Demon's Souls (PS5)

This game is SO GOOD. Having never played the original (I started with Bloodborne, then played through DS1, DS2, and some of DS3) I feel right at home, other than the lack of jumping. The environments *definitely* feel next gen. It's fun just taking my time looking at all the details. The hours put into asset creation (textures, modeling, etc) must have been *mental* to achieve this.
 
Yeah, the PvP is the ultimate "learn the meta" game. Nobody gives a fuck about style or fun or whatever, it's just "this weapon/spell/armor combo etc. is best and most likely to cheese and kill a player." And then there's noobs playing through the SP with their own style who just get wrecked because they don't know the meta yet.
Min/Maxing and meta considerations are A LOT less meaningful in Demon's Souls. Because the environment is a much larger factor. Demon's Souls frequently funnels you through tight corridors and/or puts you atop precarious platforms and ledges.

You often cannot spam widely swinging weapons (deflecting off walls even seems more strict in Demon's Souls, than later souls games). You can't blindly roll. and even having a weapon or attack totally optimized for damage, is not so important. Playstyle Vs. environment is much more important. And unlike Dark Souls 2 and 3, you can't just turn and run for a few seconds to an wide arena looking area, obviously placed to pander to PVP. Almost everywhere you go in Demon's Souls, you are probably in a tunnel, facing a ledge with no railing, forced to navigate a 90 degree corner, stairs which may or may not have railing, etc.

I spent a lot of time in Demon's Souls pushing people off ledges while two handing the spiked Shield. It has a two handed lunge/push move, which ignores most attacks (not necessarily the damage). Unless its a really high damage great sword or something. I eventually maxed it out for dexterity with a purebladestone. Because I found it to be useful in many scenarios. In tunnels, near ledges, slowly trudging through swamp, etc.
But you don't need to do that, if you just want to push people. You shouldn't even need the spiked shield. Some of the other similarly sized shields should have the same two handed push move. Some of the quick poking attacks can also stun lock, making an effective tool to push people around, regardless of damage.
 
Due to the nature of Demon's Souls level design, I've had quite a few invaders simply bail after a minute or two. I'm guessing they aren't outfitted to exploit a small tunnel/path or they don't want to spend 10 minutes tracking me down. Probably 1/3 of them end up leaving after a couple minutes.

I'm finding that most of the weapons I stuck with in the 3 Dark Souls games aren't that great in Demon's Souls. The big/heavy weapons lack the F+R2 jumping attack that sped them up, and almost all of them swing wide enough there they hit walls or ceilings. They're dandy for bosses, but a quick/stabby weapon is way better most of the time. The Esoc seems especially strong. I don't care for dex builds, but I think they're likely better in this game. There are just more strong options.
 
I managed to beat the Flamelurker on the first attempt. I'd long heard that was one of those "weed out" bosses, so I came in with some anti-fire gear and a pile of grass. Still, I never really felt all that much in danger. I mainly just kept getting behind him and swinging 1-2 times. If I got to 1/3 of my health I'd run behind a column and heal.
Some of it is probably me having played the 3 sequels, but I've killed all but the Armored Spider and Leechmonger in 1 try. The Leechmonger was a weird falling death that looked safe. The Armored Spider is a straight-up trash fight since you'd never know he fills the whole damn room with lava. The others have been challenging, but not really hard. Definitely not as hard as any of the 3 Dark Souls games. Not sure where I'll go next. My buddy told me to kill off the first boss of all the arches after getting as far as possible in the first one. Guess I'll probably trek back to that one and see what I can do with those dragons.
 
Oh yeah and the "hands of god" fist weapon can send people flying with its strong attacks. I.....don't remember if that was in the original game. or if Bluepoint changed the moveset and physics for that.
 
Question about item scaling in the Souls games... let's say you have two weapons, one that scales B with strength only, and one that scales D skill and E strength. If I have a decent amount of strength and skill, can the D and E weapon equal a pure strength build? In other words, do the multiple stat ratings add up or does it just take from the strongest of your stats?
 
Question about item scaling in the Souls games... let's say you have two weapons, one that scales B with strength only, and one that scales D skill and E strength. If I have a decent amount of strength and skill, can the D and E weapon equal a pure strength build? In other words, do the multiple stat ratings add up or does it just take from the strongest of your stats?
Generally speaking, a significantly higher individual rating is going to beat lower, split ratings.

