Demon's Souls

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Has anybody else played this?

I traded it in out of frustration but I'm starting to regret it because of how much a lot of people like it and how atmospheric it was.

Yeah, it's a difficult game, I didn't get very far in it.

I have the Black Phantom edition and love it. Definitely my favourite game on the Ps3. The difficulty is over-rated however. It requires you to adapt to it but once you get the hang of it it's not very difficult at all. It also allows for a huge amount of character customisation which allows you to play any way you want. The online feature is also pretty incredible and adds a huge amount to the atmosphere.

In what way?

Wel, normally with a hack and slash game you would simply run up and keep pressing the attack button, blocking and dodging when required and then running off to the next encounter. With Demons Souls however, that sort of play will get you killed...a lot. You need to approach every encounter as if you are fighting a boss as every enemy is capable of killing you quickly. By this, I mean never walk without a shield up or uncautiously and NEVER charge at an enemy and make sure you only attack when you are sure you will hot the enemy without getting hurt. Also make sure you have full health before and after every encounter and make sure you have the best equipment you have and don't keep more Souls in your inventory than you have to. Also make sure you plan out your character well as even though an all rounded character will be fine for PvE, it'll be quite poor if you invade or are invaded. If you can play it cautiously, you will die occasionally (but to get a hang of the correct playing style you'll likely die a lot) but every death makes you better and you will learn how to avoid it through doing and eventually areas that once seemed impossible will later be very easy. The game isn't that hard, but it is brutally punishing and no mistake goes unpunished.

I hope that helps a little. I'll go into more detail if requested.

That makes sense and that is how I tried to play the game. I think I gave up when I got to those octopus-head guys who would insta-kill you. I couldn't seem to find a strategy that worked with them because they would stun you from a distance and I don't think it was possible to block their stun attack. Once they stunned you all you could do was watch as they killed you.

3-1 is the level where you first encounter them. I understand your frustration as they are very difficult to handle at first but what I find works is if you rush them and attack, stunning them and then jumping back. Then, when they launch the stun attack (it's also not neccessarily an instant kill by the way but it takes so much life away that you will almost certainly not survive [in saying that though, until you get a very large amount of life or use ery high damage resisting armor it is an instant kill but I just wanted to assure you that you can later survive one]) dodge backwards or out of the way and rush them again. A backstab will also generally take almost a half of their life away so try waiting until they are turned around and sneak up on them. The anti-magic field miracle absolutely destroys them as well as they will be incapable of attacking. You are right however that you cannot block it and that is often the case in Demon's Souls. Learning to dodge effectively is an absolutely essential skill unless you have a tank build.

Personally, I find the easiest order to finish the levels is:
1-1
1-2
4-1
4-2 (can be very difficult however. If it's too hard leave this until after 5-3)
4-3 (if you finished 4-2)
1-3 (if you finished 4-3)
2-1
2-2
2-3
1-3 (if you didn't finish it yet)
3-1
3-2
3-3
5-1
5-2
5-3
4-2 (if you didn't finish it yet, after 5-3 it'll be absolutely simple)
4-3 (if you didn't finish it earlier)
1-4

Some people however find 5 very easy but I hate it due to the darkness, the poison and the design is not something I enjoy (I do love 5-3 though) so I leave it till the end. Also, my order may not necessarily be the best or easiest. I just prefer to finish a world altogether (as in, 2-1 to 2-3 all at once) so that may be harder. One thing though that is advisable is to do world 2 pretty early (I do 4-1 first as it is good for farming at the start and 4-2 has an excellent farming location at the start) because it let's you code advanced weapon upgrade paths which can help you do significantly more damage than normal ones.

Also, start with a Royal. It makes the start a whole lot easier as soul arrow will kill most early enemies in one or two shots which is helpful and it probably has the best starting equipment. Also, it is the only class at level one so it offers the most character custiomisation options.

Cool, thanks. I just need to purchase the game again. :-/

BTW, my PSN ID is SmellyPants2K if you want to add me.

Sure. Will do (I don't have a headset though so I won't be talking if you ever invite me into a game).

As for buying a copy, it's listed for roughly $30 (here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref= ... B002AB7TX8 ) new at that link if you're interested but I don't know if it's the US edition (and I assume you're from the US and therefore that's the version you'd be buying) and it may be cheaper elsewhere.

