Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

A forum for non-Suikoden games.
Post Reply
thcrock
Global Admin
Posts: 1546
Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2003 10:57 am

Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by thcrock »

What is Demons Souls?

Its a third person RPG where you control one character, somewhat like if Elder Scrolls was third person. You pick a character class and journey through different worlds to rid the land of demons. The atmosphere is very dark.

Why should I play it?
1. Genuine difficulty and challenge, that is fair. The game is brutal, but you learn quickly.
2. Controls as smooth as butter. Light attacks, heavy attacks, parrying, counterattacking, backstepping, and dodging are all incredibly fluid and make the game very fun to play. I played Oblivion and thought it felt clunky, which partially made me give up on it.
3. None of the fluff in other Western RPGs, like quests. You have some merchants, but you won't spend time fetching 12 fish to get powerful armor or weapons.
4. Most unique and inventive online system I've seen. If you're connected, you see white ghosts of other people playing the game at the same time as you. You can leave messages on the ground for other players (like "Dont proceed without fire protection"), and you can touch bloodstains of other players to see the last ten seconds of their life. More interestingly, you can summon other players to help you and other players can invade your game and kill you. Its also very satisfying to kill somebody who invades your game.

Also, boss designs are crazy. Designs like this: http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4409/adjudicator.jpg
Oppenheimer
Global Admin
Posts: 2861
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:41 am
Location: ON, Canada

Re: Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by Oppenheimer »

No, I'm not. I enjoy playing games on easy and don't find challenge to be as enjoyable as continued progress. I would hate the game I'm afraid.
User avatar
Raww Le Klueze
Global Admin
Posts: 1915
Joined: Sat Jun 26, 2004 1:38 am

Re: Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

I'm with Oppenheimer. I take game progression over challenge. Especially challenges that turn out not be challenging as much as down right annoying.
Doctorum Non Urina Singulus.
ttfii
Posts: 56
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 9:47 am

Re: Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by ttfii »

Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles are my top PS3 games by far.

Valkyria Chronicles for being an all-around amazing game.

Demon's Souls for kicking my ass and then eventually having its ass kicked. I'm only a couple weapon upgrades away from a platinum.
Oppenheimer
Global Admin
Posts: 2861
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:41 am
Location: ON, Canada

Re: Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by Oppenheimer »

Sooooo Demon's souls is apparently free on the PSN when you're a PS+ member. I am and so I thought I might as well check it out. I haven't come to a verdict yet but it's not actually that hard if you're being careful. I was expecting much worse. I am referring to a map and FAQ so I know exactly what's coming up. I've beat 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 2-2 and 3-1 so far. Maybe it'll get much harder when I get later in it. What I do hate is that without the FAQ I would have no idea what many of the things do. Most of the vendors/trainers are actually hidden in levels. Some of them you can recruit/rescue back to the hub but others you have to trek out to see them every time. And since every monster will respawn if you die or leave the level then it's a total pain.

Also there's this bizarre thing that I'd only ever know about from the FAQ where depending on your actions in levels you can increase or decrease the overall alignment (light vs dark) of the world and of your character. Plus if you play online that alignment shift is actually averaged between all players on the server, so basically you cannot in fact effect it. There are lots of things that change in a level if you've either pushed the alignment to max light or max dark. It's pretty much impossible to do that online and very very difficult if you're offline. The FAQ even says that you should just ignore that as you don't need any of the stuff that unlocks (even though it's like the best items are in the unlocked places) in your first playthrough. I really hate that aspect that things are locked out from me and there's pretty much nothing reasonable I can do to unlock them.

The thing I do really like about it is how atmospheric it is. There was a prison level which reminded me a lot of Silent Hill 2's unwater prison. It's very moody and gothic. It's really right up my alley. They just nailed that and the oppressive atmosphere of getting yourself killed if you're being reckless just adds to it. It does actually make me think a lot of the old school survival horror games. None of those were pushovers either.

So yeah I don't know how much more I'm going to play but I will admit that it has its good parts and I'm glad I tried it out after all. The price was right anyway ;-)
User avatar
freshmetal
Posts: 362
Joined: Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:21 pm
Location: Texas

Re: Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by freshmetal »

I'm a PS+ member too and downloaded it the other day, but I haven't tried it out yet. I've been too caught up with finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy, plus I bought Injustice yesterday so that took up quite a bit of my evening last night.

But I have Demons Souls patiently waiting for me. I'm looking forward to it.
PSN: FreshMetal80
User avatar
Hirathien
Posts: 697
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:26 pm

Re: Demons Souls - Are you hardcore enough?

Post by Hirathien »

Bought it when it popped into the european PSN, it's really good. Patience and a diehard attitude seems to work wonders for this game. It's really easy to die, but at the same time it's very easy to keep yourself alive. Kill, adapt, survive.
Post Reply