Topic: Demon's Souls - Update: Remaster is coming to PS5 and PC

[iPPi]

Yea they renamed a lot of things in the North American version.  If you use the online wiki, it can be a little confusing, but they do document the differences between the two versions so you can have an idea.

Anyway, I finally beat Tower Knight in NG+.  What a tough bastard.  After repeatedly getting demolished using the melee strategy I decided to go ranged and dispatch him with Soul Ray and arrows.  Much easier fight.

[Quemaqua]

Europe got it well before we did, as I understand it, so there was an English translation before it hit the states.  I guess they felt the need to update and improve some things when it came here, which makes sense if there were some lingering problems.

[MysterD]

Yahtzee's review

Not so much a review but rather his experience and playthrough of the tutorial, 1-1, and 1-2.

More from Yahtzee here.
Extra Punctuation on Demon's Souls PS3.

Challenge is good. I like a challenge. And there's nothing about Demon's Souls' gameplay that is completely broken and unfair - with caution, and gradual understanding of the combat mechanics, you could get by. But in this day and age there is no, absolutely no fucking excuse for keeping your checkpoints half an hour of gameplay apart.

...

But the time I have for playing games for a review is limited. When I'm killed and have to start over from half an hour ago, that's about an hour of wasted time. That's what made me angry about Demon's Souls. Every single time I pushed a little bit further, some new, dirty trick would be pulled and I'd have to re-play through the same dirty tricks that led up to it. And I'd get angrier and more hasty each time, increasing the likelihood of being killed by one of the earlier traps I thought I'd mastered.

...

Whoa, actually, hold the phone, I've just thought of a solution to that accessibility vs. challenge dilemma mentioned earlier. What if, like, at the start of the game, you could choose your level of competence? Say you could pick one option that would make enemies weaker and the player more powerful, and there'd be another option that made the enemies stronger and more numerous. And maybe there could be another setting in between for people who aren't sure where they fit. Man, that's a great idea. If only someone had thought of that before Demon's Souls came out.

[idolminds]

It appears he doesn't "get" what the difficulty and time investment actually means for the game. The only reason Demons Souls can produce the feeling of dread that it does is specifically because death means a large setback. You fear death, unlike most games where its "Oh well, I'll reload the last checkpoint that was 10 seconds ago and try again."

EDIT

Haha, I posted this before I read the actual article. In it he says:

So let me just clarify that I get Demon's Souls.

And it is so clear that he does not.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that's pretty funny.  Some people are just always going to be on the other side of the fence when it comes to these arguments.  Some people will always love a stiff challenge in a game that's balanced and fair, and some will always just find it too punishing.  And that second group will never understand why the game in question wasn't built to accommodate them.

[Schlotzky5]

I love the game because it reminds me that I can still hang with the big boys. I don't game anywhere near as much as I used to, but being able to get most of the way through this game(not done yet) lets me know that I could go back to my 1337 Counterstrike days if I wanted to. I just don't want to.

[Pugnate]

I got it! I got it! I got it!

[K-man]

Good deal Pug.  And Yahtzee can suck a nut.  His review of Demon's souls basically embodies the shift from what games used to be to what they are now.  We no longer "beat" games, we "finish" them.

Now, I feel both have their place.  But nowadays "old school" difficulty is rare and ultimately is a novelty.  If games back when I was a kid were like they are now I'd have just given up on video gaming.  I was lucky to get one or two games every few months, and even then they were bargain basement games most of the time.  I can count the games I purchased at full retail price for my NES on one hand.  If games coddled me back then like they coddle now I'd have become so bored with it.  And my parents probably wouldn't have seen the value in it (really they never did, although they created this monster when they brought home the Atari 800xl when I was 4), and they certainly wouldn't be any more prone to buy me games if I'm just going to beat them in a week.

I remember renting Metal Gear every weekend for like 3 months straight.

This post is mostly rambling, but in a nutshell fuck Yahtzee's opinion on Demon's Souls.

[iPPi]

Nice pug.  Let us know how you like it.

[Quemaqua]

I'm with K-man entirely.  Congrats, Pug... hope you like it.  I'm annoyed with how little time I have to play games and the investment that Demon's Souls really wants from me.  But I'm not annoyed with the game... I'm annoyed at my life for not accommodating this awesome game better.

[Pugnate]

Yea I was going to import it and stuff, but I was at the PS3 store and I saw the game. I was a bit stunned as I never expected to see it. It was the US version.

[Quemaqua]

PS3 store?  It was a download?

