From Software It's another Demon's Souls thread god damnit

[Jasede]

That and they are often challenging and confusing for the average Codexer these days because most NPCs give very cryptic advice and there are no glowing lines or quest arrows or or a map for you to find your way. Sad decline! Who has time for that!

 

[Elwro]

I thought there were literally dozens of NPCs who would appear or not (like the guy who can jump from the gate in the stromy level) depending on the black / white parameter.

Edit: also on the level with Darklurker.

That's the only part about DS I don't like. You have either to consult the net to game the system in the correct way or to proceed blindly, hoping that something would change on the given level.

 

[SionIV]

White/Black world tendencies introduce a few NPC fights and a couple of item sets, it's nothing major. You're able to complete all of the Black/White Tendencies if you're playing offline. The only thing that requires you to play online is if you want to play as the Old Monk Boss.

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/white-world-tendency-events
http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/black-world-tendency-events

 

[Elwro]

If you're not gaming the system while following the directions from the internet, you will get limited (or no) interaction with:

Satsuki
Rydell
Scirvir
Miralda
Selen Vinland

at least. Not to mention the many places which will simply be locked. So OK, not dozens of NPCs. But a lot of content is hidden behind this weird requirement...

 

[SionIV]

If you're not gaming the system while following the directions from the internet, you will get limited (or no) interaction with:

Satsuki
Rydell
Scirvir
Miralda
Selen Vinland

at least. Not to mention the many places which will simply be locked. So OK, not dozens of NPCs. But a lot of content is hidden behind this weird requirement...

The places you unlock are very minor, nothing at all like in Dark Souls, we're talking about one building or a room where you'll face an enemy and get an armor set or a weapon. You're losing out on at the most 1-2% of the game.

 

[sullynathan]

Fulfilled my promise and bought the game. I'm away from my PS3 due to break so i won't try the game till next week. I'll post impressions

 

[rbenchley]

Demon's Souls runs in the newest version of RPCS3. Right now, it only works using interpreter, but even so it's often hitting 30FPS on beefy CPUs. Once they get the LLVM recompiler working, full speed should be possible throughout the entire game. As a sidenote, the improvements that made emulating Demon's Souls playable also benefited the PS3 version of Persona 5, and it has reached speeds ranging between 10 - 30 FPS.

 

[sullynathan]

Alright I started the game and I have to say that I liked the into, I wasn't expecting a different creation myth from Dark Souls.

First surprising thing is a tutorial which none of the other DS games had. I picked the Royalty class because it had the lowest soul level. I start with a rapier so you know things were quite easy from there on. It felt a lot like Dark Souls at times even smoother, I don't know if its because DS was such a bad port but Demons souls has aged well control wise. Now, I have noticed that Demons Souls doesn't have some of the other combat mechanics that the other souls game had. It seems like theres no poise, no drop attacks, jump attacks, parry has a smaller window, fall damage is minimal, and it has a faster UI than DS.

I'm also quite surprised how much Dark Souls reused animations from Demons Souls. The black Knights have a lot of the same attacks as the blue knights from Demons Souls.

I went past the tutorial and beat the next area till I reached the asylum demon. Man, I was doing really low damage to it so I died and woke up in the nexus. I wonder if it is possible to actually beat this demon without dying here.

The nexus looks pretty cool and then the game introduces the whole mechanic of losing health while in soul form. I wonder if there is humanity in this game like DS & DS2 because if the only way you can gain your full health bar is by defeating bosses, this will be somewhat of an annoyance.

Boletaria was a fine location, but overall didn't pose much of a challenge. I did foresee the dragon bridge attack because they did it later in Dark Souls but man I was ganked by knights later on because I ran through the bridge first.
The sludge boss was also quite easy, it didn't help that the magic spell that I have is really OP and uses little mana too.

I'm also quite surprised that I still see players ghosts in this game, I wonder if there are still people willing to do co-op or pvp..

 

[Ivan]

Cling Ring <3

 

[sullynathan]

Cling Ring <3

Yeah I got it. There is also another area in Boletaria that is teeming with dragons, I didn't want to go there.

It will be quite interesting to see how Demons Souls levels pan out

 

[Socur Toxanarosa]

sullynathan

Guess you meant Vanguard, and yeah, he is very beatable, much less of a chore than killing Asylum Demon with a broken sword. And i wouldn't use magic in a first run, it's broken in this game as you already saw.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Cling Ring <3

Thief's Ring.

 

[sullynathan]

I made my way past and now on the other side of Boletaria. I will say that my further impressions haven't been as positive. For one, I am now on the dragon bridge, the dragon randomly surprised me by pulling up with the fire, about as bad as the hellkite drake. Hopefully, we later get to kill this son of a bitch.

