f13.net

ATLUS TO BRING GROUNDBREAKING ACTION RPG EXPERIENCE TO NORTH AMERICA WITH DEMON'S SOULS™ FOR PLAYSTATION®3 COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM

LINK OR GTFO. DON'T DO THIS TO ME, SCHILD! DON'T DO THIS TO ME!

It was a press release. They should've quoted me. My review was better.

On their forums (http://atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?p=116366#post116366) as well.

Guess I should finally break upon the shores of Sony's grace and buy a PS3.

THEIR PERIODS ATTRACT BEARS!

If anyone on this board doesn't buy a second copy come this Fall, I will tear open the heavens and rain hail all over your face, eyes, and important bits.

Didn't you learn your lesson about hail already?

Yes, but everyone else needs to suffer for my losses.

I have gotten pretty good at the rolling-stab, so just think about that first.

I FEAR NOTHING. Not anymore, at least.

Hail damage to my car would only be a good thing though, I've been driving it for a decade, it's due for an upgrade.

I won't be buying it. When can I expect the hail?

No one cares about Brazil. So I wasn't talking to you.

By second copy do you mean first?

Read: my threats are as empty as my bank account.

Well, you can't exactly expect him to drive down there and shank you, he did just total his car.  :why_so_serious:

edit:  I think that mostly brings us back full circle.  And back on topic, seriously, if you didn't buy the game yet because importers are scary and might potentially speak a different language, your excuses are now up.

This isn't going to be on the PC is it? Meh.

Don't be a fucking retard.

I would ask the same of you too in this regard, but we know you're over the top for this thing.

Except for thugs breaking into your house and stealing your first copy of Demon's Souls?

Or hail.

I don't think chunks of ice will break through my windows and destroy my copies of Demon's Souls. That seems unlikely. Very.

Is this officially your "nothing worse can happen to me"?  Because I'm pretty sure you've been down this road before...

I think we should beat more dead horses.

You mean like your froth for demon's souls?   :dead_horse:

This went from awesome to boring quite fast.

Blame yourself.

I think he was congratulating himself.

So, are you going to buy one?

^^

Day 0.

Now I don't have to feel bad for not getting an Asian copy right now.

Nope, you should still feel bad.

I almost feel bad that I didn't buy the first one...until I realize that I am going to save something to the tune of 25 DOLLARS MOTHERFUCKERS!!

That's the kind of attitude that got TSCC canceled.

What a staggering amount of money to save. I am in awe of your financial responsibility.

Don't worry, it's tempered by the five dollars I give away every month for which I get nothing in return.  Which is the real reason I don't have this game yet.

Ah, to bad.  Money that that could have gone towards a PS3 all just went towards a new computer.  Maybe I can find a PS3 emulator  :awesome_for_real:

This is pretty awesome.  Not only can I buy a domestic version for emergency situations, but I can also easily buy the game for friends as birthday gifts.

Why is Atlus doing the job that you should be doing, Sony?  Who are you, Nintendo?

...

Mother fucker.  Not TWO days after my import copy arrives in the mail.

Atlus announced it as soon as Sony would let them. If I'd known, I'd have said something, as they need as many domestic sales as possible on this.

Looks like I have until the Fall to get all the white character/world tendency stuff done.  The temptation will be too much not to invade games with my duel wield character.

Cool, let me know when the pc version comes out and I'll pick it up.

You're such a tool sometimes.

Taking the serious route for a reply, you'd not like the controls.  Maybe if you use a gamepad.  Also it's a fucking hard game.  You might want to skip it.

Yeah, I was just being a tool. I watched a couple boss fights, it looks pretty meh. I don't mind difficult, but it's more the 'level boss' old school console design that puts me off. I know my preferences :)

And I do use a gamepad when it's appropriate, like GTA4 or MUA.

I'd argue with you knowing full well that Demon's Souls is 1,000x less fun to watch than it is to play, but honestly, I don't care if you have any interest in the game or not. I'm not even sure you deserve it. Sucka.

Edit:

That is just a retarded statement.

I think he thinks the non-boss enemies are easy.

Oh, I definitely don't deserve this game. It looks way too hard for me.

Good news, I was waiting for this to happen.

Buy me a PS3 and I'm there.

Atlus wants me to compile a list of all known bugs in Demon's Souls to give directly to the From Software guys.

Email anything you know of, no matter how small to:

stickywhitestuff AT gmail.com

Oh man, I guess championing the game all over the interwebs actually did get you something!

Nah, even if I didn't champion it I would've made them do this. I tend to keep in touch with Atlus.

Trebec, I found a bug: the disc doesn't seem to load in my pc.

Man, I totally did not see that "joke" coming.

1. It's Trebek.
2. Get the fuck outta threads you don't belong in. It's just getting annoying now.

I found a bug. There is a troll in the Demon's Souls thread.

I don't own a PC, but I made someone buy an import copy on impulse. Is that good enough?

 :headscratch:

 :uhrr:

i'm so cold

so cold

and so alone

So in all seriousness, is this one of those "exclusive" titles that will never see a port, or is that based off it's popularity in sales?

If it's sales, hell I hope you all buy copies too so I can play it.

Dude. It's owned by SCEI. No From game has ever been released on PC. No SCEI game has ever been released on PC. No Atlus published game has ever been released on PC, not counting the brand new MMOG.

Do you really think an SCE+From+Atlus title would efvver be released on PC?

This shit ain't coming out anywhere except the PS3.

Well that answers that. Also I don't follow dev houses, or what they do thus the question.

In that case, I think they should reconsider that position instead of throwing sales away by doing one platform, but whatever. I'm sure they some sort of wicked financial agreement that make sense to keep it exclusive.

Thanks, Schildy. I guess I'll never know why this one tickles you so.  :heartbreak:

Uh no.

It's owned by SCEI. It is their license.

Sony does not make PC games. Period. It has nothing to do with some wicked financial agreement.

I'll take a look at their books and see how much sense being exclusive makes then.

 :facepalm:

Apparently, exclusivity for PS3 titles seems to be going well as they are moving over 100 million units per year, which is a ~45% increase, but they are still losing money on the transition in hardware sales and software losses from the PS2 decline. They also seem to blame foreign currency which is just one of those bullshit hedgers companies love to toss in there.

Still, 2010 may be good news if they can hold the trend. I guess it does make sense. Like everyone else, they still anticipate losses in the future though.

what are you talking about

you've lost your mind

They do now.

SOE isn't SCEI. Don't even try to play that angle.

No, I simply looked at their sales figures to see if opening up sales to a broader audience (PC users) would make sense. They are losing money, but it's not about that so I think their strategy was sound.

In essence, I'm agreeing with you from an accounting standpoint. Still it sucks I won't get to play it without buying more hardware. Oh well.

Btw, I'm not exactly sure what you expected out of this thread. It was a glorified press release.

Okay if you are going to be that way:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/browser/locoroco-2

:awesome_for_real:

1. Accounting has nearly nothing to do with it. Seriously. Back to the PS1 era, SCEA/E/I/WW does not put games on the PC. From Software does not put games on the PC. Atlus does not put games on the PC. Hell, they can barely handle a port correctly (bless them).

2.

This is big news. No one thought it would happen. Especially not like this. More than that. Also, I didn't want it buried in a thread where people might've already given up hope. Shit deserves its own thread. Sorry you can't play one of the best console games ever made (if not the best ever made, imo). Ok, I'm not sorry.

3. Fake Edit:

I eagerly await Demon's Souls: The Flash version. :uhrr:

Did you happen to notice the amount of interest this game has generated here while being an import only and PS3 exclusive.  Anyone skittish about paying a premium to import this game no longer has to worry.  Anyone on the fence about buying a PS3 to play an import only game no longer has to worry. 

This is big, exciting news for folks that want to play this game but are still on the fence.  Hopefully this finds a large audience (I'm doubtful, yet hopeful) and this developer puts out another uniquely excellent game.  I probably won't buy another copy due to trying to adhere to a reasonable gaming budget, but that will entirely hinge on what type of bug fixes go in and if there's any additional content.

Exclusive titles are older than consoles.  I don't get the recurrent whining over them unless you guys are just looking to troll.  Every platform has them, including the PC.  Water still wet.

Yay, now I can buy it. Yes, $30 more and a long wait were enough to keep me from bothering. I haven't touched any of my gaming consoles in like 2-3 weeks now. Thank RE5's badness for that.

Hopefully it's actually robot Jesus, since my ennui for console gaming is making me feel very old.

Bullshit, you went back to WoW, didn't you?

Don't lie.

I don't play WoW every day of the week. I would however rather play TF2 than RE5.

Well I've never whined about them before, I just question them. The only reason for them is to move hardware. It's about pushing the system. My question is does it actually do that? Does the money support that move in this day and age? I don't think it does with all the options out there.

Greedy capitalist plans aren't always successful, doesn't stop them plotting fiendishly.  :why_so_serious:

Individually, most exclusives don't move hardware.  If you look at a console's exclusive library as a whole though, it becomes a selling point for that console.

I don't own a PS3.  Le sigh.

I swore to myself I wouldn't buy every console from this "generation".  Fuck.

Someone gimme videos of Demon Souls that will convince me to spend money on a PS3.  Quickly now.

Schild made me impulse buy a G1 and that turned out well enough.  But I don't want to spend another 400 bucks because of F13 on a whim.  There's no chance you can go 2 for 2.

We can, and will. Videos really kinda aren't good for the game. The whole experience doesn't really fall together until you enter Boletaria the first time, see 5 guys waiting for you up the stairs and at your feet is a message that says "Real Demon's Souls Starts Now."

God, I need to play it again. MUST HOLD OFF.

For those of you wondering, my next character is going to be Gene. He's going to be built to use the God Hands found in 2-2.

Were you not warned against the Wii?

If you need more convincing, check out the new videos for Heavy Rain (http://www.gametrailers.com/game/heavy-rain-the-origami-killer/2717).

Or wait for your 360 to redring.

Well I have one because of an ex-girlfriend so that doesn't count.  It's actually never been in my apartment.  I gave it to my parents.


Yeah well I can't go exactly play it right now.  So videos are all I have.  I can't justify a $400 purchase for ONE GAME just because Schild says so.


Fingers crossed... it hasn't yet and it's an old unit.

inFAMOUS is pretty fucking cool also. At least the demo is really good.

Wait for E3 to see if a price drop is announced.  Also Dell.com is running one of their typical 15% off and free shipping coupon deals through July 31st (coupon code 65G7RQ11J?M2LH) so that would save you some money also if you live in the U.S..

I will definitely buy this when it lands here.  I almost imported it but was afraid I'd end up buying a squid or something.

Man, there's got to be at least 5 import shops in San Fran you could just walk into and buy it in 5 minutes for a tiny premium.

If the premium is a kidney, I'm not interested.  I know how those tong outfits work.

Every time I see this thread title, all I can think of is:

Need to shop some arrows into his chest.

I lurked this forum because of the awesome Demon's Souls review.  I'm buying a PS3 because of how awesome Demon's Souls is.  I imported a copy of Demon's Souls long before owning a PS3 because I want it so badly.

Now I will buy another copy in the fall because I want Atlus to keep doing things like this.  This is a good, good thing.

(http://forums.f13.net/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=4563;type=avatar)

Hi, Frank.

Hey, schild.  Now that you've succeeded in getting Atlus to bring Demon's Souls stateside, how about working on Sony for a system bundle? 

In all seriousness, I wonder how much marketing weight Atlus will put behind this.  The announcement was pretty quiet, apart from the forums of course, and they usually keep things pretty low-key.

Atlus has practically no marketing muscle. Maybe they know they have a core word of mouth fanbase and it's not worth it. But I like to think it's because they have no money for marketing because they keep blowing it on totally mediocre DS games and terrible 360 games. I don't know what their strategy this generation is but as far as I can tell it's "throw shit against the wall and see what sticks." That depresses the hell out of me.

-

There will never be a Demon's Souls bundle. Would be awesome, but it won't happen. It's pretty much the only way I'd end up with 3 PS3s. Well, that's not true, I might buy a slim one if it's under $300 and they put software back compat back in, but that second part is a pipe dream. A boy can dream though. Or at least, he can hope to one day replace the last PS2 that's still hooked up.

I haven't really followed any Atlus releases this generation because I don't have a PS3, but I believe you.  I remember seeing Disgaea 3 on a shelf somewhere and thinking "Oh, this is out?  Huh."  They should work their fanbase just beyond the word of mouth groups - smaller game press and the like - and see how it works out for them.  Demon's Souls spread pretty well across forums and sites like this just from a few decent reviews.  Or they should just save their pennies for a Game Informer spread that challenges the manliness of Gamestop types or something.

What the latest on the "slim" ps3?  If a cheaper one is coming out then I might actually buy one.

It's probably real. Who knows.

I'll buy a 3rd copy.  Wheee!

I imported one for me and gifted another copy.  Hurray for Atlus!

(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/39720/f13/from_lol.png)

Forgot I said that last year.

I'm fairly sure that I've reminded you of that post a couple of times.

Your engrish is showing.

Not entirely newsworthy, but Kotaku did a post about Demon's Souls:

http://kotaku.com/5287075/the-best-game-death-innovation-at-e3

Incoming anti-kotaku rant in 3... 2... 1...

Likelihood of a European release?

Not incredibly high. But who knows. SCEE afaik has never published an SCEI game that SCEA didn't though. But stranger things have happened. KOEI or Square could pick it up for Europe.

Well, fingers crossed then.

I know, I know.  I mostly posted it simply because it got attention there.  I took one for the team.   :oh_i_see:

Just import a US copy. In English. From Play-Asia. Or even eBay.

(http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/1999/19991222h.jpg)

That PA comic is funny, but it might scare people off. Pretty much all of Play-Asia is in English. English-speakers are their primary market, after all.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-bp-77-2-49-en-15-demon%27s+souls-70-3epn.html

Demon's Souls just received a 50MB patch. I can't find details anywhere except that it added self-shadowing. Gonna have to revise my bug list, obviously. Probably have to play through the game again (BUMMER, RIGHT, HAHAHA JUST KIDDING, AWESOME).

Found this on the gamefaqs.com forums.

"Bug causing unlimited proliferation of items (fixed)"
"Bug causing unlimited proliferation of souls (fixed)"

I bet thats the soul dupe bug I found.

Yea, the bug fixes are on the SA wiki, but things like World Tendency changes and self-shadowing weren't. I don't know if there were any world tendency changes, but we'll see!

Well sheeeeit.

They're playing it as a reason to double dip, and well played by them, imo.


Just a note, I am ANGERED by the cover change. I'm going to drop them a note asking if the original cover can be the reverse of the current new blue phantom cover.

 :grin:

I was on Amazon, and I noticed that they have a cover that is different from the placeholder image they had earlier:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B002AB7TX8/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

I would say that's a pretty good looking cover.  I hope it is the official one.

The original cover seems to be on the slip case and the blue cover that's on the case now according to Atlus PR is the cover that was on the Official Perfect Strategy Guide for Japan. That said, the blue cover isn't nearly as tangentially awesome to the game itself as the original. I mean shit, you're DEAD already on the original cover. The blue one is like, some generic friend who connected to play with you - meh.

You have no right to ever bust my balls about anything.

I have no clue what you're referring to.

Precisely.

I noticed now that Amazon is advertising an art book to go along with the pre-order.  I'm a pretty big sucker for those kind of things, especially if the art in the game is good.

I believe Sky was noting that your art-fag is showing, and that you've given him no end of grief in the past when his art-fag is showing... but I could be mistaken.

If that was it, how incredibly weak.

And it might have worked on me, except they're releasing the game in October rather than during the current drought.  Means if I do double dip, it probably won't be until next year assuming the game is still even on the shelves at that point.

Deluxe Edition now has the proper awesome artwork (http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=f13-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&asins=B002GJRQQY).

Atlus is having World Tendency fixed. I'll claim frontman on getting this shit fixed, because why not.

http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4118

In other news, I upgraded my preorder into the special edition tonight.  Not sure why, $10 for art and a guide isn't usually my bag.  There's been too much hype and I can't pass it up.

Had some gift cards burning my pocket and figured this might be worthy of the low low price of free.


       Demon's Souls Deluxe Edition          PS3         1
Please enter a valid quantity.
       Pre-order Ships 10/6/2009
       $69.99    

How long can I put off pre-ordering, for strictly financial reasons.  I do want the art book since art books are fun.

Amazon wont charge you until it ships.

It will be interesting to see the overall reception of this game in the States.  It is pretty difficult at times and a lot of people don't like that.

Anyone know if the asian versions will be patched up to the NA version, and if so, can we play together?

We can't play together. You're just gonna have to double dip. Suck it up.

I need a third fourth console in the house like a hole in the head given how much work I have in the coming year, but damn me if I'm not thinking of getting a PS3 to play this and Little Big Planet.

Is this the F13.net catchy slogan?


"F13.NET.................suck it up!"

No.

LBP isn't worth buying a console over (seriously people, it's just bad platformer with annoying physics.  You didn't buy a Wii for Mario, did you?), Demon's Souls is.

LBP appeals because my eight-year old is getting very into the idea of game design after a game design summer camp, and I figure it's a pretty good authoring tool for her to mess around with.

Im planning on getting this even though I fully expect it to abuse me in ways I mostly reserve for Fire Emblem games.

You mofos better not be frontin' on it being good.

I can't really say whether or not you'd know if it was good or not. Isn't Altered Beast the last game you played that required any sort of reflexes? So, yea, expect this to be hard.

Needless to say, we're not worried about judgement from you, on your mountain of lameness.

It is.  The shittiness of the platforming is due to the way the Sackboys jump; people use the term "underwater" a lot but LBP jumping is the Real Deal.  Taken in a void, it is not bad, but after decades of playing other platformers it is rather annoying to have to relearn jumping.  I raised the blade, made the change and completed the game, but for others it was a gamebreaker even before the final level.  The level construction, however, is pretty awesome if you are into that sort of thing.  I only make machines, actually, and it's rather halfass for srs bzns building.  For crazy shit, it's awesome.  One of my cars is simply a huge rubber wheel with four rockets attached; the inside is lined with sponge which activate the rockets when you grip it.  Believe it or not, it is very effective at murdering Sackboy pilots due to the pretend-G-forces involved.

Otherwise I have made a basic rocket car, and two trackless bulldozers with huge gears for wheels and movable scraper blades.  My next project is to put treads on a frame and then build a dozer from that, but technical issues with the treads are causing development to be very slow; in particular, I am abandoning the toothed drive wheels in favor of rubber ones.  Rubber drive wheels require me to add tensioning connectors between the wheels, and that's about where I have stopped.  I even have already assembled an assembly frame which I can use to put the prebuilt treads onto a vehicle.

Oh, it is quite good.  The only negative is that it can get a bit repetitive, but otherwise it is the real deal.

Yeah I got LBP to play with my daughter, and the further we got in the game the more frustrating this issue became. We eventually became disinterested before we ever finished, just due to frustrations with the control.

I never even ended up trying the level builder, because at the end of the day I don't want to invest time making a level when I don't even really enjoy the gameplay.

At least the game had decent trade-in value.

Exact same experience here, but with no daughter. Gamestop guy was a bit taken aback when I traded it in.

Been playing more of the American version of Demon's Souls. Fun fact: Experience under Dexterity is actually Falling Damage. Yea, dex decreases falling damage. GOOD TO KNOW.

Anyway, it's pretty much perfect now. Other than me being an anal retentive bastard, if you didn't get the Asian version, you owe it to yourself as a gamer to get this one. If you got the asian version, you should still get it just to endorse the localization of stuff like this.

I've ordered mine!  It's still a month out or so though. 

Except for the fact that most falls in this game lead to instant death.....

The only place for me that required falling was four hundred drops I made down the short cut to get to the Flamelurker.  I hated that bastard with a passion.  I'll pick the NA release of this but do I ever dread having to take him out again. 

There's this place in the first area where you can drop off the ramparts to get to a weapon.

For the xbow? I don't think I've had a char take damage from that fall

I've died once getting the thief's ring though, missing the jump from the stairs onto the top of the wall/railing hurt.

Wasn't that the crossbow?  It wasn't too bad but I did start as a thief so I think I was lvl 9 at the start or something close to it.  I guess if you started with a lower initial level it would pose a problem.  Kinda like the problem I had getting my strength up to carry the flame shield for the express purpose of killing the bastard Flamelurker.   Bastard.

