Demon's Souls (PS5)

I do tend to prefer Offline for the first playthrough just because I like taking my time exploring every square inch of the map, and this one looks gorgeous.

OTOH I can laugh off rather than take personally if I get stomped by a kid that follows the meta 24/7 and hasn't slept since the game came out. But I have to step away frequently when playing a game, and in past that would usually mean coming back to a dead character if I left a Souls game public while idle.
 
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Started playing this today. I haven’t played any previous From Software / Souls games. Just about to the first boss (trying to keep spoilers out) and had a great time. I’ve been into rogue-like games for awhile and this appeals to that side of me that enjoys rogue-likes.

I agree with what everyone has been saying, the lighting really sells the immersion. The visuals are amazing!
 
Mine finally showed up yesterday afternoon. After downloading my old PS4 games, this was the first thing I bought/played.
So far I'm loving it. It's the Souls experience, but with even better graphics than DS3 and Bloodborne. The framerate hasn't taken a single dip, either.
I've only played the original briefly via a clumsy emulator, so I'm starting mostly fresh.

The other games have definitely prepared me well. I've only died a couple times and one was a hole I wasn't sure if I was supposed to fall in or not. Loving the level design and little touches along the way. It reminds me a lot of the first Dark Souls early areas thus far.
 
I made the mistake of not using souls at the very beginning. And I got 3 bosses in after a tough slog, only to lose them all of stupidity on my part. Now I have no souls, and the enemies barely give me 100 after 15 minutes of fighting, and I'm out of materials. Just wondering if I should just start over.
 
I made the mistake of not using souls at the very beginning. And I got 3 bosses in after a tough slog, only to lose them all of stupidity on my part. Now I have no souls, and the enemies barely give me 100 after 15 minutes of fighting, and I'm out of materials. Just wondering if I should just start over.
No, keep going. The Souls games are designed around dying. They *expect* you to die and occasionally lose souls.
 
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I haven't even figured out how to level-up yet. I'm doing really, really well but I feel nervous running around with 8,000 souls after playing the other games.
 
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I made the mistake of not using souls at the very beginning. And I got 3 bosses in after a tough slog, only to lose them all of stupidity on my part. Now I have no souls, and the enemies barely give me 100 after 15 minutes of fighting, and I'm out of materials. Just wondering if I should just start over.
after 3 bosses, you undoubtedly have found some consumable items which give you souls.
 
Ha! Made it to the first real boss and it's very familiar as a Dark Souls Painted World foe. Too funny.
 
Having played a bit of Astro and understanding the hype about this new controller, I'm looking forward to Demon's Souls arriving tmrw after reading this bit:

According to SIE Japan Studio's Creative Director Gavin Moore, haptics are an integral part of the Demon's Souls experience. All weapon attacks and magic spells will have "different sensations through the adaptive triggers" , and parries will be felt through haptic feedback. Even pulling levers and opening gates will result in different sensations. This is something that rumble could never do.
 
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Having played a bit of Astro and understanding the hype about this new controller, I'm looking forward to Demon's Souls arriving tmrw after reading this bit:
Vaatividya (one of the most important Souls game youtubers) said you can even feel the flickering of fire from enemy fire attacks, when the enemy is nearby. It doesn't exactly make sense, but he said it feels pretty cool in action.
 
Maybe I came in with unfair expectations, but I'm not that amazed by the controller. At least in this game. It's neat, but I stopped noticing it after 5 minutes. Well, except for the unusual use of the controller speaker for random sound effects. The rumble is just the same rumble we've had since the 90's, only with better subtle rumbles. There have been games that did a better job with that in the past (on the 360 in particular), but they've been few and far between lately.

As far as Demon Soul's goes, I'm enjoying it a lot. The massive view distances provide a very epic feel to everything. Graphics and especially the lighting/fire effects are amazing. I need to re-adjust to the Claymore as the moveset lacks the massive forward stab I'm used to. I also need to get used to the weight burden system. I have yet to do a non-fat roll as a knight.
 
