[GAME ON] Demon's Souls [PS3] - Ain't yo mamma's RPG
Colt
.45ColoradoRegistered User regular
.45ColoradoRegistered User regular
Demon's Souls is a recent PS3 exclusive title from developer From Software, already known for the Armored Core series, Chromehounds, the Tenchu series and Ninja Blade. Demon's Souls is a third person action game in the vein of From Software's old, old franchise King's Field. King's Field was know to be ludicrously hard and huge learning curve. Demon's Souls keeps that tradition pretty damn well.
So what's the big deal with this RPG that put's it above the others?
Demon's Souls "ain't yo mamma's RPG". It certainly takes keys from a lot of other well know games before it, like King's Field (naturally), Monster Hunter, and well throw in one you know like TESIV: Oblivion. It's not just another JRPG that is turned based, has that same menu in every JRPG ever made. For a gaming coming from Japan, it's distinctly Western. It has a very dark European background, full voice acting and some of the best environments that can be found in a game today.
Equipment comes in all kinds of forms, from long swords to katanas to a Pyramid Head-esque meat cleaver. Enemies range from zombies to dark knights to dragons. Bosses? Gigantic and intimidating. Giants mechanical knights, fire breathing spiders (yes, you just read that), a veritable God. Pretty much every imaginable baddie is out for your ass in this game.
Did I mention how this game is hard? This game is hard. Like, fucking hard. I cannot emphasis the difficulty of this game. Now, it's not what I like to call "Ninja Gaiden Hard", where the game is difficult to the point of hindering the player (*coughfuckingterribadcameracough*). It is such a well crafted difficulty to the point where the game is never cheap. Your death is always your own fault. And you will die. And there are heavy consequences for that death.
There is no long and arduous tutorial. No quick time events. No button mashing. No pop-up hints. You will get mobbed by monsters. You will fight bosses that could very well kill you in one hit. You'll fall of ledges because you didn't watch where you were stepping. There isn't even a pause button! You'll fight tooth and nail to get past each and every level. But God damn it, does it feel rewarding once you do.
Ok, you've got me now. This game have a story?
While the story in Demon's Souls is simple, the world that is created around it is very interesting. It takes place in the fictional European-inspired kingdom of Boletaria, where a corrupt king summons "the Old One" and uses unholy powers to bring unrivaled prosperity to his lands. Prosper it did, but then fell victim to his own vices and traps and abused his power to cause great destruction, causing a great fog to cover the country and summon countless demons to devour the innocent. This is where you come in! You are a lone adventurer who quests into the depths of Boletaria to put a stop to the fog and bring peace to the land, not even death itself can stop your pursuit!
That's it. You play the part of a random adventurer out to find your fame. No girl to save, no friend who betrayed you. Just you, the legions of hell, and victory on the other side of them.
So how does it play?
Demon's Souls plays in real time from the third person perspective. You name and design your character yourself and use a system similar to Oblivion's face creation to get your look. There is a vast amount of weapons and armor and two kinds of magic: Spells (mostly offensive attacks) and Miracles (mostly defensive and healing abilities). And you need to take into account your environment. Yeah, you have an huge sword that smacks monsters around, but will it really be of any use in a narrow hallway?
Bring aware of your surroundings is key. Every new enemy you come upon will act differently. The most important piece of advice is move slowly, attack carefully. If you just waltz around playing like it's Ninja Gaiden, your liable to fall off a cliff or become stunlocked by an enemies attacks.
You have your typical Health and Magic, but Demon's Souls also takes hint from The Elder Scroll's and implements and Stamina system for sword attacks and blocking with shields. Every action takes away a certain amount of Stamina, but it's always regenerating. The heavier the attack, the more Stamina you will use. The more hits you take behind your shield, the more Stamina will be drained.
Demon's Souls has over a dozen starting "classes", but in actuality it is a classless game. All equipment is dependent on your character stats, so even if you start as a cloth wearing Royal, you can still pick up and use the same heavy armor the Knight has if you have the right statistics. There are certain advantages and challenges from picking each starting class tho. As a Royal, you are well equipped to use magic but don't have a lot of armor or health. As a Thief, you can backstab easier because of your dagger. As a Knight, you have heavy armor and are well equipped for melee combat but roll slowly and have no magic. It is a very well set system.
Leveling up is done by the games only currency, Souls. Souls are everything. They will get you higher stats, buy you equipment, potions, increase the effectiveness of your gear, are needed to craft new weapons. If you die, you lose all your Souls, and this is one fact that makes Demon's Souls so punishing. Now, you do have one chance to get them all back from a bloodstain you leave behind in your death, but if you die before you touch that bloodstain, all those Souls are lost.