I ended up using the fire resistance ring to mitigate the damage I took from the dragon and went under one of the bridges to the area with the dogs. This is one of the places I have found an enemy with really poor hitboxes. The dogs have some shit hitboxes, later on so do the blue faced knights, they can hit you while you're behind them whenever they attack with their weapon.

Then we have the tower knight. I found his strategy easy at first because I just recently beat bloodborne and the archers that surround him reminded me of the one reborn. The actual boss fight though was pretty weird and really easy to cheese. The first time I tried attacking his legs but my weapon does fuck all damage and his shield has this really large AOE attack. When I did knock him down, I didn't know where to hit that would do lots of damage so I attacked the body, eventually he got up and just spammed me and killed me while I was down. Bullshit.

I tried it again but this time I stayed at the top, again, I found this soul magic was really OP. It did 118 damage per hit on his dead and easily killed him. Now I am barred from progressing until I beat an archdemon, wonder when I'll do that.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I made my way past and now on the other side of Boletaria. I will say that my further impressions haven't been as positive. For one, I am now on the dragon bridge, the dragon randomly surprised me by pulling up with the fire, about as bad as the hellkite drake. Hopefully, we later get to kill this son of a bitch.

You can

Spoiler

kill the dragon in level 1-2 now if you have enough arrows and/or spice to whittle away the dragon's health. It's easier to wait until you have an upgraded bow and/or a more powerful offensive spell, to save yourself time.

 

[sullynathan]

Zed Duke of Banville You mean I should attack him while he's flying? Is that even viable?

 

[Ivan]

Don't. It will kill your brain cells. Just push ahead.

Spoiler

what you CAN do is go to the roof of the second or third building and spam him with arrows. it's a laborious process undertaken by faggots

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Zed Duke of Banville You mean I should attack him while he's flying? Is that even viable?

There are

Spoiler

particular spots where you can fire arrows or spells at the dragon as it flies past repeatedly, in a loop, and get in one hit each time. Of course, this is a tiresome way of killing the dragon even later in the game when you can deal more damage due to a combination of stronger weapons (bows or spells) and better stats.

 

[sullynathan]

How many fucking pitfalls are in the tower of Latria? These squid mages have some bullshit hit detection

 

[Elwro]

I have to say I never understood the love some people have for the Latria tower. If there's one thing the Souls games just don't do right, it's corridors, or 'walkways with barriers'. Hit detection is so random there...

But hey, pitfalls are cool. Should've been more careful!

[And I really tried to shoot that dragon in Boletaria down in midflight, even scored one or two hits, but then decided it's impossible that anyone would be able to do that for hours. I was wrong, of course. Come to think of it, I never killed that dragon in any way... will try after the current Dark Souls playthrough.]

 

[sullynathan]

The tower has been mostly bullshit. Confined areas with the worst hit detection in the series. You dodge perfectly and you can still be stunned at the end of the dodge.

 

[Elwro]

The tower has been mostly bullshit. Confined areas with the worst hit detection in the series. You dodge perfectly and you can still be stunned at the end of the dodge.

Now, of course, one way to think of this is that your dodge wasn't actually perfect But yes, I remember that was painful. Don't you have some means of fighting the opponents there which wouldn't require dodging?

 

[sullynathan]

Now, of course, one way to think of this is that your dodge wasn't actually perfect But yes, I remember that was painful. Don't you have some means of fighting the opponents there which wouldn't require dodging?

Nah, my shield is only 90% reduction. I don't have stats for the other shields I have. I've made it to the boss but I'm out of health.
The estus flask system was far better

 

[Elwro]

Of course, people on the internet will tell you that the Flask system is better for the opposite reason: in Demon's, supposedly, every nonretarded player will have 999 grasses of all kinds with no problems. I remember raeging when reading that kind of comments; I always only had a handful until the endgame. I accepted the struggle in the true Souls way. Persevere, and you'll make it.

[also, maybe explore different worlds for weapons with better range?] Do you have any magic? The boss is kinda not-difficult with it.

 

[sullynathan]

The boss has killed me 3 times now. My weapons aren't upgraded but for some reason it feels like boss is really resilient. When I used fire on my weapon it was easier.

I'm gonna see if I can farm for healing

 

[sullynathan]

I've slain the fools idol. It was far better when I actually had healing, the boss was pretty shit.

For one, there's too many zombies that are around making it difficult to actually get to the boss when you want to hit it. They also get in the way for lock on.

Two, enemies do not move when you roll into them and most items don't break when you roll into them instead you have to hit them with your weapon.

There is something highly random about how the fools idol can stun the player. If you come close at times without rolling, you'll just immediately get stunned.

Moving forward in this game, I'd like to know if there is some order in completing each area or if I should just continue playing until the game locks out certain places.

I also find it odd how low the amount of souls I receive from enemies and bosses are