Old King Allant might still be my favorite Souls final boss of the whole series, and I already love the Gwyn fight quite a bit (its only real competition for the title, imho).
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Demon's Souls
- Thread starter Ludendorkk
- Start date
I've been putting off Old King Allant because wahhh he's hard and I'm not keen on losing any more soul levels, so I started a sorcerer. I sprinted for the crescent falchion +1 in 4-1 as soon as I could, and started poking through 3-1 relatively early too and picked up the silver crown, silver catalyst, magical sharpness ring and kris blade. I usually run the crescent falchion (which I just got to +3 after finally going back to 4-1 and picking up some moonshadestone (what a name) shards and chunks from lizards and the farm reaper. As in the reaper you farm with the bow, not a scythe used in a field. Eh, you know. I've beaten Tower Knight, Armor Spider and Adjudicator, just gotta go back for Fool's Idol though I'm not looking forward to that one (considering I used bow cheese last time...) (Though I do have a +6 shortbow now...) But I'm sure they have a spell for their soul so I'll
Spellwise, I have the fireball toss, the soul arrow, and I just picked up fire spray (the auto-fire small fireballs). I'm not entirely sure about that one yet, it's hard to get a read so far on whether it's better DPS than the fire toss. They hit for so little each, but you just hold down the button and number go up... But on bosses I'm usually using the bigger shots anyway. Maybe I should've saved that one for the Yuria spell? Oh well.
Cloak has been pretty awesome help against the dreaded mind flayers, getting me into range to blast them with two flame tosses and delete them before they can do their hideous deeds. But I just looked it up and it doesn't actually stack with the thief ring after all. Oh well! Frees up the ring slot (cloak is better stealth anyway, it turns out). I also just got Warding, though, so my slots are suddenly at a premium again, and I bet the two don't stack. Maybe I should just get Protection so I can have both learned though.
Any other tips for a magic build? I thought there was some other piece of equipment that regenerated MP besides the crescent enchant and the ring, but seems like the two I was thinking of just increase max mp. OH, FUNNY STORY did you know that if you put away your catalyst e.g. to take a shield out, you lose the max MP from that? That's so great and makes so much sense. (It's not a lot so it's not going to screw me or anything, but it is an annoyance!) Anyway, is there any other good stuff for a caster that I can or should pick up? There's the Shade heater shield but that just blocks magic, doesn't really do much for a caster otherwise, right?
Spellwise, I have the fireball toss, the soul arrow, and I just picked up fire spray (the auto-fire small fireballs). I'm not entirely sure about that one yet, it's hard to get a read so far on whether it's better DPS than the fire toss. They hit for so little each, but you just hold down the button and number go up... But on bosses I'm usually using the bigger shots anyway. Maybe I should've saved that one for the Yuria spell? Oh well.
Cloak has been pretty awesome help against the dreaded mind flayers, getting me into range to blast them with two flame tosses and delete them before they can do their hideous deeds. But I just looked it up and it doesn't actually stack with the thief ring after all. Oh well! Frees up the ring slot (cloak is better stealth anyway, it turns out). I also just got Warding, though, so my slots are suddenly at a premium again, and I bet the two don't stack. Maybe I should just get Protection so I can have both learned though.
Any other tips for a magic build? I thought there was some other piece of equipment that regenerated MP besides the crescent enchant and the ring, but seems like the two I was thinking of just increase max mp. OH, FUNNY STORY did you know that if you put away your catalyst e.g. to take a shield out, you lose the max MP from that? That's so great and makes so much sense. (It's not a lot so it's not going to screw me or anything, but it is an annoyance!) Anyway, is there any other good stuff for a caster that I can or should pick up? There's the Shade heater shield but that just blocks magic, doesn't really do much for a caster otherwise, right?
On solid advice that I should have known myself, I downgraded my armor (and added the Havel ring equivalent) to get to medium-roll, then went back to Allant and got him on the first try. I weirdly felt like I was taking less damage even from the hits I did eat. I guess it's true, Fashion Souls is all that matters, at least when it comes to picking apart few-point gains to min-max. Once I got in the rhythm it was pretty straightforward but I came close to getting squished a couple times. Good fight, I see how it established the mold for the standard future souls boss template.
