Demon's Souls - Page 2

I imagine the crushing difficulty will be lessened a bit by co-op, which is how I want to play the game, right?

And Ninja Gaiden's difficulty was, IMHO, in large part the result of awful design choices. Most noticeably, the camera.

Wait. What? How have I missed this?

A game that takes advantage of you, doesn't call you back and yet you carry on loving it?

Co-operative play?

Ohhh. Fuck. Another game I can't afford.

You guys I think you guys may be mis-understanding how co-op works. It's not designed in the traditional 'my buddy is coming along with me' type of way.

From a Demon's Souls wiki:
or Penny Arcade:

Ahh disappointing. Still, everything else looks good.

Disappointing? I think the concept sounds pretty cool actually.

Agreed. I don't even have a PS3 at home, I just want to play it at work on lunch. I actually pre-ordered it just to do that. That's a first for me.

It's not based on my friends list. Whilst it says it's do-able, it's not made easy.

Co-operative played with friends is the best kind of co-op.

Hence disappointment in an otherwise promising system.

I think it's kinda neat, too. I also like the ability to drop nefarious hints.

I'd like to be able to leave such useful words as "Flange" and "Crevice"

I'll litter your dungeons with insults disguised as compliments and long-forgotten ethnic slurs.

"Mangina"

Unfortunately there's a preselected list of words you can choose from and 'mangina' is likely not on it.

Yeah, I forgot about that. Still, neat concept.

Nachos always has to go spoil things with his "facts".

8.9 Review from GameTrailers.

All of the online stuff sounds great, except the bit where random people can force their way into your game to attack you. I would hope they'd put some sort of level restriction on that or something.

You could turn off the internet, I guess.

Well the Gametrailer review seemed to imply there were separate single-player and online portions of the game, or maybe I just misinterpreted it. At any rate, I may trade in a couple of games and pick this up.

The Gametrailer review explicitly said you can't opt out.

I meant just that you don't have to log in to PSN to play the game.

Well I'd gather then that it's just the single player without any of the cool online functionality.

you can opt out pretty easily, if I'm not mistaken, without giving up most ofthe rest of the online functionality.

The thing is, you start out the game as a disembodied soul. After you kill your first big beasty, you incarnate and play as a human, with double the hitpoints. While human you can get invaded, so what a lot of people do is just throw themselves off a cliff where they can easily get to the souls they dropped. After you die once, you're back to soul form again, so no danger of losing your souls by a PvP attack.

I love how when developers try to be engaging and innovative, the players find surefire ways to ruin or circumvent it completely. Then they complain that no developers try to be engaging and innovative, and so we get HALO ODST selling millions of copies.

I'm for innovation as much as anybody, and I think some of the things they're doing here sound awesome. I just don't want to lose 10 hours or more of game progress to some some 14-year-old with a hardon for griefing.

This online aspect is going to cause a flood of trade-ins. I'm going to wait a week or two and save a few bucks.

that's not how I see it at all. In my mind, playing as a human is how demon's souls interprets "Interested in multiplayer". When you're a human you can request souls to join you, making encounters easier, but you can get invaded. If you want to multiplay in safety, play as a soul and join other people's games (to help or invade). It's a nice self-contained system that gives you a choice of how you want to play, without messing with all the lobbies, menus, etc of normal multiplayer options. It's exactly what people have been praising the game for, and I was simply explaining that you DO have this choice, you aren't forced to defend yourself against demigods with death rays. Beyond, you know, the ones the single player throws at you.

And yet you have no inclination to annoy the fuck out of some 14-year-old yourself, in a way that is not only permissible but intended?

...You and I are very different.

Well, I just traded in a few games and picked this up for 10 bucks. Gonna pop it in now, and see how long I make it before I come back in here whining and crying like a baby.

I'm going to get a PS3 next month, and this may be one of the first games I buy for it. It just seems too interesting to pass up, and it may fulfill my secret masochistic desire for an absolutely brutal RPG.

