Demon's Souls

[John]

I tried Demon's Souls when it first came to PS3, and didn't get super far. I think I was a build that used a spear? I never played any of the Dark Souls games either, I think because I always thought about coming back to Demon's Souls one day. I dunno, what build would someone recommend for a new player who sucks?

 

[Paul le Fou]

My first Souls experience ever was technically when I sat down to play a little bit of Demon's Souls at a friend's house. I think I had a starting character with heavy armor and a spear? I got to the (a?) second boss before dying once.

Dark Souls, some time later, felt much harder than that even right out of the gate. And honestly it sometimes feels like From purposefully cranks their difficulty up with each game, lately. (Be cooler if they didn't though)

 

[Regulus]

Faith builds are pretty friendly in Demon's Souls. Dual damage type weapons are pretty effective all around in this game, and the regen effect on Blessed weapon upgrades is excellent for mitigating mistakes without having to rely on consumables. Regen can also be stacked across multiple sources for pretty powerful passive healing, and there are a number of useful utility spells available.

Magic builds are easiest in the early game (and don't drop off too much later on, either), because spells are crazy powerful.

 

[Peklo]

You also generally want to go light with equip burden (below 50% of the total) to preserve fast roll speed and animations, in a game where heavy armour has none of the poise mechanics introduced later to offset the weight investment. Carry and use a giant weapon if you'd like, as they're still effective and have specific hyper armour on some animations, but don't worry about protection too much outside of cosmetic concerns.

People usually find understanding the weapon upgrade paths and splits difficult, as well as securing the materials for them, so finding "ready-made" pick-ups in the world has more of an emphasis starting out--the most universally useful of them for almost any playstyle, and for its near-instant accessibility is the Crescent Falchion +1 near the entrance of 4-1.

 

[YangusKhan]

A really strong shield is absurdly good in Demon's Souls, regardless of your build. Assuming they didn't change that game balance.

 

[lincolnic]

This is what he looks like in-game:

Spoiler

Bald Andy Samberg?

 

[estragon]

Faith builds are pretty friendly in Demon's Souls. Dual damage type weapons are pretty effective all around in this game, and the regen effect on Blessed weapon upgrades is excellent for mitigating mistakes without having to rely on consumables. Regen can also be stacked across multiple sources for pretty powerful passive healing, and there are a number of useful utility spells available.

Magic builds are easiest in the early game (and don't drop off too much later on, either), because spells are crazy powerful.

I played a cleric with a blessed mace and did find it pretty OP, but a lot of the equipment and upgrade resources you need to make it shine are in the Valley of Defilement which makes it probably better for someone who already knows the game well. I really liked it, but I could see it not really paying off until extremely late in the game if you're not comfortable going through 5-1 and 5-2 early on.

Picking a Royal for the MP ring and using Soul Arrow type spells + the Crescent Falchion +1 is probably the most straightforward beginner's build to set up.

(Both are good and will work, I just think the former has a relatively higher barrier to entry.)

 

[Gaer]

@Peklo sure there’s no poise in Demons’, but it’s still a Fashion Souls and I want my female protag to wear armour cos it looks cool.

Just gotta max Endurance or whatever it was called in Demons’.

 

[Peklo]

Sure! I really dislike how armour in general looks in these games, so combined with that + playstyle preference most of my characters end up wearing rags or cloth, haha. Bloodborne accommodated me pretty exactly.

I think gender-locked attire is still in the remake--they've just nominally done away with the gender binaries in the creation process, with instead there being a "body type" selection of two, which is still its own binary and clearly codes characters along female and male axioms, so uh, nice progressive lip service there. Demon's was frustrating because not only did it have those gender-exclusive sets, but some of the shared ones had entirely different designs, with the promotional darling Fluted set lacking all of its iconic qualities for women, exposing both their faces and leaving this stupid butt window on the armour. Those differences (if not the exact specifics, because of the redesigns), as far as I know, have also been retained. This kind of stuff was what I entertained a potential remake would address, but it doesn't seem to have been a priority.

 

[Regulus]

Male Fluted is the only plate set that doesn't look kind of dumb, IMO. I think the later Souls games were generally better with their armor design. Though, I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm a huge nerd for semi-historically accurate plate.

I've heard they dropped some (but not all?) of the completely restricted sets -- Binded Cross, for example, is no longer exclusive. But yeah, my preference would have been that they just adapt the ones with different gender designs into two separate sets of armor, which would have nearly doubled the amount of armor pieces in the game. Think of all the extra Fashion Souls potential!

 

[Issun]

I was never a fan of the Fluted myself. Helmet makes the wearer look too much like a duck.

 

[Kishi]

It's going well! Last night I beat the Tower Knight first try. That fight's a great example of the thrill of laying low something that makes you go "Where do I even begin?" when first you lay eyes on it. And now I have some flame-resistant equipment, so I intend to take my revenge on Armor Spider tomorrow night. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

 

[YangusKhan]

Hey guess what? This remake is still Demon's Souls and it's still very good. I am playing with the Classic filter and honestly I'm not sure what the difference is, exactly, but there is a difference compared to no filter. Playing a Souls game at 60 FPS is sublime, also.

