2821

Also, there is a better way to farm the reaper that just killing it’s followers over and over. regardless it doesn’t take long for it to not really help with leveling that much. It’s great for supplies though.

2822

I’ve had this game since the Summer of 2009. And I’ve been reading this thread since before then. And I’ve never seen anyone say that the fifth world is their favorite. And yesterday I finally dived in and spent a few hours in 5-1.

And now I know why no one has ever claimed this world as their favorite. It’s interesting from an architectural point of view, but it’s got the sort of enemies and level design that’s interesting to explore the first couple of times, but it really begins to be a drag when you die later in the level and you have to make your way through the level again. Ugh. I might take another break from the game again if I try to do 5-1 again. So maybe it’s time to switch back to 3-2, or 4-2. I don’t think I can make any progress in World 1 after 1-2, right? And 2-3 seems to be a dead end too, what with the Dragon god that doesn’t take damage. So I guess 3-2 and 4-2 are the only options left for me now.

2823

You don’t damage the Dragon God in a conventional way. It’s…more like an environmental puzzle.

I forget off the top of my head what the gating is after 1-2, it’s a special wall you can’t get past until you do something special, right?

3-2 is really long. It isn’t hard per se (until the boss), but it’s very long to get through.

What’s holding you up in 4-2?

There are some shortcuts (bridges) in 5-1. It isn’t so bad once you get the lay of the land, but you always need to be ready for a mis-step / fall to death.

2824

You can skip 90% of 5-1 pretty easily.

2825

Poison is the worst part of the game from a fun standpoint for me, which is why world 5 was my least favorite.

But, 3-2 might be my favorite level of all. Definitely the best boss fight. The architecture is amazing, the creatures and environments varied and fun. Lots of vertiginous moments.

As CLWheeljack noted, the dragon boss is a puzzle. Once you figure it out, you’ll likely breeze through it. Let me ask you if you are paying attention to world tendency in this runthrough, though, as one of the coolest weapons in the game becomes available at a certain world tendency upon completion of 2-3. If so, you might want to wait for the right conditions to complete it.

2826

The 1-2 ‘super fog’ is removed when you finish any other worlds last level. If you want to get to it I’d suggest finishing off world 2, take your time and explore 2-3 for a few deaths. Dragon God is actually a fun encounter once you get the hang of the mechanics.

2827

5-1 spoilers follow. Don’t read if you haven’t finished it.

After I posted, I gave 5-1 another try. I was thinking the point I was getting to was just the tip of the iceberg, but it turns out I was 99% of the way to the boss. All I had to beat was one more guy and I was there. So the level wasn’t this huge labyrinth that I was imagining it to be.

I loved the 5-1 boss. It had a wonderful anti-cheese property: health regeneration. Just enough that no matter how quickly I tried to pump arrows into it, it wouldn’t die. Now that is clever. I thought “oh hey, there’s an old lady who needs my help with her son anyway, I can buy some poison arrows from her, and help her out”. So I did. Hopefully the souls will help out her family. The poison arrows were worthless against the boss though. I guess it makes sense that such a creature would be immune to poison. Shrug. The funny thing is, I have so many things in my arsenal now that it wasn’t hard to figure out a way to beat the boss in only one try after I determined that arrows wouldn’t work.

So now, I can do 3-2, 4-2, and 5-2.

I kind of hear you guys on 2-3 being a puzzle, but I’ll wait to figure that one out. Hotfreak: I have been trying to get to white tendency. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll get when I get there, but I have been killing myself in the Nexus every time after I regain my body, just so that I don’t mess up the tendency. I still don’t really understand how that works exactly. After killing the boss in 5-1, that world shows up as the whitest in my tendency screen. I’m not sure how white it will get when it’s pure white. And can I ever get pure white tendency without turnout off my PS3’s wireless networking? I can’t right? Unless I play the U.S. version where they keep messing with the world tendency on the server?

2828

Yeah, I really like it, but it’s really long, and I get lost in the dark sometimes. Plus that beating heart is serious creepy.

What’s holding you up in 4-2?

The same thing that was holding me up in 4-1 the proper (non-shortcut) way: Skeleton with Huge-Ass blade. I’m fine when he does overhead swings because I just dodge to the side, but when he does his sideways swipe in a huge arc in front of him, I go down even with my Purple Shield+7 guarding. I might survive if I cast Total Protection at the right time, but so far I always cast it too early and by the time he does the forward arc swing, the spell has worn off and I die. I could also press the circle button at the right time to dodge directly backwards, but I’ve never gotten the timing right. In 4-1, the fight was so far into the level that I finally just gave up and started going to the boss via the shortcut that I found before the proper way, but in 4-2, I don’t think there’s any way past him. Plus he’s got a buddy once I beat him, who is identical. So that’ll be fun. I’ll get it, it’s just a little tricky and a little bit advanced into the level so I don’t always feel like repeating 4-2 to get to him again.

