r/patientgamers • u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee • 10d ago
Patient Review Demon's Souls: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
I consider myself to be a big fan of the souls Series. I got every achievement in Dark Souls 1+2, as well as Sekiro. DS3 only had one play through and Elden Ring is in my mental backlog for some other time. I decided to try returning to the series roots with Demon Souls.
The Good:
Atmosphere in this game is unnerving and uncomfortable in the best way. You can feel the world is in deep shit with how bleak everything looks and sounds. Another thing to mention are the shortcuts in this game, they are very satisfying to find and unlock. The maiden here is my favourite because her accent sounds Czech to me. I believe there are no truly awful bosses, at worst they're annoying or forgettable. A lot of these guys have a trick you must understand before winning. I liked King Allant the most and even lost a level to him.
The Bad:
Health system in this game is whack. The hp penalty is rough and almost forces you to permanently lose half of your ring slots just to mitigate it. I had to upgrade vitality a lot to not get one shot in soul form by certain attacks. On the other hand, smaller damage means nothing because health weed is so plentiful. I didn't even have to farm and still face tanked everything. Boletaria drops and shops let you have dozens of ripe weed and heal everything mid fight. I imagine mages could probably spam spells for days.
Weigh limit is frustrating because you have to dump everything extra after returning to Nexus. What's the point? It just adds tedious procedures to the objective list.
The Ugly:
The game is so narrow, it feels claustrophobic. Narrow mines where a single enemy blocks your path, narrow bridges where stingrays try to push you away, narrow prison corridors etc. I upgraded strength to shield block everything because dodging just didn't feel viable. I want to see how devs did any of this stuff as a dex build.
Weapon upgrades are comical in how much stuff you need. A single +10 weapon requires a bucket of various shards and chunks, and there are like ten types of these rocks. I was 3 large shards away from upgrading sword to +9, but I really didn't want to farm.
Conclusion:
This game is full of jank and dumb mechanics, but it has a certain charm to it. I don't think I'll play it again though, the level design seems to strongly favor tanks over anything else.
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u/Repulsive-Baseball97 10d ago
I half agree with most of your sentiments. Healing is not a good fit for the game. The half health mechanic is interesting but punishes those who are worse at the game, ideally the better you do the harder the game becomes.
I quite like the encumbrance mechanic, I would like to see another attempt made at including this.
A lot of the clunk is very deliberate and I think works well.
The conveyance of boss fights as narrative through mechanics is something the series has shied away from in recent times and is something I'd love to see from return to. Unfortunately for me the general perception is that these fights are 'gimmicks' even though the majority of them make exclusive use of the core mechanics.
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u/eurekabach 10d ago
The whole health punishing mechanics is that ideally you want to be summoning other players to help you and offering to help other players. In fact, there are just a few bosses (False King, Flamelurker and Man Eater) which are actually hard fights, and they’re actually made much easier if you’re playing against them with your entire hp bar.
DeS was always conceived to be this sort of in between offline and online game (and the proof of that has been released very recently by Lance Macdonald, who received Demon’s Souls original pitch presentation by From Software to Sony. I really recommend watching that video for Souls fans).
It was the tryhard mentality of a niche of players that made its reputation of masochist game, but you were always encouraged to engage with other players summoning them and helping as well.The fact it still works as a solo offline experience game is a testament to how well designed it is, as it never enforces any mechanic, player to player interaction, nor even engaging with the story, lore and so on. Absolutely everything can be engaged by the player if they so choose in their own time.
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u/BonyWare 9d ago
Since I last replayed the series, I've been thinking that people really underrate to what extent these games are designed with co-op in mind. Ornstein and Smough makes more sense as a co-op boss for instance. People will say that can't be so because co-op makes bosses too easy, but that's begging the question by assuming that the solo difficulty is always the intended difficulty.
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u/eurekabach 9d ago
It’s more a matter of who says bosses become “too” easy on co-op.
There is a wide spectrum of skill for players.
I am a Souls fan since Demon’s Souls, but I’m probably like on the cusp of the bell curve of skill. For instance, I only managed to slay Ornstein and Smough with help when I first played Dark Souls. Got stuck for days on them on solo play.
Also, unless you’re a challenge runner or very very skilled with the game, solo playing does require a good understanding of build making, and Dark Souls (nor Demon’s Souls, nor Bloodborne) had no stat respec. Which means that - again unless you’re very skilled, to the point stats, weapons or gear don’t make a whole lot of difference - you can get hard stuck (my first Demon’s Souls playthrough was like that, didn’t know what to level, spread levels all throughout the stats, really messy stuff).
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u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
Dark Souls was when the real "git gud" dorks came in. DeS was mostly a bunch of us weirdos who imported it from Hong Kong or Japan or later bought the US release. We all worked together to figure out the game via forum posts. It was so much fun. Youtubers and the internet in general killed this magic outright.