Not sure what to try for the NG+ run I got unceremoniously dumped into (Talk about mean, making you fight through a stage and a boss holding all of your endgame soul rewards! I mean, it was easy enough, I did die once when I derped off the side of a fall but that's it, but talk about stressful. All just to get back the three levels I lost to Allant in the first place!
Speaking of Fashion Souls, I have the monk's headwrap from another successful "invasion" for the Monk where the player died well before they ever entered the room, and I'm torn. It's got the magical sharpness feature - more damage, less defense - and the headpiece I'm wearing otherwise is just the silver circlet for more max MP. So I should totally be wearing it, but... Jesus. It's huge and bulky and...ugh. It's not even like, fun-ugly, it's just ugly.
The Kris blade I realized doesn't have that much of an effect at its unleveled state, so I don't have to worry about switching off my crescent falchion until I find like, 2 or 3 colorless demon souls, wherever I'm supposed to get those.
Sorcerer is fun in this game because MP building is a thing - you can increase your max, you can spec for mana regen (I appreciate the same about health regen too, I love that it's a thing you can reliably do. It's technically there in the intervening games, but even in Elden Ring where there are a lot of sources of MP regen, only a few stack, but at least you can do it) and you have the classic offense-for-defense tradeoff (also vice-versa, which is an option that disappeared later on, sadly).
That said, I'm feeling the need for more spells. I did just get poison cloud and I'm rocking soul ray now, which is pretty sweet, but I'm wondering how much other variety there'll be. If there isn't much, I'll likely get distracted and move on to replaying DS1 again before finishing the magic run.
Not sure what to try for the NG+ run I got unceremoniously dumped into (Talk about mean, making you fight through a stage and a boss holding all of your endgame soul rewards! I mean, it was easy enough, I did die once when I derped off the side of a fall but that's it, but talk about stressful. All just to get back the three levels I lost to Allant in the first place!
Speaking of Fashion Souls, I have the monk's headwrap from another successful "invasion" for the Monk where the player died well before they ever entered the room, and I'm torn. It's got the magical sharpness feature - more damage, less defense - and the headpiece I'm wearing otherwise is just the silver circlet for more max MP. So I should totally be wearing it, but... Jesus. It's huge and bulky and...ugh. It's not even like, fun-ugly, it's just ugly.
The Kris blade I realized doesn't have that much of an effect at its unleveled state, so I don't have to worry about switching off my crescent falchion until I find like, 2 or 3 colorless demon souls, wherever I'm supposed to get those.
Sorcerer is fun in this game because MP building is a thing - you can increase your max, you can spec for mana regen (I appreciate the same about health regen too, I love that it's a thing you can reliably do. It's technically there in the intervening games, but even in Elden Ring where there are a lot of sources of MP regen, only a few stack, but at least you can do it) and you have the classic offense-for-defense tradeoff (also vice-versa, which is an option that disappeared later on, sadly).
That said, I'm feeling the need for more spells. I did just get poison cloud and I'm rocking soul ray now, which is pretty sweet, but I'm wondering how much other variety there'll be. If there isn't much, I'll likely get distracted and move on to replaying DS1 again before finishing the magic run.
How did this happen and why must I suffer so. I haven't even beaten Adjudicator yet because the first one convinced me to try and max out a weapon first
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I appreciate the ideas of the weird complex upgrade systems in the earlier games, but I really don't miss them when I'm playing the later, simpler ones.
The upgrading in Demon's Souls is a nightmare for no good reason. It had to have been done to intentionally confuse people. But this specific predicament I find myself in shouldn't even be possible. I had to dedicate my free time on a weekend to getting a single pure bladestone in the original (which I would then IMMEDIATELY dupe into 99 of them), and now I'm desperate for a crumb of chunk.