2829

If you play online, I believe the world tendency gets reset to the server median every time you login, which means it’s a crapshoot (more like roullette shoot) whether killing the dragon boss would put world 2 in pure white. If you play offline (the whole time), you can hit white by killing all the bosses in a world while not dying in body form in said world. I think, in world 2, that’s a pretty foolproof method for getting it.

If you plan on a new game+ or two, I would definitely set aside a runthrough for pure white and one for pure black – for each world. The extra content is a lot of fun, especially in black, and the enemies a lot harder (again, in black). Pure black is a real pain to do the first time through.

If you don’t expect that you’ll play much past the first runthrough, then my advice is to not sweat it and just have fun.

2830

O.k., like Rock8man, I’ve had this on the shelf since picking up an Asian import back in the day. Perhaps unlike him, I’ve played an absurd amount of Dark Souls (100% trophies on the PS3 and several hundred hours, and about 50 hours on the PC too).

Anyone played these in the reverse order of release have any orientation tips? Obvious things I’ve noticed: no poise, no ability to upgrade armour, herbs instead of estus flasks, no fire “checkpoints”, no humanity/hollowing, no stability, magic not limited uses, regenerating MP and (with ring) HP, no pyromancy

is there no kicking? other attacks missing?
Character/world tendencies - already hate them.
I remember hearing that Crystal Geckos don’t respawn? Yikes.
seem faster/more agile? Maybe generally, but definitely when throwing firebombs (which I never used in Dark Souls) and casting spells.

  • the absence of stability and poise would seem to make heavy armour builds less useful - true? My 1st/main character in Dark Souls was a “heavy” (generally wore Black Iron Armor set, used Black Knight Halberd or Great Axe, Havel’s ring, etc.). I think I’ll go for more of a caster build in Demon’s Souls.

I booted it up and, not surprisingly given my DS experience, blasted through the Phalanx level without dying yet. Mainly because I chose a Royal character, as I wanted to try a spell-casting character because you didn’t have to purchase uses - Geez, spell-casting seems super-powerful for a starting character - killing most enemies in a single shot. I even killed the red-eyed knight as a 1st level character without dying (I did know about him from messing around long ago, however). I was surprised that in exchange for killing him I got…nothing? (other than souls). That said, I can see clear weaknesses with a caster, as I found it difficult to kill the little phalanx dudes at all without magic for flame.

Do people generally try to steal the dragon loot with kamikaze runs, or just come back later. Rock8, when you say you killed the dragon in 1:1 - which one, and where did you attack from?

2831

Everything you need to know about world tendency is here: http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/world-tendency

The strategy guide that came with Atlus’ NA collector’s edition has a detailed breakdown of different events that can trigger a world to shift either toward white or black. The wiki has some of that, but it doesn’t include how far each event will shift a world. You can see the events here: http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/world-tendency#toc9

It’s also hard to tell if you’re pure white or black or not, but the wiki has a visual guide you can reference: http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/world-tendency#toc6

My advice: You only have a limited number of options to shift a world white, and most of them are a one-time-only deal. (Helping blue phantoms defeat demon bosses is your only renewable method for shifting white, but I’m not sure how often you’re going to find those soul signs at this point. And it’s actually the least efficient method.) If you want to get 2-3 white, well, your best bet is to beat the Dragon God at this point. Hopefully, the shifts from defeating Flamelurker and Armor Spider have not receded too much.

No kicking is right. You also can’t do that forward jumping lunge. Nor can you perform the falling strike. But different weapon classes still have context specific attacks, like running+attack, back stepping+attack, etc.

Geckos in Demon’s Souls operate by a counter. They all start at 1. If your kill it or it escapes, that counter drops to zero and no more will appear. For each demon boss you’ve killed in a world, the counter goes up, and they’ll respawn.

Make sure to plan your attack of the crystal gecko cave well!

Yes, you’re more agile in Demon’s Souls. The weight/equip ratio is set at 50% only. Below 50%, you have fill agility. Above, you don’t.

Yeah, heavier armor is not necessarily the best in Demon’s Souls because of the lack of poise. Instead, you should be looking for the best weight/armor ratio you can equip. Though, if you want, you can still pump up endurance to equip the heaviest armors and keep your weight/equip load under 50%. I always settled on the Ancient King armor set and the Dragon Bone (Keel, in the Asian version) Smasher.

But stability is in Demon’s Souls, it’s just called Guard Break Reduction.

I like to do kamikaze runs, heh. You can get some really useful early equipment. And it is possible to snag everything before beating Phalanx, too.

You can only kill the Red Dragon in 1-2. One of the watch towers on the bridge will give you a vantage point over its fire breath runs.

