Demon's Souls Remake

[mediocrepoet]

This thread is discussing how easy demons souls and whether or not it is possible to defeat each boss the first time, playing blind - but meanwhile I am getting wrecked by the armor spider....

And I've beaten ER including most optional bosses...

Am I just shit?

I... uh. How?

 

[Abu Antar]

This thread is discussing how easy demons souls and whether or not it is possible to defeat each boss the first time, playing blind - but meanwhile I am getting wrecked by the armor spider....

And I've beaten ER including most optional bosses...

Am I just shit?

Demon's Souls was all about being slow and methodical. At least from what I remember.

 

[Egosphere]

This thread is discussing how easy demons souls and whether or not it is possible to defeat each boss the first time, playing blind - but meanwhile I am getting wrecked by the armor spider....

And I've beaten ER including most optional bosses...

Am I just shit?

Some of the bosses in DS are more akin to puzzles which you need to figure out.
I remember the spider and, especially, flame lurker being the two where I died the most. Lurker I only beat after going through several other stages and levelling up significantly. But there are a lot more bosses that can be beaten on first try out of all the Souls games, without a doubt.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

This thread is discussing how easy demons souls and whether or not it is possible to defeat each boss the first time, playing blind - but meanwhile I am getting wrecked by the armor spider....

And I've beaten ER including most optional bosses...

Am I just shit?

Level 2-1 was the first I beat without dying, in my initial playthrough of Demon's Souls. IIRC, you can kill Armor Spider with ranged weapons while dodging its ranged attacks, or you can melee Armor Spider and block/dodge/avoid almost all attacks (the exception is a fire area attack, where you can either run far away while it is initiating or tank it and heal). The combat should only be a matter of how many healing grasses you consume.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

tfw you enter Armor Spider arena for the first time, haven't even seen the thing itself properly yet, and he starts shooting his fireballs at you like a machine gun right off the bat

and that music track

 

[FreshCorpse]

This thread is discussing how easy demons souls and whether or not it is possible to defeat each boss the first time, playing blind - but meanwhile I am getting wrecked by the armor spider....

And I've beaten ER including most optional bosses...

Am I just shit?

Level 2-1 was the first I beat without dying, in my initial playthrough of Demon's Souls. IIRC, you can kill Armor Spider with ranged weapons while dodging its ranged attacks, or you can melee Armor Spider and block/dodge/avoid almost all attacks (the exception is a fire area attack, where you can either run far away while it is initiating or tank it and heal). The combat should only be a matter of how many healing grasses you consume.

I only just found a ranged weapon from a vendor in 4-1. Of course, straight after I spend 500 runes on that I find another, better one upstairs

Anyway, now trying to beat the boss of 4-1. Found him last night but died to a tongue before I understood what was going on. Limited time to play but plan to make the (substantial) run to him again this eve.

I find the levels pretty easy to be honest, so far it's the bosses that I am struggling with. Perhaps that's because I'm currently very low level and don't yet have a good weapon or much armor (unless I accept fat rolls and use the stuff I started with).

I dropped this game initially a year ago after the frustration of the boss run of 1-2. I was trying to run a dex build then but I've change tack for this playthrough and and doing STR and minor FTH so far.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I only just found a ranged weapon from a vendor in 4-1. Of course, straight after I spend 500 runes on that I find another, better one upstairs

Anyway, now trying to beat the boss of 4-1. Found him last night but died to a tongue before I understood what was going on. Limited time to play but plan to make the (substantial) run to him again this eve.

I find the levels pretty easy to be honest, so far it's the bosses that I am struggling with. Perhaps that's because I'm currently very low level and don't yet have a good weapon or much armor (unless I accept fat rolls and use the stuff I started with).

I dropped this game initially a year ago after the frustration of the boss run of 1-2. I was trying to run a dex build then but I've change tack for this playthrough and and doing STR and minor FTH so far.

Aside from magic spells, you can find a light crossbow in level 1-1 and a compound short bow in level 1-2, though of course the compound long bow in level 4-1 is better than those. You should also have found a good melee weapon (the crescent falchion) in level 4-1. As for Adjudicator, there is a shortcut to the boss that involves rolling off a tower. Bosses are generally easier to defeat with a ranged strategy than via melee.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I should replay this at some point. See how my experience is different with my current Souls knowledge.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Found a sword in 4-1 that deals magic damage as well as physical damage and leveled STR a bit and went back and mashed the spider first time.



I think the best strategy for me for now is just to explore the levels and leave bosses if necessary until I have decent equipment. I still don't have a full set of armour (save for the set I started with, which gives me fat rolls) and no real committent to any of the weapons. Moreover, it seems that unless you have a specific weapon for an enemy you're a bit fucked. Stonefang tunnels would have been a nightmare without the mail breaker. And 4-1 without the club would also have been quite hard.