Hmmm, I thought it was a sword or something, I also remember I died from the drop the first time and I was a rogue or thief or whatever.  It was at the top of the wall where you find the first blue-eyed shield knight blocking your progress.  No matter, there were several places you might jump from in that area, all of dubious benefit.

I remember the first blue-eyed knight but not the shiney loot in that area other than the crossbow, anyway, hopefully the NA release will have the details on stats for characters and equipment clearly defined.  My character grew in odd directions at times as new info was translated.   

I think you may be thinking the bastard sword (which is before reaching the top of the rafters that brings you to the blue-eyed knight area). That isn't a jump that kills you if you do it right, if that is the one you're talking about. After that mob rolls the giant boulder down at you, you backtrack and jump down for it without losing any hp.

(I'm fairly positive it was the bastard sword, and that is what you're talking about)

I have taken damage once since I started on the NA version :awesome:

Was the game nerfed or are you proficient?

I've logged 120 hours. You can say I'm proficient.

Pretty sure I've memorized the location of every mob in the game.

Edit: And their pathing and their loot tables.

So have they given you the motion controls for DS yet?

I just started into this again after a bit of a layoff.  It seems significantly easier post-patch.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

All the monster placement and AI was the same. You've just gotten better, that happens.

I can assure you this is not the case, haha. 

Halberd is the shit, btw.

This guy's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjisxZRm8T0) frustration from playing dying is pretty funny:  0:00-0:20, 1:35-2:40, and 4:30-5:00.  Can't wait.

OK fuck faces, I finally broke down and ordered a PS3.  Guess this will be my first purchase.

Still a month to go, though, before DS is released here so you'll want to get some other games to play in the meantime.

Meh, that's what the Battlestar on Blue Ray is for  :awesome_for_real:.

It's probably a good thing.  I actually have a bunch of shit I need to get done this month, so keeping down game playing time is probably a good idea.

Or I might purchase that Persona game everybody here also jizzed all over.  Hmm.

Pick up InFamous in the mean time.

Tycho talks about Demon's Souls in his latest post at Penny Arcade.  Hopefully, this will get the word out a little more.

$300 for the console, then $60 for the game itself?  Plus my TV belongs in a museum, so I'd possibly want to (or even have to) spend money for that as well.  It's not that I doubt you, but I'm skeptical that I'd actually want to lay down that sort of cash.

In my opinion it is "choose the PS3 over the Xbox" good, not necessarily "plop down $800 bucks" good. 

Wait.. you're playing it but it's not released? Pre-release media copy to butter up the Website owner?

Anyway, how much is this thing likely to be when it's released in the US? Play-Asia is often a bit gougey on US titles, so I might want to enlist a trustworthy f13'er to take my money and send a copy out. Appears that there's no UK/European/AU release on the books.

If I'm remembering correctly, and I'm likely not, schild gets review copies pretty regularly from Atlus (could be NIS). PennyArcade also has a review copy. :oh_i_see:

$60 regular.
$70 deluxe.

Three weeks.  Yeah!

Is this a joke post or are you mental?

Is this a joke post or are you mental?
[/quote]

Reviewers write reviews based on opinion as their integrity dictates they don't get "buttered up" C/D

If I have save files with the Asia version and I put in the NA version, will I be able to play those save files? If so, can I play on NA servers with those files? Or do I have to install the game again with the NA version?

1. No.
2. No.
3. New version. Installs are based on the ID of the disc, so you'd need to install again.

Two weeks.  Yeah!

There's a difference between "review copies" and copies sent out to "butter people up". You could easily have had the copy sent out as a thank you gift (ie, butter) for all the viral publicity you've already given them on your website without any expectation of you writing a review of the US version. Didn't you already review the Jap version?


WTF is C/D?

:awesome_for_real:

The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com: 
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Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):

   1  Demon's Souls Deluxe Editi...   $66.99               1   $66.99

Shipped via UPS

...

via UPS (estimated delivery date: October  6, 2009).

I was getting ready to post the exact same thing  :awesome_for_real:

This sentence (http://www.gamervision.com/gamer/coop/reviews/article/demon_39_s_souls_ps3) perfectly summarizes why I'm excited for tomorrow:

It's easiest to describe [Demon's Souls] as a single-player game that is played wholly online, taking the promises Peter Molyneux made about Fable II and actualizing them on the PlayStation 3.

Really though, comparing it to the promise of Fable is a fallacy. Sure, it's playing alone together, but the sense of self-preservation and depravity in the face of overwhelming odds is far more realized in DS than Molyneux could've ever dreamed.

Of course, Molyneux will never play Demon's Souls because he lives in an ivory tower far away from where games exist.

Will this thing actually be on shelves tomorrow?

My Ape creature enjoys flinging his poop at that very tower.

Should we expect much difference with the American version?

More racist dialog and the blind girl is voiced by Whoopi Goldberg.

Can you hijack cars and choose your own ghetto outfit?

Gamestop is so fucking awesome.  By awesome, I mean retarded. 

I've received three automated calls from them today.  First stated my preorder will be ready Tuesday evening.  Second said Tuesday afternoon.  Third said Tuesday.   :uhrr:

If you got there and it wasn't ready, you'd bitch like no tomorrow that they didn't let you know.

I don't have a PS3 and my big screen TV broke :(

I was considering a PS3 for this game and now I don't have a decent TV to play on.  /sigh  Next year.

THIS.  UPS needs to get a move on it today.   :grin:

Nah, I live far enough away that I call first regardless.  They had it, I now have it.  Playing in about 1min. 

Also, I think I'm going Amazon from now on. 

AFAIK, only the cleaned up localization, no additional content.

Yeah, Amazon is really a good company.  Gets me my stuff cheap and quick.  Why would anyone bother with Gamestop?

Didn't get very far into it before work, but the control scheme is pretty much the best I've ever seen in a console.  Tutorial boss-thing ate me.

In hand!

I'm not one for strat guides (the fun for me being the learning, naturally), but the 150 page mini strat guide with the Deluxe Edition looks very necessary.

Are there any diffrerences between the Asian and the NA version? I'll buy the NA version for support at some point anyway, but if there are no differences I'll continue the Asian version instead of starting over.

Things currently not in stock at Gamestop:  Demon's Souls.  Local one had only brought in one copy, which was reserved.  Amazon got my money.

Fry's had it $10 less than Gamestop.

Your Fry's proximity makes me very jealous.

Serious question: Don't you guys have Kmarts and Targets and Walmarts in the same shopping centres/precincts/malls that also house these gamestops and EBs?

I can't figure out why you guys go there - and even worse when I see fucking Penny Arcade raging about it and then talking about how they crossed the street to get it from the department/variety store instead. Go to the shop that doesn't fuck you on stock and service and prices for mostly-gutted games if they're all close together.

Yes, those stores are in Gamestop's proximity.  But I'm not much of a collector.  If a game bores me and/or it's collecting dust and I know I'm not going to play it again, I get rid of it.  Sure, I'd make a few more bucks off Ebaying them.  But dumping them on a store is less time consuming for me. 

So I wait till they have decent +$ trade in days and I take a bunch in at a time.  They always give more in trade than they do giving out cash, so I just take the trade and apply it to something coming out soon. 

When I don't have trade value with GS, I usually shop at Best Buy or Target.  I think I might start going Amazon soon, but I just love going into a b&m store to get my nerd on. 

I'm going through gamestop for this, but only because I had a stack of gift cards that got me the collectors edition for 0 cash out of my own wallet.

Okay, so I just ran through Boletarian Palace 1-1 and there is no dragon at the bridge.  Is this a glitch? 

Which bridge?

The very first place you typically encounter the dragon.  Right after you pass the passageway to their roost.

Weird. He was in the review build.

I've had that happen in the asian version too. Are the two dragons in their roost? If they are not, and there's no dragon flying over the bridge, your world may have glitched to pure white world tendency (WT). That is pretty cool because you can loot the Purple Flame Shield and the Ring of Great Strength from the dragon stash right away. To check whether you have 1-1 in pure white WT, start from the first archstone and take the first left exit, before you start climbing the stairs to the palace. After descending a couple stairs, you'll see a gate. If it is open, the world is either pure white or pure black WT. You can continue there if you're bold and you'll fight Executioner Miralda, probably in body form if the WT is pure white. Body form Miralda drops the best light female armor in the game, the binded set. Also, there's a colorless demon soul in where Miralda hides, which is used to upgrade the non-boss uniques, and deep inside the pit there - it will probably take quite a few suicide attempts to get to the bottom - is the Brushwood armor set from Biorr, which is the best heavy male armor. There's also a crystal gecko there, on the way to Miralda.


Be aware that if you kill body form Miralda return to Nexus, WT will drop by -3 and probably return to neutral, making the dragons return next time you zone in.

Also, remember that if you play in body form and die, this lowers WT by 1 and will make you lose pure white WT if you had it. When WT is of concern, always suicide in the Nexus and play in soul form.

No, they were there.  I always check that too.  Gate was  closed, as well

I only had time for an hour or so, but this game pretty much throws you to the wolves right off the bat. Tutorial, then "now .. FIGHT OR DIE"

Interesting though. I'm still having issues learning to kite and using bows/rapidly switching off using them.

I'm trying to get the hang of rolling and parrying.  The result was dying ~10 times on the first set of stairs in 1-1.

I found that I was better at rolling and backstabbing than parrying and countering, so I went with it.

On the Asian version I have a character that hasn't died at all and is about halfway through the game.

I have never once parried anything on any character.

Parrying is quite hard because the timing is tight and there are actually quite a few attacks that cannot be parried (if I'm not mistaken, most of the "strong" ones can't). You need to set yourself up for the correct timing and at the same time be ready to dodge out of the way if the attack is of the wrong kind. Most of the hard stuff past 1-2 i.e.  Red Eyes Knight,  Golden Skeleton etc., will one-shot you  if you time the parry wrong. I hear some people have good results with the parry dagger from 3-1, but at that point I didn't bother with parry anymore.

I found it a lot easier to just use a shield, too. For my rogue, I went with an upgraded spiked shield that has a very fast and quite cool attack animation, plus you can upgrade that to a "sharp" version which gets a solid damage bonus from dex.

My Rogish character uses an Uchigatana and the Dark Steel Shield. I very much enjoy the uchigatana, I just wish the strong attacks windup wasnt quite so long.

My rogue-ish character uses a Large Sword of Searching and the gloom armor.

I was very disappointed with armor in PVE. I just wore black leather for the poison resistance, anything else makes little to no difference when you're hit and it is just encumbering you for dodging and running, not to mention the stamina penalty. Late NG and right at start of NG+, damage takes a significant jump and unless you're a Vitality junkie you're not surviving more than one hit often. I "one-hit wiped" on damn king Doran for three hours straight in a fair fight attempt until I gave in and exploited the crap out of chain backstabbing him (for his armor), just to find out the armor is sort of like fluted, just lighter and without the stamina penalty.

The physDef difference on the chestpiece between leather and the best "still wearable" plate (Mirdan, not talking Brushwood since you need tons of Endurance to barely crawl in Brushwood) is a mere 11 physDef (25 vs. 36), and every character level boosts your physDef by 1 anyway. Gloom is nice for the magic resistance, but most PVE magic is so easily dodged it's not worth the bother, and outside of maybe Fool's Idol no boss is exclusively magic (But for that you can just get Dark Silver Shield). Gloom/Black Leather (to get you under 50% equippable weight) is probably the best combination for PVP though.

That's actually on my wish list for DS2: Useful armor.

Best combo for melee PVE imo is North Regalia (awesome speed for a great sword and at pure white/black CT you have +470 attack with zero stats) and a Purple Shield +10. Maybe Tower Shield +5 if you could manage the darn 30 weight on the shield. PVP I would probably switch the shield for Adjudicator +5. And you also need a solid bow, either Lava Bow or White Bow or Viscous Spider Bow +5.

I'm currently trying a pure dagger/dodge/backstab build with a Sharp Secret Dagger (where I'm stuck on upgrading since the chunks of bladestone stubbornly refuse to drop) and a "holy monk" type of guy with STR/WIS and the Hands of God. The backstab thing is fun but very squishy, the monk is quite sturdy but damage output still pales compared to North Regalia.

I got irritated with how often the uchigatana seems to break.  I get really tired of grinding souls for repair.

North Regalia has always been considered broken and their nerf didn't help the situation much. All damage will pale in comparison from nearly anything.

The best armor I've found has been "getting hit less." In fact, I'd wager all the armor being relatively weak (that's to say - to a point - realistic) made me better at the game in the long run.

I usually don't go for heavy armor.  I like mobility better.

I agree, which is one of the reasons I grinded enough to have full mobility in the gloom w/ dark silver shield.

There are some awesome, whiny reviews turning up about how impossibly hard the game is.

Yeah, I wouldn't say the US version is "easy", but it does seem easier to damage foes and I seem to take less damage.  It just may be my bias from having played so much, however. 

Almost every place knocked it down from 10 for being too hard. It is, in fact, almost the only reason it hasn't scored perfectly everywhere across the web.

One site took off points for not having checkpoints. I don't think they played long enough to find out finishing every level results in many, many shortcuts throughout the game.

Other than a little bit of a steep learning curve this game really isn't that hard. 

Atlus has stated several times there have been zero difficulty adjustments made. 

Fighting dying clawing through 1-1 and coming up on a lone knight standing across a narrow outdoor walkway littered with bloodstains and warnings to be wary of the foe ahead made me feel pure dread.  Partly because he's clearly a hard enemy, and partly because of how many hard enemies I had to fight just to get to this harder enemy in the first part of the first level of the entire game. 

Demon's Souls is not easy.  You got good.

It sounds a little Korean-MMO-grindy.

I almost bought it last night, but Play-Asia is out of stock. So I'll wait.

It's not.  :oh_i_see:

I agree with that, dodging and a good shield are the best defense. There are instances where dodging alone is too difficult/dangerous (narrow walkways and stairs in 3-2 or the 3 Red Eyes Knights chain charging you with spears in 1-3  for example) so I still need a shield, but you could practically go naked with that and still survive if your reflexes are fast. And it feels so satisfactory when you learn to dominate the foes which used to utterly destroy you. I have yet to play another game where the feeling of progression and advancement, the classic "you have gotten better at killing stuff (+1)", is so rewarding and well realized.

Regarding North Regalia: how was it nerfed? I started playing on the Korea version with patch 1.03 and sometimes depatch to 1.0 if  I want to get black world WT without using Stones of Ephemeral Eyes, but I haven't noticed changes. I just know they nerfed Meat Cleaver and took the drain life effect off with 1.04.

Which brings me to my next question: The U.S. version probably comes with 1.04 already installed and cannot be de-patched, right? Still waiting for my box to be shipped from dvdboxoffice.com.

I haven't played the retail version (sitting on the shelf) but the reviewable did not need to be patched when I played it.

Ah okay, thanks. No more chain suiciding in ghost form for black WT then!

I'm not buying this.  There is a definite difference in how fast the dredgelings drop for a new character creation.  Also, there is more of a pause between their jump and when they start swinging back and forth.

I got the collector's edition last night and it did not need a patch, so I think it's up to date. I didn't think I wanted the CE because it had a game guide, but when I started playing and realized there's very little in the way of a traditional tutorial I was really glad to have it. Overall, I'm enjoying the game thoroughly now that I have the hang of it. My only complaint is that I can't find a way to pause the game when I'm in the middle of a long fight.

Really liking the shield/spear combo, but the shield is more of a safety net since I prefer to dodge attacks and strike at range. I find the game to be hard but in a good way that strikes fear into my heart. I got through 1-1 last night and have died only once on the bridge of flaming doom. However, I also avoided the few really hard spots that had blood stains and notes to warn me off, so I'm pretty conservative.

I do have a pair of questions: if I die and then shut off the game will I still be able to go get my bloodstain to recover the souls? Also, is it a good idea to save the soul items and use them in the Nexus to avoid losing the souls on death?

I don't quite "get" the dredgeling berserk swing thing. Sometimes they do it immediately post leap, sometimes it seems like blocking/dodging the leap stops them from doing it and you can start on the offense. Part of my issue with the learning curve is figuring out how to anticipate attack patterns on the knights and such.

The other part is trying to use the parry system, which seems to be obnoxiously difficult.

I don't parry.  It's too much of a timing thing and other methods of attack are almost as effective without the inherent risk.

There is no difference in how often those mobs do the berserk swing.

Anyone who played the Asian version is far too good at the game now to judge difficulty anyway.

I'm telling you.........I don't typically get better at games.  I just out level the competition, haha.

Yes, the bloodstain should save; even going to the Nexus didn't wipe it out for me. Just make sure not to die.

You can think of the Hero/Soldier souls as a safe bank account that you can only withdraw from. So, don't cash them in until you are standing at the vendor where you want to use the souls. And don't cash in any Demon souls unless you checked every guide to make sure they are worthless to you.

If I want to summon a Blue Phantom from an Otherworld before taking on a boss, is there an Eye Stone I can use to bring the player in or do I just have to wait for the queue to show up on the floor?

In other news, this game is tough. I happened to pass by a Game Stop yesterday and decided to ask the clerks inside what they thought of the game. Both disliked it and only one of them was able to get past the first boss. They just didn't seem inclined to talk about Demon's Souls at all. Part-way through the sixty second conversation, I imagined myself spreading fire & turpentine on my steel ruler and slaying them. If anything, their death animations may have been slightly more dramatic than a majority of the ones from the game- my only real gripe so far.

You need to stumble upon blue signs from players in your level range offering to be summoned, there's no way to "actively" ask for aid, at least not that I know of. And you need to be in body form to see the blue signs.

If you are in soul form yourself, you can use your blue stone to put a marker on the ground and somewhere someone might find it and summon you. While your soul sign is out, you can keep playing normally and you'll be summoned from wherever should a player request your assistance.

You can usually find blue signs at the start of a level, right after an archstone. At least that's where I always put mine and most people seem to meet. On the other hand, if you want to play with a buddy your best bet is to use a soul sign placed where hardly anyone would find it and hope it shows up in either of your games.

Also, there is some sort of level range check to be able to see soul signs. I don't know what it is exactly, I heard something like +/-10 levels from your (the host) level is what you are able to see.

Sometimes you can run across the pink smudges that say "you can summon here", which sometimes will indicate that someone is looking to team up.  That is probably the best you will get.

Indeed, but those are mere pointers that some guy might have left a blue sign there - or maybe not - and there's also the possibility of the blue sign being there but simply not showing up for you.

That makes sense. Thanks.

There are specific areas where you are allowed to use a Blue Eyed Stone. People leave those messages so that others will know the game allows summoning at that point.

All this talk is making me really want to play again. I just really cant spend the money on another version. Guess I can just play the asian version again. But I really want to give Atlas my money for having the balls to import this game for us.

Just ran into the same thing - no dragon in the area, so snagged me some treasure free and clear.  

Parrying - Sucks.  It's awesome if you can pull it and the riposte off since you then get a sweet kill animation.  But jesus it's a pain.  Much easier to shield block or roll.

Game difficulty.  It's not hard, it is however unforgiving.  I died a billion times, but only because I got sloppy or fell into a bad habit of button mashing in a panic instead of remembering to escape and take advantage of my reach.     When I was focused and paying attention, I was a god of wanton destruction as I marched up and down the steps one shoting leaping critters with my halberd.

Also, I am in love.  Brief tutorial and then HERE IS THE FUN.  No stupid crippled ramp up.  No 45 minutes of cut scene exposition.  Just straight up action. 

It helps vastly that people are leaving warnings and hints everywhere (they've highlighted a few secrets I may have missed otherwise).  It really makes for a great community and a great overall experience and something that I think the game isn't getting enough credit for.

The game allowed me summoning wherever I found a blue sign and I could use my blue stone anywhere I wanted. Knowing that the game allows summoning at that point from red signs - I actually didn't know there are points where you can't use the blue one, except for maybe stuff like Old Monk if you do the PVP version, where you cannot recall either - is not an improvement if you cannot find the blue signs. My point was that there is no way to actively summon someone. You either find their blue sign or you can't summon. Finding a red sign saying "There might be blue signs nearby" is not providing more information than the regular "There might be blue signs anywhere anyway".

