Dr Mabuse

Yeah, anyone who plays this without being connected up is missing out on some of the coolest aspects of the game.

Other players can leave you hints about a maze, or to watch out for an upcoming trap, etc. If you leave good hints you get health when someone 'recommends' your hint as a helpful one, and if you recommend one another player gets health.

You can also see the ghosts of other players running around in your game and sometimes watch what they did, you can click pools of blood and see how other players died in their games, etc.

"no life"

That's code for anyone who is better than you at video games.

Noonan

I agree. When I first started, I was a bit upset that it didn't have standard co-op where you could jump in and out at will. Now that I've taken the time to play around with the multiplayer I've realized that they came up with something special unlike anything I've played before.

Ravenous

No, no life is code for "I hate losers who have nothing better to do than fuck around and screw up other's fun/games"

From the review I saw it says that all your souls are lost with a death, you can reclaim them, but lose them all if you die again. Does that mean die within the next few minutes, by the same demon, or AT ALL?

Noonan

If you die, you leave a bloodstain. You can go back and retrieve the souls by getting back to where you died. If you die again before getting to your bloodstain, the souls are gone for good. If you get them then die, your bloodstain will have all the souls again for you to grab.

I've died in one level, gone to another level to do something, then gone back to where I died and grabbed the souls. As long as you don't die a 2nd time before collecting your bloodstain, you can get the souls back.

It's the quickest way to level in certain areas. Rather than killing an enemy for souls, warping back to the Nexus, then back to the world to fight again, you can kill the enemy or enemies, suicide so you load back into that level (without having to go to the Nexus), then collect your lost souls and fight again.

mattysemo247

So did anyone else end up picking this up? I was thinking about getting it through the Amazon deal going on now.

I’m a little worried about the difficulty and getting lost though. How are people doing without using a map?

Ravenous

Everything you note noonan4224 sounds awesome. I think Ill have to get this game but I really dont buy games at MSRP. I think when I eventually do get it, I wont have to worry about online presence because no one else will be playing it

I think I read somewhere that all versions of the game come with the SOundtrack. Is that true? Its a great addition

starseed1981

Finally started getting into this one. I think the difficulty thing is being overplayed abit. It really reminds me of Manhunt (PS1) & Ninja Gaiden (XBox) in that you don't really lose cause the computer did something cheap, its because you got over-anxious and made a mistake.

Also, there are a couple of easy soul cheats on Gamefaqs that make the game significantly easier if you spend a couple hours on them.

Noonan

Like any other character level based game, you definitely need to dedicate some time to leveling up. There's one particular area that seems that the developers set it up purely to give player an easy place to get souls. But once you hit the higher levels it becomes very hard to gain levels due to the amount of souls it takes. I need close to 50K souls to go up a level at this point.

And it's not like other games where high level = killing anything easily. By the time I finished Morrowind, I could stand still and let any enemy hit me as much as he wanted and it would barely dent my HP. Even at my high level, there are normal enemies that can kill me in one hit if I don't block or act too cocky.

I'm at the last boss fight now and have a few things to finish up before I go to the end. I plan on jumping right into a new game +.

starseed1981

Yeah, it does take a time investment. I actually thought about passing up on it for that very reason, but like most Atlus games I expect it to be in short supply.

mhg83

You might wanna avoid playing on Halloween with new game + :

Demon's Souls Players Take Care On Halloween



Playing Demon's Souls online? Good for you. Great game. But if you are, you may want to proceed with caution this Halloween. Atlus is telling us that the "Old One's power grows," and that "his minions will be more powerful" on All Hallow's Eve. Decoded, this means that you're going to get your ass kicked, as the game's difficulty will be increased temporarily.

The upside? The rewards for defeating said minions will also increase.

Atlus sends along a warning:

We don't know how long this dark tendency will last, but we do advise those prone to controller-into-LCD syndrome to proceed carefully.

I'm one of those prone to controller tossing. I may steer clear and eat Tootsie Rolls instead.


http://www.destructoid.com/demon-s-s....phtml#comment

cartman

I never thought I'd play a game harder than Super Ghouls and Ghosts, but this one takes the cake. I started playing yesterday, then gave up out of frustration of everything killing me in like 1 hit and losing all souls collected if I happened to die again before touching my blood.