[Pugnate]

No I meant the local store that sells PS3 stuff.

[Schlotzky5]

I like Yahtzee. I also like Demon's Souls. Its his job to trash stuff. He found the flaws of Demon's Souls(all stuff I found true) and made a funny video about it. I dont think most people watch his reviews when they are looking to get a game. People watch his reviews when they need a laugh.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, you can't take him too seriously.  The problem is that every now and again he does like a game and try to be sort of begrudgingly glowing about it, which makes it a bit inconsistent.  If he universally trashed every game it would be easier to use him for sheer comedy, because those rare moments of praise make it seem like he really dislikes the games he does bash.

[Pugnate]

Having not played the game yet, but having seen his review, is it so hard to accept that he didn't like it? Plenty of reviewers didn't like the game because they were frustrated by the difficulty. While it is possible that he bashed the game to appease his fanbase, I can't see it being out of the question that he genuinely found the title hard to recommend. Isn't it a bit of a niche game after all?

[Schlotzky5]

The games he praises are usually overlooked titles. Stuff like Psychonauts.

[Pugnate]

Half-life 2, Portal, Crysis, Sands of Time, Warrior Within...

[idolminds]

I have no problem that he didn't like it, and his reasons for not liking it are valid. But, it seemed like he missed the reason why certain things are the way they are in the game.

Challenge is good. I like a challenge. And there's nothing about Demon's Souls' gameplay that is completely broken and unfair - with caution, and gradual understanding of the combat mechanics, you could get by. But in this day and age there is no, absolutely no fucking excuse for keeping your checkpoints half an hour of gameplay apart.

See, hes simply wrong here. I'll let you play it first and you'll see what I'm talking about. Its used to give the player a sense of dread, which builds on the atmosphere of the game.

[Quemaqua]

Exactly.  It doesn't matter if it's niche, he should be savvy enough to recognize what the game is doing.  There are plenty of games I don't like but will still praise for doing something interesting that appeals to a certain gaming sect or other.  Demon's Souls was actually generally quite well-liked critically, even by some people who found it too hard or not their cup of tea.  Metacritic has nothing below a 60, and that's the only review score below 75 otherwise out of 51 reviews (with most significantly higher).  And as mentioned, a lot of guys literally said... I just can't hack this game, it just isn't for me, but they still recognized what it did.  Granted, such objectivity doesn't happen a lot in games journalism these days, but this is one game where I think it's generally obvious to most professionals.

[Schlotzky5]

In that quote he's not criticizing the game for being hard. He says the chekpoints are too far apart. That seems like a very fair criticism.

[Quemaqua]

But that's kind of the point... if you're playing this game and whining about not having enough checkpoints, you're missing the point entirely.

[Schlotzky5]

Maybe, but if you dont like the game, you dont like the game. How can you tell somebody that they should be praising a game they didnt like playing?

[Quemaqua]

Because in this case I think it's pretty obvious what a great game it is.  And as I mentioned, many professionals who felt like the game wasn't for them were still in tune enough with game design to realize that it was a fantastic game, not go whining about how there's no excuse for this kind of game design in the modern era, which is just a stupid statement, especially considering the fact that the game sold so far beyond expectations, Atlus had to print more copies.

[Schlotzky5]

Kotaku writer makes argument for Demon's Souls being GOTY.

http://kotaku.com/5449482/2009-game-of-the-year-finalist-debate-demons-souls

[Quemaqua]

That's actually a really awesome little read.  Everyone presents their points clearly, and to some degree most are valid.  I happen to believe that you should be able to see through what you personally don't like to see what's great, though.  The things that piss some of them off aren't bad design... they're design choices they don't happen to agree with personally.  But when you take them as part of the collective whole, they make sense... they do what they were meant to do.

Ultimately, I don't think anyone would ever be dumb enough to say you should buy this game sight unseen.  Absolutely not.  It's totally not a game for everyone.  But at the same time, the fact that there's been such high demand for it I think shows that there's a lot more there than what the naysayers are giving it credit for.  I don't know if Demon's Souls would be my game of the year.  In a year where it's been so hard for me to play games, it's just hard to say.  But I've had more than mere handfuls of memorable moments with it that I have no doubt will stick with me through years of future gaming.  The comparisons to Shadow of the Colossus and Silent Hill are very apt to me.  Those are games that stuck to my ribs, that earned a place in my heart... and I think this one has achieved that as well.