2832

The dragon I killed was in 1-2, not 1-1. The one that flies and breathes fire constantly over the wall walkway. @work, so I can elaborate about this and other things you asked about later if others have not addressed them yet.

2833

I am about the reverse of you, I have hundreds of hours and double platinum on Demons Souls, but havent finished NG+ on Dark Souls yet. If the servers are still up I could make another char and coop with you.

Most of your observations are correct. Instead of limited spell usage you have spice items like grass to replenish mana, and a few slow mana regen items like your ring. Armor is not upgradable and becomes less effective as the game goes on, so being nimble and not getting hit is usually the best option. There is no pyromancy as a class, but all the fire spells are in the magic domain so you can do both with a catalyst. Yeah, sorcery is extremely powerful, especially in worlds 1 and 2 where enemies have little magic resistance. If you are playing a magic char, you should prioritize doing world 3.

There is Stability, if you mean shield stability, it is the same as Dark Souls, but there is no poise. There is essentially a kick, but the animation is just a weapon shove move. Piercing and curved swords have an attack-backstep move instead of the backflip slash, but conceptually the same. Backstep and rolling attacks are similar. There is no leap attack or run and jump action. The humanity/hollow system is replaced with just body form or soul form with reduced HP. The tendency system is deliberately obfuscated and fiddly, but does open up some awesome NPC fights. The geckos have one spawn each, plus one more for each boss you have beat in the level, but if you miss them before they disappear you lose that spawn and loot forever. You need to pay attention to both the weight you have equipped (End) and everything you are carrying (Str), so make use of Thomas as your bottomless box.

2834

Really helpful responses - thanks, guys.

Few follow-up questions:

  • Geckos respawn if you kill the boss in the level - uh, does that happen only if you missed the Gecko, or can you kill each one up to twice?
  • it seems like the best way to deal with the character/world tendencies are to play in offline mode - I don’t really care about PvP after playing so much Dark Souls and getting my fill of the various covenants - and don’t really care about messages/blood spots. So any reason to play online?
  • Are there NPC invaders like in Dark Souls when you’re in body form? NPCs to summon? I played in offline mode in Dark Souls predominately so that I wouldn’t miss those aspects of the story.
  • are the character stats basically of similar value to those in Dark Souls (where Endurance and Vitality were so important, and Defence wasn’t worthwhile)?

That’s interesting that “everything you’re holding” counts towards your carry weight (but strength instead of endurance) - seems surprising that they changed that in Dark Souls, since it seems to fit with the hardcore/choices based gameplay of the series, although I guess it’s largely just busywork dropping things off. Is there any reason to ever carry stuff you’re not going to use immediately?

2835

The safe way to get the dragon’s loot is to shoot him down on the bridge at the start of 1-2. Get to the top of one of the towers with a compound short bow and a healthy supply of arrows. Get into free aim mode and plink away at him. You can normally get 2-3 shots in per pass once you get the rythymn down. You won’t be doing a ton of damage, it takes 5-10 minutes to kill him.

Also, magic is OP in Demon’s Souls, especially at the begining of the game. That is why they nerfed it so hard in Dark Souls.

2836

Yeah there are invaders while you are in body form. I suggest you play 3-3 online.

2837

Sorry, I think I may not have explained this very well, heh.

So, all Crystal Geckos have an individual counter that signifies the number of times each will respawn. When you start a new game, that counter is set to 1 for all Geckos. When you defeat a boss demon, each Gecko’s counter in that world increases by 1 up to a total of 4. So, defeating Phalanx in 1-1 will increase all Geckos’ counters in Boletaria Palace from 1 to 2.

The counter will decrease by one every time a Gecko either dies by your hand or escapes. This means that you only get 4 chances per Gecko encounter to kill that Gecko. Whenever you see a Gecko, you should just drop everything you’re doing and kill it and grab its loot quickly since you never lose picked up items upon death … even if you’re being attacked by an enemy. And killing some Geckos in some stages is the only way to obtain certain pure stones. You don’t want to miss any if you can help it.

I’ve always played online, and I didn’t have much trouble handling world tendency. It’s absolutely possible to trigger all white and black tendency events in a single playthrough if you know what you’re doing. You should also know that tendency shifts won’t take effect until you return to the Nexus.

I actually really like the tendency system as it encourages a certain type of play and a certain path of going through the game, and in this way, it actually tells a really cool story just through gameplay alone.

Since shifting white has limited methods (mostly just killing demon bosses, named NPC black phantoms (not regular enemies), and primeval demons, which are all one-time-only), you’ll want to do all the white tendency events first. The game encourages you to make Boletaria a better place.

Shifting black, though, is really easy and limitless – just kill yourself in bodily form. So after wrapping up all the white tendency events, Demon’s Souls encourages you to shift all worlds black – making them a harsher place to be – and then run through each world (all stages) without returning to the Nexus to wrap up all black events in that world (because killing primeval demons and named NPC black phantoms shift worlds white, and primeval demons and some named NPC black phantoms only appear in pure black worlds).