I just traded some stuff in for this, too. If I could only single Singer out for in-game harassment.

When I get this game, I'm going to hunt Singer down like an animal.

Then I'm going to set up the PS3 and play Demon's Souls.

I'm 90% certain you can play in offline mode, (I believe the game informed me it was going to play that way one night when the PS3 was having trouble with my wireless) but that means you don't get bloodstain replays or notes from other players, and in a game like this, more info is good. I've had at least a half a dozen instances where my life was saved by a note or replay, and I only got invaded once. Never did work out how the co-op worked.

My PSN is the same as my XBL and Steam. Phreakdoubt. I'll be picking it up on the way home.

I'm Jacob_Singer48 on PSN.

Well, all the descriptions you've read are true. The game is pretty fuckin' brutal. I was actually kicking ass in the first castle section (after the tutorial), then suddenly I'm besieged by two undead who do fire damage. 300+ souls down the drain. You can only recover the souls near your most recent death, so one false move or one missed block and it's back to the starting gate. I kept wondering why there were so many bloodstains in early sections of the game, and realized that the more times players have to repeat a section, the more chances for random deaths, obviously.

I may take some time out to RTFM and visit the official forums for any hints and tips I can pick up. I chose a barbarian, and many of these early guys I can kill with one hit, but the way they move and team up can really throw off your timing (or maybe just my timing).

The game is darn purty, and it's cool watching other live souls run around, reading the messages (and yeah, when they're honest messages they can save your ass), and it looks like a lot of people are having fun committing suicide just for the bloodstain replays.

In the long run, though, I'm not sure I'll have enough patience to get very far. I fought my way back to the two fire guys who killed me, only to die again in the exact same fashion just before retrieving my souls, even though I knew they were there. I have no armor yet, and if one guy tags me with fire that's it, poof, I'm dead.

I'll try the tutorial again with different characters to see what I prefer, but it looks like no matter what you pick you can still level it any way you like. And I haven't even tried any ranged combat or magic or anything.

All in all, it's a fun new kind of rpg experience, and I'm guessing if you have the patience and skill it's gonna be a blast. Dunno if I can live up to the challenge, but I'll give it the ol' Navy try.

Having much better luck with a different character class. Also, don't waste healing in the tutorial. Pretty sure you can't die and everything you pick up carries over to the Nexus.

Also, does anyone know whether or not if you make your way back to the Nexus portal to repair and purchase shit, does it re-set the level you came from?

I warned ya.

The true horror of that mechanic only really kicks in once you die 2 or 3 times and then realize that you may just as well have not spent the last 2 hours playing the game for all the progress you just made.

If you're really stuck, give the Royal a whirl. He starts off with a ring that regens your magic points and a ranged magical attack. He's pretty handy with a rapier and he's agile for dodging to boot. (ETA: he also starts out at soul level 1 which means he's a fair bit cheaper to level up initially. The barbarian starts at soul level 9, which means each stat increase costs about 100 more souls.)

I'm reasonably certain it does. (been a few months since I played the borrowed copy) I remember getting enough souls to do an upgrade, going back to the Nexus, and then back to world 1-1 and all the yard trash had respawned. The game is pretty good about giving you shortcuts once you beat bosses tho. That big gate at the top of the stairs opens after you beat the first boss for example, and you can just go straight into 1-2.

Uh, you can't die in the tutorial? I was killed pretty quickly by the vanguard.

How badly did I fuck up by picking the Magician? Singer, what class are you using?

I picked soldier my second time through. By Vanguard do you mean the huge boss at the end? 'Cause he's supposed to kill you, I'm pretty sure. Like in one hit. (EDIT: I was misinformed from a fan website. 'Scuse me. See below.)