[Schlotzky5]

I think its my game of the year. I played a bunch of games this year, but almost all of them aren't from 09. I prefer to buy old games on the cheap.

[iPPi]

If you're on the Atlus Faithful mailing list, you can vote for the Valentine's Day world event, which will either shift World Tendency to pure white or to pure black, depending on your choice.  Basically, it should be the same as the Halloween and Christmas events.

[Xessive]

Demon Soul's European retail release date set.

NAMCO BANDAI Partners S.A.S. announced an agreement with Sony Computer Entertainment for the distribution of the acclaimed action RPG title Demon’s Souls across the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions. Following its release in Japan and North America where it garnered high praise from media and a loyal audience of fans, the PlayStation 3 game will be launched on June 25, 2010 as an exclusive European limited edition retail pack containing the soundtrack CD, a new artbook and brand new strategy guide.

“We’re very pleased to be working with SCEI to bring the fantastic Demon’s Souls to gamers outside of Japan and North America,” said Olivier Comte, VP Marketing, Sales & Publishing NAMCO BANDAI Partners S.A.S. “The game is exactly the kind of quality experience with which we are continuing to grow the NAMCO BANDAI Games portfolio of titles, and we will be working hard to ensure it’s at least as much of a success in our markets as it has already proven to be elsewhere.”

[MysterD]

EvilAvatar -> Demon's Souls to celebrate 1 year anniversary throughout October will be going through some mode-switching...
Pure White until Oct. 18th and
Pure Black from Oct. 18th-31st.

For those who are unfamiliar with these terms, when world tendency is set to Pure White, enemies are easier but drop fewer items and have fewer souls to collect.

Pure Black, conversely, sees the enemies become more difficult, but with great reward. Typically, this is just influenced through player interaction, but can be adjusted at will by the developers.

[Pugnate]

So I've been playing this for the past two hours. I don't think I've accomplished anything. I've enjoyed it a lot, but it is really hard. Harder because my pride gets in the way and I have to tackle the enemy that is too tough for my level.

How many souls do I collect before going back to the world of the living?

I am playing a ranger. I started the tutorial, and was doing fine, till I came across this badass demon that was obviously supposed to kill me. Then I spent a long time at the castle bunofontein or whatever its called. I keep getting killed by the same bastard... and I obviously am not strong enough, but I keep going after this guy on the bridge.

[sirean_syan]

Souls don't bring you back to life. They're more currency for levels and items. You need to kill a boss, find a soul stone, or do some multiplayer stuff to get all your health back.

But yeah, I played a lot before I started to actually accomplish stuff, I feel like it was one the order of tenish hours. You will run into paths that you shouldn't even bother with yet for a while and I think that's what that bastard on the bridge is. Is it an armored knight with a pike or halberd of some sort? I don't think I was able to even challenge him until much later in my game.

[Pugnate]

Yup, that's him, the bastard. I lost all my souls to him twice, before I got frustrated and thought I'd rush to him.

This time I was killed on the way. So with zero souls, I just turned off the PS3.

How do you save your souls? You go back to the nexus and store them or something?

[TheOtherBelmont]

There is no way to save souls, they are always on you unless you spend them and if you lose them, you lose them forever(unless you go back to your body of course).  The only safe place to stop playing and not lose any progress(or souls) is the Nexus since the game auto saves constantly.  You also don't come back to "world of the living" (as you put it) until you beat the first boss on the first section of the first world.

[iPPi]

Stay away from Red Knights, they can kill you quite easily early on.

[Pugnate]

This game kicks ass, but I think the worst thing you can do is let the frustration get the best of you because then you will just get your rear handed to you.

Anyway, one other thing guys. How do you level up? The manual says something about some maiden in black or something. Where the heck is she?

[TheOtherBelmont]

Anyway, one other thing guys. How do you level up? The manual says something about some maiden in black or something. Where the heck is she?

She's in different areas around the Nexus, sometimes on the stairs, sometimes shes in the center of the room, shes pretty easy to spot, its the woman who talks to you when you first reach the Nexus after getting killed by the tutorial end boss.

[iPPi]

You cannot level up until you kill the first boss in 1-1.

[Pugnate]

I actually restarted the game with the royalty class. The soul spell is awesome. He is really slow though.

One thing is that he only makes stabbing motions with his weapon. I tried a sword instead of a rapier, and same deal.

[iPPi]

The starting class you choose really only has a bearing on your starting stats/spells.  Once you can level you can pile on points into whichever stat you want and use/learn whatever spells you want provided you meet the prerequisites.