So Demon's Souls is a pretty rad game for the PS3!
What kind of game is Demon's Souls?Demon's Souls is an online-enabled action RPG for the PS3. At its most basic, the gameplay in Demon's Souls has a similar feeling to the 3D Zeldas, or Okami - you control a single protagonist from an over-the-shoulder camera, and you run around hitting a particular button to stab people and a different button to set them on fire. And everyone loves action RPGs, right? I mean, Zelda appeals to all ages and levels of ability, surely Demon's Souls is similar!
Except Demon's Souls hates you. Yes, that's right, you. The person sitting here reading this. Every time you boot up Demon's Souls, the little man who lives inside your Playstation 3 is thinking up new and exciting ways to get you killed. He has a powerful allergic reaction to success, you see, while failure lets him get his rocks off. So he's going to try to destroy your fragile little ego by making sure that the moment you make the slightest error in Demon's Souls, you die horribly. And then the little man gets off. You don't want the little man to get off, do you?
What's the story?Basically, a king decided that magic which relied upon the souls of his subjects sounded like a great and easy way to ensure the prosperity of his kingdom. This of course awakened an Ancient Evil, which then proceeded to cover the kingdom in a terrible grey fog of evil and death, much like London. This caused most of the inhabitants to be robbed of their souls, so they became mindless slaves who attack with great fervour to protect the will of their masters - again, much like London (I'm just kidding). So your character, thinking 'hey maybe I'll save these poor people' or far more likely 'this sounds like a great place to loot' decides to brave the fog, enter the kingdom and do battle with the various Demons who are now in charge of things, with the eventual goal of lulling the Ancient Evil back to sleep so that everyone can live in peace and harmony until someone else comes up with the great idea of using souls to perform arcane rituals.
The game doesn't seem like fun! Who wants to play a game that sounds so cheap?Well, the thing with Demon's Souls is that anytime you die, it is directly attributeable to something you did wrong. The game is never cheap. It is hard, it is unforgiving, and it will punish you for dying in ways that make attaching an electrode to the pain center in your brain that is activated upon death sound like a pretty good idea. But if you die, there is an obvious and evident reason for it. This is almost always something you can avoid the next time you try making your way through whatever part of the game got you killed. And it is a game where you actually see a marked improvement in your abilities as you play through more and more.
This doesn't mean the game is ever easy. Far from it - you'll never hit a point where you don't really have to pay attention because your character is a bronzed god who can destroy entire armies with a wave of his hand. Aside from the first area of the game (which is arguably an extended tutorial), you always have to be on your guard or risk being horribly mauled by one of the many horrors that will face you in your quest to free the land of Boletaria. Also, if you play the game like most people and spend your time dodge-rolling around like a squirrel on meth, gravity will swiftly become your greatest nemesis as you constantly fall to your death, since no one in Boletaria ever heard of OHSA.
I heard this game's online! Does this mean I can play with other people?
Kind of! The game has a persistent online component - no, this doesn't mean you'll be mounting 18 person raids to take back the kingdom of Boletaria, but there are a lot of cool features that make going online with the game a lot more worthwhile. What are these features, you ask?
Messages- Anywhere in the world, you can hit the Select button on your PS3 controller and leave a message. This appears on the ground as a set of glowing glyphs, and is visible to other people playing online at the same time. This can be any of a large selection of prewritten messages, and can be used to advise other players of danger, or give them some advice to help them in their quest. When you first write your message, only a few people will be able to see it. If they find it helpful, they can 'recommend' the message (also accessed via select) to promote it for more people to see. This helps separate the useful messages ('Use fire on this next enemy!') from the useless ones ('Step forward!', which conveniently omits the second part 'and fall to your death!')
Bloodstains- Anytime you die, you leave a bloodstain. This bloodstain is visible to other players online - they can select it and see your last moments of life. So if you select a bloodstain, see someone run ahead of you before they spin around and try sprinting towards where you currently are before dying horribly, there may be something ahead that wants to eat you! Just a thought!
Eye Stones- There are three kinds of eye stones.
Blue - If you're in Spirit Form, you can use this to drop a soul glyph at particular locations. Other players, if they're in Body Form, can then select this glyph and summon you to their world to help them do battle. This lasts until you beat a boss, at which point you're returned to your world with all the souls you acquired.
White - If you're in another player's world and decide you want to return home, use the white eye stone to return to your own world. This can also be accomplished by dying, but this is slightly less terrible.
Black - This is the interesting one. Using these, you can invade another player's world if they're in Body Form. Once there, you can try to kill them, returning them to Soul Form and regaining your own body. Of course, if they're better than you, they will probably just whup your ass and send you crying home to mama. Aww, baby's gonna cry.
Sounds.. interesting. Anything else I should know before starting out?Lots! But, there's an excellent wiki located at
http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/ which will give you all sorts of handy advice, including things not to do (don't buy plate mail if you want to be able to dodge easily. And you -do- want to be able to dodge easily).
The other thing is - the tutorial boss is
supposed to kill you, but you can in fact kill him! Your reward - to then be killed by an even
bigger Demon. So uhh.. hurray?
If you have any other questions, ask 'em! I've been playing this game pretty heavily for a couple of months now and I know it pretty well.
WATCH THIS SPACE.
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but i forgive you vsove. you could have said valkyria chronicles
Hope there's a cleaned up and streamlined sequel someday.
But I like other PS3 exclusives!
3D Dot Game Heroes definitely looks great
Which is six weeks away by the way
Play-asia aren't allowed to ship it to europe either
The wisest decision
no love for modnation racers though?
OH YEAH The Last Guardian this year too. probably.
Everyone I've heard from that was in the beta said everything but the actual racing was fun
I'm counting on 2011
Hopefully they make racing fun this time
But they failed four previous times soooo
agreed
it always felt like driving gliding boxes
TBA 2010
so maybe christmas this year or something. still, probably worth the wait
I don't have a mic though.
This is the optimal way to play
but just on racecars or something
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
yeah i guess those 53 million copies the previous incarnations sold were mostly pack-ins and giveaways
fuck AGAIN?
godamnit GT stop being pussies
cars do not bounce
what does that mean
arent they all racecars?
man at some point I'm going to need to get a ps3
That's how they got my sale!
My PS2 came with GT3
I played it a couple times because at the very least it looked really neat and I was all into my shiny new system
no dummy
production cars are no racecars
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
Yes it is
And yes you will
That game looks fucking awesome
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
but.. aren't they racing?
you're clever princess
Dear satan I wish for this or maybe some of this....oh and I'm a medium or a large.
If some guy pulls up next to me and wants to race, and I race him, it does not become a race car
also man when i get a real job
ps3 bam