it has everything the other souls games have: fatroll, stamina, shortcuts, obscure npc quest lines, souls, soulform etc … except bonfires! that was quite a bold design choice, from start of the area to the boss and no bonfire in between, sometimes shortcuts, though.
I finished first part of Tower of Latria up to the boss, so great. But the maneater are waiting and will cost my patience…
Yeah, no bonfires, but the areas are not quite as expansive, usually, I think, and there are usually very generous boss shortcuts if I recall. The biggest difference to me between it and the later games is that every major area (beyond the first) ends with a “gimmick” boss, but I think they’re in general well-done, although sadly the Latria one is much, much less cool these days than it could have been, unless you play on the private server and get lucky, maybe.
I should play it again, on the private server this time.
Bloodborne is your favorite, right? That one is so good, definitely nails the gothic horror mood (falls a little short on the cosmic horror end, but still does better than most visual media). However, I think the story is a little too convoluted for its own good, and the setting is a little too visually cohesive. Demon’s Souls’s areas are all very distinct from each other, and the story is, while simple from a Souls perspective, still a pretty good one without a lot of loose ends and still with some implied things that you can chew on. And the mood overall is I feel the bleakest, which I happen to enjoy.
Yeah I think BB will probably end up as my fave, though nothing beats the feeling I got from DS1.
I’m down for bleak. It’s 2019. Let’s go.
I came so close to killing the Vanguard it actually pains me. Like, actual pain. So much pain that I rolled another character so I could fight it again. And you know what happened? I came even closer to finishing it off! Like one or two more hits would have done it, but I mistimed a roll cuz nerves, and died again.
You don’t know how tempted I was to reroll a third.
But I thought better of it and pressed on into the Nexus, into the beginning of the end of my amazing journey through everything souls.
There is an immediate structure to this that I love. It feels so natural. Here’s your hitlist. Here’s your hub with old sport Crestfallen.
The Nexus does feel a bit more mysterious than previous hubs, majestic even.
I know the server is dead so I’m not going to see any community messages, but I did find a large open room with dozens of messages, just one after the other all over the floor, with tiny bits of information and advice. Not sure if this is a collection of the greatest hits, or meant to be directly from the developers, but it was cool to find.
I didn’t manage to get very far as my game time was limited last night. Found the first shortcut in the first level. Tonight I’ll press on further into Boletaria.
I’m very happy with how familiar the combat feels. I was worried it would feel overly stodgy. The lock-on camera can be a bit too aggressive, but besides that it sure does feel like Dark Souls.
@Rock8man was right about that opening cinematic. That shit was amazing. So good, it fools you into thinking you’re playing a current gen game. At release I imagine many minds were blown seeing that for the first time.
May strength be granted so the world might be mended.
I haven’t played all of them, but I think I agree that the setting in Demon’s Souls might be the strongest. It definitely feels more tragic than the others.
This game is hard.
Where did you get to? If I were you I’d guess you just got to the Black Knight with the red eyes. But since you’re you, I’m going to guess you already beat the first two bosses 1-1, and 1-2, and are now in either 2-1 or 2-2.
Scott, I haven’t read back in the thread too much, but if you are on PS3 a private server is being maintained:
I played through in December and it was pretty great - not a huge amount of people on at any one time, but something.
May have to check this out, thanks for posting! I had no idea it existed.
Not very far at all. Still exploring around the first bit of the first level. No bosses encountered yet. Not having the crutch of a bonfire (who would of thought of a bonfire as a crutch?) is really throwing me off.
I found the first shortcut. Helped out a cool looking NPC sporting a badass sword and shield. Went down some stairs to where a few drakes were hanging out (backed the F out of there, as they were surrounded by smoldering corpses). And encountered a bridge with a bunch of enemies on it.
As I expected, as soon as I put a foot on that bridge a drake came out of nowhere. What surprised me is that it didn’t burn up everyone on the bridge. It just, flew off…
I attempted to slowly pull and kill enemies 1 and 2 at a time until I grew impatient and just ran across the bridge. Big mistake. I was soon backed into a corner and dog-piled. Dead.
I have a lot of souls. I need to get those souls back. But not being able to level yet has me trying to play cautious. It’s a real conundrum!
It’s been mentioned several times in this thread! Most recently by me a couple of days ago.
*miffed*
I think anytime I see something about some mod or private server or what have you, I tend to skip it because that’s usually not my thing.
Sorry! I probably just skimmed those posts.
Yeah, I just skipped it when I played in March, buy if I play again I’ll probably check it out. I know they do world tendency events and such.
I used the private server, lots of messages preserved. And world tendency can be changed. Very useful to get the secret parts of the game…
Yes, I think it’s worth it just for the messages - even though there is less traffic, quite a few payer-written messages seem to persist for a long time so it is good.
I loved the world-tendency metagame when going for the platinum, and that platinum is the best one I’ve ever encountered for the amount of thought put into it, as it makes you see almost everything in the game (and there’s a lot there).
Demon’s Souls, Demon’s Souls
Gonna suck some demon souls
Cast a spell
Stab a dude
Watch out or you’re demon food
I’ve been plinking away at this slowly. I figured out how to bait the one drake so it flies over to the bridge, while I run back to the scorched perch to pick up as many items as possible before it returns. And then I spent an obscene amount of time trying to kill the Red-Eyed Knight. I got close a few times, but I got tired of running all the way back up to him each time to grab the increasingly large (worryingly so) pile of souls I have no way of spending yet.
So I figured what the hell, let’s do this first boss. Fog gate is right by the bonfire anyway.
I’m sure my method of killing Phalanx wasn’t ideal (running around, drawing slimes away, killing them one by one) since it took a god awful amount of time, but I beat it on my first go, and now I can finally spend all these souls I’ve been carrying around.
Will probably go back and kill that Red Eyed Knight now before venturing forth to the next level.
Good work! Have you decided on a class/how you’re going to play yet? i.e. sword and board, magic user etc? The Archstones are available now so you don’t need to be discouraged if you hit a roadblock in any level. Good luck :)