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
The upgrade system feels like it's made for a game that is four times as long as DS actually is lol
The last time I played Demon's Souls PS3, I found a summon sign, the person dropped a Pure Bladestone and then left. What a cool dude
The last time I played Demon's Souls PS3, I found a summon sign, the person dropped a Pure Bladestone and then left. What a cool dude
Yeah it feels like they had real expectation with only Demon's Souls that people would keep delving into more NG+ cycles to run into those tendency events and finish upgrading their favorite stuff instead of sitting and farming or manipulating tendency manually in a given run. The weapon scaling was also just way more extreme relative to base damage. Like a ton of unique weapons don't even get base damage increases on upgrade.
Demon's Souls was tied for best souls game with Bloodborne imo, but Elden Ring really just gives me too much of everything I want to not give it the win. Even now that I finally have a ps5 and can play the Demon's remake, I also still just flat prefer the original environment aesthetic decisions and music.
HOW DARE
People who love Demon's REALLY love it, and I get it.
Umbasa
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
You're right and you should say it
I think there's a lot there to like, but not all of the jank lands with me. I like that there's a cheese strat for most of the bosses, I like the variety of weird bosses, I like weird things like having loot lying around boss rooms, the level designs are A+, I like some of the build options they removed from later games (like HP or MP regen enchantments).
I think world tendency was just a terribly implemented idea, stuff like item carry limits feels like holdovers from earlier eras without serving any real purpose, and I think some of the level difficulty is just mean instead of harsh-but-fair (though I can't remember any specifics right now).
I dunno. It's real good. It just doesn't hit the nostalgia levels of DS or the polish of DS3/BB/ER. Though I think a lot of its charm lies in that unpolished roughness, too.
I think world tendency was just a terribly implemented idea, stuff like item carry limits feels like holdovers from earlier eras without serving any real purpose, and I think some of the level difficulty is just mean instead of harsh-but-fair (though I can't remember any specifics right now).
I dunno. It's real good. It just doesn't hit the nostalgia levels of DS or the polish of DS3/BB/ER. Though I think a lot of its charm lies in that unpolished roughness, too.
A really good example of just plain mean is the final leg of the run to Adjudicator, on a narrow cliff path with gold skeletons wielding giant heck off swords, who are also one of the only enemies in the game that have noticeable hyper armor, while the flying stingrays are shooting magic spears at you constantly (Thief Ring alleviates the stingrays a lot at least). And when the game was still new, and people were popping Ephemeral Eye stones to get their full health back way more often, you'd tank the world tendency down quite rapidly there and make everything significantly harder. Everything before that cliff path in 4-1 is GREAT.
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
I definitely wouldn't call Demon's Souls unpolished, but it was definitely more comfortable with odd and incongruent design decisions, and was notably free of the burden of audience expectations, which has it good and bad qualities (but is a quality that strongly appeals to me personally).
(also as an aside I'm going to state my conclusion that the memetic "tough but fair" criterion doesn't actually mean anything)
(also as an aside I'm going to state my conclusion that the memetic "tough but fair" criterion doesn't actually mean anything)
i don't think anything in this game is nearly as annoying as tomb of the giants or the crystal cave in dark souls, lol. i recognize i played this one a lot more than the back half of that game (because i hated those parts, and izalith much more than them), but i think the only ways in which demon's souls really feels like the "roughest" game in the modern lineage are world tendency (which i think...is very mixed) and the combat design, which i mostly like for being jankier and more busted than the later games. i really think that every main boss ends up being really memorable and different
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
Honestly after playing DS1 and 2 first I was blown away by how polished Demon's Souls was in comparison, and that it was superior in level design to either. (Also subjectively I think Demon's Souls both looks better and has better gamefeel too).
Something disappointing about the game I've noticed that I've never seen mentioned elsewhere is that every weapon class has the exact same moveset for every weapon (except for a few weapons who have the moveset of a different class). Now there's a marked improvement in the sequels (and something they should have done for the remake, honestly)
Something disappointing about the game I've noticed that I've never seen mentioned elsewhere is that every weapon class has the exact same moveset for every weapon (except for a few weapons who have the moveset of a different class). Now there's a marked improvement in the sequels (and something they should have done for the remake, honestly)
Explain yourself!