I'm from the UK and it is much more expensive here (~£30 which is about $60) but then most things are. I am under the impression that multiplayer in Demon's Souls is completely random, am I correct? It's a shame cause that's the game I'd most like to play with somebody else.

Oh I apologise. Didn't look at your details. I got mine from play.ie and it was fairly cheap there but I don't know if it still is or if they still have it in stock but if you can get the EU version, go for it (there's no difference between the us and and the eu one but the servers may be open longer for the EU since it was only released around June/July/August).

The online is random but with effort you can play with somebody else. First, you must be on the same server. For example, I could play/see with you (both EU copies) but you couldn't play against somebody with a US version. Secondly, one of us would have to be in body form and the other in soul form. Third, the soul would have to put down a blue or red eye stone and be within roughly ten levels above or below the other players ten (so basically, within 20 or so I think). Fourth, the human player must go to the blue or red eye stone and summon the player. There is also White souls (other players running around the level) who you can't interact with and you can be invaded by someone up to twenty levels below you
(or atleast I think it's twenty)

If you head to the Demon's souls wiki you'll get a lot of valuable information about how it works.

I guess even if we went to all that trouble we couldn't play co-op because you're probably a much higher level than me. I bought the game today and decided to start from scratch. I remember when I played before I never did find a marker to join somebody else's game and I only ever had somebody else join mine once. Is that unusual? I remember people giving a lot of praise to the multiplayer aspect.

Anyway PSN seemed to be "down for maintenance" for ages and I just tried to log in and it gave me an error. I'm guessing something is wrong.

Well, whenever I start it again (probably in a week after the next episode of Dexter) I'll be making a new character so I'd be quite happy to play. I do recommend you plan out your character for level 120. That seems to be a very active level for online play (I keep most of my characters around it and I know a lot of others do too). For the markers, you will only see one if you are in body form (if you have the full life bar you know you're in body form) and some levels aren't popular for online (world 5 is particularly unpopular because if the person dies as a result of the environment they lose a soul level). World 4 is generally the best, most active level for both invading and cooperative play. As for puttin down a marker, you must first kill a demon (I forgot the name, but they are the ones who look like NPCs and glow red and are hostile. Their is one in 3-1 before the entrance to the church an their is another in a pit near the start of 4-2) and when they die you'll get a black eye stone (I'm not certain on the details if I'm honest. It's been a good while since I played it constantly and I'm going on memory) which let's you invade other players. To get the blue eye stone you must simply defeat phalanx (the boss at the end of 1-1) and talk to the Maiden in Black. To get a red eye stone you must win the game and choose the bad ending (it's advisable to do this on your second playthrough as the good endings reward is much better). This let's you challenge another player for a soul level (if you win, you get one of their soul levels. If you lose, they get one of yours).

At lower levels you are less likely to get a cooperative game or to get invaded but as you progress it'll become more common (I don't know how many players there is regularly on the EU server). Being invaded though is an excellent part of the game though as it creates even more fear and tension around every corner as you know that another human is coming from behind you at a faster pace than you are moving forward which becomes terrifying. It definitely adds to the game but it's not essential tbh.

Don't know about any maintenance scheduled for today but hopefully you get it sorted.

I hope that helps clear things up for you .

Yes, thanks. I guess now I just need to start levelling up. Did you do any kind of grinding/farming or did you just play the game "normally"? I've been trying to use a trick to make the red-eyed knight in 1-1 fall off the edge of the top of the huge stairs that lead up to where he is but it doesn't seem to work very often.

A bit of both. For the red eye knight, don't bother for awhile. He is far too difficult at a lower level and I dont recommend it because of the time it'll take to get to him and to kill him. You'd be better heading to the start of 4-1 and 4-2. The reason for this is that at 4-1 every skeleton gives roughy 258 souls and are easier to kill and also take less time to get to. After you can win 4-1, you can get roughly 5,000 souls every two or three minutes Whig can get you to a high level quickly.

I found a new way to kill the red knight. Equip the Thief's Ring and lure him towards you for a bit and then run away until he gives up. Then just run up behind him and shoot him in the back with magic. He goes down after about two shots without his shield.

When you say win 4-1 do you mean go all the way through the level to the warp point that's left by the boss? I will try 4-1 although I remember it being pretty difficult last time I tried it. I've been trying to complete 1-2 which I managed to do before. After getting killed about 10 times by the dragon's fire trying to reach him, I'm now getting destroyed by the Tower Knight. This game really does require nothing less than complete mastery.