The entire game is based around deep, complex dungeons that take ages to fully explore. Your only refuge from the monsters is the "Nexus" which is the hub or "town" of Demon's Souls. Here you can talk to the locals, level up, learn new magic spells, repair or buy new items and equipment, and store your unwanted junk. Don't think though you've got it all down, New Game+ provides even more to see at the Nexus!
Oh yeah, there is a New Game+. Playing in New Game+ raises the difficulty even more! It's a whole new ballgame when you enter your second time around. But it doesn't end after that. You can start a New Game++, and keep going. Every new game raises the difficulty more.
Is there multiplayer?
Oh yeah! Demon's Souls has some of the coolest and original multiplayer interaction ever.
Co-Operative
Players can utilize a special item called the "Blue Eye Stone" to set a marker on the ground that acts as a gateway to a multiplayer Co-Operative game. There's no lobby or matchmaking system. Other players online can see your marker and invite you into their world, and soon enough you and two other adventurers will be on your way to slaying some monsters.
All three players can receive Souls for their hard work, and they can team up to take out the Boss Demons with better efficiency! As your game together ends, players can grade the host adventure on a scale from D to S and this grade carries with the Host so other players know how good or bad a player they are.
Competitive
Don't like playing nice? With the use of the "Black Eye Stone," players with evil intent can literally force themselves into another player's world! Taking the role of the "Black Phantom," the player must hunt out and kill the invaded player to receive a special Souls bonus! However, if the invading Phantom is killed then you lose all your Souls and he gets a big reward for killing you.
If you want to join someone in co-op or kill someone by invading, you will only have access to those within 10 levels of you. No picking on newbies, and no getting sent to fight someone much higher than yourself.
Educational
Uh...what? Hang on, let me explain this one. Demon's Souls offers a special method of communicating with other players in other worlds, to help (or deceive) other players about events that may be coming up in around that corner, or across that dark bridge. By utilizing a wide selection of stock messages and phrases, players use a bizarre Twitter-esque system of leaving messages on the floor for others to read. These messages can be read by anyone, and can even be graded on their usefulness! Players who leave helpful or nice messages are rewarded with a full health restore!
The Pantheon
But wait! There's more! Demon's Souls taps into the desires of envy and jealousy by providing its own Leaderboards. Players can visit The Pantheon at the very top of The Nexus to see who the greatest Boletarian adventurers are. Ever wonder who has the most PKs? Who's played the longest? Who's got the most souls or the most Trophies? The Pantheon tells all.
Ok, I want this game. As in right now. How do I get it?
For the longest time you would have to import the Asian version, but not any more! As of October 2009, Atlus has published Demon's Souls here in the US! You can pick it up in store or online for $59.99.
A note to those who already own the Asian version. You can't play with those who own the US version. Sorry.
A note to those in the EU. No one has taken up the mantel to publish Demon's Souls in Europe, so you will have to import it. Sorry.
I live off review scores.
Fine. Be like that. Demon's Souls has gotten very positive reviews since it's Asian release in January 2009.
Famitsu: 9 / 7 / 7 / 6
Dengeki: 95 / 85 / 85 / 85
Eurogamer: 9 / 10
RPGFan: 84%
GameSpot: 9.0
Gamer Limit: 9.5
Now, slayer of demon's...go forth!
Helpful Links!
Below are several helpful links for those who need specific info regarding the game. Personally, I'm telling you not to use any of these on your first game because it ruins the fun, but if you really have to, go for it.
Demon's Souls Wiki - A comprehensive Demon's Souls wiki thanks to the people at SomethingAwful.
Wikisouls - A wiki set up by Atlus. Not as comprehensive as the SA one, but it has some good info.
Old Threads
1 - http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=88299
2 - http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=103096
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Also love that new thread smell.
Invading: I wish more people would play for the PvP. I find that if you create a character that is optimized for PvP, it is a bit too easy to kill hosts and their blue phantoms. Every once in awhile you get stomped or have a good fight, but they are too few and far between. On a faith based guy I made for PvP, one host couldn't even hurt me due to the fact they didn't do enough damage to counter the regen. Are red stones even worth it, or is it just a gank fest with those... Since the host can have blues and will know where you are zoning in at and when.
Do it. I got it before the event and have not used anything else.
Blue phantoms are useless, too.
I've found that blue phantoms always help with the flamelurker. If you can get someone to tank (or, if you're a knight, you can tank) and distract it while everyone else pounds it with magic/arrows. The real difficulty with him is the fact that he's so aggressive, but if you get someone to handle that aggression, he goes down easy.
I had incredibly good luck in my last fight, found a blue phantom that was using the Makoto/Morion Blade combo, killed it with 3 attacks.