I found a decent way to grind up some quick souls tonight is to drop my blue stone right in front of a boss fight - doing it 3 times the longest it took was about 20 seconds for someone to pick me up right before entering the 2-2 boss.  I also had to drop the "I wish I had some friends.." message before this fight to kill him the first time and pick up a blue stone that someone dropped - my strength isn't high enough to use the purple flame shield yet and even with the fire resist ring fire rapes me.

Also, I'm 99% sure you don't need to be in your body to pick up/see the blue messages, because I had already died to the boss once before getting a hand (and about 15 seconds after entering the level to those stupid fucking exploding carts, and then again about 10 20a metric fuckton of times trying to get down the pit without falling.  I'm buying a new PS3 controller tomorrow, because this one is balls.

Loving the game though, my royal is a lot more fun to play than my brothers knight, even after I made him get a spear so he'd stop getting raped.  Soon as he unlocks the heavy arrow vendor and grabs the composite longbow he should be sitting pretty though.  Fighting bosses melee that you sat comfortably at range and pelted before is a definite change.

I'm getting a PS3 soon and I figured this Demon's Souls, Diablo Like  :why_so_serious:, seems to be a nice game to get but I'm Euro and it was not released over here yet was it?

Any other way to get it?

Demon's Souls isn't diablo like.

I have no clue about Europe. Import it.

Can I import from US and put it in my Euro Ps3 ? Isn't there some incompatiblity of PAL thing or what not?

PS3 games are supposedly region free, so you could probably do that.  But seriously, this is not a Diablo clone.  Mindlessly doing anything at anytime in this game will make you dead. 

You can import fine. I'm in EU and playing the Korean (english) version. I'm also importing the US version just because it is such a cool game and deserves support.

Uh, not sure about what happened there, but you must be in body form to summon help. It's by design and it should not be possible otherwise. Thus, you are also not seeing blue signs when in soul form.

You can read up on the mechanics here (DS Wiki) (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/online) and according to what I've experienced myself, the section is pretty accurate. Check the table near the bottom for the possible stone uses and online play combinations - it also explains how PKing and duelling work, and how you can dismiss idiot blue phantom players, should you encounter them.

EDIT: The wiki mentions the thing about blue eye stones not being usable everywhere and the "You can summon here" pointers, too.

Question...


Also, this game is really fun.  And hard...but not unfairly so.

Cyrex- just wander a bit near the big landing (left facing the statue).  one of the dudes sitting along the wall is what you're looking for.

Not the dude that has the stone thing?

He's the only one with a lit candle in the long row of people sitting way upstairs.  Someone had helpfully left a message of "This is it." in front of him so I rated it.

awesome, thanks.

You are missing the point. The messages are to let people know they they can use their blue-eyed stone in that location to leave a blue message.

And it is really the only way to fish for a coop.

I got you, although I have to admit it wasn't that obvious when I first read it. What I was saying is that I don't know of any location where you couldn't use your blue eye stone. I only used my stone at archstones or before boss battles, and it was always possible where I tried. However, since I read in the Wiki that there are indeed spots where it doesn't work, I randomly looked out for some obvious ones today, and I found out that you probably can't use the stone in all of 1-4, not even at the archstone.

Other than that, I really don't see the point of using a red message to convey something to another player who knows where on the internet, when the other player, were he that desperate to offer himself for multiplayer, could just quickslot the blue stone and quickly glance whether it is greyed out or not. It's not like there's a shortage of quick slots. But then again, maybe I'm too sophisticated.    :oops:

It's not just a matter of being desperate.  It's also a way to improve your CT/WT

I am finding that I don't particularly love the PvP aspects of this game.  I always seem to get the guys that want to try and kite me around all over the fucking place, which just makes me irritated. 

Doh, you're right, now I remember what I did.  I couldn't kill him, and thought dropping my blue stone would summon someone into my game to help me out, instead I got summoned into someone elses where I helped them kill flamelurker and it brought me back to life.  I went straight back to flamelurker, and there were blue signs on the ground so I picked one up and viola, one dead boss.  Totally forgot about that first bit, heh.

It doesn't improve WT. Killing invading Black Phantoms improves your CT at a very slow rate (and you're not guaranteed to get one every time you co-op).

Best methods if you care about WT/CT are:

I'm not sure if the game has matured enough yet, but 4-1 was always the PVP hotspot in the Asian version. A lot of people would just get a group of 3 and then sit and wait for invading Blacks. I had a LOT of fun doing that.

Although, I seem to do much better defending than attacking.

You mean 4-2. 4-1 was impressively light in PvP compared to the area following the Adjudicator.

No. I always found 1-3 and 4-1 to be the most PVP heavy areas.

I've read about 4-1 and 4-2 being both very frequented, but funnily enough I got the most invaders in 3-2 and in 5-2 in the swamp. The 5-2 swamp especially was the "fun" ranged playground with people shooting at me while I had to crawl through the mud.

I've seen a few cool videos of 1-3 PKing, and it seems to make for a very tense chase through the city, probably the "most entertaining" vs. level. 4-2 on the other hand I can imagine being a pain in the rear with all the darkness and narrow walkways.

This game makes me want to buy a PS3.  I really don't want to spend $300+game.  /sadface

Jesus made sacrifices for your soul. Maybe it's time you did too.

Goddamn this game is hard. Starting as a Magician was a bad idea. Rerolled after dying to trash over and over because mana doesn't regen automatically. Round 2 is a Temple Knight, although I should've just gone with a Knight as I don't even keep my focusing device (or whatever I need to self-heal) equipped. The game is a bit less painful as a melee powerhouse, although not much.

I also had no dragon in 1-1; I don't really understand the WT/CT stuff, so I just assumed it was a bug and looted to my heart's content. However, he was there in 1-2 and I spent a good 20 minutes pew pewing him to death with a composite short bow. Now, when I go back to 1-1 he's just chilling in his roost area, lashing his tail of instant death.

Is there a place to buy or pick up some leather armor early in the game (I'm on 2-1 now)? Based on what people have said here, I'm looking to swap out of this heavy plate and see if I can't just dodge attacks better.

Started as a thief, and have played way too much to stuck on 1-2.  Every group that gets to the tower knight fails, usually with a disconnect when he's at 10% health.  I have a 100% D rating for some reason.  I want to love this game, but it doesn't love me.  I don't even think it's hard, I just refuse to use one of my eyes for a rez so soon.

Wow.  There is no way I would have figured any of that out.  The WT (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/world-tendency) and CT (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/character-tendency) wiki's (contains spoilers but if anyone is like me with a 0% understanding of WT/CT then it's worth spoiling) combined with your tactics pretty much clears everything up.

Honestly, I would just play through with out worrying about it the first time. You can then try to work on tendency ether with a new character or in NG+(+).

I'm going to have to do just that.  My brain broke trying to map out an optimal path not to skip anything in one go.

Rolled up a thief this weekend to play on the girlfriends copy - rolling around and stabbing shit is a lot of fun, but I've been having issues landing backstabs in combat.  I can sneak up on most stuff just fine and backstab them before it starts, but once they start coming at me getting a BS to land is really hard, any tips?

Also, after helping my brother through 4-1, he helped me through it as well and I picked up the crescent falchion and compound longbow.  Holy shit does the crescent falchion kick ass.  I went from taking 15-20+ hits to killing the 4-1 skeletons with my dagger to 3 shotting them.  Even with only 10 magic I'm doing a metric fuckton of damage.  Soul level 25 at the moment, only did 1-1 and 1-2 before, and then 2-1 after I got the falchion.

Backstab seems to be easier to land with piercing weapons, e.g. spear, mail breaker, etc.  This may be BS, but it seems that way to me.

Until i got the crescent falchion I'd been using a dagger, and will switch back to it as soon as I can.  I don't like the way the rapier or mail breaker swing.

Yes, backstabs are harder once the enemy is aware of you, because you need to be facing their back within a certain angle to be able to backstab. And the moment the enemy notices you, they will always start turning towards you, even the slow-ass stuff like dreglings or stonefang miners. It is possible, however, just hard to pull off. I've had the best results by disengaging target lock, dodging around madly, and getting a lucky trigger of auto-lock once I had rolled behind them. The problem is that auto-lock greatly hampers your movement by constantly having you face the enemy. Thus, you cannot dodge to the side and then ahead past them, you'll always land at their feet.

As for daggers/rapiers, my understanding is that the "angle" that you are allowed to deviate from while facing their back "straight" is wider with piercing weapons, thus allowing you to land a backstab easier. But I too am not very fond of the fact that they only hit a single target. I found weapons that swing in an arcs (i.e. swords/maces) to be superior for when you fight more than one mob. I do have a rogue for kicks which does pretty cool damage with an upgraded sharp secret dagger, but I'm stuck at farming bladestone chunks in 4-2 and not feeling like moving forward.

Regarding character tendency/world tendency stuff, it's indeed easier to not bother with them during the first game. My take on it: I would recommend doing  it if you want a particular  weapon or armor set

You'll need "stabby" weapons for some enemies.  To be honest, get the winged spear on the bridge at 1-2 and you can use it on a lot of enemies.

The ones that are vulnerable to piercing (stonefang miners, are there any others?) are vulnerable to magic/faith damage as well, not to mention bows and crossbows. They just have higher defense against slashing and crushing. The crescent falchion/blessed mace will work on them just as good as the spear.

The spear/rapier weapon class has two things going for it though, the fact that you can attack while keeping your shield guard up and that you will not move an inch while doing so. The first is a nice bonus which you will probably not need much once you get accustomed to the fighting, the latter is pretty handy in all of the Tower of Latria levels. I wish we could do the spear charge move that the 1-3 red eye knights can perform, that would be pretty cool.

Can you convert the items you don't want into something more useful (souls, resources, etc.)?

Sadly, no. No conversion means, and you can't sell anything, either. You can bank the unneeded stuff or just drop it to the ground, in which case it will stay there and vanish after you zone out. For banking, I read you can bank up to 99 of each item. Not that I would ever want to find out!

Thanks, that's what I figured.

For backstabbing, is the +5 fatal secret dagger the best dagger, or is there another path that works better?  I'm assuming that this enchant makes it kind of suck for normal melee, so you'd want to switch to something else if you have to actually fight shit.  I picked up the compound long bow and got it to +2 sticky pretty quick, and I'm loving that shit on my thief.  Oneshotting crystal lizards is awesome.  Alternatively, I think that flame toss 1hits them, but I haven't tested it multiple times to confirm, so it may have been a glitch.

Lava Bow one hits crystal lizards, is pretty much the best bow in the game, and doesn't require you to sneak up on anybody. Best of all you can get it with minimal grinding pretty early on and the requirements aren't as stupid as one would think.

So, yeah, no more angry posting from my phone.

Anyway!

Saturday was much better.  I just had to accept that this game punishes you for being a hero, and wanted me to face facts - if I wanted to win, I just had to bring 200 arrows, hide behind a corner, and plink my demonic foes to death like a coward.  And now I'm "alive" and cruising through 2-2 (I missed the ring of fire res. and that giant lava pit scared me into fleeing with my souls).

The benefit to my sad trials in 1-2 is that I'm fairly early in the game still and already at SL 25.  At least, that seems fairly high to me at this point.

Something that always sort of bothered me. Has anyone found any real reason to duel wield? It seems like maybe you swing a tiny bit faster if you alternate weapons, but overall I cant see why anyone would use a weapon in their off hand over a shield.

I was reading that the parrying dagger has the most forgiving parry animation, so if you dual wielded a fatal dagger and a parrying dagger, you could theoretically parry everything and then get your massive +critical bonus on the counterattack.

I assumed that I would see a benefit from dual-wield if I was able to parry with the offhand, but I totally suck at that so I went shield when I wasn't using both hands on a one-hander.

There are some tactical choices, like putting a fast dagger in the off-hand and being an incredibly annoying melee opponent or trying to stagger a shield user via stamina drain to open up for a big hit with the main hand, but all those are pretty far-fetched. My usual dual wielding use is to put sword of searching in the off-hand, then two-hand grip the main weapon and go farming stuff (like the dual-wielding skeleton in 4-2 or geckos). Other than that, it's really shield all the way. Some people like to put their MP/HP regen weapons in there once they have better main handers. For example, Phosphorescent Pole at +5 is  the best mana regen item, but is pretty meek as a weapon.

For parrying, it's too hard to pull off reliably, even with parrying dagger. And since there's stuff that you can't parry, it's too much of a hassle. Although it does look cool when you counterattack.

@Nerf: I'm not sure about fatal daggers, haven't bothered with that kind, I went for "sharp" modifier on my rogue. Too many important fights (all bosses, for one) don't allow for backstabbing, so I felt there's no real reason to go for fatal. As for the bow, Lava Bow is indeed a good choice but I feel like it loses a lot in NG+ and afterwards due to poor scaling. The three bows that people usually go for are Lava Bow, Viscous Compound +5 or an upgraded White Bow. White Bow is pretty cool and a drop from a BP right at the start of 1-4, can be easily gotten relatively early -  because you still need to complete one world fully for getting past tower knight door -, but has pretty steep requirements (30 STR/24 DEX iirc). Lava is certainly the easiest to get at start, because Viscous requires tons of spiderstone.

Brother and I just tried to do some invading in 1-3 with his meat cleaver, it went..poorly.  Got a couple kills, but it seems like every single person we ran into had a falcion and absolutely raped our asses - is there a trick on using slow weapons, or are they always that easily dodged and countered?  Also, it seems like magic weapons are indeed pretty sweet against shield users, even with a +7 purple flame we were still taking quite a bit damage through the block without it breaking.

Dark Silver Shield is your friend. It has 100% physical and 100% magical block. Although it makes your own magic do less damage.

On my main guy I use a Sharp Uchigatana +5 with the Dark Silver Shield +5. When PVPing, I use Light Weapon on myself, and then Anti Magic field. Its pretty effective.

knife party is born.

If you get invaded by an Asian chick who actually looks Asian (TROPY: MADE A NONUGLY GIRL BUT STILL KINDA UGLY) named knife party, you're going to die.

Also, tutorial boss defeated. Word.

I cant find shit for multiplayer on the asian version any more. I think most of my characters are to high level.

Or too low level.

Edit: Also, Ostrava of Boletaria just died to my rapier filled hand.

I'm pretty sure it just shows your steam ID tag, and not the characters name, or at least thats how its worked when I did blue phantom stuff with my bro.
Your cool name is wasted, bummer.

Heh, well done. What class? Knife meleer? I'm still working on that guy myself. Got a character slot I keep deleting just to re-create and run 5 minutes through the tutorial to end up one-shotted by big dumbo at the end.

@Shields, what Morfied said, although I actually find the +HitRes on the Dark Silver (65 at +5) sometimes too low for PVP. I've run into lots of people doing dodge attack rolls with crescent axes and sword of searching, and you'll end up staggered or even hit if HitRes is not high enough. A very good alternative is Purple Flame, it gets you to +82 HitRes at +10 quality level and is cheaper to upgrade (Hardstones vs. 5 Colorless Demons souls). I also think that fire magic counts as fire damage, not magic damage and thus, fire resistant shields would be actually better against common magic - most mages use firestorm/fireball. For kicks, I did okay with a +5 Adjudicator's while stacking all my regen (Regenerator's Ring and a Blessed weapon), but the HitRes on that is even worse as it caps at 50.

To interrupt you awesome people.  AUGH.   1-2 had its way with me and my armor broke during the tower knight fight.  WEEEE JESUS armor repair is expensive.    Course, now I get to try and grind souls nekkid. 

Cheap armor: . Cheap armor is cheap to repair, too, and armor is really not that effective. If you can't afford armor repairs, just repair the shield and block, blocked hits don't affect you at all.

I do totally know what you mean though: At some point I was convinced that Ancient Kings is UBER and EPIC and was wearing it all the time. Then I went to fight that incredibly annoying black phantom with the scraping spear at 1-4 and had to pay something like 16k per piece. Since then I'm a converted leather armor fan!

I always start as a royal. I think it's my sixth of seventh time beating him.

I really, really need to get my act together and kill him. I must've died 7 or 8 times by him. This is personal now!

I like the black leather armor with the hard leather pants. It looks good, which most of the armor doesnt.

Is the monks headwrap just a random drop, and is there any way to get it if he doesn't drop it when you kill him? I wants more magic damage!

I believe it only drops if you kill him when he is another player, and even then its only a chance.

When he's another player? How does that work, can you go queue up in that room to be the boss?

Morfiend is right. If you are online, the Old Monk can summon a player Black Phantom which is queued for invasion to fight you as his champion. The head wrap can drop only from them. If you are not online, or no appropriate PK is queued, you get a standard NPC BP to fight instead.

I guess the Royalty is easy mode to start off with - I'm sure it gets harder, but aside from the death to the tutorial boss, I only died once in the first real level, because I got greedy and kept going for more of the treasure right below the dragons. The last time I was too slow getting out of there before the dragon came back.

Ironically so far what has stumped me is some stupid thing in the nexus after you kill the first boss, the chick tells you "the monumental awaits thee above" - I ran up and down that place for a solid 20 minutes and didn't find any fucking "monumental" awaiting me. It was frustrating because I know it's something totally obvious I probably ran past three times. Eh, it was bedtime anyway.

So far I am really impressed with the combat. The Royalty seems powerful but I want to try out the different classes and see how their weapons play.

Royal gets the best attribute distribution (starting at level 1 so you can evolve in whatever direction you want for cheap) and the Fragrant Ring, which is an awesome starter item. Soul Arrow is also a lot better than Flame Thrower (the mage starting spell).

Is there any way I can get this to Australia without having to go through E-Bay?

Thanks!

Barbarian and Thief seem to be the hardest classes to begin with for me.  You really learn melee with the barbarian, because if you don't learn to block and dodge you will die pretty quickly. 

This also stumped me for like a day. I was going insane.

Ask someone in America to pick it up for you and paypal/wire them the money?

I don't think I've ever played a game where I can play all day long and yet accomplish almost nothing...and yet still enjoy it immensely.

www.dvdboxoffice.com ships games worldwide, they have deluxe editions in stock too. Mine is on it's way (to Finland).

Bleh. Game bugged and I got nearly no White Tendency for beating the ever-loving shit out of Boletaria. Bleh. Gonna have to start over.

When does the game end btw, 1-4?

I think 1-4 locks the leveling with Maiden in Nexus if you haven't completed all other worlds, but I'm not sure. AFAIK, you need to complete all of the worlds including all of the Chief demons to move on past 1-4. There's a bit of stuff still coming afterwards. I usually do it in this order:

I'm kind of afraid to play this game.  :grin:

I mean, I AM playing it. I'm just afraid of playing it. Fucking corpse hunting. Bosses I can't beat. Corpse hunting right in the face of bosses I can't beat. Etc..


I started as a Royal.. Sorta making some East Asian Shaolin type of dude. ;P Are there other oriental swords in the game besides katana later on? I want a floppy Crouching Tiger type of blade.

edit: Geez...

I will probably sell this. Seriously.. I already have enough titles to remind what a shitty gamer I am.  :grin:

This may be a dumb question, but everyone refers to the levels like "4-1" but they are not referenced that way ingame any way I can see. If the first level stone is 1, is the next up the stairway 2, one at top 3, etc. ?

That's what I gather.. Boletarian Palace (sp) is "1", I guess.

And..... that fucking Tower guard is a bitch. Can't even get past the first level in this game.  :uhrr:

I say I want to sell it, but it's compelling.

Correct.

Yes. Starting from the left archstone (Boletaria) and moving to the right, the worlds are:

1-x Boletaria
2-x Stonefang Tunnel
3-x Tower of Latria
4-x Shrine of Storms
5-x Valley of Defilement

With "-x" being the archstone you use to enter. 5-2 is the level starting at the second archstone in Valley of Defilement.


Why restart though? Just finish NG and go there NG+. What were you looking for, body form Miralda? The colorless demon soul can be gotten at pure black WT too, the pit will be open, you just get to fight BP Miralda instead.

Yes, I wanted body form miralda. I'm playing a girl and want my executioner armor.

I just wanted to post in this thread as a long-time lurker who rarely posts because I want to show my support of this game with others who love this game as much as I.  I read the review of the Japanese version on here months ago and never pulled the trigger because apparently I'm a dumbass of the highest order. 

This is the first game I have ever played that makes me want to tear my own testicles off because of it's difficulty, whilst at the same time constantly has me either playing it, or thinking about playing it. 

God have mercy on the souls of those that just don't understand nor ever will. 

