Since Demon’s Souls comes out in the US tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread for basic (and not so basic) questions to be answered without having to wade through the spoilerrific (and otherwise wonderful) Anyone Playing Demon’s Souls thread. There is also a helpful wiki, which is sensitive to spoilers, but does give some things away.
A few basic points:
This is a hard, but mostly fair game. You should expect a fairly tough difficulty curve, but one that is very rewarding.
There are some surprises in the game. One of the great pleasures is to explore a new area or find something unexpected. If you’re going to play this, I would recommend staying away from previews, etc. I would also recommend staying away from the hint book or any maps until you’ve completely explored an area. You do not need to be OCD about collecting items in the game, and there really aren’t any Square/Enix gotchas. There are certainly some extras in the game for people replaying, but nothing you absolutely need. There is a fiddly system for manipulating the game world available, but I would save this for your second time through.
Which character class should I play? They are all good. The character classes are just starting templates for stats and equipment. Any character can learn any ability with time and experience. So pick something that you think you would like. As a rough guideline, Royal is an easier starting class, the various Knights are more middle of the road, and Wanderer is a bit harder to start with. I played through as a Wanderer and loved it, so don’t feel that you have to start with an easy class. Much of your advancement in the game comes from increasing player skill (though better equipment and stats play a role as well).
What about multiplayer? Don’t worry about it. Demon’s Souls has an online component that you are introduced to in due course - it isn’t an issue for the first hours in the game. Leaving yourself connected to the network lets you see messages left by other players. Often they are helpful, sometimes less so - I think it is a richer game with them.
Also - please no spoilers, or if you’re not sure, mark them clearly. This is meant to be a starting point for new players.
I keep meaning to pick this game up; I wouldn’t usually play an RPG in Japanese, but this one is apparently not so heavy on plot nuance etc. You guys think I’d be missing anything, presuming I can read the menus?
All the people who imported the game, bought a version of the game that includes English voiceovers and full english text in-game, with the manual printed in Chinese. Additionally, the game’s official US release is tomorrow, so there is no reason whatsoever for you to play the game in Japanese. :)
Demon’s Souls was great. Very hard and punishing, but is ultimately rewarding and has an excellent atmosphere. I’ll probably get this version too, but may wait until after the fall rush…
Am curious to see how reviewers and a wider US audience reacts to it
The JP version has everything in JP except for the voice. Get the HK, Korean or US version if you can. Having said that you could probably get by with the JP version.
I just browsed the manual before playing, but I would like to emphasize how important it is to explore the Nexus, the game’s hub, after you unlock an area or defeat one of the larger demons. There are small side areas accessed by walking in-between columns on the ground level that house some helpful NPCs. I played a good bit of the game before I went back through the Nexus, and was pretty surprised to see how full it had gotten.
I am ridiculously looking forward to this game arriving on my doorstep, it’s the most hyped that I’ve been all year for one. Will be back here once I get it for sure.
I know about the Asian version, but the reason for me to play the game in Japanese is that I can walk 100 metres down the street to Super Potato and pick up the game anytime before midnight for about 3000 yen. Which is a pretty good reason!
Maybe stores will get in US import copies, I dunno, but the game didn’t exactly set the country alight before.
I am incredibly excited for this game. Of course it comes out on the same day as my wife’s most-anticipated game, Afrika, so we’ll be battling for the PS3 over the coming weeks.
Any chance there’s going to be a demo for this on PSN? I think I want it, but the difficulty scares me a little. (Not doing well at Uncharted this week has me doubting my console skills.)
Are all classes going to end up using miracles, magic, melee, and missile weapons at some point or is it viable to completely ignore one or more of those aspects?
I’m just over half way through the game but I’m pretty sure you can outright ignore certain skills if you want. It might help to know a little of the basics though (a fireball spell here, a healing miracle there, small bow, etc).
Longer answer - there are lots of areas to specialize in, and some significant benefits to focusing on Dex based or Strength based weapons. There have been some regrets in the long thread about people wishing they had specialized more, but I think that is mostly a later game issue. There are 1-2 spells based on magic and faith (the two spell types) that I think you are going to want to have at some point. How this translates into the game is that you will eventually want to be able to cast 1-2 spells in each magic category (faith/magic), but there’s no need to specialize.
In terms of starting the game, having stats somewhat imbalanced is actually not a bad idea, as you’ll be better at some things than others, but as you play the game you’ll be able to fill in the gaps as you go. The ‘levels’ are pretty closely spaced at the beginning of the game so this isn’t as bad as you might think.
You really can do what you want in the game. If you optimize, your reward will be that you’ll be doing more damage later on when playing a certain way, but that doesn’t mean the game will be impossible - just harder. If you find yourself completely sucking on some level, get summoned into someone else’s game and help them out and use the opportunity to learn the level. If you still need help summon some other phantoms to help you through the level. The sky’s the limit.
There are New Game+ playthroughs that get harder and harder, but that means that if you’re the type of player who is an absolute completionist freak you’ll have a ball with the game (and you probably are naturally and optimizer too). It’s actually designed so you need to do New Game+ at least a couple times if you want to get everything.
The only real reward for super-optimizing would be for the purpose of PvP, but again those seeking PvP usually enjoy optimizing.