Though you may want to rethink going for Quality.
Don't make Quality weapons. The bonuses aren't as good as other types.
If you spread out your stats like that you're not going to get a lot of bonuses from anything. Maybe make a Dragon weapon, they don't depend on stats but can still do decent damage outside of NG+.
And what other one hand weapons are really nice? I can't access demon soul weapons at the moment (accidentally ate Flamelurker's soul), by the way.
EDIT: By the way, my chief combat stat in the long run is dexterity.
Crushing weapons if you are leaning towards STR.
Sharp weapons if you are leaning towards DEX.
Cresent or Moon if you are leaning towards MAG.
Blessed if you are leaning towards FAI.
If you enjoy Backstabby-stabby and the Riposte game, find the Secret Dagger in 3-1 and convert it to Fatal. You'll see huge numbers whenever you pull off a successful shank.
Most of the worlds have at least one weapon you can find that have already started down a "specialized" path, which can save you considerable materials and souls if you just stick with it. In 2-1 you can find a Crushing Battle Axe, in 2-2 you can find a Dragon Longsword, in 3-1 you can find a Mercury Rapier, in 4-1 you can find a Cresent Falchion and in 5-1 you can find a Blessed Mace. Those are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
My personal favorite is a Blessed Mirdan Hammer, with nice range and a ton of power behind it, followed by the Fatal Secret Dagger. Though the Blessed Mirdan Hammer gets a lot more use against bosses than the Fatal Secret Dagger, since most bosses can't be backstabbed.
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Well, 2 for the giant goblins. God do I hate those things.
It's an Atlus game. You'll be lucky to find it at all, much less find it on sale.
Cresent also grants you passive mana regen, which is a nice bonus. A Cresent +5 weapon will absolutely rip up anything that is not highly resistant to magic.
If you aren't particular about your choice of weapon, go with the Cresent Falchion+1 you find in 4-1. It's a pretty fast weapon with great starting damage, plus you don't have to invest in the initial forging process, which is nice. You have to get past a Dual-Katana skeleton to aquire it, so either blast it to bone fragments or simply manuever around it; both are easy.
Go through 5-1, kill the Crystal Gecko and take out the boss, enter 5-2 and drudge through the swamp, kill BP Selen and the Primeval Demon. Go through the shantytown and along the ledge to access the shortcut, killing the Crystal Gecko there as well. Go back and kill the Dirty Colossus and enter 5-3, then kill that Crystal Gecko, then kill the bodyguard and the boss. After that I save and reload my file, farming the zone's Crystal Geckos while still in pure black, as they drop higher quality stones in a pure black tendancy. One playthrough I got 4 Pure Faithstones off Geckos alone. Good times.
After destroying the entire zone and farming all the Geckos using the save/reload trick, I come return to the Nexus then warp back to the Dirty Colossus Archstone, enter 5-3 and face the black phantom there.
How many main levels are there and how many sub levels do there tend to be in each? Is there a large amount of content or does the game get it's length by forcing you to replay areas at higher difficulty?
Sorry to interrupt.
World 1 had four areas, every other has three. The last area of every level is sparse with regular enemies, or has none, and you fight an Archdemon. And there are only five worlds.
EDIT: God damn it. Seems like I can't go Pure Black during the event. Time to set the game aside for a week...
There must be alot of farming or higher difficulties to make this RPG length.
How long is a usual playthrough and what constitutes "Done" (ie level cap and whatnot)?
Really I'll be satisfied if you told me how long you feel the game really is normally. 100hours?
There is a lot to do if you explore a bit and get to know the game. Reading the wiki's in the OP help.
Both blue phantoms I went in with were no use at all. One couldn't hurt the thing or tank properly, and the other died in all of three seconds.
So, think Atlus will ever have an event where they send their own people to invade others? That might be kinda crazy. Or, maybe something for April Fools day?
PSN: Toma84
Live - MrObersmith
PSN - Obersmith
No, you can kill both body form and black phantom form in the same game, if you meet the tendency requirements. Same for any of the named black phantoms.
Yeah. I orginally had Diablo II typed in and decided to change it to Zelda. It really is hard to compare this game to anything (aside from its predecessors). Mostly due to the fact that drops are pretty static and you know what you are going to get from every enemy. There aren't really classes you can choose and... no Meph runs!
And not just from a sales point of view. Since the servers are segregated, there'd be more people playing online in the US version.
PSN: Toma84
I would guess that a sequel wouldn't be as import-friendly, but will be brought over a lot sooner. Maybe even by Sony, they published it in Japan.
God I hope there's a sequel. Demon's Souls 2: Soul Harder.