 

[D_X]

I still don't have a full set of armour

Armour is nothing special in DeS, so don't focus on it unless it's one of the few pieces that give additional effects. The DR is nothing special so you're just better off dodging or using a shield.

Moreover, it seems that unless you have a specific weapon for an enemy you're a bit fucked

Unfortunately, no. This is one of DeS's flaws. The weapon balance is wack. Thrusting swords like Mail Breaker, which you mentioned, are crap, spears are just better for thrusting and all of them are made redundant by the simple existence of the halberd. Stuff like halberd, claymore, uchigatana are mostly ahead of everything else and work in all situations.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Found a sword in 4-1 that deals magic damage as well as physical damage and leveled STR a bit and went back and mashed the spider first time.

Yes, the crescent falchion is an excellent weapon, except against magic-resistant enemies of course.

I think the best strategy for me for now is just to explore the levels and leave bosses if necessary until I have decent equipment. I still don't have a full set of armour (save for the set I started with, which gives me fat rolls) and no real committent to any of the weapons. Moreover, it seems that unless you have a specific weapon for an enemy you're a bit fucked. Stonefang tunnels would have been a nightmare without the mail breaker. And 4-1 without the club would also have been quite hard.

Armor is far less useful in Demon's Souls than in Dark Souls and its successors, so you just wear as much as you can without impeding your rolls past the medium version. If you've completed levels 1-2, 2-1, and 4-1 (and obviously 1-1 as well), then you should have decent equipment already, noting also available merchants, and of course you can upgrade your weapons via the two blacksmiths. The merchant you freed in level 4-1 moves to the beginning of level 4-2 after beating Adjudicator, and the spot just past him happens to be the second-best place for grinding souls in the entire game, since you can manually aim a bow at the reaper down below, who dies in a few shots, and killing that reaper also destroys the lesser enemies in the room, amply rewarding you with souls; it's only a short run to reset the level and repeat the process as much as you desire.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I'd say that armor was only truly relevant in DS1 due to how poise worked in that game. It made you a fucking tank. You could take on anything without staggering. In the other games it worked normally. However keeping a roll that is as fast as possible should be a priority for Souls games.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Moreover, it seems that unless you have a specific weapon for an enemy you're a bit fucked

Unfortunately, no. This is one of DeS's flaws. The weapon balance is wack. Thrusting swords like Mail Breaker, which you mentioned, are crap, spears are just better for thrusting and all of them are made redundant by the simple existence of the halberd. Stuff like halberd, claymore, uchigatana are mostly ahead of everything else and work in all situations.

I started with the Halberd (Temple Knight) and it's good, but it struggled a bit in 2-1 because R1 is a swing and the weapon is so long that it doesn't work in a an enclosed space. There's a lot of that in 2-1 so I switched to the mail breaker. The mail breaker also seems to do huge riposte damage and parrying is MUCH easier in this game than in ER. Parry+riposte is a one hit kill on the miners even at low STR.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Did a couple more bosses, the Tower Knight and the Adjudicator.

Honestly dunno if I'm into this. The boss runs really kill it for me. For 4-1 the boss run is basically the entire level and there are several substantial enemies placed along a series of cliff ledges along the way. The boss has a specific gimmick and until you work it out you just have to do this run over and over again. 2-1 is the same deal but slightly less artificial and the boss is somewhat less gimmicky.

It's one thing to die because you failed to watch your stamina or whatever but it's another thing to die because the pushback on successfully blocking an enemy's greatsword nudged you off a cliff to your death, or because you forgot that a dragon was repeatedly flaming the section of a bridge behind you.

I'm now doing 3-1 (haven't found the boss yet) and just thinking to myself: "How many times am I going to run this maze until I figure out the pattern on whatever boss is at the end of this?". It's not a good feeling.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

There are shortcuts in level 2-1, one of which connects the beginning of the level to a spot near the boss. Similarly, there's a shortcut in level 4-1 to reach the boss, though it's less obvious. Level 3-1 features locked doors that can be opened from keys found elsewhere, generating faster ways to traverse the level as you progress through it.

Also, you can accumulate large quantities of healing grass, so that you are less likely to die in the boss fight as long as you are being careful to keep your health up, and this will give you time to learn the boss patterns.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Demon's Souls bosses are giant pussies. Don't get intimidated by their size. They really aren't bad at all.

Zed's advice is good.

 

[Abu Antar]

In DeS the Maneaters, the Flamelurker, and King Allant were the only ones that gave me any trouble, but they are nowhere near as difficult as bosses in later games. Allant was the one I died on the most.

 

[FreshCorpse]

There are shortcuts in level 2-1, one of which connects the beginning of the level to a spot near the boss. Similarly, there's a shortcut in level 4-1 to reach the boss, though it's less obvious. Level 3-1 features locked doors that can be opened from keys found elsewhere, generating faster ways to traverse the level as you progress through it.