... and the multi-player aspect?   Who on the From Software design team sold their soul for that brilliant concept?   That poor bastard will truly burn for eternity for all of our sakes.  Let us pray. 

... while you are at it, go ahead and pray for me to encounter just a SINGLE 'live' person who can make it to the god damn boss without dying halfway on 2-2!!   No more Phantom-time for me, please!!





 

Strange.. Phalanx turned out to be a cinch compared to that guard.

Most of the bosses are relatively simple, which struck me as odd. When I submitted the bug list to Atlus, I also submitted a long list of "These are simple ways to make the bosses as hard as they should be" like removing the nook/statue from the 2-1 boss area and changing how the large knight holds his shield, etc. Obviously, none of these made it in.

Well, soon after I discovered that nook, I let my entire family out of the cages designed to keep them from bothering me while I fought the god damn spider, built a shrine on that spot in the form of 5 different messages to other players, and was finally able to clothe myself.

If the bosses were any harder, the game would probably become tedious. Given how hard the levels are, how long most of them take to run through (even after short cuts are opened) and how everything respawns on death, it's a relief not having to attempt bosses 10 times to beat them.

Hell, I'm such a pussy that I spoilered every boss past 1-2. I didn't want to die while figuring out their gimmicks.

If you want the challenge, you can always try to melee them. With intended gear/level.

... waitaminnit!!!   What do you mean 'if you want the challenge'?   How else am I, a valiant Knight, supposed to do this?  Have I been needlessly torturing myself? 

NO!  Don't tell me. Don't you dare say another word.   Let me suffer in my own ignorance!  I refuse to believe I am doing it any other way but the RIGHT way, you understand me?   There is no other way!   

... no, I'm not crying.   Shut up. 

Told you so?

I think what he is saying is that attempting to play this game as pure melee is "slightly" harder than having a ranged option.

If you are referring to the Red Eye Knight you aren't expected to be able to kill him in the beginning. Depending on your character and equipment you might be able to cheese him to death early on and the strat guide has a way to kill him though that never worked for me.

The top 3 bosses that have given me the most trouble (I'm mostly a melee guy) were:

1.) Flamelurker on all difficulties
2.) Maneater at NG+ and above,
3.) Dragon God
EDIT: I gave in at some point and started using bows as well though. I thought it was very un-magic and thus not against my character concept. Makes life a lot easier. Actually I'm a lot more comfortable with bows than I ever got with offensive magic.

Maneater was the boss that gave me to most trouble. Dragongod was really easy.

Flamelurker is pretty tough but
Trying to kill tower knight on my first character was really hard, as I was all melee at the time, and didnt have very good weapons or grasp of the game mechanics.

I almost cheated him.. Didn't work for me either. Seems like I can only kick his ass with sheer firepower.. But I sort of went heavy on dex after the level up (I already regret it.. makes me want to reroll as a heavy caster now.. At least for these early levels).

I also killed that NPC in the Nexus (the weary soldier dude).. So I probably should reroll. Haha

The weary solder dude kills himself if you talk to him enough times, also, through the magic of pestering people after helping them beat the monk, I found someone who didn't want their yellow soul, and although it is nodrop, the insanity catalyst is not, so he upgraded a wooden catalyst for me and gave it to me.

You get the monks headwrap every single time by dropping your black stone at the base of the stairs and playing as the boss.  It's actually really satisfying playing the boss, I killed about 6 people in a row and it felt much better than just straight up ganking folks, as they were already at the end of the level and all they had to do was beat me to win.

Monks headwrap+kris blade+ring of magical sharpness+insanity catalyst== a metric fuckton of damage with my magic at 40, I can 1shot every single thing in 1-3 if its not blocking by about double its HP.  One-shotting players in pvp with soul ray too, good times.

Maneater cheese easy-mode win - DO NOT READ THIS

Killing that guy makes no difference really, but shifts your character tendency to black. I don't know how much though.

As for CT impact: it is something like "alignment". There are two weapons in the game (three if you count that the two of them can be combined for a new one - and all of them are large swords) that change AP bonus based on your alignment, and two rings that can only be gotten from quests you get if you are pure black or pure white CT.

You can always improve your CT at a latter time. Actually, if you plan to get all the rings (for the trophy) you'll eventually want to get your CT both to pure black and pure white, which isn't that hard once you know what you need to do.

Other than that, no worry as long as you don't hit Stockpile Thomas. Everyone else can probably be done without  :evil:

Okay, so I saved Sage Freke and was hoping for him to teach me some shit...but all he says is "I'm too old to help you" or some shit.  I have four or five boss souls now, and have no idea what to do with them.  Help?

Have you beaten 2-3 yet and given the dragon's soul to the blacksmith at the bottom of the lift thingy in 2-1?

No.  Haven't even tried 2-2 yet, let alone 2-3.  Guess I'll get on that?

Rerolled.. Funny how quickly I made it through to Phalanx.

Downside is that I had more than twice as many souls the last time around. There are benefits to dying.

Link in top right corner to Play-Asia. Pick yourself up a couple of other cheap games at the same time and save yourself a bundle, even with 3-day UPS.

Hmm Flamelurker soul is for weapon upgrading only though. Shouldn't bother Freke.

You freed him in his 3-1 cell, zoned out to Nexus and he is in the Nexus and not helping you? Or still inside his cell?

Do you have Willpower of at least 10? You can't learn magic with less WP than 10.

Try talking to his apprentice. If the apprentice says something about you being a brute and doesn't teach you anything either, then probably one of them aggroed you and you're now SOL for the rest of the game with them EDIT: checked the Wiki (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/spells), the wiki says that is also due to the Willpower stat being too low, not because of aggro.

Awesome, that's probably it.  Neither of them will talk to me.  I'll just ding up my willpower a bit.

Also, Flamelurker can suck my cock.

I'm having more success with Knight. Got enough strength last night to use the purple flame shield, got the winged spear. And I'm glad I picked up soul arrow for the 1-2 Tower Knight boss. I tried to melee him at first and quickly saw how ridiculous that was going to be. (not to mention in my armor rolling actually means just kind of falling down to the side).

Got a ways into 4-1 and was able to invite another player to help me kill that fat mini boss dude. I'm kicking ass on those skeletons, feeling pretty good about myself, haven't died in a while, then I promptly run right off a cliff.

Yea, it feels great when you get into the zone, get all cocky and shit, and then dodge right off a staircase.  Not that I did that last night. :oh_i_see:

Yeah, 5-1 makes me stabby.  I think I've fallen off of stuff in that level more than all the others combined.  Then you get to follow it up with the 5-2 slog through the swamp.  In all honesty, I could have lived without that level. 

Tower Knight is a very psychological fight. You usually arrive there at the end of your second level, having beaten Phalanx - which is very meek for DS standards - after a bit of running on the wall and fighting a couple regular *cough*cannon fodder*cough* soldiers, and then all of a sudden face this 30ft giant with a shield the size of an average tennis field. Design-wise, after having been through the game multiple times, I still him to be very intimidating. Right up at the top, along with Dragon God.  

For killing, once you get the hang of it he is actually very predictable, even more than other bosses:

Yes, 5-2 is really my personal nightmare too. And if you play for black WT farming, you have to slog all through it while looking for BP Selen and the primeval demon, all the while dodging BP giant trolls that tend to generally one-shot you. Fun fun fun!

I find that tower knight, if you are trying to kill him melee, is a real bitch if you can't roll pretty easily.  Of course, as with most of the bosses, magic or ranged makes them pretty easy.  Armor management is one of the more difficult things to learn about this game-  armor is really useless, for the most part.  You are much better off if you can dodge and roll around.  If you never get hit you don't have to worry about it.

Yes, the defense payoff for higher weight is horrible. Heavy armor is noticeably better early on when your native damage reduction is so low, but later in the game it's a minuscule %-increase in reduction for a massive movement penalty.


EDIT: Doing the numbers, you seem to gain 5 times as much damage reduction per weight point at level 10 as you do at level 100. A weight point is a ~4% increase in PhysDef at level 10, and a ~0.75% increase at level 100.

Yeah my Knight can't roll worth shit. But, so far I don't really feel like I need to roll around. I like having that big ol shield up and just waiting for my opening.

Anybody know of Atlus removing the gripless/hiltless katana from the end of the tutorial?  I finally cracked that shit open and only the grey soul dropped.

I never got a gripless from the tutorial boss or in the dragon area in any version (launch, 1st patch, 2nd patch, 3rd patch [all asian], press reviewable, retail). So I have no clue what you're talking about.

Forum checking seems to indicate it's in all versions except for the US one, but if you've never encountered it...

Link?

I believe you can get a normal Uchigatana from the Tutorial boss, not a gripless.

Never seen this either.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/demonssoul/show_msgs.php?topic_id=m-1-51739928&pid=954345
Granted, it is a forum post...

Oh, an alcove. I have to start over tonight. I'll let him wreck the room to burst open all the walls and I'll find out and report back.

The Wiki (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/uchigatana) confirms this with Uchigatana, and I kind of doubt it would be Gripless because it would be 1.) too early for a unique and 2.) break the pattern that uniques usually only spawn in one place as treasure. That guy probably just mistook it.

And I have to admit, I still haven't beaten tutorial Vanguard yet.

Kinda got the hang of this game now. Probably won't sell it. :P Lvl 25-ish now. Haven't beat many bosses, but I keep hopping around collecting gear. 4-1 is my favorite so far, design wise. Up until the boss, I mowed through that shit with the fireball skill from Freke (Spider Demon soul), including Vanguard. I don't see how anyone plays this melee.

Well, I finally got my copy of this game and just dove into it.  First impressions, Stray is right.  Does magic suck later on or something?  Because melee consist of me running in and hacking up each enemy bit by bit by bit, while magic consists of me one shot'ing everybody from across the screen....

I think that the best char is an adept mix of both, you just have to decide on the distribution. I'm a melee player myself, and while the learning curve was steep, I find melee rewarding and very varied. I played through the first difficulty level as melee only, and it was hard but very manageable, on later difficulties I learned stuff like Total Protection and Slow Recovery, and they make life a lot easier.

If you are an exclusive "magic" type of guy, there actually are some very nice melee weapons available for mages too (Sword of Moonlight, for example)

I'm currently working on my first "caster" type char, am about 80% done with NG, and being used to melee I find magic to be awkward to use. I guess it's all a matter of character concept and experience.

I also read that maxed out melee outdamages maxed out magic, but never leveled that far myself. My highest character is somewhere around lvl 120 currently, and the mage is 48.

I fight pretty much pure melee...the only magic I use is Total Protection against really tough mobs and bosses, and I'll admit I used a bit of Soul Light and melee combo on Flamelurker (who is an asshole).  Other than that, I don't use any magic and I think I'm doing fairly well.

Question on 1-4:

It's a cinch. R3 targets, of course, and then you just zap away. More than a cinch actually.. Probaly an injustice. I can one or two shot just about every normal mob in a room, from a distance, just sitting at the entrance. I feel like I'm playing Kotor sometimes. While melee feels tougher than Ninja Gaiden.

Exception so far being 4-1 where skeletal mobs require me to dodge and kite a lot. But that's pretty damn fun with the fireball skill I mentioned (you can shoot fast while moving... looks like there's a magic version later on as well??).

I do eventually want to focus on melee though. I'm pumping points into str so I can equip the purple flameshield, but the curved blades are sweet too.. So I might pump more dex as well. My magic is only 20 btw. So I'm already am a hybrid character, I guess.

On a sidenote, I'm not impressed with the katanas.. Too soft, and not that much more damaging than curved. Besides, I wanted a dao/wushu thing going on, and the falchion animations are sweet. More Asian like than Euro.

My main gripe with magic vs. melee is that, with a sword, I can slash in a horiztonal arc, in a vertical arc, I can overhead thrust, I can stab, I can dodge roll, I can sneak and backstab, all that stuff. With magic, I lock on and wave my magic wand, cast, and that is it. And the casting has the awful "wave your wand" delay (even worse for miracles, where my guy claps both hands above his head and freezes while the effect takes off). With a weapon, I feel much more in control.

I use bows for clearing those few dangerous places where ranged is a huge advantage (or blue&red dragons in 1-x), and I've gotten pretty good with the sniper mode, which also allows for shooting at very high ranges.

For the curved swords, you can pick up a Kilij on the ground at 4-1 in the courtyard where Vanguard hangs out, that is pretty much the best curved one IMO. Best base damage and it has a bleeding attack too, even though it is weaker than the Katana bleeding strength. I too am disappointed with Katanas, I've never found them to be too good. They are fast for the mid-combo animations and have a nice horizontal arc, but start too slow (not to mention the power attack is so slow it is nearly useless) and have so little durability they constantly break. I've seen some players that did some impressive Katana fighting though, it just is not my case.

I have a kilij, but I'm using crescent falchion atm for it's magic bonuses.

As a magic based character the Crescent Falchion is a fantastic weapon. If you have the shards, you can upgrade most "curved" swords to a Crescent modifier. Not sure about the uchigatana though. I think the only weapon that might be better than a crescent based one is the Large Sword of Moonlight, but thinking about it, I think that takes its damage modified from Faith not Magic.

Crescent is probably the easiest upgrade after hardstone/sharpstone too, you can just keep farming the 4-2 reaper for splinters and chunks, and with a bit of luck one of the geckos will drop a pure one.

I'm currently working on +5 Blessed and I can tell it's a nightmare compared to Crescent.

The crescent rapier is pretty sweet, and being able to hide behind your shield while you attack is very nice.  You can add crescent to the curved rapier as well, getting a bleed effect+magic bonus+regen.  The one thing I've noticed on magic vs. melee is how bows outclass magic by so much.  Being able to fire out of autotarget range itself is a huge bonus, I really wish they would add in precision aiming for magic.  The animations are better too, you can dodge mid-draw if you need to, which is very useful if your timing is a bit off and your opponent starts casting or swinging.  

On farming the darkmoonstone chunks, if you get to black character tendancy, the BP down by makato will keep respawning and dropping 2-3 chunks every time you load the level.

I don't really like rapiers as fighting weapons because they require more precision. Otoh, like spears it's nice to be able to hide behind shields.

Right now, I'm just using a little melee to augment magic, but I plan on flipping that around later and using magic to augment melee.. buffing myself and toss some bolts here and there. I keep the falchion in the left hand and don't do shit with it. That, or I switch it out and shield up. The wand is in the right hand getting the most use. I think it might be cool though to put the wand in the left hand instead, and keep a sword in the right. I don't think it's possible to wield a sword with two hands unless it's in the right handed slot, right? This way I can run and blast, then switch to two handed wielding and slice things quickly.


As for blasts being disrupted.. Well, I just tend to hit things pretty hard with Soul Arrow - I'm the one disrupting them. The problem for me is that it's just not very mana efficient for most enemies. That's why that Fire Spray skill has worked out greatly. Barely uses shit for mana. Secondly, it's so fast that it almost paralyzes things - constantly disrupting them. Third, you can run and gun with it. Fourth, the damage starts off small, but since it keeps stacking, it starts hitting harder than Soul Arrow can. I don't think I was supposed to mow down 4-1 so easily, but I could simply because of that skill. Surely someone here has used it? It's a skill Freke opens up if you have the 2-1 Spider Boss soul.

I used Fire Spray on my mage character. I found it worked pretty good, but since that was my 3rd or 4th character, I found it a bit boring and overly simple.

One thing to note on bows vs magic. Bows are basically totally useless in PVP, their draw length is to long to ever hit a moving target, where as some magics are very very good for PVP, like Fire Storm, Fire Ball and Rage of God. Rage of God is very good as its a huge radius and it does knockdown, and goes through walls.

The Spider boss just rocked my world. Is there any counter to those webs that cover you and slow you down?

Sweet.. I actually just "farmed".  :oh_i_see: Wanted to get to 22 Str for purple flame shield though.

On a sidenote, the Tower Guard area (if you beat him) is a decent enough place for noob farming. There's two blue knights there to pick off. Just port back and forth. Make about 1000 souls each time.

Depending on whether you are ranged (magic) or melee:

Fuck, it's pretty demoralizing when you lose a shit ton of souls on a corpse run. Fuck.  :ye_gods:

I was not aware that pressing forward + R1 makes you do a little shove move.  I was feeling pretty clever for using it to push some wolves off a cliff to their deaths.  Now I have just died 5 times in a row to a blue eyes knight and his archer friends.  I don't feel clever anymore.

Yup. And often enough, in the process of corpse running, you get lots of souls, then die again. And again. Never get too attached to your souls!

The best antidote against soul loss frustration is to find yourself a good farm spot and, whenever soul loss gets you down, consider how 5-10 minutes of good spot farming easily recovers a full level of regular soul hunting. The knights before Penetrator or the reaper in 4-2 are very understanding - and cheerful - when I come to vent  :grin:

Hmm does it? I know the move you are talking about, and it has gotten me killed very often, but I was under the impression the computer decides to do that instead of a regular R1 attack based on how close you are to the opponent. There's nothing like "Take THIS, sucker! Oh, wait, *slow ass shove* WAIT! *fateful chime* ---YOU HAVE DIED ---" to remind you how fragile you are. Especially with something like Meat Cleaver, where the shove animation looks like your back hurts. Or you are crapping your pants. Or both at the same time.

I have to try that out now.

Stairs are my mortal enemy.  Especially when you're fighting on them.

Well, the worst thing about it is that I got ganked by a low level soldier.. Just had a brainfart or something. About 30,000 souls down the shitter. :\

Flamelurker and I now have an understanding.

He likes to kill; I like to die.

It is better this way, really.

I beat him earlier. Umm that purple flame shield paid off, I guess.  :grin: But in the same level, there's a fire resist ring. That might help too.

Light armor is key to beating him; roll often. Dodge his attacks then either pew pew or melee a few times. Put a pillar between you and him if you need to heal.

I had more trouble with 2-2 as a level than the Flamelurker himself; I couldn't find the tunnel leading to him and kept getting killed in that stupid lava area.

I finally gave up on finding the way down to him and dropped down the shaft, only to realize later that the little platform at the end of a tunnel in the lava caves with 3 or 4 bearbug husks on it let you drop down to flamelurkers area.  It /looks/ like a really far drop, but it's not - I hope if they start doing DLC and level editing they change that bit to be slightly more intuitive so you know to drop.  I kept thinking he was past the lava and died a handful of times wading in that shit.

The tunnel to the right is indeed a shortcut. One filled with treasures and riches at that.

I nowadays start 2-2 with going right and dropping down, straight to Flamelurker.
I leave the rest of 2-2 untouched, including the gecko cave, so I can farm the full gecko spawn after I kill Dragon God. I found the rest of 2-2 to be very boring - bearbugs were incredibly annoying back when I didn't care about magic weapons, and there are too many of those endless tunnels with the huge bugs blocking your way, too.

I just finished Valley of Defilement on a new char yesterday, and I remembered how painful swamp jogging is. I died lots of times from the giant goblins there while attempting dodges and sidesteps in the mud. Dodges in the mud make for a frustrating experience, but for every failed attempt you get a corpse run for free!  :awesome_for_real:

For a noob like me, the run through all of those tunnels and killing beatles was worth it. That's quite a lot of xp to pass up, and all I have to do is stand back and blast them (albeit, for a long time.. burning through tons of mana.. but whatever).

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41mgz45M7tL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
?

Doh.  :oh_i_see:


edit: Maneaters are the toughest boss so far :\

Go back a page or two and find my DO NOT READ spoiler if you really can't beat him, it's ez-mode.

I tried forward + R1 with a scimitar and it is a twirly double-hit move instead of a shove with a halberd, so it's weapon dependent. 

I joined some games as a blue phantom for the first time.  The warm fuzzies for helping people beat a boss they clearly have no idea how to beat is a nice consolation for the many, many, many rage filled boss deaths leading to that winning strategy knowledge.

Here's a quick two part question.  I activated the lift in 2-1 to get up to the people throwing boulders at me.  As I overlook the path I just came from, I see a glowing orb on a landing off a cliff.  Is there a way to drop there? 

As I was contemplating that orb, a black phantom invaded my game and I watched him run backwards and plunge off the cliff near that orb.  Is there an obvious reason why he would suicide?  Other than being afraid of facing me in combat of course.

If you die to the environment as a black phantom you lose one soul level. Some people try to suicide to get negative stats to have an advantage in PVP.