All I know is I had about 15 of those Crscent Moon Grass deals when I got to the two Blue-Eyed guys right before the tutorial boss, and just to check I let them wail on me for a good bit and even though my health bar read zero I didn't die. And having a lot of those extra heals helped a lot in the early stages of 1.1. I'm doing WAY better this time than I did with the barbarian. In fact, haven't died yet with this chick yet (knock on wood).

I am checking out forums and stuff for clues, though. I ain't ashamed.


EDIT: Just read online you can kill the tutorial boss, and these are the rewards (from Gamespot forums):

For beating him you get:
* Hilarious cutscene
* (3) Splinters of Hardstone
* (3) Splinters of Sharpstone
* (5?) Full Moon Grass
* Traditional Soldier Soul?
* Gray Demon Soul(meaning you'll have 2 when you beat the one in 4-1)

small tip: If you completed 1-1 and you don't have something called a cling ring, you missed something. There are a few other hidden items in 1-1, notably a ranged weapon, but the ring is important: it gives you 50% more hitpoints when playing as a soul.

Also, those fire-wielding skeletons that gave Jacob hell respond really well to fire themselves. Use firebombs and whatever the gunk you put on your weapons to make them flaming is called.

I don't want to spoil too much, but these things are all stuff you can read about in in-game hints if you're lucky

In the three hours I played this last night, I'm not sure I got anywhere, but I managed to learn how to parry pretty well. Is there a way to run back to the Nexus and preserve your souls?

I'm probably going to raid the faqs pretty soon. There's a Samurai-looking guy up on a bridge who kills me every time.

Killed the first demon last night, on my first try even. Looked online for help tho', I'm no masochist.

Fuck. I guess I'm gonna have to get this game too.

You can run back to the Nexus whenever you like, but like CountZero said above, it resets all the "yard trash". This actually works in your favor, though, because you can grind low-level guys for easy souls. But you really need to kill the first demon to get the ability to level up, learn magic and miracles.

And that samurai-looking guy is the big armored knight with the red eyes, I'm assuming? He killed me once, then I found out I didn't even have to go that way to get to the first demon. I plan on going back that way tonight after I've absorbed a lot more souls and leveled up a bit.

Also, funny!

hahaha I'm imagining it like the counter in Hot Shots! : Part Deux.

BLOODIER THAN DOOM
BLOODIER THAN GRAND THEFT AUTO
BLOODIER THAN NINJA GAIDEN
BLOODIEST GAME EVER!!!!!

Whaaa? Which guide are you using? The shitty wiki I'm looking at tells me I need to kill it.

Try Gamefaqs, Trevor. That's my first go-to spot for stuff like this.

Gamefaqs is great, as are the video walkthroughs on Mahalo, but the guide I was using yesterday was this one:

http://mycheats.1up.com/view/section...on_s_souls/ps3

The maps are homemade, but accurate enough (I wish the game had maps of any sort), and it got me through to the first demon easily enough.

From what I've seen, that red-eyed bastard is tough as shit. A lot of players have been leading him back to places where he gets trapped or falls off a stairwell, or even all the way back to that weird floor trap with the blue swirlie dealies.

So for those playing, would it be fair to say this game is Diablo-esque? I don't mean in control, as obviously it's different, but I mean in terms of setup and gameplay, that's what it seems like.

Yeah, I could see the connections. At first I thought the punishing difficulty would turn me off, but after the first demon is down and you unlock some shortcuts and the leveling-up begins, I can really see where they're going with it. Now I can basically just run through the opening again and again if I wish, making myself stronger and better capable of tackling the new stuff. Plus, dying and losing souls now, at least before I move on, is no big deal, 'cause it's all gravy.

Wanted to mention also about the online stuff: you have to volunteer to be summoned by setting a stone a certain way; same with invading another's game. I set myself as available last night and I was almost immediately summoned to help a guy get past the dragon encounter. He made it to safety, whilst I died, but I didn't lose any souls in the process and actually helped him out. I can't wait for more of this sort of thing. It's really kind of ingenious.