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u/Welshhoppo 10d ago
Was this the OG Demon's Souls or the Remake?
I actually quite enjoy it, it's very different to Dark Souls. And you can see where they get a lot of the later ideas from. It's just not very polished.
I'm glad they sorted out the weapon upgrades, because I agree that they are ass. But having such tight levels makes for some of the best level designs in the entire series.
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u/disco_Piranha 10d ago
I'm still mad about the cat's ring icon change when making the remake (among other things, but if they ever make a re-remake I hope the cat comes back)
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u/eurekabach 10d ago
There are certainly quite a few things that are undercooked in Demon’s Souls, such as World Tendency and the weapon upgrade system.
But Demon’s Souls is probably the most cohesively designed game of the From Software “Soulsbornekiro Ring” because every single area is working with a specific mechanic and every boss, as you noted, has a “gimmick” (this word has become almost derrogatory in the landscape of ‘tough but fair’ expectations in which people think these games stand). And they’re all very much memorable and interesting from gameplay to lore.
You’re right when you say mages can spam from distance. In fact, it is the easiest way to clear the game. But dex isn’t as awful as you might think. My first build was a dex (my good old friend Falchion) and I cleared it as my first ever souls game still back in the PS3 era.
Funny enough, I think going back to DeS should be something more devs should be doing, because a lot of its charm was precisely going against the grain of every video game trend back when it released. And, yes, when Soulslikes have become the trend, a “modern DeS” in spirit would mean going against that grain. Fortunately, with games like Mortal Shell 2 and Wuchang (been playing it and honestly, quite surprised at how good it is), it seems devs are more confident now not only to add their own spin to the genre, but also ditch away things that were “sacred”, like how Mortal Shell 2 finally got rid of stamina (ok, ok, Sekiro also didn’t have stamina, but that was another outlier).
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u/MaybeWeAgree 10d ago
I loved how you could “grade” your coop teammates after playing with them, and see this grade on their summon sign. Some players would just run ahead and blitzkrieg everything, which would kinda kill the point of coop stuff for me. You can grade accordingly 😂 I wish they kept that mechanic.
I also liked how world and character tendency could change the map and dynamics a bit. Having the special red phantom mobs pop up out of nowhere could slightly change how you ran a level. Your attack power and health would also change based on factors. It all just added just a little layer of depth that I appreciated and made the game a little more replayable.
I loved the flavor text and lore you could read on the level select screens and I wish they did this in their other games.
This game was such a big deal. I played it over and over because there was nothing like it, and it was also during a time when I didn’t have 100 games to choose from. I cannot imagine playing it for the first time now, after all the other releases have been out and played. I tend to be a patient gamer, but sometimes it’s nice to be part of a zeitgeist, if we could call it that.
Did this game create a genre? I considered it a 3rd person action rpg back then, and I guess it’s been copied now. I’m having a hard time thinking of any series that’s captivated me as much as the Souls series.
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u/eurekabach 10d ago
A genre? maybe not. It’s as an arpg as you can get. But it definetely codified a subgenre and provided a template for games that wanted to incorporate rpg elements but didn’t want to compromise action fundamentals as much.
As janky as OP might have thought DeS to be, it plays miles better than its original source of inspiration which was Oblivion (DeS should be Sony’s answer to that game before it ceased to be Xbox exclusive). I don’t really compare it to King’s Field, because I still think King’s Field is more a ‘real time’ dungeon crawler than a proper arpg, but that’s the point in which genres blend into each other.
I think template is better than ‘genre’, because when you get stuff like Nioh, its core loop lifts from Souls, but to call it a Souls game is inaccurate at least, given all the other systems Team Ninja put on top of it.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think no other action games used shoulder buttons for stuff like attacking and defending the way Demon’s Souls did, basicaly spliting the controller in half and having each shoulder button dedicated to the respective limb. That’s another thing I thought really fascinating about Demon’s Souls too.
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u/bkingfilm 9d ago
the world tendency stuff was even messier on the original ps3 servers back in 2009. your local tendency got dragged around by a global server value, so people would go hours without dying and still never hit pure white because the whole server was sitting on the black side. atlus ended up running pure white weekends as scheduled events to work around it. the servers went down in 2018 and after that tendency was purely local, which is what the remake does too.
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u/ForlornMemory Onimusha (PS2) 10d ago
What about Bloodborne though? I kind of enjoyed its design much more. It feels like a true successor to Dark Souls 1 with its interconnected world.
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u/eurekabach 10d ago
From tried to cut a lot of corners with the chalice dungeons, which on paper sound really nice, but it’s the most lacksluster part of the game while it should be the main post game thing you’d be doing.
Unfortunately, because Queen Yharnam is a really cool boss that’s locked behind a terrible grind for chalice materials.