Pretty sure they patched that out, as people were abusing it.  My brother just tried to delevel a character with no luck.

I'm pretty sure soulsucker in PVP and Allant's attack still delevel you. I don't know about dying as phantom to delevel. But I was invaded at level 40-something a couple days ago by a guy who seemed to have at least about 1k HP, which, considering soul form and probably black CT, is quite a lot for level 40. That was on the asian servers with 1.04.

I had some fun with Garth Vinland yesterday. Turns out he can parry. And counterattack afterwards! 6 times I've killed him so far and not once did he parry. One counter-hit with that huge-ass mace will destroy you at 900HP, and totally mess up your plans for white world tendency if you're cocky and in body form, like me!  :heartbreak:

On the other hand, I learned that you can farm the goblin shaman right at the end of 5-2 for splinters and chunks of faintstone. Zone in at Dirty Colossus AS and run back out to the swamp from Colossus room, takes about 1 minute tops and the drop rate is nearly 66% for splinters. Which is a lot, considering you'd otherwise have to buy them for 10k each. At pure black WT, he drops around 5-10% chunks too, and that is with a meager luck stat of 8. I finally got my Blessed +5 mace that way.

I've wasted so many ephmeral things/died at full health that I almost feel tainted now.

Also, what a pain in the ass that such a thing can make you go "black tendency".


That said, I haven't pvp'ed or seen black shadow characters yet.. I should just invade areas myself.

That's true.

At least with the asian version there's still the trick that I can manually depatch to v1.0, where suiciding in soul form was also lowering WT. I've done that a few times, but it's quite a bother, as it requires 30+ suicides sometimes to get pure black WT, that means about half an hour dying and reloading.

World 5 hates me.

Speaking of World 5, how the fuck are you supposed to beat that black phantom in the swamps in 5-2?  That motherfucker can dodge and roll all over the place, but I am stuck in the syrup and am lucky if I can bang of 10% of his health.

Of course, I don't even know where to go on that level, so maybe I should just be avoiding him/her?

The generic meat cleaver one or Selen Vinland BP? For meat cleaver girl (I think it's a woman?), I'd guess lure her to an island where you can dodge as well, and either use a fast weapon for a few quick slashes until she dodges away, rinse repeat, or use some big ass stick to chain knock her down. Getting her to an island is quite important because of the dodging.

Here's a map of 5-2:

http://www.geocities.jp/kouryakubo/ds/chart/chart035.html (http://www.geocities.jp/kouryakubo/ds/chart/chart035.html)

, sadly with japanese annotations, but it helps a lot when trying to figure out the general layout of the map. That webpage has all the maps, by the way, in case you need to check a specific one up (helps a bit for 3-1 and 3-2 as well).

Selen is kinda tougher, especially because you can't really use a shield. For Selen I'd say use a weapon with a wide slash/big range and try to hit her as she closes in at max range. She'll dodge away after a few hits, and when she gets low on health she'll heal up a few times. Unless you can interrupt the healing reliably (bow/thrown stuff/magic), it's going to drag for a bit.

Running through this with my first "pure magic" character.  It is decidedly more difficult on some worlds and easier on others.  So far I'm finding Maneater near impossible and 4-2 as well.  Interesting.

Shit, I can't seem to take Tower Knight as a Magic. character. :awesome_for_real:

That qualifies as a personal problem.

Yep, I kept hitting the merlons and had shit timing so the fucker was blocking me a lot.  I nailed him a few times but I need to work on the timing for those slow-ass Soul Arrows.  I'm used to the bow and throwing, which seemed less... fat?  There are some places where Flamethrower or Soul Arrow are the I WIN button but there are times I prefer the bow.  TK is one of those times.

Must be the generic BP, because it looks like a female wearing rags, and is definitely running around with a big meat cleaver.  I'll try to get to solid ground, but she already has rolled my ass twice while trying that.  Thanks for your continual advice, though.

That evil bitch with a meat cleaver was my worst enemy my first time through the game.

Yes, that small island is your friend.

You mean the one slightly bigger than a postage stamp?  Great.  That'll be no problem.  I panic whenever she jumps up on me, can't even activate my Protection, let alone get to solid ground. 

Actually there's one that's composed of two parts that has enough room to run around and roll back when she goes for a heavy hit. It's near the wall.

Got my ass kicked by the meat cleaver chick too... Decided to just zip through that level afterwards. For all the problems of it, the boss was a joke! Wtf?  :grin:

Lots of stuff undone.. I'd love to get BT on the world for Selen's blade now.. I heard I can sneak on her enough and just cast poison cloud and run. Might need to try that. ^_^

Best strategy I worked out for melee was quick weapons, because if you hit her often enough, she dodges away. That buys you time for healing/buffing/whatever you need.

For heavy weapons without knockdown, she just kept ignoring 1-2 hits and went straight for me, and the moment you're knocked down, it gets kinda hard. I did kill her once with a great club, but timing with that is a PITA.

Also, really, really important for melee: use Thief's Ring (whatever it is called in the US version, the ring you get in 1-1 by Ostrava's first spawn place). I'm serious. Thief's Ring = WIN for melee. It allows you get close to mobs, it allows you to pick your fights, and you can move around without half the level homing in on you the moment you leave the archstone. Ranged/Magic chars could maybe do without - because of the range options - but for meleers that ring is vital. You can actually sneak up on meat cleaver chick (TM) instead of the other way.

I played nearly 90% of the game with Thief's Ring + Cling Ring. Everything else is worse for melee IMO. I just switch to Regenerator/Flame + Cling on bosses.

Not to derail from meat cleaver bitch, but what exactly does the stat mean when it says "Magic Attack" on weapons? For instance, my Crescent Falchion has modest physical attack stats, but the magic attack stat listed underneath has a different number.

At first, I thought it gave a boost to my spell damage, but I'm noticing the sword in general is a hard hitting weapon... I equipped the Magic Sword Motoko (unique katana), thinking it'd be an upgrade.. It had a base physical attack around 200 or something - yet my upgraded Falchion is better - even though it's physical attack is stated as being lower. Am I right to assume that "magic attack" contributes to it's physical abilities as well.

Hope I make sense..

Just for giggles, started up a Royal today instead of a Temple Knight.  Jesus christ Soul Arrow is cheating.  Though the rapier is obnoxious during the Phlanax fight.  I had to dance around and wait for Soul Arrow to regen, as opposed to my TK who just went in there and swung the halbred around a bunch toe to toe.

You should've gotten the scimitar (at least) in 1-1 so you wouldn't have to use the rapier.

I use firebombs on phalanx either way since you get about 12 and it's the only place they're useful in the whole thing.

Yeah, it is a bit easy... Though I've finally met my match in Garl Vinland.

I'm rolling a Knight now to get a better feel for the melee game. I'm sure I'll train magic, but not a bunch.

I'll try explaining, I hope my essay makes sense too, it's kind of complicated. It took me a bit of time to fully understand this:

When you look at the screen with the weapon description, you see three base numbers for damage. They usually look like X/Y/Z underneath each other. Those are the base numbers for melee/magic/fire damage the weapon does. Right next to each of those base numbers, you see a modifier, which can be either negative or positive. Negative modifiers usually mean you don't mee the minimum stat requirements. Now, looking at the complete damage table in the weapon description, you see something like:

Longsword

Melee Damage	80	+20
Magic Damage	0	0
Fire Damage	0	0

And below the damage tables, you see another table with 4 columns and letter ratings ranging from S to E or - (the progression is S-A-B-C-D-E or nothing), looking like this:

Strength	Dexterity	Magic	Faith
D	E	-	-

How do these work together? The bonus column in the weapon stat table (+20) is computed by multiplying your strength and dexterity ability scores according to the D and E modifiers. It means that this particular longsword will get a mediocre bonus from your strength score and a rather low bonus from your dex score. If a weapon is dependent on Magic/Faith, you will see attribute ratings of -/-/D/E for example, and those would increase the magic damage of the weapon, not the physical.

In addition to this, a weapon also has special attack rating values for Bleeding/Poison/Plague attacks .Those are the numbers you see somewhere in a separate row below the damage types - Makoto starts with a bleed attack rating of 320-something.

To make things even more complicated, "melee" damage can be of the slashing/piercing/crushing (blunt) variety. The types of phyisical damage correspond to the damage resistance types you see on armor.

And now it is time to compute the damage. Your weapon gets a "total attack" rating that you see in your "statistics" window - you should see 4 values there, 2 for the left hand, 2 for the right hand. That stat should be the sum of your modified melee damage (base + bonus from attributes) + magic damage (base+ bonus from attributes) + fire damage (I think there's no stat fire damage). For damage calculations, the damage is broken down into the individual components, and every component is processed against the appropriate defense of the target.

I don't know the percentages that defense values translate in, but I'll give a few easy examples using shields. Assuming a naked enemy with 0 defense and a Kite Shield with DamageCut% values of 100/30/70 (those represent melee/magic/fire damage resistances, and the third value is actually not displayed on the stat screen, you have to look that up in the Wiki item listings (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/shield)) and a weapon which does 100/100/100 damage, you will hit the blocking enemy for 0/70/30 = 100 total damage. 70 of those 100 damage came from your magic attack. If the enemy would have used a Purple Flame Shield (DmgCut% 100/30/90) instead, you would have hit for 0/70/10 = 80 total damage. Of course, the enemy will usually have melee/magic/fire defense values from armor or stats too, and those translate in additional resistance. The thing to notice here is that if you use a Crescent Weapon and hit a shield blocking enemy with a Kite Shield, 70% of your magic damage value will get through the shield. And this is why weapons with a high magic damage score are usually better than high physical damage weapons: melee resistances and melee block values on shields are a noticeably higher than the magic/fire counterparts. A weapon with 0/150/0 scores will usually hit for more than a 250/0/0 weapon.

Since you mentioned weapons that "boost" your spell damage, I think only the Krys Knife does this, and it's an inherent property. I don't know by what percentage though. Every other weapon where you'll see a "Magic Damage" value (Crescent, Blessed, Uniques) will function as a melee weapon. It's just a different damage type - think D&D with "Longsword does 1d6 physical + 1d6 magical damage".

The krys blade will also increase your spell damage more as you enchant it.  A +5 krys, ring of magical sharpness, insanity talisman, and monks headwrap is *FUN* (just don't get hit by any magic)

I am _really_ really bad about using consumables.  I keep throwing them into storage to save in case I really need them for some imaginary future fight.

I did pick up the scimitar in 1-1 (as well as some mail breakers and claymore/bastard sword).  The scimitar is okay, but I really wanted something with more range and didn't have the str for the claymore or bastard sword. 

Thanks Kageh.. More than helpful actually!  :grin: Interesting about the Krys Knife.. It's the only weapon like that?


Anyways, yeah, Vanguard goes down quick with firebombs.. Even quicker if you enchant turpentine too. I never used that shit ever on the previous character.. so like schild said, don't worry about those particular consumables (but worry about wasting ephmeral eyes..!  :grin: everything else is meant to be used - and liberally).

Always welcome, I was so confused by all the stats in the beginning myself, and the general GameFAQs explanations take some time to understand, glad I could help.

As for Krys equivalents, no weapons that I can think of, but there's the Ring of Magical Sharpness (stackable according to the Wiki) and the Monk's Headwrap/Insanity Catalyst that Nerf mentioned.

There's also Clever Rat's Ring, which increases attack power a lot when below 30% HP, but I don't think that works with magic.

P.S. Yay my US edition finally arrived!

OK ordered this sucker today from Play-Asia. Should be here Monday or Tuesday. Point me to the not-too-spoilerific newbie guiide.  :awesome_for_real:

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/

7 top left links.

A very useful wiki page I found today:

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/north-america-differences

Lots of web spoilers/guides will refer to the asian version, and the american one has had some (sometimes not so obvious) wording changes. This page lists them for reference. So if you read my references to DamageCut% and have no clue what I mean - I always wondered about the wording myself - it's because there actually used to be a stat called exactly that!

Kageh you sir are awesome.  Thanks for that writeup.

I think I finally may have burned out on this one.  Thank goodness.

If you burnt out before 60 hours, you're a bad person and likely a fan of small children.

I think I played 60 hours in the past 10 days.....

That sounds about right. 20 hours short, imo, but it'll do.

When is Borderlands released on PC? (at work, so can't check Steam)

There's a very good chance that Borderlands will unlock on the same day that this game arrives from HK...

 :drill: :awesome_for_real: :uhrr: :ye_gods:

4 days and like 17 hours. Doesn't matter since you won't be able to download it.  :oh_i_see:

Kind of in the same boat. I'm not exactly burned out yet.. I should probably at least complete the story with my first character before jumping into another. I just feel like I've hit a wall trying to be too hybrid. Garn (sp) Vinland is too tough at this point.

Hmm, if I got black world tendency and got his sister's sword, I might beat the shit out of him.

About 8 days on the korean version here. Talk about longevity!

Here's what I do for beating Garl (as melee or ranged) :

1.) Lure him out from the plague mud, kite him upwards on the left side until he gets stuck at about midway to the exit in that tunnel-like portion under a couple rocks, and from there cautiously step towards him until he lowers his shield to attack. After dodging or stepping back to evade the attack, you have time for about 2 hits, after which you should quickly back away, rinse repeat. If you are using melee, grab your weapon with two hands and don't worry about using a shield, you should be able to easily dodge his attacks by rolling back since they are slow. Should he heal, just keep going, you'll win eventually. If you're still on first difficulty setting, a "regular" hit should not kill you. Just remember two-hand grip for the weapon since I believe he cannot parry those. He parried/counterattacked me a few times when using weapons one-handed, and that means one-shot kill.

2.) Apparently, if you somehow manage to kill Astraea before killing him (only possible via ranged/magic), and reload your game, he will suicide, simply leaving his loot on the floor. The problem is getting close enough to Astraea to shoot, and doing more damage than she heals.

Friend of mine is going to pre-download Borderlands on his Lappy, and I'll just transfer it over to my steam account tomorrow.  :awesome_for_real:  :heart:


In other news, my Play-Asia order (with DS in it) is now:
Estimated shipping date: On or before Nov 06, 2009
 :uhrr:  :heartbreak:

Yeah, it was a lot easier this time. I kind of did the above before, but what psyched me out is that he ran to Astraea last time when low on health and got fully healed. This time, I just patiently beat his ass and he stayed put.

The key to Garl (and really everything in this game) is to be patient.  If you try to get that extra hit in you will get killed.  Keep your shield up and choose your attacks wisely and you will be rewarded.

This is very good advice. I cant count how many times I died cause I got cocky or tried to fit in just one extra swing.

Man, I really liked those two characters (Garl and Astraea). Sad to see them go. Heh..

The only problem with this game is, I don't exactly get to know these characters much. In some ways, this game feels like just a combat system (albeit, a good one), not an RPG. Just about finished with it.. and I still need a proper "epic story" fix.

It has an epic story, it's just your characters and they don't spell it all out.

He means he wants the gray areas colored in for him.

Don't say that. It makes me think Stray is one of those people that likes lolcats.

Demon's Souls has a fantastic story, but it's using a language almost entirely native to video games to tell that story: the world around you and your time spent in it.

Eventually, I am either going to go crazy or the game is going to manage to beat the stupid out of me.   You'd think I'd know better by now than to go running into a new area carrying more souls than I'd  want to lose but NOPE.

What's wrong with lolcats anyways?   :oh_i_see:



Umm, don't get me wrong.. It just feels empty outside of the great gameplay. I happen to like RPG's with a bunch of adventure elements. I'm not asking for Shenmue or anything either, but this was pretty sparse. While I enjoyed it, I'm still looking forward to some of the more traditional rpgs that'll be on the system (although, I must say it's been way too long of a wait). This doesn't exactly scratch that itch.

It's not.

At first it does a little, but then you dig in to it, and actually listen to what the NPCs have to say, and it is much deeper.

I didn't say the game is empty, just in case I came off that way. Just that it feels empty outside of gameplay/combat. I've dug into it as much as I have - and I don't see what's so deep about it. It's interesting, but it's not deep. What story elements that are there are cool - the whole Demon soul thing is cool, the Monumentals are cool, Blacksmith Ed is cool.. Garn and Astraea were cool.. but it's like they're all little cockteases at the same time. I don't get enough of it. The priority it puts on story is closer to an action title, or even an arcade game. That's all fine and good, but I expect more from an RPG. I like to meander about, I like tons of sidequests, or bullshitting with NPC's about minor events in the game, or dialogue with party members, or bosses really laying out what the fuck is on their mind, etc., etc.. Here, I'm lucky to get a dozen NPC's talking - and even when they do, they've got little to say. Their scripts just putter out and start repeating themselves.

Luckily, the gameplay is just that engrossing to cover up for it. But it'd be nice if had more to flesh it out. That's all I'm saying.

How about you tell us what you think the story is and we'll flesh out the rest of it for you. Assuming you've finished the game.

I have two or three stages left. What I gather from the story is that there's some evil entity (forgot his name) responsible for the fog that the monumentals have been keeping in check.. apparently, the king of boletaria fucked shit up or something, opened pandora's box, dabbled with demon magic, and that's what brought the fog back. A bunch of knights and heroes entered the fog to try to put an end to it.. and you're one of them. Except, not really, I guess. You don't have to be. You can be an opportunist, and just end up like Yurt or Patches too. Other than that, there's the "grey" elements to the story.. like the Witch, the Maiden, and the Sage, who try to walk a fine line and balance demon magic in a less malignant way.. and there's also Urbain and his religious faction who are completely against magic. And I don't even know wtf Astraea's deal was. Seemed like she got too close for comfort, and became a demon herself in some kind of.. harmless way, I guess. Garn seemed devoted to her, so he followed suit. You kill him nonetheless because you need the phat lootz.

If there's something that completely unravels all of that, feel free to tell me.

I like this.

She sold her soul when the demons came, so she can stay there with the sick and diseased and tend to them. However, the whole world is perverted and going to hell, and she isn't going to change that by hanging out longer in the mud with bloody fetuses. The Valley of Defilement isn't like it should be, it's the same twisted variant that has also happened to Boletaria or Stonefang, for example. You're there to fight the demons, and she's one of them.

BIG STORY/ENDING SPOILER:


I'll do a complete story write-up today for Stray and whoever is interested.

Now I find myself seriously considering Phalanx's motivations and back story.  Thanks, fuckers.

Demon's Souls has an amazing setting. It does not have much story to speak of.

I got a chance to play this at a friends house, it smacked us all around like little bitches and made us ask for more.

That's all I mean basically. I'm not really holding that against it too much. I mean, I'd say the same for Soul Calibur too.. Yet, I love SC. I just expect more from an RPG.

You are making terrible comparisons and only doing so because Demon's Souls doesn't spell it all out for you.

What you really want to say is "I don't get it, HALP" not "The story isn't thick, but that's fine, rationalize rationalize rationalize"

So, I'm probably 13-14 hours in at this point in the american version. I started off as Royalty, and I'm hovering around soul level 40-50ish at this point. I cheesed out the dragon on 1-2, got the Purple Flame Shield, and that's sitting at around +5 right now. I also have a Winged Spear upgraded to a Moon Winged Spear +2 or +3 at this point. I read up on world tendencies, and got world 2 to Pure Black, got myself a Talisman of the Beast, and then made it Pure White by finishing off the 2-2 boss. I have a Compound Long Bow upgraded to a Sticky Compound Long Bow +3 (used to be Viscous).

At this point, I still don't quite understand it. Most of the stuff I've been learning has been through someone mentioning it online, or in a FAQ, and then going and checking it out ingame. This game is fighting my impatience every step of the way. Every time I'm impatient even just a little bit, I step on an arrow trap without being in the right spot, or a skeleton will get some jab in or something.

I'm sure schild's argument of 'LOL UR BAD' sounds right, but I don't feel like I'm bad at the game. I'm getting the hang of dodging around, using melee, archery and spells all in combination, swapping rings, and so on. If I get impatient on a fight, like with a Black Skeleton, he'll skewer me. I haven't had a problem with any of the bosses I've fought so far on this character. I'm starting to actually be able to kill some of the crystal geckos now.

I've heard people talk about how they purposely used archaic game mechanics in certain points, just because they could. I don't know - I'm a pretty impatient gamer overall, but I'm still sticking with this game (at least until next Tuesday, I hope to beat it this weekend). I'm basically just riding on people's recommendations for DS at this point, but maybe my mind is too broken for this game.