Maybe I came in with unfair expectations, but I'm not that amazed by the controller. At least in this game. It's neat, but I stopped noticing it after 5 minutes. Well, except for the unusual use of the controller speaker for random sound effects. The rumble is just the same rumble we've had since the 90's, only with better subtle rumbles. There have been games that did a better job with that in the past (on the 360 in particular), but they've been few and far between lately.

As far as Demon Soul's goes, I'm enjoying it a lot. The massive view distances provide a very epic feel to everything. Graphics and especially the lighting/fire effects are amazing. I need to re-adjust to the Claymore as the moveset lacks the massive forward stab I'm used to. I also need to get used to the weight burden system. I have yet to do a non-fat roll as a knight.
There's also adaptive trigger support for shooting a bow.
 
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Demon's Souls Remake on PlayStation 5: The Digital Foundry Tech Review

 
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in the developer videos they were hyping it up as if no one would be able to tell the difference between Cinematic vs Performance...

Okay, I had to try it after reading that. If anyone is implying that, it is straight-up ABSURD. It's 30fps vs. 60fps. Simple as that. It's locked at 30, so you don't even get the (appreciated) upward spikes into the 40's and 50's like God of War and such. The UI details are cleaner and it's clearly a slightly higher resolution (+ randomly slightly brighter), but it's 30fps. I will never use that mode again if I can help it.
 
in the developer videos they were hyping it up as if no one would be able to tell the difference between Cinematic vs Performance...
Aside from resolution, the visual differences are really, really small. Basically, it looks like the ambient occlusion has slightly less coverage in performance mode. And then because of the lower/dynamic resolution (1440p base, up to 4K. Any time its not 4K, its using a temporal method to upscale to 4K output), the tesselation at any given moment, is very slightly less detailed. and in some of the really big, open, distance scenes---there are a few less light sources rendered way off in the distance. That's.....all I have seen pointed out in comparisons. It seems that most of the difference is going into that 4K native res, for "cinematic mode". Which makes sense, because 4K is a stupid amount of pixels to be pushing.
 
A bit disappointed to see that they significantly reduced the AOE on Flamelurker's explosive attacks.

In the original game, Flamelurker is basically the moment in which the game forces you to really learn how to play it. And you really have to be on your toes. Especially with melee characters.

But the reduced AOE means that he actually misses a lot and I've been watching several streamers be able to just kind of jog around during the fight. In the PS3 game, you had to be rolling and doubling back and pulling out all of the stops, to keep away from his attack radius.
 
Having only barely touched the original, I'm appreciating how many deja vu moments I've had from areas in Dark Souls 1-3. Some (like the prison) are straight up directly taken from this game. I'm having a really good time. I am definitely missing that forward stab with the Claymore, though. Any time I'm in a tight space, this thing is a straight-up liability. There are way more narrow corridors and tunnels than any of the Dark Souls games.
 
There are way more narrow corridors and tunnels than any of the Dark Souls games.
Yep, the environments and level design were a real treat in Demon's Souls. Dealing with invasions is a blast, because of all of the tight spaces or precarious ledges.

And it all shines bright as ever, in the remake.
 
A bit disappointed to see that they significantly reduced the AOE on Flamelurker's explosive attacks.

In the original game, Flamelurker is basically the moment in which the game forces you to really learn how to play it. And you really have to be on your toes. Especially with melee characters.

But the reduced AOE means that he actually misses a lot and I've been watching several streamers be able to just kind of jog around during the fight. In the PS3 game, you had to be rolling and doubling back and pulling out all of the stops, to keep away from his attack radius.
That was reduced AOE? rofl. It was a tough fight for me as a mage, I don't know how I'd deal with it with a melee character.
 
Am I cheap and dirty for finding myself enjoying Royalty class? I see it referenced as the EZMODE class everywhere, but damn if it isn't fun.

