play. Taking the dragon example from my post above,there's nothing stopping you from levelling up and amassing enough gear to take the dragon on. It's just resolutely impossible to take him on when he makes his first appearance. Most RPGs only put obstacles in your path that you can overcome. You just have to understand when Demon's Souls is saying "Nuh uh. Come back later." it's not saying that you can beat this if you really try. It's saying that if you try, it will fucking destroy you.

One thing I really liked about the game was the ever-present nature of the multiplayer, even if you choose not to partake in the co-op or PVP. As mentioned above, you can see the notes left by other players and even leave your own notes on the ground, choosing to assemble a bit of advice from the pre-set phrases the game provides. If people find your advice helpful, you get souls. Touch a bloodstain on the ground, and you get to witness the last few seconds of another character's life. Comes in very handy for avoiding traps and ambushes.

I like that. A lot.

awesome article about the game:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=25238

Wow, for a game I didn't even consider everyone's now saying great things about it. Interesting.

Never even heard of this, but now I want it. I want it badly. I thoroughly like the idea of the drop in system during the single player, if only so it mixes things up so the hardcore, only play videogame dbags have to be on their toes for their 30 minute speed runs.

This kind of looks like how you'd actually encounter a fucked up world: by being fucking scared.

From that Gamasutra article:

*eyes PS3 Slim price*

I bought a ps3 at just the right time.

Bring this on. Bring it right the fuck on.

I've got a friend currently playing the game, he says its pretty amazing apart from the fact that later on getting ganked becomes a major part of the game, with other players sort of invading your world and stalking you to steal your precious, precious, souls.

I was playing and I had this great moment where I stumbled across a note which essentially said 'AXE' and then a bloodstain which showed someone getting decapitated. I didn't walk any further.

Thing is, though, that black phantoms can only attack you, I believe, if you're human. Granted, double HPs are nice, but with the ring that makes your soul form have 75% instead of 50% of your HPs there's really an incentive to jump off a cliff as soon as you incarnate. Especially considering a lot of stuff can one-shot you, making the HP difference kinda pointless

So, this is basically just Ninja Gaiden meets Roguelike? Yeah... lack of PS3 aside, I'm not sure this is anything I'd be able to handle without becoming instantly frustrated. I do look forward to the speed runs, though.

This game has been off my radar until recently. I may have to give this game a shot.

This game has been on my radar for awhile, after hearing people rave about imported versions back in August. My pregnant wife, however, is dreading the return of cursing, jibberish and perhaps even a controller smash or two.

Anyone know what combat is like? Is there actually strategy involved, or is it a "mash A for as long as your thumb can take it" type deal?

Combat is largely based around defence. You'll spend half the game with your shield raised, then it's pretty much button mashing. It's tough as nails though, any mob can take you down if you've not got your gameface on.

It's VERY strategic. Blocking and attacking both consume stamina, so if you're not approaching it intelligently, whether you button mash or hide behind your shield for too long, you're screwed. Also, you need to take into account that with larger weapons such as pole arms or large swords, fighting in close confines like tight hallways is going to end up with you bouncing your blade off a wall, leaving you ridiculously vulnerable as you recover your balance. knowing WHERE to fight is as big a part in this game as knowing HOW to fight.

Armor plays a really big role in how you move and most importantly, how well you dodge. Armor will protect you from damage, but if you play a more agile class, you won't need armor as you are harder to hit in the first place.

Range to target and the timing of your attack animations play a huge part as well. When I was playing as a Royal, I had a lunge attack with my rapier that let me cover a lot of ground and almost always killed the grunt level enemies in one hit. It took the character a while to recover from the attack however, so it was not a good idea to use it in a mass combat situation. The enemies can use the same tricks you can as well, so even the base level grunts can occasionally surprise you with a parry-riposte that can hurt you badly. That being said they are also prone to flailing away in one direction which makes it pretty easy to circle around behind them and waste them.

Sorry, I don't mean to keep writing novels about this thing, but like I said in my first post, it's a very compelling game. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on a domestic copy.

I'm frightened by this game.

I'm just about sold on this game. As long as this statement is still true: , which to me, makes this the anti-Ninja Gaiden and right up my alley.

If you think NG didn't reward careful, methodical gameplay, you're doing it wrong.

Ninja Gaiden doesn't reward anything, it just punishes you for being human.

Well, I guess it rewards pathetic manchildren with all the focus on tits nowadays.

Bah. It was button mashing irritation. Nothing methodical about that game at all. Thief is a perfect example of a game that requires careful, methodical gameplay.

Truth.

The goddamn Ninja Dogs in NG2 were the hardest part of the game. Even the final fucking boss couldn't fuck you up as efficiently as those frame glitching sons of bitches.

If you're playing Ninja Gaiden right, killing is a fucking dance. You learn how to react to every hit, what weapon to use when, when to counter, when to go for Ultimate Techs, what moves flow into each other, clearing a room is fun, seamless, and awesome. Problem is most people pick it up, expect to immediately lop off some heads by flailing at X and Y, and get painfully and rightfully bitchslapped by the A.I.

Sorry, I keep having traumatic flashbacks to those little fuckers.

Makes me wonder if they'll be as bad in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. I still remember getting pissed at the armored dogs in the PS2 Shinobi.

But in Sigma 2 you get to SHAKE DEM TITTAYS

Remember when Sony said that the next generation of gaming didn't start until they said it did? WELL THEY JUST SAID IT DID.

Boobs are the new karma system. Put some titties up in there, jiggle the sixaxis, make them puke bats, whatever

No no no the nipples shoot winged babies at you.

Bat-shitting tits sounds better in my head, but you are correct.

You kill the nipplebabies because nipplebabies are evil.

Not that I don't appreciate a good derail, but Demon's Souls only evokes Ninja Gaiden in it's level of challenge and the perceived attitude towards it's players. Mechanically, the two games could not be more different.

Heh. Nipplebabies. That's just fun to say. I think I have a new Rock Band band name too.

Yeah. That guy is pretty creepy.

I didn't get much past him fondling the embossed cover.

Still want, though.