No. I said what I wanted to say. And I get it. Why do you need to attribute some other motivation? I'm only criticizing it's lack of story elements and limited interaction with NPC's. Don't act like the the RPG world has changed and all of the sudden this is the norm. It's not.

Yet that IS fine to a point. I'm not rationalizing anything. If a game plays as good as this one, I'm not going to hate it - I mean, I'm glad it's not, like.. Oblivion or some shit. Which in a way is like it's direct opposite. Oblivion is pretty dense when it came to sidequests and npc interaction, but in the end, not fun to me at all. The combat was complete trash, and no amount of story or flare was going to make me forgive it. Plus, everyone's face looks like ass in those games. Even shit like that spoils it for me. So in the end, I'm glad this game had none of those problems.

I started on US DS yesterday and finally beat tutorial Vanguard (Yay!) - and with a barbarian, too! Found no Gripless anywhere in the tutorial (Boo!), and, I kid you not, died a grand total of about 10 times on the fire sword dreglings because someone in game design thought it is cool to give the barbarian class a shield with zero fire defense because HE HAS ABSOLUTEDLY NO ARMOR, HE WOULDN'T MISS IT ANYWAY HURHURHURRR!

I think there is a lot of story which you can - for lack of a better word - figure out in DS. Finding the story involves talking to NPCs, examining items for their descriptions, read the archstone details when zoning in. If you look for story in the rather obvious places (books, journals, in-game movies, quests), there's probably not much there - but I think it is a design decision: Story is woven in in a subtle manner, and much of it is left for the reader/player to figure out.

Item descriptions and NPC dialogue in the Nexus are the places to start looking for story there.

I've gathered the story from just all that.. I get it, it's subtle. The point is, I want more. I like what I see.. I'd just like to see more. The game deserves it.

For instance, tell me who the fuck the "Big M" is (on the hands of God description). Or maybe I'd just like to see Blacksmith Ed in a scripted event, kicking someone's ass. Boldwin goes on about what a beast that dude is.. But in practice, he's just a static vendor NPC.

Good point there, regarding "Big M". Especially since he had the Hands of "God". There are a few mentions similar to that, which are not followed up on (I now remember Istarelle reading something similar about an uber knight). Although I haven't wasted too much thought on those, since there was plenty of other stuff to think about in the main game. Which is a sign of good story, to me. I liked how every main character was explained in some way and fitted in in the general story. And how the general story all made sense at the end - even including the "evil" actions like the Astraea killing.

You need a decent bow, but yeah you can kill Astraea first.  Start out by going around the right side of the valley, you will see Garn moving closer to Astraea from across the river.  Then go back around to the entry point and follow the left side.  This will take you all the way to within bowshot of Astraea.  I killed her with Sticky Compound +4, which I will say isn't that hard to get; only because I am the dying champ at this game, and I have one.  It does seem like a cheese maneuver, but so does getting Garn stuck on a rock so who am I to judge.

You can kill her with the lava bow, white bow, or any bow with decent range just by standing on the right side and shooting down.

Does DS US version have one of those large day-1 PS3 patches/updates?

Not that I have seen.

I don't recall any patching of any kind with the US edition.

Looks like I'll be playing this for a week or so instead of Clownshoes Borderlands while they get it's shit together anyway.

Finally got the game the other day.

Started by making a priest, did not understand why this big guy named Vanguard would one shot me. Proceeded to 1-1, got rolled numerous time by the blue knight, and also once by the red knight for giggles, at least I learned that when the message "Begginers should come back here later" is put somewhere you can trust it.

I then managed to easily kill Phalanx.

Yesterday I rerolled knight cause I better like sword, and managed to finish 1-1 completly, but I did not find the thief ring tho? I spoke to that knight needing my help and I though the ring was meant to be in this area.

A few questions,

I want to get that purple flame shield, but I'm too scared to go roost stealing cause I'm sure I'll get killed a few times, so my understanding is that if I kill the red dragon in 1-2, it won't be at the roost if I get back. I tried to throw some bolts to it but it made like 7 damage that'd take some time to kill the bastard, I just looted the compound bow but I did not try using that, shall I wack arrows at him for 20min or should I just attempt to steal at roost when he's there?

After having read a bit, apparently armor is pretty useless and being able to dodge efficiently is better, my question is where can I find a light armor easily to replace my flute armor?

It's on the ledge where that knight spawns. You have to jump down from above, right before the room with the exploding barrels.

Might as well kill him asap. Crossbow, bow or soul arrow+fragrant ring. Yeah, it takes 20 minutes. You could wait until you're halfway through the game and are more powerful, but it will probably take you 5 minutes even then. Do it for the easier 1-x movement, roost treasure and bunch of souls.

If you're a female, there's Ragged Armor in 1-1. Look well. If you're male, 3-1 is probably your best bet for Black Leather.

I tried the soul arrow route and couldn't really get the hang of it.  Much easier to get a bow, upgrade it to +2 or so, and then camp out on top of the tower and ping him for a few minutes.   

Bow is by far the easiest to execute, but soul arrow is the first viable option if you are a royal, as you don't have the stats for a bow.

No point upgrading it for this purpose though. It's like 50 arrows vs 60 arrows.

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll get that red dragon then :)

Killing the dragon with soul arrow is actually trivially easy, you just have to start firing before you lock him.  Get your timing down and you'll be 1/2-3/4 of the way through casting before he's in range and lockable, your spell will nail him, then rinse/repeat.  Takes forever on a brand new character, fragrant ring doesn't regen fast enough :(

Or you can just position the camera correctly and learn when to cast unlocked. It's not like it's hard, but there's still more of a "trick" to it than simply shooting it with a bow.

Where do you get this fragrant ring (which I presume is restoring your MP)?

You start with it as a Royal, otherwise you have to go hunt for it:

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/rings

This is my one real gripe with the game. Compared to the weapons the armor feels forgotten. No one really uses it, and it makes so little difference.

Your first go around, I'd say it does help (I notice the difference between my TK and my Royal getting pegged).  But either way, you still end up better off just using a shield and learning how to use it properly.  I _really_ wish they had made armor a lot cooler in the game, but instead, it starts off marginally useful and from everything I've read, devalues fairly rapidly.

The stupid fucking "haha you can't see anything because you have a huge orange tornado on your head' mage hat is pretty damned useful.

The *easiest* way to get this (and all of the other items there) is to just wait till your world tendency shifts white.  When its white there are NO dragons there and you can loot everything.  You should be able to pretty easily get white just by killing phalanx and the tower knight.  Then just roll back and leisurely pickup the goods at the roost (there's more that opens up if you are white but...).

That female armor in 1-1 is useful for its resists in the Valley of Defilement.  When I played with other people in 5-1 they were always afraid of the rats but I would roll around and hug them plague free.

http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4901

HEROES OF BOLETARIA, BE WARNED:
THE OLD ONE'S POWER WILL GROW ON ALL HALLOW'S EVE
If you opt to play Demon's Souls online on Halloween, quest with caution...

So sounds like they are flipping all the worlds pure black on Halloween.  Sounds fun.

That's cool, saves me some ephemeral eye stones if they would do that. Now I have to go level my melee guy. Again!

I love Atlus press releases.

After 70 arrows, a bunch of soul arrows and a few bolts, I finally managed to kill the red dragon! Yay me..

Got the winged spear and shield now, ready to get rolled by tower knight. Is it safe for me to upgrade the winged spear to my heart contents? Or should I be switching to another weapon relatively soon, I'm a melee character with just basic magic.

If you are a melee guy, look the branching pahts up for Quality/Sharp (Sharp needs to be done at +0, Quality is +3) depending on how much STR/DEX you plan to have.

If you aim for moderate magic (and not want to stay at "low"), I think the "Moon" variant is your best bet.

For "pure" melee, check out other weapons too, especially the ones with "arc attacks" (large swords/katanas mainly), because there are fights where target locking is not an option. Plus an AOE option is always a plus.

Having my ass handed back to me against tower knight, trying to fight it in melee but having a hard time dodging the shield, any tips at all or should I not bother and go range?

Ranged is pretty easy against him, as long as you have minimum magic and can cast soul arrow, you could try shooting at him from the parapets. Just bring a couple spices with you because you most likely will need to refill mana.

Melee isn't that hard once you get the hang of his movement patters. You need to stack close to his ankles and *behind* him. When he starts turning, disengage target lock (if you have it engaged) and sprint around to the back, or sprint between his legs to get on his back side again. Sprinting between the legs is very easy because you don't need to run huge arcs and it is safe, but you have to learn to disengage target lock fast, otherwise you keep circle strafing him and that isn't fast enough. If you manage to stay behind him, you only need to watch his ground stomp, which isn't that much of a problem even if it hits you. Keep biting his ankles and once he falls (usually signaled by the amount of steam venting out of his armor) move a bit to the side so he doesn't catch you underneath him. Lock on his head and smack him for all your stamina. Depending on your level, you will probably need to tackle him 2-3 times to finish him.

He's a very intimidating opponent, but when you figure out how to keep running between his legs so he can't shield bash you, he starts getting pretty easy.

If you don't have a magic weapon yet, you can try getting the crescent falchion at 4-1 (you just need fight your way through a few skeletons and pick it up from the ground), it makes most of the early fights a *lot* easier. It's going to help a lot against the bosses in 2-1 and 2-2, if you haven't killed those yet.

Dive in straight at his feet and try to get behind him as quickly as possible.  Also, if you have turpentine it can add a little extra damage to him to help you out.  If you get hit you can always run up and heal out of sight of his ray.

For those having issues in the worlds being PBT durring the event, it's apparently due to the online system shifting it back towards PWT.  You can resolve it by logging out and back into your game a few times (took me 3 or 4 tries).

In other news the Miralda fight proved me to just how useless armor was as she was one-shoting my TK.  After trying to fight her naked with him for awhile, I realized that the halberd was just not going to pass muster, so I switched over to my much better geared Royal and proceeded to crush crush crush her.   

finally managed to down the Tower Knight, after what must have been something like 10 trys.
I noticed you can't continue in 1-3 then cause the gate is cosed because I did not kill the archdemon? I proceeded with 2-1.

Yes, you need to kill one of the "Archdemons" - one of the 2-3, 3-3, 4-3 or 5-3 bosses - to get past the 1-3 gate fog. 2-3 Dragon God is usually the easiest boss at this point.

So I've killed that spider boss in 2-1 and then continued on my journey, noticed that suddently I barely scratch mobs, is that normal? I'm using the winged spear +3, and those lava larva mobs or worm thing that pops out of the ground need quite a beating to die. Also I met a friendly guy that I can barely scratch as well and who throws me huge fireball that hurts plenty.

Shall I proceed with 3-1 or is this level supposed to be that hard? I mean with the number of larva and worms around it'll take me age to go thru there.

The bearbugs are immune to most physical damage. You need magic based weapons to hit them, at this point this means either "crescent" or "blessed" ones, "moon" or "dragon" variety comes into play later. There's a crescent falchion on the ground at 4-1, and a blessed mace on the ground at 5-1. The falchion is the easiest to reach.

You could just as well ignore the bearbugs really, there's not much they drop (greystone splinters/chunks only I think) that you would need. Run past them and ignore them, and return later when you got a good magic weapon to wreck havoc.

The fireball guy is probably Black Phantom Scirvir, easiest tactic against him is to equip a purple flame shield and keep sidestepping his magic, he runs out of mana eventually and then he is an easy kill.

If you're having a hard time in 2-2, I'd say 3-1 is a tad more dangerous because you'll meet really nasty spellcasting/ranged stuff. 4-1 is probably easier for a melee fighter than 3-1 for leveling and grinding, because the enemies there are mostly melee.

Okay, so I wanted to try to get that magic falchion, I get to 4-1 and apparently right at the entrance there is a black phantom which takes ages to kill and heal himself to full mid fight. It's not an hard fight but very long. Apparently its because im Pure black tendancy cause of the halloween event? weird, anyway I'm not sure I can get past this guy without a magic weapon.

Yes, the Halloween event can make that black phantom appear at the beginning of 4-1.  If world tendency's haven't been reset then grab the mace in 5-1 Kageh mentioned.  I used that for a long time.

is the mace easy to find? I started 5-1 already died a few times and was just wondering ;)

The guy at the start of 4-1 is Satsuki in black phantom form, I forgot about the pure black WTs now at Halloween. Aren't they shifting back to neutral again?

5-1 mace is somewhere on those endless scaffoldings, this is the best I can offer for a map:

http://www.geocities.jp/kouryakubo/ds/chart/chart025.html

The mace is at point 11 (yeah, I'm not kidding, this is how 5-1 looks).

That map brings back painful memories.  I think I figured out the mace path based on the map. 

One thing to note. I believe the Crescent Falchion is guarded by a Black Uchigatana Skeleton. That could be pretty rough for a new player.

True, but you don't need to kill it, just pick the Falchion up and run away or die would do. The problem is that on PBWT there's at least Satsuki and a BP golden  skeleton on the stairs to fight through, and the BP skel is almost as much a pain as Satsuki.

Easiest route is probably to wait until the worlds drift back to white WT. Not sure how/when that will start. I checked over the weekend for online play, but my worlds were only reset to neutral, not PB. Do I need to do something specific?

I remember putting down a sniper's perch note on the spot where the archer skeleton stands on the first set of stairs in 4-1, and I think I did that because I sniped at the skeleton guarding the Falchion.  I could be mistaken.  My brain is still reeling from the deaths I suffered in 4-2.

You have to log in and out of the server a few times to kick it fully over to PBWT.  It apparently has something to do with the online drift towards white as people kill the demons and such.

Thanks guys, I'll get that damned mace I swear. I met my first giant goblin in 5-1 and he handed my ass back to me, but I'll get it sometimes.

Also I was wondering, for a melee char, what weapon do you focus on upgrading?

For a regular str/dex melee guy, probably Quality Knight Sword and a good shield. If you have high magic, Moon Winged Spear or the Moon Broadsword. High wisdom, anything Blessed.

I usually pick either Crescent Falchion or Blessed Mace and stick with them.

Things that I tried and which were also nice: Upgraded "Gripless"/"Hiltless", Meat Cleaver - although so slow it is a real PITA to use, Moon Kilij - awesome animations and attack speed, the flame rapier from 3-1 (forgot the name). Not to forget a good bow is half the win if you know how to snipe!

Things that I was disappointed with: most uniques, the extra large swords - too slow the arc of attack is too large for narrow corridors, rapiers in general - hit box too narrow and target lock is almost always needed, crossbows - no stat scaling.

But all of that pales if you want to bother with getting pure white character tendency, because you can then use Demonbrandt which you get from Old King Doran in 1-1, after you reach Ostrava at 1-4 (it sounds complicated but once you meet Ostrava at 1-4 you'll know what I mean). I think at about 60% white character tendency, which you can get for killing 3 named NPC BPs, Demonbrandt outdamages pretty much everything in that level range. And once you finish the game and can fuse Demonbrandt and Soulbrandt to form North Regalia, it gets even better.

I went with the Uchigatana as my main weapon. They are really nasty if you plan on going with a decent amount of Dex.

My character concept was sort of a ninja I guess. I used the Uchigatana and the Lava bow with only a small amount of magic, namely for Light Wepaons and anti magic field for PVP. I also use the Dark Silver Shield, as being anti magic, thats what hurt me a lot.

In the Asian game a lot of the PKs where magic users. It was really funny to have one invade come running up and not be able to cast and just stand there as I rip them apart. A +5 Tearing Uchigatana with Light Weapon enchant can kill another player around level 200 with one backstab.

In general I like my halberd because of the different types of attacks it has.  The one-hand attack has good range and sweep while switching to two-hands lets me slash downward and out which is great in tight spaces or for geckos.  The strong attack on each is like an aoe. 

The most disappointing has been the Hand of God.  Cool name, cool description, cool strength and faith combo.  But the damage just isn't there and there is no range or downward attack.  However the left hand parry and headbutt knockdowns are cool.

I found the Uchigatana required a lot of repairs.  Personally, I prefer the good old Quality Winged Spear for a weapon.  Seems to do the trick in most instances and you get the added benefit of being able to attack while your shield is up.

My path through the worlds is typically as follows:  1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 3-1, 5-1, 5-2, 5-3, 2-2, 2-3, 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 3-2, 3-3, 1-4
I found this to be easiest for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it allows you to power up for maneater and flamelurker, two of the harder bosses, IMO.  I also recommend doing level 3-3 offline the first time, as you never really know what you're going to go up against with the online version of the fight.

I wanted to play a bit on line yesterday, and decided to help people with Flamelurker. So, I put my blue stone at 2-2 entrance, get summoned a few times, here's the rundown:

1.) First guy goes straight right and starts aggroing every miner with his flaming longsword of crap, doing about 20 damage on each hit. We get swarmed by the miners, I die. I get a rating of "D"
2.) Second guy summons me, takes a right, runs through, falls down the pit in the wrong place. I get a "D" rating, again.
3.) Third guy is in full brushwood (I assume at level 30-odd), but we make it to Flamelurker. He tanks - manages not to die - we kill him, I get an "A" - yay me.
4.) This is guy no. 1.) again - takes a right, aggroes every miner. We kill them, he takes a plunge in the pit, dies. I get a "D" again!

So right now, if you summon me, I suck!

I think I'm a magic user technically, but curious if I could get taken out easily with a katana like that. I haven't dealt with PK's yet. Maybe soon though now that the game has been out (haven't logged in lately).

But anyhow, I'm still magic, but I've got Vinland's shield and wear half plate/half cloth. Need a little more END, but atm, I'd rather half-ass the armor so I can dodge and roll better. I'd turn on the total protection spell to make up for it.

Speaking of weapons, the Crescent Falchion is a godsend for a hybrid character like mine. It hits hard and fast. I get a lot of use out of it even as a mage, but in PvP, I'm sure my first choice would be plague or firestorm. :grin:

Just FYI, if you mean the Dark Silver Shield, that works like the ring of magical dullness. So while it has fantastic magic protection, it also reduces the damage you do with magic. Might want to look at the Purple Flame Shield.

Put your stone down outside Flamelurker's room instead of the entrance then.  That way at least only the tards who can actually make it down there can summon you.

Atlus just posted this up:

Dearest Customers,

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve received reports from owners of the Deluxe Edition of Demon’s Souls that some copies of the Official Strategy Guide were experiencing unusual cover ink wear/fading.

While it seems that not every copy of the guide is affected, and the specific cause of the issue remains unclear, Atlus always strives for nothing less than the full satisfaction of our customers. Therefore, we will soon launch a program to replace defective strategy guides.

Stay tuned for details on when the program will begin and specific steps on how to submit your replacement request. We can say at this time that we will ask customers to mail in their cover and the first page of their guide as proof of purchase, leaving them with a usable book while we process their replacement claim. Full instructions will be posted next week.

Thank you for supporting us and making Demon’s Souls such a big hit. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused, but fear not: we’ve got you covered (pun intended).

This message is also posted in the Atlus forums http://atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5072

I have the purple flame shield too. Actually that was my main shield. Thanks for the heads up though.

I'll reroll my melee guy because I made a few mistakes and now that I'm more confident I'd like to restart.
I'm planning on full melee and only get Evacuate because its a nice spell.

I'm going to get the purple flame shield(Would there be an alternative to the purple flame shield?) with the winged spear, upgrade it to quality eventually. As for magic weapon either the falchion or the blessed mace, the mace seems to be better for full melee type since it has a moderate bonus from str/dex. I'll be using the Black Leather armor for freedom of movement and of course the Compound long bow for ranged fighting.


Thing I'm not too sure about is stat distribution, I'd like to not waste too many points in stuff that's not really usefull. Also I want to put some point in luck since 7 is quite low for my taste. Shall I focus on str/dex, or mainly str and a bit of end/vit or any other combination? What is a good value for luck? I'd like some advice on this please!

A good value for luck is the minimum value.

Almost every drop that matters is unaffected by luck. You could make a case for stones I suppose, but you'd need a serious amount of stone drops to make up for all those wasted stats. Resists are better handled with gear.


If I was making a pure melee character I'd probably just pump either str or dex to 99, adding in vitality as needed to avoid oneshots.

Well since I'm planning to go for at least a few trophies I'll need to farm quite a few stones, so luck will come into play. I don't plan to put too many points in it tho. Also I found myself often out of herbs cause I had a serious case of suckage and apparently luck helps with herbs drops so it can't hurt either, it's souls not spent stupidly on healing item.