I decided to do a Strength character because it's not like I remember a lot about "builds" in this game, so my starting class was Barbarian. I dumped all of my levels into Strength and then after beating Phalanx, I grabbed the Purple Flame Shield and headed to 2-1. That area was still a problem because the only pierce weapon I had was the Mail Breaker, but I beat the Armor Spider on my first try because that shield is just ridiculous. And then I went to 4-1 and had to remember a lot of stuff about that area but eventually I found everything and took out the Adjudicator without much issue.

The remake really adds a whole lot of detail to every single thing, and the Adjudicator especially felt more fully realized here than I remember it in the original. Like I could actually discern how gross and brutal it was. Also the manta rays' attack in the Shrine of Storms now make more sense to me (I was never clear in the original game what exactly those spear things they shoot were).

 

[Ludendorkk]

Strength build? Craft yourself the Meat Cleaver, that thing slaps

 

[lincolnic]

Strength build? Craft yourself the Meat Cleaver, that thing slaps

I played this game exactly one time and the Meat Cleaver was the only weapon I ever needed.

 

[Patrick]

Meat cleaver good.

 

[YangusKhan]

The Dragon God is still kind of an incomprehensible encounter. My winning run involved not paying attention to it during the 2nd phase and hoping I was clearing debris fast enough to avoid getting torched.

Anyway I can now equip a Meat Cleaver but stopped for the night before going to any new areas. It's a very convenient boss soul weapon to make, actually, but its stat requirements are a lot. On paper it does like triple the damage of my next best weapon lol.

 

[YangusKhan]

Here's some fairly minor gameplay "QoL" changes I've noticed, if you haven't read anything about those yet and are interested:

• You can climb certain waist-high ledges now. This only applies to certain critical-path sections of a level. I think the reasoning is so that if you go down a series of small ledges (for example) you can actually come back up. So far I think I've only seen this in Shrine of Storms and Stonefang Tunnel.
• Online play has a password feature that's been in previous Souls games, however this one also has an option when using passwords to toggle being invaded entirely, which I don't think has been in a previous Souls game? Passwords also disable the soul level matchmaking formula, which I can't remember if that was also the case in previous games that had those.
• After defeating your first archdemon, you get a key item that lets you travel between worlds at archstones rather than having to return to the Nexus first. Kinda pointless with how fast the game loads now but, okay.

 

[Regulus]

You've always been able to climb ledges like that, though they may have added some more. They were not super common in the original.

 

[Ludendorkk]

Yeah, you can climb into the area where you rescue Ostrava in 1-1 which is what I always remember. There's also some in 3-1 though I don't remember exactly where. One of my favorite little pointless design decisions that don't appear in the sequels

 

[Peklo]

There are instances in every world. That 1-1 ledge is probably the most crucial because it's instant access to one of the best rings in the game. It was always a fun, small thing that set Demon's navigationally apart from anything that came after.

 

[YangusKhan]

Huh, wow, I do not remember that being in the original at all. I've forgotten a lot of stuff from when I first played it, but I also never replayed Demon's nearly as much as Dark Souls, so I'm not as intimately familiar with it.

 

[YangusKhan]

One thing I wish they added is another method for moving to Pure White World Tendency, or really anything new that interacts with World Tendency. The revamped UI for it is nice, at least. Also, if I can be bothered to get the screenshot off my PS5, I'll post what they did to the Old Hero. They gave him quite a glow-up.

 

[conchobhar]

They did at at least one waist-high ledge in the remake (the original just had a drop). How's that for useless trivia

 

[YangusKhan]

Meat Cleaver status: Garl Vinland gets a heaping spoonful of his own medicine.

I'm intrigued by the moveset of the Great Sword. It's one of the more fluid and combo-y attack patterns in this game even though it's on a Very Large Sword. Mostly though I've been using a Crushing Battle Axe +4 and switching to the Meat Cleaver when the situation warrants it. It's too bad I messed up getting Pure White tendency in Stonefang early on, because now I can't get the Dragon Bone Smasher

 

[YangusKhan]

I don't think I've ever fought Old King Doran using a non-cheese strategy and it shows. If he wouldn't eat grass I'd have a pretty good chance I think...

I think False King Allant is my favorite final boss from these games. He's a very satisfying combination of deadly aggression and tricky dodge timing mixed with actually giving you enough breathing room that you can heal.

 

[Issun]

Even Honest Trailers had something to say about the Cat Ring icon change.

 

[Cyrael]

I've owned the PS3 version since the day it came out, but never really got past Flamelurker or any of the first levels of the remaining archstones.

Picked this one up and am nearly done with it and it's been super fun. However I am in 5-2 and it's the worst. I'll keep slogging through it but it really killed my momentum.

Also I somehow found myself with enough magic boosting gear to where Firestorm has one shot every boss I've tried it on. Feels pretty good

 

[YangusKhan]

Magic is ridiculously OP in this game, which is why they tuned it down in all subsequent Souls games.

I've started a second character who happens to be a magician and it's so much easier to do anything when you're rolling a Crescent Falchion +1 as soon as you beat Phalanx. I am tentatively planning to get the platinum trophy, which is why I made a 2nd character for the "get all spells" trophy. But I still have 2 rings to get on my first character that are pains to get: kill Old King Doran and do all the assassinations for Mephistopheles. I should probably grind out some souls with her and pivot into spells so I can just poison cloud cheese everything that's left, since I'm on NG+ and everything got so much more HP.

 

[Kishi]

I love this game.