Also, you can accumulate large quantities of healing grass, so that you are less likely to die in the boss fight as long as you are being careful to keep your health up, and this will give you time to learn the boss patterns.

Sorry, I said 2-1 but I meant 1-2, the Tower Knight - for which I think there is no real shortcut.

Yes I did use the shortcut for 2-1.

I think maybe I've forgotten the time I spent wondering around Limgrave dying to individual soldiers in the early game of ER until I started to improve a bit. I have the claymore now and I switch between that and the great club. So far faith doesn't count for much. I bought the antidote miracle but I'd like to get 2 miracle slots before I head into what is obviously the poison level in this game.

 

[Abu Antar]

If you can kill the dragon, you can basically just run up to the Tower Knight. If you don't want to do that, you can still just sprint through the level. But honestly, just skip 1-2 for now, if you have trouble with TK just go do other areas. Bulk up on arrows, and then cheese the dragon.

 

[D_X]

The boss runs really kill it for me.

I can see how coming from ER this might come across as weird. Thing is, in DeS, most bosses are piss easy and the game's difficulty, by design, comes from navigating the levels and getting to them. In most cases, once you figure out the boss's gimmick, victory is pretty much assured. And if you stick with it 'till the end, you'll notice that the harder bosses do indeed have some sort of shortcut back to them. In the case of the 2 hardest ones*, one has a short run back and the other has a (slightly tricky) shortcut.

So far faith doesn't count for much

Faith is bad if you ask me. 3 miracles are multiplayer crap and most of the other ones are made redundant by consumables. Now if consumables were limited or hard to get they might've been useful, but it's not the case since you can easily get and carry around with you hundreds of grasses and spices (and it was even easier in the original, since you could just dupe all the crap you wanted). Wrath of God and Second Chance are the only special ones. I haven't used the former so I can't say just how useful it is, but the latter is useful if you're struggling or using a high risk style of play such as being constantly in hypermode.

*

Spoiler

I'm talking about Maneaters and Flamelurker, of course. Allant is easy, with the proper setup he dies in a single combo. If you have issues with him, you need to git gud.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Finished this yesterday. (emulated with 60fps patch, not the remake, but this thread is more active)
Pretty good, but pretty easy. A lot easier to overlevel than later games, I think, which probably adds to the easiness, alongside most bosses feeling as if they are designed around spamming heals.

I did most of my bosses first try, Flamelurker was the only one that felt a little tough since in the PS3 version at least, he has a lot of bloom which can really fuck you up and hinder your visibility so you miss the telegraph, decent fight though.
Armor Spider was pretty vile, I didn't really see any way to beat that boss without heal spam. Still first try, but fuck that's genuine garbage. Just tracking and AOE spam, while you dick around being slowed by the web.
Dragon King is a garbage gimmick fight like Bed of Chaos, really hate that shit in these games.
Storm King was bad, but it was kind of like Moonlight Butterfly. Not hard, not offensively bad like the previous I've mentioned, just really tedious.

I don't really have much to say about the rest of them since it was all kinda eh.

I REALLY fucking hated Armor Spider Archstone/Tunnel City. Garbage area. I was basically minmaxing strength and I had no magic or enchanted weapons, so those god damn bearbugs took like 3 minutes to kill each. They don't give you a way to get around them in 2 different areas either.
I also had a major IQ issue there, since I had forgotten that I had already found the shortcut to Flamelurker on the right route, but I was dicking around on the left route instead since I just didn't think the two were connected for some reason.

The blue dragon perching on the route to King Allant is really, really bad in in the PS3 version. There's so much bloom on his fire, so you literally cannot tell where the safe route is supposed to be, or if there even is one. The remake fixed that, so I had to use a youtube video of the remake to know where the safe route was, it's ridiculous.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

If you've played through all the other Soulsborne titles this game is a fucking breeze. In OG Demon's Souls I remember struggling with Flamelurker for hours. In the remake I beat him on my first try without breaking a sweat. Same for the other bosses I struggled with back in the day. They're really pushovers compared to the shit From cooked up in later games.

It's also smaller than I remember. I probably blew through it in under 30 hours.

Edit

Hilariously the boss I struggled with most was Dragon God because I completely forgot the set of "puzzles" you gotta do to beat him.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

That's the average length of a Souls game, around 25 or 30 hours.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

That's the average length of a Souls game, around 25 or 30 hours.

Sure if you're a gaming God and don't care to collect every single little secret. On replays absolutely but for a first timer those numbers are unrealistic as all hell.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

That's the average length of a Souls game, around 25 or 30 hours.

Sure if you're a gaming God and don't care to collect every single little secret. On replays absolutely but for a first timer those numbers are unrealistic as all hell.

my very first ds1 playthrough was around that with dlc included. it was my first from game as well. same for 2 and 3.