Today I happen to get to what seems to be the first boss, a big black thing with like 50 of the black slimes protecting it who I seem to do little to no damage to and who throw tiny spears at me that kill me in *gasp* TWO hits!

Fark this game.

Noonan

That is the first boss. At least you can get back to him quickly. A bit of advice would be to use to help take him out. Once you're done with that level, you're able to level up and buy stuff.

Dr Mabuse

The farther I make it the more I like this game.

Awesome stuff, I'm surprised the thread is so small.

UncleGramps

I think it's just that this is sort of a niche game. I don't like games that are overly punishing in terms of difficulty. Everything I've read about this game makes it seem like something that would just make me very angry and frustrated.

I would like to rent it sometime just to get an idea of what it's really like.

Chew

If it weren't for those difficulty comments, I would've bought this game immediately.

Instead, I bought it when Amazon dropped the price to $49.99.

flashburn

I get this game from Gamefly today. Aside from being completely swamped between work and other games, I am looking forward to playing it a good bit this weekend. Although, I gotta say, after reading the wiki site, I am pretty confused about everything. Hopefully it makes a bit more sense once I actually play the game.

Noonan

Feel free to post up any questions you have. It took me a while to get the hang of it too. First thing you'll want to understand is that you spend the majority of the game dead or "soul" mode as they call it. I actually restarted a few times thinking I was doing something wrong.

flashburn

I read the same thing, but it didn't really state why you play the majority of the game in soul mode?

hardcore

I don't really think playing the game makes everything much more clear. I spent a long time wondering why I couldn't get full health after I finished the tutorial. I'm up to the 4th boss now, and I still don't really have much of an understanding of how world tendency and player tendency work.

While the game can get pretty frustrating (though I may have brought some of that upon myself by playing a melee rogue which seems to get one-shot by almost everything), I still keep playing after every death. But this will probably be on hold until I finish up Dragon Age...

Noonan

To get your body back, you either have to beat a boss or use a stone which you only will get ~30 of throughout the game. As soon as you die, you become a soul. And you'll die a lot, trust me. You have a bit less life as a soul but you also become a bit stronger. Being a soul or body mostly matters for the multiplaer. You can only bring someone into your world to help you with a level if you're alive (body), and you can only be invaded if you're alive.

There's also world tendency to consider but that's pretty involved. Each of the 5 worlds shift between white and black tendencies. If a world is either pure white or pure black, there will be certain things that open up like a new area or a special item you couldn't get to otherwise. Beating a boss will shift the world one step towards white. Dieing in a world while alive (body) will shift it one step towards black. IIRC, it's a 5 step process. So if starting at neutral, you would need to go five steps in either direction to get to pure B or W. For that reason, a common practice is to suicide in the Nexus when you get your body back so you don't shift a world towards black (unless that's what your trying to do). Dieing in a level while a soul has no effect. The wikidot page has a ton of good info on this stuff but it won't make sense until you start playing the game.

flashburn

Cool, thanks for explaining it some. I actually didn't get it today, so looks like tomorrow instead.

flashburn

Got the game today. I played through it for a couple of hours. I think I died about 4-5 times in 1-1. I actually beat the boss without dying. I thought I was screwed at first, it was just very chaotic with all those spears being shot at me, but I was able to find a tip that helped me finish him off quickly.

The first time I died it was from falling where that sparkly portal thing is, still not sure what that is for. Then the next three deaths were all at the same exact spot, . I stuck with it though and was able to continue, only to die once more right after unlocking the gate to the boss. I decided to skip running all the way through to get my souls back and went in to fight the boss.

Having a good time with it so far. I like the whole concept of having a game that is extremely tough, but allowing people to leave messages to others to give tips (or false messages) about how to handle certain areas. I was actually hoping to dislike the game, since I already have so many other games that have come out in the last month or so that I need to play. So much for that!

Canis Firebrand

Just got this game through a contest. Looking forward to playing it and getting some of the online connectivity stuff that is baked in.

Noonan

Enjoy. I'd go as far as saying that it's my favorite game of this year. By far the most innovative. It keeps you wanting to go back even after it kicks your ass multiple times.

porieux

Got this game for Xmas. So far I'm impressed. Difficult but not frustrating IMO. Really love the feel of this game, it's really unique. I've certainly never played a game quite like it.