However, if you are really worried about maximizing, you should look at the wiki pages for the weapons you are interested in. As it will show you the stats after each upgrade level. Some of the weapons dramatically improve their scaling ratings, after certain upgrade levels/pathways. And there are a few weapons which have some quirks. Things like a certain weapon with an "A" rating actually scaling more like an "S", etc.

Unfortunately, Demon's Souls upgarde system is really poorly layed out.
 
I'm starting to regret going Royalty now (mostly Magic but shield/swordplay as necessary) - I'm four-shotting bosses with Soul Ray, and two-shotting poor bastards that walk into the Old Monk fight. And I intentionally skipped upgrading my wooden catalyst to Insanity Catalyst because it would double my magic damage.

Debating on finishing the game, or bailing and starting over with Temple Knight for a STR/FTH build.
 
I'm pretty much always STR based and I'd say the game isn't super tough even wading in and slugging it out. It's still harder than 95% of other games, but the difficulty is closer to Bloodborne than the 3 Dark games or Sekiro. You can sense when you're in a place you aren't ready for based on how many hits everything takes. If you're taking everything out in 2 swings, you're good to go and fight whatever you encounter. The only magic I ever use is just the defense boost spell. I pop that here and there or if an invader shows up.
 
I know I've said this already, but the sound design is SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. It's not just 3D positional audio or the bitrate etc, but just the design of each element is done with so much care and love. It can be little details like when you break a table that has stuff on it, you'll hear cups hitting the ground and rolling around, or other bits of random "debris" that have physics you can bump into sound 100% real. Then there's the totally "synthesized" stuff like the ranged spear attack (with blue particle fx) the Tower Knight does.

I know the vast majority of people go through entire games without giving much of a thought to the sound work (unless it's REALLY BAD and impossible to ignore) but I really hope the person/people behind this get the recognition they deserve
 
Nitpick: As great as the PS5 controller is, I really wish it had back paddles like the Xbox Elite 1&2 controllers, because in this game it would make a big difference by not having to take your thumb off one of the sticks to press the D-Pad to switch what's in your left or right hand - that inefficiency has gotten me killed more than a few times. Being able to weapon-switch with a paddle would be epic.
 
Nitpick: As great as the PS5 controller is, I really wish it had back paddles like the Xbox Elite 1&2 controllers, because in this game it would make a big difference by not having to take your thumb off one of the sticks to press the D-Pad to switch what's in your left or right hand - that inefficiency has gotten me killed more than a few times. Being able to weapon-switch with a paddle would be epic.
I think by design, they don't want you to be able to do that.
 
I know I've said this already, but the sound design is SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. It's not just 3D positional audio or the bitrate etc, but just the design of each element is done with so much care and love. It can be little details like when you break a table that has stuff on it, you'll hear cups hitting the ground and rolling around, or other bits of random "debris" that have physics you can bump into sound 100% real. Then there's the totally "synthesized" stuff like the ranged spear attack (with blue particle fx) the Tower Knight does.

I know the vast majority of people go through entire games without giving much of a thought to the sound work (unless it's REALLY BAD and impossible to ignore) but I really hope the person/people behind this get the recognition they deserve
That sound design during the 1-2 boss fight (avoiding spoilers) was incredible. Also the dragons..my god the first few times those guys did their thing freaked me out. Both of those really sold it for me, and it’s been great since.
 
Ok, so I'm playing a little more tonight (just killed Tower Knight) and was invaded by someone, so my first PvP in Demon's Souls. They did something that broke my weapon like 10 seconds into the fight and I had no backup so I was boned. Wtf did they do that broke my weapon so fucking fast?? Also it cost me like 5k souls to repair it... And I had just repaired my gear 30 seconds before this so it's not like I went into the fight with a damaged weapon.
 
Ok, so I'm playing a little more tonight (just killed Tower Knight) and was invaded by someone, so my first PvP in Demon's Souls. They did something that broke my weapon like 10 seconds into the fight and I had no backup so I was boned. Wtf did they do that broke my weapon so fucking fast?? Also it cost me like 5k souls to repair it... And I had just repaired my gear 30 seconds before this so it's not like I went into the fight with a damaged weapon.
There is a spear called the Scraping Spear, which randomly damages a piece of your equipment with each stroke.

I can't remember if there are any spells or throwable items which cause equip damage.
 
There is a spear called the Scraping Spear, which randomly damages a piece of your equipment with each stroke.