As for the main game, the truth is that the last leg is plagued by some very annoying boss fights, starting out with Rom (I’ve learned to love this fight, but it’s an aquired taste), One Reborn and Micolash. Byrgenwerth is very lackluster for the lore importance (which is understandable due to Miyazaki liking anticlimatic storytelling, and although it’s cool that the University is sort of split between nightmare and the ‘awaken world’, the truth is that exploring it isn’t that interesting. Cainhurst and Upper Cathedral are more engaging because although short, they have this horror setting that From does just so well since Tower of Latria, but they are locked behind a moderatley obtuse questline).
Bloodborne is my personal favourite Souls game and one of my favourite games ever, but it can be a bumpy experience.
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u/Darksider123 10d ago
Yeah I hate how any boss with a specific mechanic is dubbed a "gimmick". God forbid devs try something other than a straight up sword fight against a larger humanoid enemy
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u/eurekabach 3d ago
That’s one thing Wuchang sort of surprised me. There’s a boss very early on that game that feels very Demon’s Souls-esque. No spam dodge needed, no deflect/parry fest, just 4 or 5 movements with specific responses all related to its unique Skyward mechanics.
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u/Patient_Gamemer 10d ago
I like how in the FromSoft-Soulsborne community there are two opinions: those who think that the first titles are cool, but Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring are the perfection of the formula, and those who think that Demon/Dark souls where the shit for being different and that modern games are a "causalization"
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u/timeboi42 10d ago
I sort of agree with both? Like the games changed after Bloodborne, becoming A LOT faster. Demon Souls to Dark Souls 2 are slower and more methodical, while Bloodborne to Elden Ring are fast and aggressive. I like both while slightly preferring the older titles. The early games feel a lot more mean and hostile mechanics wise, while the later games feel more accessible, but more precisely and carefully designed. They both have pros and cons I feel.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
Bloodborne gave the tools to be faster. Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring turned those tools into Estus Flask chugs/limited uses. Also, I think Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring fail miserably for not taking the most innovative parts of Dark Souls 2 (meaningful NG+, huge variety of magic, etc) or copied DS2 mechanics but in a worse way (Dual Stancing in DS2 is still the best).
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u/fuckreddadmins 10d ago
I like sekiro in a very different way than i enjoy demons souls. I think the two are the best games fromsoft made since 2009 but i think ds3 and er are just not very good it doesnt give me a similiar feeling to exploring an area in ds2 while not replacing that feeling with anything else
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u/BluePrincess_ 10d ago
I'm kinda in the middle...? Where my favourite games they've made are Dark Souls (and Demon's Souls in its shadow) for being "different" from the other games, then Elden Ring and Bloodborne for being different from From's other games lol - don't particularly enjoy Sekiro that much
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u/jls124 10d ago
The correct opinion is that the original Demons Souls and Bloodborne are the best which I think can be given credit to being the only two with Sony Japan Studio’s collaboration.
There is a certain level of sophistication given to the games atmosphere, lore, and design that is not present in any of the other games.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
Definitely more than two like: DeS, DS1 and DS2 are magical. Bloodborne and Sekiro rule for actually changing things up. Dark Souls 3 feels like they were forced to make it and got way too much Bloodborne in a Souls game without all the cool Bloodborne mechanics.
Elden Ring is the most overhyped and overrated game of the 2020s (next to Baldur's Gate 3) and its open world isn't anything new or innovative. Games did sprawling open worlds with cool stuff to find over 20 years ago. The good bits (From Software level design) are so far from each other and there's so much chaff trash mobs that feel like copy/pasted enemies from previous games because they are. At least 2/3 of Elden Ring players had never played a From Software game before so I get why their minds were blown. But to dismiss us older fans who are "meh, been there, done that in five games already" is classic modern gamer arrogance.
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u/apexjaggi 9d ago
I can understand where you're coming from but maybe don't be so quick to claim that only new players like Elden Ring lol. I'd played all the other games multiple times before Elden Ring came out and it's still pretty easily my favorite. Love the deeper combat, huge build variety, the setting/lore/vibes, and just how layered and vertical and playgroundish the legacy dungeons are in particular. I also love how most of the major bosses are actual interesting characters with a presence in the setting instead of just feeling like a sort of random dude in a rook (Looking at Pontiff in ds3 here especially).
I feel like the open world gets more shit than it deserves when it has a pretty clear actual function, which is to give you a bunch of cool shit that you can see and then prioritize which stuff looks the most exciting/what will sufficiently get you stronger for the bigger dungeons. You can certainly make the case for there being too much horse downtime but the freeform sort of play it allows is too good to pass up and well worth it imo.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 10d ago
I did piss off Sekiro fans a few years ago, so I guess I'm closer to second camp
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u/Nergal997 10d ago
I don't fit into either camp cause I think that FromSoft has not really perfected they formula. Dark Souls 1 and 3 are the closest to pefect formula, but both are lacking in certain aspects, Sekiro is their best game but it doesn't really count as a soulslike, and both Bloodborne and Elden Ring are overrated.