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
In practice I feel it means subjectively "this was hard but I liked it", rather than pointing to any consistent design ethos or principles
I think what it means to me is that it is predictable in its difficulty. The balance is such that it doesn't throw a lot of bullshit traps at you, but rewards you pretty well for learning the systems, the movesets, and the reward is that the game becomes easier. I feel like the theoretical opposite is a game where no matter how often you play it or how well you learn it, there are pitfalls designed in there specifically to try and fuck you over, or difficulty just for difficulty's sake.
It's nebulous, certainly, but I think the fact that "tough but fair" has become a meme in the first place indicates that enough people have identified a difference in the feel of From's specific brand of difficulty from other difficult games to categorize it, and that indicates to me that there's something there. It's not just sadistic for the sake of being hard (although it can certainly feel like it sometimes), but Miyazaki has specifically stated his design ethos, that difficulty in his games is a way to make the player feel accomplished for overcoming it. It's designed not just to stymie you, but to lead you to betterment. Like a stern but fair coach or teacher, instead of one who just wants to make it harder for you.
It's nebulous, certainly, but I think the fact that "tough but fair" has become a meme in the first place indicates that enough people have identified a difference in the feel of From's specific brand of difficulty from other difficult games to categorize it, and that indicates to me that there's something there. It's not just sadistic for the sake of being hard (although it can certainly feel like it sometimes), but Miyazaki has specifically stated his design ethos, that difficulty in his games is a way to make the player feel accomplished for overcoming it. It's designed not just to stymie you, but to lead you to betterment. Like a stern but fair coach or teacher, instead of one who just wants to make it harder for you.
The idea that Souls games don't have bullshit traps in them is laughable
I mean the definitive bullshit moment in the games are the Anor Londo bow silver knights guarding the only path forward, so narrow you MUST get at least one of them out of the way while both shoot you with arrows that will almost certainly knock you off the ledge if they don't kill. It's a moment Miyazaki has publicly laughed about for its ridiculous unfairness. And it's followed by the first boss fight with two bosses at once, AND a third boss as a phase transition when up to that point the game has made it let's say TEDIOUS to keep your weapon fully up to date with upgrades. Demon's Souls is packed with more unfair design moments than any other Souls game for sure, though it's the easiest of the games to overpower yourself in so it isn't often remembered that way. Dark Souls 2 had different designers who misunderstood the principles they were following and just made it to be punishing. Elden Ring's best example is how they messed with enemy, and especially boss wind-ups to completely shake up the reaction timing every prior game ingrained in series veterans (and Rune Bears).
The series has never been about being fair as far as I've ever been able to tell, it's about being its own unique brand of hard. I respect their dedication to it. Being fair is totally from the fans that like it, particularly the ones that felt rewarded for pushing through the bullshit. A lot of the discussion I see around how "fair" it is also tends to center around Dark Souls 1 Estus as the quintessential example as compared to running out of healing items in Demon's Souls while everything else amounts to "once you get used to it." Which I mean sure, but it's also an approach you can take to any kind of difficulty in any game and pending overall accessibility usually isn't actually fair to the player at all.
The series has never been about being fair as far as I've ever been able to tell, it's about being its own unique brand of hard. I respect their dedication to it. Being fair is totally from the fans that like it, particularly the ones that felt rewarded for pushing through the bullshit. A lot of the discussion I see around how "fair" it is also tends to center around Dark Souls 1 Estus as the quintessential example as compared to running out of healing items in Demon's Souls while everything else amounts to "once you get used to it." Which I mean sure, but it's also an approach you can take to any kind of difficulty in any game and pending overall accessibility usually isn't actually fair to the player at all.
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But on the other hand: this is only "bullshit" until you realize all you have to do is literally run up the path after they fire and then go to the right. The knight on the left won't be able to hit you past a certain point. It's not nearly as unfair as people make it out to be.
That point of safety from the left is after you get past the knight on the right. There's some obstruction in the way of the left knight on the run up, but nothing obstructing it once you're up there, so both do definitely have clear shots at you while you're doing whatever you've decided to do to deal with it.
Completely forgot the remake has a Classic filter in the display options till tonight. Wow I like it a lot more like this. Everything is still too bright but the atmosphere feels a lot better now. Wish there was a similar classic soundtrack option.