And last, you have character tendency, and shifting black there will let you see the final downfall of your character into darkness.

Yes, but the conditions under which they appear can be a little more involved that just being in bodily form in a specific area. Named NPC black phantoms require pure white or pure black worlds. Others will appear after you’ve completed certain actions. Some regular NPC black phantoms will always appear once per playthrough in specific areas.

Unfortunately, Demon’s Souls has no NPC blue phantoms for you to summon. You need to find people online for that sort of help.

I think the curves are pretty similar from my experience. I don’t think vitality is that important in either game, though, it’s more important in Demon’s Souls than Dark Souls because vitality increases your item burden (how much you can carry, not equip). But you really should be avoiding attacks, not tanking them. Endurance is the most important stat to me, and I always prioritize pumping that up to 40 as quickly as possible, usually only deviating to strength, dexterity, magic, or faith because I want to equip a specific weapon or spell.

Nope. I only ever carried items specific to the world I wanted to tackle. That’s the nice thing about the Nexus in Demon’s Souls: If you find that your load out isn’t working as you’d hoped or if you’ve just become overburdened with items, you can use the Evacuate miracle or the archstone item to return to the Nexus and change your equipment or drop off the loot you want.

I don’t really recommend picking up many copies of weapons or any copies of armors. You can’t sell them for souls as you can with King Frampt in Dark Souls. Only take weapon copies if you plan to upgrade a specific weapon through different upgrade paths. Since you can’t upgrade armor, there’s no reason to take extra copies. Just leave 'em.

2838

The wiki can probably answer this but…

I’m 99% sure that just seeing a Gecko, and letting him escape doesn’t decrease the count. The count only gets decremented when you damage the gecko, and then he escapes.

Also, if you’re trying to get the above-mentioned pure stones, you should do it in pure black WT. White WT makes enemies easier, and makes them drop more healing grasses. Black WT makes enemies harder, and makes them drop rare items more often.

That’s an interesting way to look at it, although I argue the WT system is still shitty. It’s too poorly (i.e. never) explained, and having a limited number of opportunities to shift towards white means that its essentially impossible to manage it properly the first time through. That said, I think that it says something about the inevitability of decay and a descent into evil that is very reflective of the world philosophy of the game. It’s hard to be good, but it’s easy to be bad, so to speak.

You just mean this from a personal narrative perspective, right? I dont remember there being any actual impact on the game interactions of CT, and as far as I remember, it doesn’t have any impact on the final decision.

It would be interesting if full black and full white WT locked you into a certain ending (but nothing in between limited it). But I don’t think that’s the case.

2839

It does, heh: http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/crystal-lizards

Specifically:

Crystal Lizard spawning rules:

[ul]
[li]Each Crystal Lizard keep their own counter.[/li]> [li]At the start of game, set all Crystal Lizard counter to 1.[/li]> [li]If the crystal lizard is killed, decrease count by 1.[/li]> [li]If the crystal lizard escapes and dies (by falling off a ledge, for instance), decrease count by 1.[/li]> [li]If the crystal lizard escapes by burrowing, decrease count by 1.[/li]> [li]If a Boss in that world is killed, increase each Crystal Lizard count in that world by 1. For example, in World 2. If you kill all 3 Bosses. Each Crystal Lizard count = 4.[/li]> [li]If a particular Crystal Lizard counter is 0, it doesn’t re-spawn.[/li]> [/ul]

But yeah, you’re right that you should try to kill them when your world is pure black as you’ll get the best drop rates. After defeating a world’s arch demon, exiting, returning to the first stage, and dying repeatedly to plunge the world into pure black, you have once last chance to kill each Gecko in a pure black setting.

And in a gameplay sense. The only way to meet Mephistopheles is to obtain pure black character tendency, and the easiest way to do that is to kill the only living people left in the game. And you want to do this so you can get the last two colorless souls available per playthrough (out of 10), which you obtain through two assassination quests. Your journey of being a savior of Boletaria to furthering the Old One’s goals is finally complete when you become a murderer.

2840

I mean, if the wiki says it, I’m sure it’s true, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen the same lizard like 10+ times without killing it because I never bothered trying to attack it. i.e. I saw the lizard, he ran, and I said “fuck it”, but he was still there the next time, and the next, etc.

I guess I could test it with a new game, and just going to see the lizard right outside the first archstone in 2-1 over and over. But, you know, I’m lazy.’

Is it possible that an un-attacked lizard doesn’t burrow, but just disappears? I think I’ve seen them just fade away in front of my eyes before. (Remember, I haven’t played Demons Souls in well over a year, so it’s all just vague memories)