[PS3] Demon Souls

When you play in online mode, the boss can be one of the players ? (What the... did I understand Sigfried1977 correctly ?)

You did. It's only the final boss of the third stage, though. He summons other players to fight against you. If you are plaing offline an A.I. will do the job.

If you are summoned as that particular boss and defeat the player you can earn a pretty good (and rather ridiculous looking) piece of head gear.


By the way, I though the fight against BP Satsuki was really, really tough.
 
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I pre-ordered the deluxe edition. Will post impressions once the people here give it a try.

We are afraid of the game but decided to order anyway:

(9 minute boring player stalking followed by less than 1 minute of tragic PvP. Skip to 9:00 if you only want to see the actual assassination).

(You're supposed to rush the spawn point when a Black Phantom invades your world. Here's another type of PvP encounter ;-))

EDIT: Actually, the second encounter could be a Black Phantom NPC.
 
Second video is not PvP. It's just a player (in soul form - there's no PvP in soul form thank god) being attacked by black phantom version (those appear when the world hits black tendency) of a regular enemy in World 3-2.

Also don't worry too much: once you get past the excruciating first couple of hours the game becomes much more managable. Just don't be reckless, even if you know what you are doing.
 
Yeah, I am not familiar with the game set up yet.

Am rather happy to find the official blog from GAF. The most recent one (#5) talks about its difficulty: http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4265

The older ones are:
#1 Introduction: http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3795
#2 Basics: http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3966
#3 Online Play: http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4021
#4 World Tendency: http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4118

I ordered the deluxe edition because of the strategy guide. I figured I'd need it for this game.

Btw, Yemeth and I agreed to back each other up when the game is released. My gut feel is our timezone difference would probably prevent us from gaming for a long time. We'll see. I'll definitely summon Blue Phantoms to help me tackle pesky Black Phantoms.
 
The game is only difficult for the first 5-10 hours of play, regardless of how far you are in the game. You get used to it all. I installed a new HDD in my PS3, lost my character of 40 hours and had to start again, instead of a female Barbarian, I have picked a female Royal and the game is as easy as pie, despite being used to using humongous swords. Haven't died once in my new game.
 
patsu, looking forward to play with you, we'll see about the timezone difference...

BTW, currently I have to fight much not to look at youtube videos, guides etc., so that I have some surprises left (altough I have boomarked one, if it gets too frustrating at the beginning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG018Yg4kOM :smile: ).

Cheers...
 
Heh, I am watching lot's of Demon's Souls youtube videos too.

Thanks for posting that beginner's guide. It's probably a life saver.
[rush off to research Cling Ring]

I'm actually more excited by this purchase than the other games. :)
 
The cling ring is overrated. True heroes can be effective at straight halved HP ;)

My new char is back up to level 40ish now. I'd say I'm about as far as I was before I lost my save, +- a few minor events. I'm relying a lot on offensive spells now, where in my previous game I'd only use the bow at range. The thing is, some enemies are quite susceptible to magic damage. There are certain enemies that still take 25+ arrows, even with my decently upgraded bow, but can be offed with three hits of a cheap fire spell. Knowing that, and being able to exploit it anytime, thanks to the fragrant ring, takes some of the cold fear out of the game :)

When I think about how many times I died before, trying to melee my way through the tower of Latria ... sheesh!
 
The cling ring is overrated. True heroes can be effective at straight halved HP ;)

Whelp, I am not a hero. I need everything I can get to stay alive. :oops:

My new char is back up to level 40ish now. I'd say I'm about as far as I was before I lost my save, +- a few minor events. I'm relying a lot on offensive spells now, where in my previous game I'd only use the bow at range. The thing is, some enemies are quite susceptible to magic damage. There are certain enemies that still take 25+ arrows, even with my decently upgraded bow, but can be offed with three hits of a cheap fire spell. Knowing that, and being able to exploit it anytime, thanks to the fragrant ring, takes some of the cold fear out of the game :)

When I think about how many times I died before, trying to melee my way through the tower of Latria ... sheesh!

Someday I'll be as strong as you, but for now... I'll beg. Can you give items to another player ? :p

Gamasutra has a new article on Demon's Souls:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25238

I haven't read it yet. Saving it for end of day.

EDIT: Finished reading the article last night, it's another positive review in defense of the difficulty. I think I should be alright.
 
Nice article, but the guy who posted his criticisms in the comments is spot-on as well. There are some weird design choices to be found in the game like the shifting world tendency and the NPC who slays other NPCs once you rescue him. That guy will even kill the dude who stores your loot for you, and if that happens countless hours of grinding will have been for naught.
 
Sigfried, how do I prevent this from happening to me ?

Another of those errors is that unique souls dropped by defeated bosses can easily be wasted by consuming them. (Trading them for items or spells being the far better option.) Note that the game constantly auto-saves any status changes, there is no way of going back after events like these.

Can I keep the bosses' souls in a different stash until I find a good deal to trade them, or must I trade them right away ?

Also for the NPC-killing-NPC, is it tied to the story at all (but the game forgot to tell you) or just a random event ? Please don't reveal any storyline, just a short answer will do.

I actually like it when players can't figure out the World Tendency rules. It would keep me guessing and hence, fearing for its macro effects.
 
Regarding the NPC-killer:
The guy is an assassin and is located in 3-2 (Tower of Latria). He's wearing the heaviest regular set of armor in the game and is locked in a cage, so you'll know it's him when you get there. If you just follow the main path through the stage you won't come across him anyway. If you want his armor, just set him free and kill him immediately. Otherwise he'll end up in the Nexus where he'll start killing people (not right away, though. You can kill him in the Nexus if you want to)

It's really only a problem if you don't know about the issue. There are quite a few people you can rescue in the game actually, but it's never mandatory and usually requires some fiddling around with the world tendency as well. Not going to happen on accident.

As for the Boss souls: I think you can give them to Stockpile Thomas in the Nexus, but I'm not sure. He carries your regular soul stones as well, though, so you might still confuse one with the other if you don't pay attention. Again, this is only an issue if you don't know about it. The boss soul stones have the boss name in the description, so just check carefully before you consume something. I think his issue wasn't about accidently consumeing the stones anyway, but again about not knowing that they actually have a bigger purpose later in the game. (unlocking magic, enabling the black smith to create better weapons etc.)
 
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@_@ Might want to spoiler tag your reply regarding the NPC killing. I can see some people may want to stay blind even if it's bad for them.
 
Is it really a spoiler, though? The guy is basically a big nuisance with no relevance to the story. He just screws you over if you let him, and you see him pop up on pictures during loading times every once in a while as well.
 
The boss souls are just consumable items with zero weight. You can keep them in your inventory forever or stash them, doesn't make much of a difference. You're not forced to decide what to do with them.

You'll notice that there are trophies for learning every magic spell, learning every miracle and for getting every rare weapon. Many of these require you to hand over specific boss demon souls, but if you used it to forge a weapon, you of course can't use it to learn its associated spell anymore. I think thus it'll take at least three, maybe four full game cycles to get all the spells, miracles and weapons, and in turn the associated trophies.
 
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