I can't remember if there are any spells or throwable items which cause equip damage.
Yeah they were using a spear so I assume that's what it was. Jfc what a troll weapon that is. If you're short on souls to repair your gear, guess you're fucked
 
Yeah, that's what I've generally picked up with PvP in this game. People either have no idea what to do or they're using some kind of Ubersetup laden with exploits/lockdowns/instakills/etc.
I either win vs. normal players or just get straight-up mauled...often with no possible recourse.

I ended up in the PvP boss fight from the other side of things and clearly the summoned opponent had never experienced that battle before. They were probably like me and just looking to help vs. the False Idol. I kinda felt bad, but it was nice not to run into a PvP build guy in that fight.

In trying to conserve resources, early on I'd help other people fight bosses to become human again. Now that I'm SL60, I don't seem to ever find anyone who needs summoning. I did manage to end up in someone's game who was clearly on NG++++ or something (we were doing almost no damage to anything), but that was too much for both of us.
 
Yeah, that's what I've generally picked up with PvP in this game. People either have no idea what to do or they're using some kind of Ubersetup laden with exploits/lockdowns/instakills/etc.
I either win vs. normal players or just get straight-up mauled...often with no possible recourse.

I ended up in the PvP boss fight from the other side of things and clearly the summoned opponent had never experienced that battle before. They were probably like me and just looking to help vs. the False Idol. I kinda felt bad, but it was nice not to run into a PvP build guy in that fight.

In trying to conserve resources, early on I'd help other people fight bosses to become human again. Now that I'm SL60, I don't seem to ever find anyone who needs summoning. I did manage to end up in someone's game who was clearly on NG++++ or something (we were doing almost no damage to anything), but that was too much for both of us.
Ironically, one thing that is probably hampering the multiplayer systems in Demon's Souls is the scarcity of PS5s. The more people playing the game, the better its systems work (more people summoning, invading, leaving signs, etc.)
 
I still 100% believe that "Horsefuck Valley" (from the Dark Souls 2 DLC) is the most annoying area in the series history. I'm thinking that the Swamp from Demon's Souls is a contender for second place, though. Even disregarding the poison aspect, which I'm negating with items that auto-heal, the goblin village is just a massive nightmare of invisible enemies, swarms, status effects, narrow paths, etc. I've finally cleared out all of the items (and bought a nice set of armor from the NPC), but it has been hell.
 
I still 100% believe that "Horsefuck Valley" (from the Dark Souls 2 DLC) is the most annoying area in the series history. I'm thinking that the Swamp from Demon's Souls is a contender for second place, though. Even disregarding the poison aspect, which I'm negating with items that auto-heal, the goblin village is just a massive nightmare of invisible enemies, swarms, status effects, narrow paths, etc. I've finally cleared out all of the items (and bought a nice set of armor from the NPC), but it has been hell.
Yeah tell me about it. I breezed through 5-1, but 5-2 is taking hours and super annoying. Its mostly just slowly draining my stockpile of HP and MP consumables. Not being able to roll while getting jumped by 2 giants = lol. I finally got to Dirty Colossus, got killed and just turned it off for the night - wasn't going through that village again.

Every Souls game has its swamp or Blighttown (DS1) type map, that seem more test of patience than timing and skill. FROM's gift to us I suppose.
 
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I still 100% believe that "Horsefuck Valley" (from the Dark Souls 2 DLC) is the most annoying area in the series history. I'm thinking that the Swamp from Demon's Souls is a contender for second place, though. Even disregarding the poison aspect, which I'm negating with items that auto-heal, the goblin village is just a massive nightmare of invisible enemies, swarms, status effects, narrow paths, etc. I've finally cleared out all of the items (and bought a nice set of armor from the NPC), but it has been hell.
Thanks for the warning, I'll know what I need to stock up on.. btw, yes that area in Dark Souls 2 was insane. I made it to the boss fight twice and gave up after that. At least I can say I made it that far :D I do appreciate it for being a different sort of challenge in the series though.
 
...and I'm done with the swamp at last. The only thing I had left was the boss, who luckily wasn't too bad. He hits pretty hard (and it's tough to tell when he's hitting you if you get far away), but he's a pretty standard "get behind and swing" boss. I've gotten to the point where I'm only using Late and Full Moon Grass. The lighter stuff just isn't cutting it in fights like that. It's tempting to use the other grasses, but they're really only for when you're wandering around.

The biggest pro tip I can offer for the Swamp is to equip a regen ring + the adjudicator's shield for that area. Even if it makes you fat roll, it'll basically alleviate the constant poison effect. You still lose life ever so slightly, but it's minute and very slow. That way at least wandering in the muck is no big deal. You can still run, too. Snag all of the random items in both sections of the muck and you can get some really good gear and a shitload of souls. There's even an island with 4 large trolls with 3 Ephemeral Eye stones on it.
 