I started as Knight, played intro area & the first map, and then repeated the process with Temple Knight -- good classes but I hate fat rolling and just end up taking off half the armor, not to mention tight corridors cripple the huge swings that a sword or Halberd needs, and the backstab/frontstab animations take a long time. My preferred Dark Souls build is a STR build with a big pancake sword like a Zweihander or Claymore, etc.

Started over with Royalty - the Rapier is small but fast and beats most melee enemies to the punch, its front/backstab QTE is really quick, it fast rolls, has a great parry shield (Buckler) and has freaking Soul Arrow with an auto-MP-regen ring -- I'm even considering dropping that ring to decrease temptation to spam Soul Arrow. Any case, this class is a killing machine.
 
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Am I cheap and dirty for finding myself enjoying Royalty class? I see it referenced as the EZMODE class everywhere, but damn if it isn't fun.

I started as Knight, played intro area & the first map, and then repeated the process with Temple Knight -- good classes but I hate fat rolling and just end up taking off half the armor, not to mention tight corridors cripple the huge swings that a sword or Halberd needs, and the backstab/frontstab animations take a long time. My preferred Dark Souls build is a STR build with a big pancake sword like a Zweihander or Claymore, etc.

Started over with Royalty - the Rapier is small but fast and beats most melee enemies to the punch, its front/backstab QTE is really quick, it fast rolls, has a great parry shield (Buckler) and has freaking Soul Arrow with an auto-MP-regen ring -- I'm even considering dropping that ring to decrease temptation to spam Soul Arrow. Any case, this class is a killing machine.
cool! good for you for adapting to the game environment, rather than whining you can't spam your zweihander ; )
 
Man I love this game. Many years, much love.


video contains area, enemy, and trap spoilers. Don't watch unless you've gone through much of the game.
 
Apparently you can lose levels in this game. I was wondering why suddenly I couldn't quick role anymore and my equip burden keeps going down. If you invade and die to the environment you lose a level, if you die with 0 souls you lose a level, apparently there's more rules.

I spent the last hour or two having fun invading not realizing this :(
 
Apparently you can lose levels in this game. I was wondering why suddenly I couldn't quick role anymore and my equip burden keeps going down. If you invade and die to the environment you lose a level, if you die with 0 souls you lose a level, apparently there's more rules.

I spent the last hour or two having fun invading not realizing this :(
Have you confirmed that you lose a soul level if you die with zero souls?

I don't remember that from the original game and none of the wikis say anything about it. But it could be a new addition, not yet recorded in the wikis.
 
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Have you confirmed that you lose a soul level if you die with zero souls?

I don't remember that from the original game and none of the wikis say anything about it. But it could be a new addition, not yet recorded in the wikis.

A reddit thread told me that, but apparently there is some disagreement so I'm not sure. I don't want to invade anymore to test it out lol. My soul level went down maybe a dozen or so, I died from the environment plenty of times in the stone mine area before flamelurker by falling, etc. I also went back to my own worlds a bunch of times when I had a hard time finding the host.
 
A reddit thread told me that, but apparently there is some disagreement so I'm not sure. I don't want to invade anymore to test it out lol. My soul level went down maybe a dozen or so, I died from the environment plenty of times in the stone mine area before flamelurker by falling, etc. I also went back to my own worlds a bunch of times when I had a hard time finding the host.
I don't remember invading being that much of a drain on soul levels. But I guess it has been about 9 years since I last played Demon's Souls....

In terms of returning to your world, i don't think you lose a soul level unless the host uses an item to banish you.
 