One more question since I'm thinking about getting the meat cleaver, I noticed it can be made from several weapons. For example if I make it from a club can it be 1hand? On wiki it is listed as 2h-Blunt.

The only stone that you really need luck to farm for, and even then is an unbelievable PITA, is the perfect Bladestone, which only drops from the dual katana skeletons/BP dual katana versions AFAIK. Other stones you'll have plenty of after a playthrough.

I've read horror stories from people with luck in the 30s using Sword of Searching and in PBWT, needing hundreds of tries for a perfect bladestone, so I'm not sure how luck comes into play really. 7 is usually enough for most things.

Starting item doesn't affect final item.  Use the item with the cheapest upgrade path unless you are using a particular item you like as you upgrade.

About the stat distribution: if you use North Regalia, you don't need STR/DEX, and you have lots of points left for Vitality. Endurance should be at 40 for maximum stamina, everything above that is good for wearing heavy equipment and still being able to dodge. Tower shield is the best melee shield for example, but it weighs 30 pounds.

Farming herbs is very easy once you unlock 1-3 and 1-4 archstones. 1-3 has the two blue eye knights which both drop at least 2 herbs each, 1-4 has the 3 red eye knights, each of those is usually 3 herbs minimum.

Ok thanks for the advice, I'll use a great club for the meat cleaver since I have two.

Also was wondering something about the One Time Revival spell, if I understand correctly If I die I get auto-rezzed. But is there a chance I can directly die again since I was fighting something?

Also had a funny moment today, was just restarting 4-1 and killing the few skeletons at the begining, after killing the first archer I pulled a skeleton up near the stone arch, he proceeded to come rolling at me, went mental and rolled around fast. Then he proceeded to fall from the cliff an die. I did not even have to hit it once, made me chuckle.

Reading from the net, one-time revival acts like an additional buffer the size of your maximum HP. So if you have 1000 HP and something hits you for 1500, you will insta-revive with 500 HP and can be killed again. You can recast it and it lasts indefinitely though.

Was a good afternoon, I killed Adjudicator, really an easy fight when you know where to hit  :uhrr:
Then I proceeded with 4-1 and right at the archstone there was a blue mark so I decided to summon him, the guy had really nice feedback and kicked ass, I pretty much followed him and he would do all the work I just had to loot stuff.
He had the Adjudicator's shield and a two handed miridian hammer of kick serious ass. I think it must have been dragon because the zombies or whatever guy there would explode after one hit, I had not enough time to do anything.

After that he proceeded to hand back leechmonger's ass back to him in 30sec or something like that, I was impressed thanks to him anyway (LEDMirage or something can't remember)

What is a good weapon to transform into Dragon for 5-2 and 5-3?

Why not just use the Dragon Long sword you picked up from 2-2?  IIRC it starts at +2.

That being said, I found the fire to not be worth it for the 5's.  I ended up using my long sword of searching (since my str / dex were both 35 already) and was significantly more effective.

Well I'm afraid of Flamelurker because all I heard is people dying against it, so I can't get special weapons yet. That said I killed it as a phantom on the first try but the guy with who I was with did not seem to get hurt by him at all.

Also being a full melee character I figured having a bad ass fire weapon for 5 would not hurt, for the boss neither. Two handing a dragon miridian hammer or something in this area should do quite a bit of damage.

I used an upraded Crescent Falchion (+4, chunks all got through farming 4-2 reaper and 4-x geckos) throughout most of 5-x and 2-x for my dex melee character, works great. For dragon weapon, I made a Dragon Mirdan Hammer too. The longsword from 2-2 that Lounge mentioned starts at +1 and is a decent alternative.

The big bonus of dragon weapons against most mobs is the stagger animation when they burn, it is very powerful when combined with a fast swing weapon, as you can keep them incapacitated as long you have stamina. That said, it's not really that important against 5-x mobs, even though strategy guides keep pushing that.

I can't seem to find Yuria the Witch. I have the key and can get in the small tower in 1-3 where she is supposed to be, I know I must don the fat hat but I can't get on top of the tower, if I get into I can climb to the third floor inside and I'm stuck in a dead end. Where is that raised stair case supposed to be ?

Do you have the correct key? The key that drops in 1-3 opens up the dungeon where the locked up Biorr in 1-2 (In the cellar of the small tower right before Tower Knight), and the fat minister that you kill in there drops the key that will open the door to Yuria's tower in 1-3.

The hat drops from the fat minister right behind the portcullis in 1-3 (the one that flees and lowers the gate in the cutscene as you approach him at the beginning of 1-3). You have to complete nearly all of 1-3 to get to him, since killing him allows you to free Ostrava and activate the level shortcut to Penetrator.

Once you have the hat and the key (I think it's "Bloody iron key" for Yuria's tower), climb inside the tower until you're stuck at the apparent end of the stairs, and you'll hear the fat minister above chuckle. If you have the hat equipped, he will lower a stair so you can get up to him. You know it is the right tower because you a.) can hear him laughing and b.) the "Ring of the Accursed" or something like that is on a corpse at the end of the stairs.

A small note about the minister's hat - he killed me at the same time I killed him.  I saw the glowing orb drop as I died which was his hat but when I respawned and made it back to the gate the orb was no longer there.  I died again trying to make my way through the level and when I got to the gate again the orb was back.

It's okay, I found the witch finally. Its weird because the first time I did not hear the minister chuckle at all so it did not peak my interest.

Also killed Flamelurker first try but I must confess I read the boss strategy and was well perpared (water veil, flame resist ring and purple flame shield) the boss barely makes any damage with this combination (I mean its flame attack maybe removes 1 silver of life). Then proceeded with Dragon god which was surprinsgly easy.

Meat Cleaver really rock, I love the weapon.

I am having serious connection troubles on the US servers, ever since the game launched. I log in fine, but there are no bloodstains, messages or white ghosts, and multiplaying does not work. The usual symptom is that the SELECT button is not coming up with the "Write message" dialog. The really annoying part is that nothing short of endless attempts at re-starting the game fixes it. Sometimes I also log in and am connected, just to randomly lose the online part during the game, without the game noticing. And it's not the kind of connection loss that throws you out of the game, you can go on playing all day long except that you are actually off-line.

I assume it's due to capacity shortage with the game being so popular. There's a pretty long thread in the Atlus forums about the problem, with zero official responses. The server upgrades they performed didn't really help with the problem so far.

I checked with the asia version in the meantime, and multiplayer works flawlessly there. Which also confirms that it's not a network issue on my end. If Atlus doesn't get their stuff together I'll sell the US copy and go back to the JP servers. Not being able to multiplay takes a lot of the fun out of DS  :sad_panda:

That's terrible.  If there was no online integration with Demon's Souls then it would be a totally different game and I wouldn't like it nearly as much as I do.  The only online issue I have had is occasionally getting booted off of PSN while playing but I can log right back in and all the online components work fine.

I have no connection problem at all from Switzerland. I never had any disconnection during gameplay only once I had to log in to psn twice

For those interested in sales numbers, Demon's Souls came in at #11 on the NPD charts for October with around 150,000 copies sold.

Pure white world tendency event from the 21st to the 27th!

Its good to see they're still playing attention to this game, now if they'll only activate the 6th archstone.

Yes, been lookwing forward to this as I have a character in NG with whom I fucked up getting a pure greystone in World 2, and I don't feel like killing Flamelurker in NG+ just yet  :grin:

As for the sixth archstone, don't get your hopes high up on that. IMO it just never made it into the final game. The weird part is that, for a game which is so tightly polished and pays a lot of attention to details, they didn't bother to remix/cut the intro video where the monumental mentions SIX archstones. That would have taken what, 2 minutes?

Ah well, we can still wish for it.

But I mean, you can see the destroyed archstone with the other archstones. Like, someone can fix it, right? right?!

I bought this game back when it came out and something happened my live that has kept me from playing it.  Last night I finally was able to play for a bit, but I'm just a little lost with all the classes.  Is there any of the classes that is better suited for newbie players?  Any other basic, non-spoiler tips you can think of?

It's all mainly just a set of starting equipment and stats, so technically speaking, anything can eventually become anything else.  That said, the easiest way to go is to start as  Royal.

Classes pretty much mean nothing, but Royals have the best start due to starting with a spell and an MP regen ring. Really just choose the class you like the look of most, as after about five hours of play you have the ability to access everything every class starts with.

I think royal/templar are the easier classes, depending on whether you favor magic or melee style play. Royal is easy-mode for a starting wizard (compared to the mage) because he gets the better spell and the mana regen ring. Templar gets the best starting armor - which at that point of the game makes a lot of difference - a decent weapon (halberd) and a self heal.

I usually start as templar and modify from there.

I had to break it down in a spreadsheet.  If you want a caster type go Royal.  If you want a pure melee with the least points "wasted" in caster skills or luck the temple knight is the best.

Like the previous posts say, Royal is probably the best to start with since they have both mana regen and soul arrow.  Or you could do like me and start with a sink-or-swim class like the Thief.  You learn how to dodge, parry, and backstab damn quick with that one.  I'm guessing barbarian is also hard-mode.

Barbarian was really hard for me. I started my first US char as a barbarian, after quite a bit of experience with the asian version, and the fact that you start with ZERO armor and an awfully bad shield made me die many painful deaths. 80% damage reduction on block is dangerous when you haven't even got Cling Ring yet, and 10% against fire means every flaming sword dregling at the bottom of the guard tower can usually one-shot you.

I started Wanderer (I hadn't read any threads on it yet.)  It was tough, but after playing Captain Lemming for a couple days I started learning.

Gamespot names Demon's Souls their game of the year. (http://www.gamespot.com/best-of/game-of-the-year/index.html?page=2)

They got it right, for the first time ever. Bravo, Gamespot.

How does this make you feel?

Edit: Even better is that MW2 didn't make their editorial picks.

The sixth archstone was removed from the dialogue in the reprinted version. The broken pillar is still there, but no mention of it.

Edit: It's still in the Monumentals dialogue, but he speaks of the past.

The game sold amazingly well in the US from what numbers I could gather. Maybe this will motivate From Software to release an expansion soon.

I tried some web searches about the sixth archstone, but I could not find anything official, it's all guesswork currently.

Demon's Souls won X-plays award for most innovative use of online play for 2009, I would have liked to see it win a few more, but one is better than none.
Uncharted 2 took 3 awards, including GOTY, I really need to get around to playing it.

Just started playing this and i had a few questions:

first off, what the fuck this is hard.  I like that though.

second, is temple knight a good starting choice? i tried royalty and their nifty spell was very useful but i felt like Harry Potter with the magic wand thingie, i guess it didn't help i was just running around shooting everything and going spectro patronus!  anyways, im a melee kinda guy but i don't want to get my ass kicked too much.

Third, mana regen? i can cast my heal miracle once and thats basically it unless i die and get mana back, i've found one or two items that return mana but they are very very rare so far, royalty had a nifty regen ring, can i get something like that on my templar?

fourth, this is fucking hard.  I beat the first demon with the shields and spears then promptly died once again to some ninja skeletons in some other world and im kind of at a loss as far as where to go.  I assume the ninja kung fu skeletons are not the place to go.

Fifth, whats with all the "im in trouble, please rate this msg" stuff?

You get healed if other people rate your messages.

The main reason to start as a royal is the regen ring you mentioned; it is eventually purchaseable but I can't remember where. I'd suggest continuing past the boss you killed first to world 1-2. Not sure which world has the ninja skeletons; 4-1 maybe?

Also, what happened to your shift key?

It sticks.  One last thing, can you sell stuff? i have several repeat weapons and a couple crappy shields i don't want.

No, you can't sell stuff.

Yes, 4-1 has silver skeletons. You probably haven't seen the actual ninja ones though unless you strayed off course or made it to the boss.

Nope, i was getting my ass kicked by the ones near the entrance.  Single ones were fine but when they came two at a time i dropped like a bitch.

Is there any way to tell which places to go to before others? Is it essentially 1-5 ramp up in challenge or is it all over the place?

It all scales to your level when you zone in, so you can skip around at will.

It doesn't scale, mob damage/HP/levels etc. are fixed and based on game cycle (i.e. everything gets harder on New Game+, kinda like Nightmare/Hell difficulties on Diablo).

For the difficulty, world 4 and 5 (Shrine of Shadowmen and Valley of Defilement) are noticeably harder than worlds 1 to 3. I'd say the best order to complete is to do 1-1 and 1-2 to level up a bit, then 2-1 and 2-2 to kill Flamelurker so you can upgrade weapons (which is probably going to be a pain on your first playthrough). Once you're there, you can farm 2 a bit to make yourself a good dragon weapon, an awesome starter weapon with high damage and zero stat scaling - thus not depending on your not existant damage stats.

For an easy damage boost until you upgrade a good starting weapon, try picking up the Crescent Falchion in 4-1. It is on the ground quite near the entrance, through an exit at the bottom of the left guard tower right once you enter the 4-1 castle. If you venture up a bit further inside, you can also try picking up the Adjudicator Shield, which is a convenient health regen item.
Afterwards, complete reminder stages at leisure.

Hag, i just got ganked.  That's hilarious, at least i put up a good fight against someone with clearly better gear.

I got this a couple of days ago and I'm now working on my second character, I'm hoping to finish the game with him.

He is currently specced out for using Meat Cleaver with decent Dexterity and Faith. I'm not sure if I want to build on more Dexterity and use Meat Cleaver along with a Tearing Uchaginata or if I want to get more Miracles and Faith and mix it up more...

Also, I just got Hero Demon's Soul and I'm not sure if I want to craft a Long Sword of Searching for farming or if I want Second Chance (I have enough MP to use it)... Suggestions?

I used the Long Sword of Searching for my primary weapon for my first character. Fantastic 1 handed weapon when paired with the dark silver shield. Mostly though, I liked it because it looked like a giant piece of bone.

I found out how to level last week. Har har. Now to figure out what to do with my royal. Is it viable to go all magic?

No. But again, Nix - INTERNET.

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/

My girlfriend picked this up for me last night. I made the mistake of playing a barbarian for my first character - but now that he's got armor he's doing pretty well. Running around naked certainly magnified a tough learning curve and a small margin for error.

I stayed up all night playing, and I can't wait until I get a chance to clear out 1-2. This game kicks you in the balls and makes you like it.

Second Chance, definitely.   Even if it saves you just once (it has saved me many times), you will be very thankful you have it.  But when you get Warding and can predict when you need it in a level you start to pass on Second Chance.

I have three regrets from leveling up my character:

1)  I boosted luck to 15.  I should have left it at default
2)  I neglected Vitality for my entire first play through and suffered one hit kills all over the place.  Get it to 30.
3)  I neglected Magic/Int.  Get both up to cast Warding twice and if you have Second Chance go for a Talisman of Beasts.

Thanks! I got Second Chance, decided I'll wait with Long Sword of Searching until I build my Blueblood character  :drill:

I love my Meat Cleaver, I killed Fool's Idol in four hits with Sticky White Stuff on it. She never got a chance to teleport or clone! I accidently killed Stockpile Thomas so most of my "mats" are gone along with quite a few unique weapons and stuff... Luckily I have what I need to complete the game (Lava Bow, Adjudicator's Shield +2, Meat Cleaver, Talisman of God and all I need to create a perfect Blessed weapon).

Also, no magic on this dude - all I want is Faith, my Meat Cleaver and Colourless Demon's Souls.

I played three different chars until I decided to try Second Chance/One-Time Revival, and I didn't really miss it, but once you have it, it's pretty handy. It just needs a high Vitality stat to really be worthwhile.

The speed on Large Sword of Searching (for a large sword, thus having pretty high base damage) is amazing though. Meat Cleaver kind of blinds you with the high hits, but in the time you swing MC once, you probably would have gotten 4 hits with LSoS in (no kidding), so the DPS on LSoS is significantly higher.


For PvE, kinda, if you also make yourself a big bad Moon weapon and are not afraid of smashing faces with it every now and then - you won't need melee stats for it other than minimum requirements. While multiplaying, I've seen some mage players with insane damage, and Firestorm + Clever Rat's + all the magic boost items you can get = insta-win usually, even (especially) in NG+ and beyond. I just found it very "uninspired" to play compared to the visceral melee implementation.

I think pure mage sucks for PvP though, because it's very easy to counter (Dark Silver Shield, Anti-Magic Field).

I was afraid of that, so didn't go full mage myself. I was mostly mage, but it seemed better to have some other tricks up your sleeve.

But.. I ended up not even playing much PvP in the end anyways. Still cool as a single player build though. Some things would have been twice as hard without it probably.

Aren't Crescent weapons better than Moon weapons for pure mages seeing as their damage increases more with the Magic stat? Also, Crescent weapon gives MP regeneration according to the wiki (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/upgrade-crescent)...

Correct.. The Falc was my main source for melee damage. I lent the game out, and can't even look at my build now, but I remember setting up some stats high enough to roll around in armor. Among other things. I don't know if that's what all mages are supposed to do, but it seemed appealing to me.  :grin:

I just stumbled on this on digg, and while I usually wouldnt post drivel like this, I thought everyone else would like to point and laugh too.

Demon's Souls is hard. (http://www.crispygamer.com/features/2010-01-04/demonic-difficulty-are-most-games-today-too-easy-or-is-demons-souls-too-hard.aspx)

So I cleared out 4-3, 2-3 and 5-1 and now I have all the Miracles I could ever want... Time to summon Mephistopheles for Colourless Demon's Souls  :why_so_serious:

Now I've got 1-3, 1-4, 3-2, 3-3, 5-2, 5-3 left then I'm done with my first game! Currently working on my Blessed Long Sword (couldn't find a Mirdan Hammer and I need something for smaller spaces), I just need to finish 5-X and I should have all the pieces.

Meat Cleaver is still great, 2-handed R2 attack knocks pretty much everybody down to the ground and I have enough Endurance to chain those attacks together.

Next character will probably also be melée but with Magic instead of Faith, or maybe I'll build a character that will use either Blueblood or Hands of God... Both weapons seem kind of interesting.

Moon weapons scale from 3 stats (STR/DEX/MAG) opposed to only one stat for Crescent (MAG only, even if A). Moon has higher base and magic damage than Crescent (check this page for an example, look at the base physical/magical damage for a Kilij: http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/kilij). The total bonus a Moon weapon will receive from the 2 "E" ratings for STR/DEX and the "C" rating from Magic, even if you never even put a single point there, will be enough to put it above Crescent at a similar stat level.

I suppose crescent might be better once you get to 99 MAG or something like that, but AFAIK the added params start to dwindle very noticeably past 50, so it might suck even there.

If you care about MP regen, craft yourself a Crescent Dagger (cause it's the cheapest to upgrade) and upgrade the Phosphorescent Pole to +5, hotkey them so you can switch to them when not casting, and use the Pole to bash people, as it is the best MP regen item in the game. Even with that, and with Fragrant Ring, it will most likely only serve to keep you from using spices on trash every now and then. I used that myself for a while, until I made a Moon War Scythe +5, which I found a lot better. Once Tower of Latria AS IS open, a quick sweep of 3-1 gets you around 10-15 spices, which is usually more than enough to get you through a level.

It's really not that hard though once you get used to it. I remember bringing it to a friends house, and chatting up everyone on how hard it was.. and since I didn't have a save, I walked through with them for the first couple of levels and just seemed to destroy everything (except tutorial boss, of course). Granted, those are the first levels, but I figured it'd be somewhat difficult at 1-1. I remember the first time playing it, I must have repeated that map 10 times.

There's a Mirdan on the ground in the 5-2 swamp at some place, close to a wall.

5-2 is one of those places that puts MC at a big disadvantage imo. No dodging in the swamp, tight and confined spaces and lots of enemies on the scaffoldings. I'm curious how you'll find it there.

Hands of God were kind of a disappointment in the end to me. Not enough range and too long of a windup on the strong attacks.

Thats because, as Schild said, its more personal skill than character skill that makes you good at the game. Gamers these days are just lazy.

I do feel that you guys over hyped the hardness.  Especially with magic users.  On my very first play session with the game, I made it all the way to the end of 1-2 before my first death (and that was just because I miss-judged the stupid dragon).  Which is why I promptly rolled a new melee char and went from there.  Game can be tricky, just not at all hard as you guys make it out to be.  Most levels are pretty easy to get through, and boss fights are where you tend to die till you figure them out.