...and I'm done with the swamp at last. The only thing I had left was the boss, who luckily wasn't too bad. He hits pretty hard (and it's tough to tell when he's hitting you if you get far away), but he's a pretty standard "get behind and swing" boss. I've gotten to the point where I'm only using Late and Full Moon Grass. The lighter stuff just isn't cutting it in fights like that. It's tempting to use the other grasses, but they're really only for when you're wandering around.

The biggest pro tip I can offer for the Swamp is to equip a regen ring + the adjudicator's shield for that area. Even if it makes you fat roll, it'll basically alleviate the constant poison effect. You still lose life ever so slightly, but it's minute and very slow. That way at least wandering in the muck is no big deal. You can still run, too. Snag all of the random items in both sections of the muck and you can get some really good gear and a shitload of souls. There's even an island with 4 large trolls with 3 Ephemeral Eye stones on it.
Where do you find the Adjudicator's shield, so I can plan ahead?
 
Where do you find the Adjudicator's shield, so I can plan ahead?

It's in the first part of the Shrine of Storms. Pretty sure it was just laying on the ground so you don't have to kill the boss to get it or anything. If you haven't been there, it's actually a pretty good area for grinding levels. You can get around 2000 souls just by making a loop around the first half dozen enemies.
 
The best place to get souls I found is the second level of Shrine of Storms (Ritual Path). Just don't kill the death like scythe guy at the bottom and the ghosts keep respawning. I use a Dragon Sword +5 and it's a 2 hit kill for each and they are slow. I just stand there near the stairs going down after 2 lane like bridge and just one thrust then a slash at everything coming out of the door at regular intervals. I think by the time I killed the death scythe guy I had like 25k souls. I think each one is worth around 800.

Though I can't find a good fast place to farm moonshadestone chunks. I need one more to get my crescent rapier to +5. I think the death scythe is suppose to drop them rarely but I have a ton of shards but no more chunks. I guess my luck is bad.
 
I need a couple hardstone chunks to get my Claymore to +9. It's been at +8 seemingly forever. I assume some of those lizards in the mines might have one, but that's such an annoying/long run to make. I've barely even touched my other weapons.

For what it's worth, the last two sections of the Shrine of Storms are pretty easy. I blew through them in one pass and there were signs on the ground that even told me how to kill both bosses. The only areas I have left are the latter portions of the first archstone.
 
I need a couple hardstone chunks to get my Claymore to +9. It's been at +8 seemingly forever. I assume some of those lizards in the mines might have one, but that's such an annoying/long run to make. I've barely even touched my other weapons.

For what it's worth, the last two sections of the Shrine of Storms are pretty easy. I blew through them in one pass and there were signs on the ground that even told me how to kill both bosses. The only areas I have left are the latter portions of the first archstone.
The 2nd part is kicking my ass (after the sythe guy).

The level design is super annoying being on a ledge with rolling enemies and projectiles from flying bat thingies. Then once I get past that I'm pretty much insta killed when the death ray weird slender thingy kills me lol.

Pretty sure I gotta just come back later when I'm stronger.

Side note, anyone know where i can find a dragon stone shard? I have 3 and need one more to upgrade my sword, it would really help I fell. Don't want to upgrade my normal short sword any further if I can get at least an upgrade here
 
The 2nd part is kicking my ass (after the sythe guy).

The level design is super annoying being on a ledge with rolling enemies and projectiles from flying bat thingies. Then once I get past that I'm pretty much insta killed when the death ray weird slender thingy kills me lol.

Pretty sure I gotta just come back later when I'm stronger.

Side note, anyone know where i can find a dragon stone shard? I have 3 and need one more to upgrade my sword, it would really help I fell. Don't want to upgrade my normal short sword any further if I can get at least an upgrade here

Dragon Stone shards are plentiful to farm if you have unlocked the Underground Temple (2-3). Warp to that location then go back towards the Tunnel City. In the caves kill the bugbear type slugs. It's not too far but not close either, but you can make a short sweep of the tunnels and the area near the lava river and get a lot of shards and some chunks also though chunks are rare drops. But you can loot a few chunks and a pure if you have enough HP and a flame resist ring from some corpses in the lava. Be quick though and have lots of healing items with you. Don't forget to also use the bugbear powder they sometimes drop to increase flame resist. That's how I got the dragon long sword +1 I found in the tunnel city to +5. It is probably the best weapon for the shadowmen archstone since it is mostly undead enemies and fire hurts them a lot.
 