Apparently you can lose levels in this game. I was wondering why suddenly I couldn't quick role anymore and my equip burden keeps going down. If you invade and die to the environment you lose a level, if you die with 0 souls you lose a level, apparently there's more rules.
Yes, and speaking of esoteric rules, I'm still trying to wrap my head around this layer of complexity called World Tendency, because I'm trying to play it blind as much as possible rather than reading Wiki's all day. In the Dark Souls games, at least in my experience, you went through the game either in hollow or human form, and that state could affect some minor things, but that was kind of it - you killed mobs and bosses and eventually got to the end.

In Demon's Souls, you might experience red phantoms starting to show up and have no clue why (you're dying too much and world tendency is moving toward black). Or a pathway is suddenly open on a map that wasn't open before. WTF? You can go either:

1. Go read about it ("oh, so World Tendency moves towards black when you die in human form, or kill living NPC's, and towards white when you kill a black phantom, a primeval demon, or boss"; and "certain paths will open up or close if the world is pure white or pure black"; and "black tendency makes the world harder, but increases souls gained and rare drop rates, as well as unlocking certain events at pure black, such as the world's named black phantom appearing, and the primeval demon spawning. If you manage to kill both of those two enemies without using an archstone, you can go from pure black to pure white without killing a boss.")

Or...

2. Stumble through blind and try to figure that all out by trial and error. Good luck.

And then there's nuances even to those esoteric rules, like "you can prevent changing tendency towards black by going and suiciding in the Nexus after every boss/successful co-op, because only deaths in human form effect world tendencies."
 
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I have no idea how far I am, but I've killed 7-8 bosses and have cleared out at least one section of each area. I'm pleasantly surprised at how "fair" the bosses are so far. In the Dark Souls games I would regularly hit a wall with a boss. Lots of 1-2 hit deaths and such. Well, except DS2, where nearly all the bosses outside the DLC areas were too easy. Demon's Souls is doing a good job of forcing you to think, but not killing you instantly or making the process too challenging. Especially considering how far you have to run to get to some of them.

On another note, I was trying to earn some quick souls by helping people fight the Fools Idol. Seems that if you put down your stone there, you end up in a weird duel with other players instead. I dunno if you just can't summon help there or what, but I kept getting into a weird duel with a cutscene. I won one and lost one. It's always obvious when someone has a PvP build since they always have status effects and tend to play via shenanigans.
 
On another note, I was trying to earn some quick souls by helping people fight the Fools Idol. Seems that if you put down your stone there, you end up in a weird duel with other players instead. I dunno if you just can't summon help there or what, but I kept getting into a weird duel with a cutscene. I won one and lost one. It's always obvious when someone has a PvP build since they always have status effects and tend to play via shenanigans.

That must be the optional player "boss" fight I've read about. I guess there's one in Dark Souls 3, too.
 
That must be the optional player "boss" fight I've read about. I guess there's one in Dark Souls 3, too.

Yeah, I'm assuming as much. Putting down your soapstone anywhere in the prison level seems to put you in that fight. I'm not sure how it works for the player you're invading, but sometimes I have to wait a while for them to enter the room. I managed to win more than I've lost, but frankly I *suck* at PvP in these games. It's clear the other player isn't expecting to fight anyone if they've never played this one before. Only one person entered with a build or approach that was geared around fighting other players.
I don't really get the thrill of PvP in the Souls games. It's a war of exploits. People either spam exploitable attacks/spells or refuse to do anything until someone else moves first...of course using status ailment weapons. It's like a bad fighting game to me.
 
Yeah, I'm assuming as much. Putting down your soapstone anywhere in the prison level seems to put you in that fight. I'm not sure how it works for the player you're invading, but sometimes I have to wait a while for them to enter the room. I managed to win more than I've lost, but frankly I *suck* at PvP in these games. It's clear the other player isn't expecting to fight anyone if they've never played this one before. Only one person entered with a build or approach that was geared around fighting other players.
I don't really get the thrill of PvP in the Souls games. It's a war of exploits. People either spam exploitable attacks/spells or refuse to do anything until someone else moves first...of course using status ailment weapons. It's like a bad fighting game to me.
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.
 
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