The odd thing is that most bosses are quite easy... Plenty of games with tougher bosses. The maps just take some getting use to the patterns, and actually using your skills (namely, defense). I still recommend that people start off with a Royal though.

Oh, I agree on the bosses as well, its just that there are a few pain in the asses who can give you some trouble.  Flamelurker was the first boss I didn't beat in the first try or 2nd try.  I came to realize that was because I simply didn't have a decent bow, got one, then proceeded to rape him.  Easy sailing again until I got to Maneater.

I find it funny that he Godwined his own article.  Also, he sucks.  I am better at DS than that guy.  I could also kiss a girl in the middle of a boss fight without freaking out, but I might have reversed priorities from him.

I WAS GOING TO KISS A GIRL BUT I WAS LIKE WAIT NO PAUSE BUTTON HELP AND SHE WAS LIKE TWEET FACEBOOK AND I WAS LIKE PAUSE PAUSE

Hate to be serious, but it's lame complaint since... Nothing respawns and nothing wanders into your area. Except maybe those flower pod things in the swamp, but even then, they really don't. Every 3 or 4 baddies you kill is a opportunity for a break, if you want to look at it that way. [edit] Of course, I'm discounting players coming into your world, but whatever. By the time you level up high enough for pvp to be that common, then it's not like you have other shit to do in the game. If you get killed, it's not that big of a deal.

Too bad I killed Thomas who had my Dragon Long Sword +5... I got a new Long Sword from a vendor in 1-3 and upgraded it to Blessed +2, I'll use that in 5-2 I think and upgrade it as I go but I'm gonna try using MC first for sure. Before I go futher in 5-2 I'll try to finish 3-2 and get my Gloom armor and upgrade my Adjudicator's Shield to +5 (w Mephistopheles assassination rewards, the Soul in 1-1 and trading with the Crow).

I found some of the bosses very intimidating when I first played. Especially Flamelurker, Armored Spider (I was too scared by the constant fireballing to run out of the tunnel, heh) and Maneater. Flamelurker in particular was a nightmare, as I also had to figure the way down all by myself and I must've died about 20 times on those platforms trying to collect all the stuff.

I'm curious, have you played NG+ and beyond? 4-x and 5-x are pretty hard on subsequent playthroughs.

Nah, haven't really bothered, sort of got bored with the game (its a great game, its just that combat seems repetitive by the end and I have a shit ton of other games to play, I'll get back to it eventually).  I'm sure it gets much harder on the NG+ games, but thats also suppose to be "Hard Mode".  I'm just saying the base game isn't nearly as painful as everybody made it out to be.  :wink:

Fuck this character, it's really hard to store all treasure without Stockpile Thomas around... I'll start a new character later tonight and try to not fuck up that save.

If you aggro Stockpile Thomas but didn't kill him yet, try hard reset, it might reset him back to friendly. I ... ummm... err... read about it happening to a friend of mine who accidentally pressed R2 grabbing the controller while standing in front of him  :grin:

(But the game saves the second you kill an NPC, so it doesn't work after killing him)

So first I built another character and did everything in the exact same order and got even further (I completed everything but 1-4, 3-2, 3-3 and final boss) but I fucking killed Stockpile Thomas again... It went something like this:

:oh_i_see:

then...

:uhrr:

and

:ye_gods:

Now I'm going to build a Dexterity / Magic build and actually complete the game. Going to try out Blind, Crescent weapons and Large Sword of Searching.

I managed to take a swing at the Maiden in Black in one of my games.  I set the controller down and it caught the right trigger and swung while i was in front of her.  I *immediately* reached to the back of the ps3 and did a hard shutdown.  She was back when i reloaded.  After that i started switching out to my talisman and a buff spell EVERY time i entered the nexus to prevent this from happening.  A bow works ok too since you have to hit the button twice to actually fire it.

Actually you can go to town on the Maiden in Black.  Same with the Monumental.  I suggest seeing what happens with both, especially the Maiden in Black.

I've accidentally hit several of the merchants with no problems.....  Not sure if I ever hit Stockpile guy though.  Is he different?

Are you sure you hit them? Most go to town on your ass after the first hit.

Hmm, I thought I hit them with weapons, but maybe not.  I'd often just dive around when running between merchants, and if you hit them while rolling they stand up and yell at you, but don't attack.  I know for sure I did that, so maybe it's only that I'm thinking of.

They do allow you for a bit of free damage before going aggro, I can confirm that. I also did the rolling + "fall down on them" thing a few times by accident. The free hit is also quite handy in situations like Biorr vs. Penetrator or Ostrava vs. 1-3 red eye knights (or any mob), where it is hard to avoid hitting the NPC if you have weapons swinging in wide arcs.

Maiden in Black can be killed and will just respawn. AFAIK you can't kill Monumental as hits will just bounce off him? Blue phantom guy can be killed also, you'll just get a char tendency shift for that.

If you keep talking to the blue phantom guy, he'll kill himself.

I thought he just faded away, which goes to show what happens when you're a spirit for too long. You lose your mind then your identity.

The Monumental will giggle at you after enough hits.

I've smacked so many people just from setting my controller down its ridiculous.

I have had good luck with just leaving people alone after I accidentally hit them.  If you go to one of the levels and come back I've never had them be still hostile.

Sequel should be announced soon, hopefully.

ahh nice, good news.

I hope you are right. Can't trust From Software thought... They seem to think irrationally when it comes to what IPs to develop.

How can you improve upon perfection?  I can only hope the team behind Demon's Souls had some ideas in the "no no, that's too crazy" pile they can now unleash.

Land of the Giants.

I'd like to see the armor/itemization part expanded past weapons (where it was awesome). Always found the armors to be kind of bland. At the bare minimum be craftable/upgradable.

There's lots of lore potential too!

Just started playing.  I got a Knights Shield while my playing and I finished the Tower Knight.  Now I went back and got the Purple Flame Shield.  The Knight Shield gives better stats apparently.

Why is the Purple Flame good?

Also, I'm about soul level 20, and I have my stats pretty even at 14/15 with int/str and have endurance and vit at 12, magic and miracles (or whatever it is at 12/13.  Started off Royalty.

Love the game so far.  It's awesome, I just hope I'm not screwing stuff up.

Knight shield is good - the Purple Flame shield has better fire resistance (90% vs 70%) which is handy in a few spots. 

For the early game, it's probably better to decide on whether to focus int or str (magic vs. melee) in order to not gimp yourself. Later, at SL 100 and above, you can start evening stats out. The magic number for maximum effect is usually around stat value 40, past that you'll see only little improvement.

Main difference of Purple Flame vs. Knight Shield is the shield type (PFS is heavy, KS is med), meaning KS still has the "counter" move option L2 (I think?) while PFS gets the "shove/push" attack. Being a heavy shield, PF caps out at 82 hit resistance (PFS +10) vs. 78 for KS +10. Basically that means you can take heavier hits and more hits without staggering when using PFS.

PFS is the lightest shield with 90 fire resist, and there are spots where that will help a lot, for example Flamelurker, Armored Spider or dragons with fire breath. The other two options for fire resist are Large Brushwood Shield and Tower Shield, with the latter being quite a burden to carry around (weight 30).

I'd say that if counter-attacking is your thing, KS is definitely the best of them medium shields until you get Dark Silver Shield. In my game, I gave up on countering once I was in NG+ ("Nightmare" game in terms of Diablo) because of the minuscule error margin and the punishing results.

This game was too hardcore for me.  There, I said it. 

Well I stopped playing this game in lieu of FFXIII.  Demon's Souls is too good and I'm going to have to spend a LOT of time with it and I'd rather knock out FFXIII first.

The second level where you are just basically going downward over wooden boards is terrible.  It's not very fun.

It wasn't too hardcore for my 14 years old kid who usually only plays Pro Evolution Soccer. Only game he ever finished.

Not me!  I'm still fighting my way through it.  I figure at the rate I'm going, I'll have it solved just in time for the sequel to arrive in the US.

I think you are referring to level 2-2. There are two ways to go down, one is the pit with platforms you jump from one to the next (this is the short way), the other way is much longer but has more rewards and items. Its right at the beginning of the level where the direction you take determines which was you go.

But remember, if it's pure black or pure white tendency, you want to go the short way at least once to kill the dude halfway down the shaft to get one of the best items in the game.

It wasn't too hardcore for me when I was 14 either.  Actually I think the point of being 14 is that you are hardcore.   But I can't abide a game anymore that starts you from the beginning of the level when you die and has plenty of things that can instantly kill you without a strategy guide the first time through.  It seems neat I just don't have the patience for this.

The levels aren't that big that starting from the beginning is that bad once you stop sucking. In fact, not only do shortcuts open up, but at least 5 of the levels have MASSIVE shortcuts without having to futz around with levers.

I think I'm just bad at video games now.  Either that or I've been gelded through an early diet of hardcore JRPG's and FPS and am now like a soft pampered eunuch.


Edit:  Either way, sorry to be a Buzz Killington by just chiming in and saying I didn't care for the game.

It sounds like 5-1.  I much prefer dropping into the haystack shortcut than winding my way down.

For me this was probably the hardest fight in the entire game.  I'm sure there was some kind of trick to it, but i managed to brute force it after 3 or 4 tries.

Where do you see these numbers?  I didn't remember seeing numbers.  Not really sure which is the 2nd level.  I went to another board where it seemed that there were demon miners or something.  I could barely dent the bad guys so I figured I stepped too far ahead. 

You're definitely talking about 2-2. A deep mineshaft where you have to jump down onto planks that you can barely see (and sometimes can't) in the darkness, often falling to your death because you were running instead of walking? That's the one.

Yeah, the shortcut to Flamelurker. Although, once you have it figured out, it isn't that bad. The bad thing about it is that usually you're sick of running back to Flamelurker at that point!

There are no official numbers. But basically starting from the first Archstone, just count up. The very "left" archstone would be world 1, and the very right most being world 5, then each sub level is a -1.

Those miners you refer to are weak to piercing damage and resistant to slashing. That might be your problem with them. Some weapons have both damage types. Like the longswords, they are slashing for normal attack, but the hard attack is piercing.

I couldn't be 2-2 because the only levels I ever finished the other day were 1-1 and 1-2. 

If these below are the archstones. Which one was it?

   [3]- - - X
  /             \
[2]            [4]         
 |                |
[1]            [5]


The X represents the broken archstone you cannot access.

Maybe FFC was correct and you where in 5-1. Ugh, I hate that level.

I would do something like... 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 2-2,(2-3) 3-1, 4-1.... After that you should have a good feel of the game, and what level you can handle. I would stay away from 4 and 5 until you have a bit of levels. Those two can be brutal.

Yeah it was 2.  But like I was saying it was 2-1.. couldn't be 2-2.  The other level was definitely 5.

That's a pretty awesome Archstone diagram.  :-)  I have well over 100 hours into this game and seeing it makes me want to play some more.

Same here. Just posting in this thread is making me want to play again. If they do a part two, I hope they "enhance" the multiplayer aspect. Due to the soul level restrictions, it seems the higher you get, the harder is it to play multiplayer.

Oh and:


Now you really want to play more.

When I read those lines I hear them in voices forever burned into my brain.

 :heart:


 :heart: :heart:


 :heart: :heart: :heart:

Demon's Souls makes me feel sorry for those who don't get it.

Don't worry. We're doing just fine. Please continue to enjoy yourself.  :awesome_for_real:

I found a US import version of this game sitting on the shelf of a local games store. It is now in my bag. I shall have no more social life.

Fucking brother traded it in for final fantasy.  Its his PS3 and his game but fuck him anyways.

Not a very strong start, I rolled a barbarian and kept hitting my head against the brick wall that is 1-1. If my interest comes back some day I shall try a class that's not retarded.

Heh. My enthusiasm had a similar trip from OARSOME I HAS IT NOW to meh. I'll get back to it one day. maybe.

Threash - buy your own copy? As long as he hasn't wiped the saves it should all be good.

My experience improved drastically by going Royal instead of Temple Knight.   Though if I don't get the last part of 4-2 down soon, I may have to take a sanity break.   

Personally, I think Barbarian is the least satisfying class as an absolute beginner.

I can see 1-1 being a little frustrating since you can't return to the Nexus and spend your souls until you beat it the first time.  After you make it through there though, the game is really only as hard as you make it as it becomes fairly easy to play it safe and farm souls to level up if you want to (there's also plenty of ways to cheese some of the harder enemies for big payoffs, even at low levels).

Yeah, I'm now over the first shock and will roll a Ranger later tonight. It's a rare talent I have, choosing the least enjoyable class in RPGs.

Just picked this up the other day via Gamefly.  What a breath of old-school fresh air.  They give you NO quarter in this game and I love it but, I'm starting to worry this is one title I mighta shoulda bought.

Nothing stopping you from buying it. Go on, do it.

So, I'm playing this gradually at a friends house with another two watching since we all love the game but I'm the only one who's any good at it (sort of) and won't throw the controller against the wall in frustration.


Started as a temple knight, followed the wiki guide and mid-term goal was the meat cleaver, so I followed that build.

Did 1-1, died a bunch, finally figured out wtf I was doing. Got the cling ring which made things MUCH easier. Killed the boss, finally, during my 2nd evening.
Did 2-1, failed to kill the boss, abandoned it. Didn't really get any decent armor or weapons. Got a bow at some point, I think in 2-1. Killed boss a bit easier than 1-1.
Started 4-1, omgjesusfuckingrollingskeletons. Farmed a bunch since they were so valuable in terms of souls. Also farmed a bunch because I could simply not get to the miniboss courtyard without dying. Evening ended abruptly when I died at the top of the stairs, was running back, and got jacked because I accidentally pulled the skeleton while attacking the archer. Lost 10k souls on that one. Gave up for now after spending 2 hours there.

Tried 2-2. Died horribly to everything including the goddamned miners with their goddamned half-liife-hit-me-stunned-dead pickaxes. Spent a bunch of itme here but ultimately decided I was not strong enough and so I gave up.
Back to 4-1. Finally strong enough to get past the optional boss area (tried to engage optional boss. horrible mistake.) Died several times due to traps. Wrapped around to the left and saw an item guarded by the a ninja skeleton with two weapons. Engaged. Died. Got back. Got the regen ring, which is totally awesome. Died again. Lost all my souls. Finally able to distract him with one of those items that creatures go to investigate; I throw it, and run past him and grab the item. Best move I ever did, since he was guarding an awesome sword (+2 dragon blade I think, it's magic/fire damage). Ended the evening on a happy note, with shiny new gear.

New day, Back to 4-1 again. Die horribly due to flying manta rays and not having a useful ranged attack. Over and over again. Finally get past them and to the boss area, get killed by the ninja skeleton on the stairs. Lost 15k souls. Give up on this level.
Back to 2-2, get a bit farther with cool swords. Die falling down pits a bunch. Killed a bunch of exploding bugs. Didn't really get anywhere. Cleared out the upper part then went back.
Back to 4.1 for farming. Ended on a 'meh' note since no real progress was made.

This weekend, back to 2-2. Getting lost in tunnels and fucking with bugs, hooray. Finally get to flamelurker. died a few times but finally get a rhythm and managed to down him. Probably the hardest boss so far.
On to 4-1. Able to get up to and around the optional boss fairly easily. Touched a blue thing on the floor behind the optional boss and a guy came in my world. Arrowed the optional boss to death, which was very convenient for me. Also he arrowed all the rays making it much easier for me to get to the boss. Get in there, he's a giant fat guy with one swing that has a 4 minute windup. I murder him easily on the first try.

Back to ed, made the cleaver! Let's try this thing out. Too much equip burden to use it and a shield, but I go to 1-2 just for kicks. Obliterate every single guy in one hit. Kill 3 dogs in a single dodge-slam. Waltz to the near end boss, and get invaded! First time ever. He's red and mean looking. I take a cleaver swing at him and he dies ignobly in two hits. Get 4k souls from him along with a good laugh. Go to end boss. Remember him from a youtube video I watched a loooong time ago. Take a swing at his shin and it does 1/10th his life. Take another and he falls down. I hit him on the head for 1/4 of his life in one swing but miss finishing him due to annoying camera angle theater. One more swing at his shin and at his crown and he's down.

I'm a total powerhouse now with that sword. Now need to find where to get one of the recommended armor sets and the shield and I guess learn how to manipulate world tendencies.


Biggest learning experiences would have been to hit 4-1 for that sword much sooner, and I ALMOST missed the cling ring. I DID miss the regen ring at first and saw it on a random run back. Those three items allowed me to progress, and the damned wildly overpowered cleaver is carrying me 100% now.

I'm still amazed people have as hard of time with this game as I hear.  I seriously blew through all of 1-2 and 2-4 with only a few deaths on my first play through, and didn't have that hard of a time making it further with minimal deaths.  Though it seems I did grab a favorable class right off (Temple Knight) and made sure to get a good ranged weapon along with melee weapon, while building up decent magic.

Rolled a ranger last night and blazed through 1-1 without dying once. Awesome! Have to go back to get the Cling Ring though.

Is there any suggestions on a class to start with for someone who's just started playing?  I picked the wanderer class last night but I'm having trouble getting through the first castle.  I know part of my problem is that I'm used to playing rpg's on the pc rather than console and I'm trying learn how to move my character with with a gamepad rather than with the mouse/keyboard.  I can see that I might enjoy this a lot if I can get past my initial frustration. 

Oh, and hi.  First time poster, long time lurker.

Royal is a really good starter class.  You have a ranged magic attack and a MP regen ring right from the get go, which can help a lot.

It's still really worth learning to dodge around and parry, but being able to attack from a distance adds a lot of flexibility.

Yeah apparently royal is the easiest to play. Magic in general is extremely strong in this game. So is the ranger.

I felt royal was great once I got the hang of the game.  My first try was with a knight I think, and I learned to dodge, block, and kick some ass all while dying repeatedly.  I think I did 1-1, 1-2, and 2-1 with this character until starting over with a royal.

Then with the royal I ended up one shotting 1-1.  Unlike a lot of games, you can really notice when you get better at DS. 

Yes.   

I started with a Knight and then a Wanderer. I think I would have avoided much frustration with the Knight if I had started with the Royal, although, the Knights longsword is a much better beginner weapon than the rapier.

Another question.  I've heard that other players can "invade" your game and kill you as a Black Phantom.  Is there a way to disable this, at least on the first play through?  I'm not adverse to pvp but I'd like to learn how to play the game before doing it.  It still sounds like a pretty cool feature, though.  

I love how interactive this game can be, with the Black Phantoms, the notes left by other players and being able to see how other players died.  Its probably the most unique rpg I've played yet.  

Yes and no. You can play in offline mode, but there really isn't any reason to. There are two ways to get invaded; one is a willing invasion, sort of consentual pvp. The other is them forcing invasion on a random person. It's extremely rare to get invaded unwillingly, I've put maybe 10-15 hours into the game and only got invaded once for the first time. There are level limits of course and I don't think you can get invaded until you reach a certain point either in the game or in character strength / soul level.

It's not UO.

Invasions only happen when you are in body form.  On your first playthrough you will be in soul form most of the time so invasions can't happen.   And if you only need help for a boss fight but can clear the level on your own then use an ephemeral eye right before the boss to go into body form and backtrack until you can summon help.

I'm getting my ass kicked as a priest on 1-1.  I can tell half-hp really gimps a class like this at the start of the game.  You pretty much have to play perfectly, which can be rewarding, but frustrating.
Perhaps I'm relying too much on melee.

Also, I killed that blonde girl in the Nexus that just gives some lore info.  She hasnt respawned yet, is this bad?  And where are these other characters I keep reading about?  I assume they show up later?

Can someone explain to me tendencies?  I remember getting a white and blue crystal that I got somewhere that did something.

The wiki has all your answers and more. This really isn't a game you can walk into without doing a tiny bit of research and planning. http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/

World Tendencies can you get special items when they are white or black. Also, monsters in them get stronger if black weaker if white. Your own tendencies give you extra damage and health while in soul form, stuff like that. Dying in the wold in body form shifts the world to black, as does killing shopkeepers/npcs and such.

In general killing anyone in the nexus is a bad idea. No one respawns, ever, until you beat it and restart. Some characters you have to rescue, the are in some of the worlds.

Tendencies are MP or SP?
If MP, might be fun to setup a brute squad and flood the game with teh blackness.