I'm at the end of the line now. Per what I've seen (I wanted to make sure I hadn't hit any sort of "point of no return"), I've reached the final area. I went ahead and cashed in all of my boss souls for spells and upgrades. My soul level is 75. I've inadvertently created a quality build, which I probably wouldn't do again if I had to do it all over. I figured I'd boost dex here and there and the next thing I knew I had a 30 in Str, but a 28 in Dex, too. The coolest weapon I only recently discovered is the Dozer axe. I'd kinda like to specialize in it, although it's heavy as hell and requires a 30 in Str to even use. Still, depending on if you can kill the demon in the tutorial, you could get it pretty early on.
 
I'm at the end of the line now. Per what I've seen (I wanted to make sure I hadn't hit any sort of "point of no return"), I've reached the final area. I went ahead and cashed in all of my boss souls for spells and upgrades. My soul level is 75. I've inadvertently created a quality build, which I probably wouldn't do again if I had to do it all over. I figured I'd boost dex here and there and the next thing I knew I had a 30 in Str, but a 28 in Dex, too. The coolest weapon I only recently discovered is the Dozer axe. I'd kinda like to specialize in it, although it's heavy as hell and requires a 30 in Str to even use. Still, depending on if you can kill the demon in the tutorial, you could get it pretty early on.
did you mess around with world tendency?
 
did you mess around with world tendency?

Not intentionally. I might have accidentally, but I honestly don't even know how it works. I've only looked up a few things just so I had some idea of what to do with individual boss demon's souls. I figure NG+ (or just another normal playthrough) will be for looking up whatever I missed out on.
 
Not intentionally. I might have accidentally, but I honestly don't even know how it works. I've only looked up a few things just so I had some idea of what to do with individual boss demon's souls. I figure NG+ (or just another normal playthrough) will be for looking up whatever I missed out on.
I can clarify WT when you get around to it. It's not actually as complicated as it seems.
 
I'm done with the game now. The last bosses were pretty much cake. I have no idea how you're supposed to fight the king to make him challenging.
I just blocked his charge, hit him 1-2 times, and then backed up again. I don't think he ever even hit me. No clue if the world tendency creates new bosses or anything, but the Armor Spider and Flamelurker are probably the toughest enemies in the game. Maybe the Maneater...but only because the game surprises you a little in that fight.
I ended up killing the dragons with arrows. Talk about tedious. I was hoping for achievements and basically got nothing but more souls I didn't really need. Oh well. I figure I'll give NG+ a go, but maybe not quite yet.

So...how does World Tendency work exactly? I definitely encountered several areas/objects that I could never reach so I'm guessing those were related.
 
When the PS3 version launched the devs From Software never expected this game to take off.
 
World Tendency

Initial notes:


Pure White and Pure Black both either open up previously blocked areas in levels or cause new NPCs to appear and allow special events to happen. The ultimate point being access to unique/powerful items/equipment/weapons.

First of all, if you want exclusive control over your own world tendency's, you need to play in offline mode. When you play online, it will shift your world tendency's to whatever the average is, off all online players in your region. Once the game stabilizes and people get better at it, Demon's Souls will spend most of its life with online world tendency shifted more towards white.
And as long as you are online----you can't reliably change your world tendency. Because once you have gone back to the nexus a couple of times, it will re-adjust back to the online average.
Besides occasional worldwide tendency events (pure white weekend/pure black weekend), From Software never figured out anything interesting to do with it. And so far....its seems neither did Bluepoint. Unless they decide to come up with some other unique types of events or something.

Affecting World Tendency

The two main ways to efficiently affect world tendency are to kill the bosses or to die in human form.
Once either thing has happened (a boss is killed or you die in human form), you have to return to the nexus, before the change to world tendency will happen.
Each world's tendency is independent from all of the others. So, dying in human form in Shrine of Storms, will only effect Shrine of Storms, etc.


Moving to Pure Black
Moving a world towards black is much easier, because you can simply use stones of ephemeral eyes to regain human form, and then suicide in that specific world. And there are enough SoEE available in each playthrough, for you to do this at each world. (IIRC, there are over 45 available in each playthrough, from general play. And there is at least one enemy which actually drops them, for potential farming past 45.).

The most efficient way to go to pure black, is suiciding in human form. from a neutral world tendency, I think it takes about 5 deaths or something. Bluepoint made it easier to tell what the world tendency is. So just be sure to check after you return to the Nexus each time.

If you are going for pure black, be careful about what you are doing, to maintain it. What I mean is, if you want colorless demon's souls, you have to kill the primeval demon's which show up in Pure Black. But, killing a primevil demon will cause a large shift back towards neutral, if you return to the nexus afterwards. Killing special NPCs which show up during Pure Black, also cause a large shift. So if you want to do multiple things, you need to plan ahead. Or be good enough to not die and be forced to return to the nexus.

Also, if you are in Pure Black and want to keep it, do not kill invading Black Phantom players (players whom are glowing red). This will cause a shift towards neutral. You can simply suicide. Or maybe you want to play with them a bit. drop some items. troll them. Let them kill you. whatever, Its Demon's Souls!

Moving to Pure White

The most efficient way to move to pure white is to kill the bosses. (and return to the nexus after each boss is killed, to ensure the shift happens).
If you are invaded by a Black Phantom player (glowing red), this is an opportunity for you to get a bonus shift towards white (if you kill them).
You should stay in soul form, if you are going for pure white. Because a death in human form inside a world, will shift it away from white.

Similar to Pure Black, be careful about what you are doing while in white. Killing special PW NPCs will shift towards black, etc.

You regain human form after killing a boss. If you are going for pure white and are not confident in your ability to stay alive, then you should return to the nexus and suicide there. Dying in human form in the nexus, does not affect any world tendency. (you may have seen streamers doing this or heard others blindly suggesting it. Its basically a way to make the game progressively easier. As it will systematically move each world towards white and maintain it. And then you may hear a streamer saying something like "this game seems easier than the others" and yeah well duh, you are literally making sure it is easier.)

Key aspects of world Tendency:

Moving a world towards white, makes enemy health and attack power lower.
Your soul form attack power increases.
More/more powerful healing items drop more frequently.
upgrade materials and rare items drops less frequently.

Moving a world towards black, makes enemy health and attack power higher
Pure Black adds additional Black Phantom versions of enemies to many areas. (BP enemies are glowing red). From Software was pretty smart about this and many of these additions can make certain areas a lot more challenging. If you want your second playthrough of the game to be more interesting, I highly recommend a pure black playthrough. The additional BP enemies can really make certain encounters feel fresh and force you to test your skills.
your soul form attack power decreases in pure black.
Healing items drop less frequently.
Upgrade materials drop more frequently.
rare items drop more frequently.

Bluepoint messed with the drop rates on some of the rarest items. So, you probably won't find yourself needing pure white/black, simply to obtain certain item drops. IMO, they were a little too generous in these changes.


At this point, its up to you if you want to experience pure white/pure black blind and see if you can figure out on your own how to get the unique items, etc. or plan it out with a wiki.
My favorite Demon's Souls wiki is demonssouls.wikidot.com
 
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Wow. That seems pretty damned complicated :p

I'm guilty of dying in the Nexus once (trying to fall onto a platform with an item), but that's basically it. I'd say the game was still the easiest of the Souls games, Bloodborne included, mainly because the bosses didn't hit that hard. I don't recall being 1-shotted a single time by a boss. At least not counting the lava from that damned spider. The levels themselves were on par difficulty-wise, the bosses just weren't the huge roadblock that they could be future games. I have to admit that I think this world nuance is pretty cool, though. In the subsequent games, things that happened with NPC's always felt kinda random. While very complicated, this definitely adds something to the replay value of the game.
 
Indeed, the bosses in later games get progressively more difficult. However, Demon's does a lot to keep things more varied and to create atmosphere with its boss fights. The bosses in later games are mostly just fight this guy in a big square room. Even attempts to create similar experiences in later games, seem to miss the mark. (see: pinwheel in Dark Souls Vs. Foul's Idol in Demon's Souls). That's not to say that later games NEVER do anything more interesting than fights in square rooms. But Demon's Souls is quite a collection of interesting bosses. Even if they are relatively easy.

Its similar with the standard enemies in the levels. Dark Souls 1 has like 4 times the amount of different enemy designs. But Demon's Souls does more with its encounter design, despite a lot less enemy variety.
 
I have to admit that I think this world nuance is pretty cool, though. In the subsequent games, things that happened with NPC's always felt kinda random. While very complicated, this definitely adds something to the replay value of the game.
I love the World Tendency aspect of Demon's Souls. I wish they had improved and expanded on it in later games, rather than abandoning it. It really adds a lot to the game.
 
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