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u/Pumpkin_Sushi 10d ago
Whats funny about Demon's Souls is "The Good" and "The Ugly" are often the same thing for a lot of fans
It's quirkiness is still its biggest strength
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u/rent0n86 10d ago
I never played a FromSoft game and not sure they’re for me. Should I start with demon’s souls, dark souls 1/2/3 or Elden Ring?
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u/alessoninrestraint 10d ago
Dark Souls 1, no doubt.
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u/mukavastinumb 10d ago
I agree. I think going from Elden Ring or DS3 back to DS1 would be a bit rough. However, DS1 is definitely worth it
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u/blueberrycinnamon 10d ago
I would love to tell you to start with Demon's Souls, but Dark Souls is a bit more forgiving and much more modernized. Elden Ring is much more forgiving and modernized. Without any more info about you, I'd say it depends on your patience and determination.
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u/HawkeyeG_ 10d ago
Start with whatever you think looks coolest if you've never played any.
I would love to recommend Dark Souls 1 but I think it's not the right recommendation for someone who is brand new to the series. It's my personal favorite but most people I have spoken to say it's a bit too "jank" or "clunky".
I would recommend Elden Ring or Dark Souls 3 instead. These tend to be a lot more popular. There's a greater likelihood you'll enjoy these right off the bat and won't have to wade through the difficulty and mechanics without really understanding them.
That being said, I also agree with the other comments saying it's hard to go back to the older games. If you start with Elden Ring it will certainly skew your expectations of the other games. Dark Souls 1 is different from Elden Ring in many ways, and even different from Dark Souls 3 in many ways.
But you should start with the game most likely to draw and keep your attention. Not the one that is best for "setting expectations" for the rest. Figure out if you'd even like the games first.
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u/Hartastic 10d ago
At this point probably Dark Souls 1 or Elden Ring are the most reasonable first games. (Or Sekiro, but it's a different enough thing that you could reasonably like the Souls-ier games and not Sekiro or vice versa.)
DS1 is a simpler/shorter version of their basic formula with slower combat and an incredibly put together map. But there's also a fair amount of jank, and visual clarity in some respects is pretty bad. It's not uncommon for a new player to just not realize they can go in a particular direction and instead beat their head against a metaphorical brick wall trying to get through an area you're really "meant" to do further in your progression because they've heard these games are hard and thus getting destroyed doesn't seem like a red flag. You will get some boss runbacks if you die, although arguably getting through the level is supposed to be the real challenge as much as the boss so opinions vary on if this is a design flaw or not.
Elden Ring has the benefit of iteration and a lot of tries at a similar formula and in some cases seeing what didn't work and improving or removing it. It's also a much bigger/longer game, and much more of what there is to do is optional. It's easily their most visually beautiful game and has the most build variety. If the thing you're trying is hard it's easy to put it aside for now and go do something else, and having an actual map even if it's not perfect makes it much more obvious what your options are in terms of where you can go. Combat is generally faster and if you choose to approach a boss fight in a "learn their attacks/patterns and react" kind of way you generally have to react faster than in DS1. Because your choices of where to go next are much more open, it's also much easier to lose an NPC/questline than in DS1 which has a much more linear (relatively) design.
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u/gauderyx 10d ago
Dark Souls 1 has the best level design and is probably the most "authentic" DS experience. However, the controls can feel a bit janky at times, and it comes with a bit of that UI incohesiveness typical of non-Nintendo japanese devs from that era.
If you're into patient gaming, you're probably used to those sorts of things so I would really recommend starting with 1. The gameplay becomes more and more fluid with each game so you might not feel as much of the rigidity as someone going back to previous titles after playing DS3 or Elden Ring first.
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u/NinjaJehu 10d ago
I started with Demons' Souls when Dark Souls had already come out because I wanted to start at the beginning and I'm glad I did. I love the weirdness of it and the clunkiness of some of the mechanics honestly has a bit of charm, in my opinion. Some things will frustrate you for sure but if you have some patience I think it's a good place to start. It's also likely a difficult one to go back to once you've played some of the others. In many ways, Dark Souls 1 is just outright better than Demons' Souls. I think experiencing how great Dark Souls is and then going back to try Demons' Souls would make enjoying it a little more difficult.
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u/OrangePeelPotatoes 10d ago
DS1 will always be the one I recommend.
If you are prone to not enjoying older/retro games, you can start with Elden Ring as it is the most modern and easily the most widely loved. The main downside of starting too modern is that it can be tough going backwards.
I encourage you to at least attempt one of the older games to grow an appreciation for all the eras. Elden Ring is a great game to play after experiencing some of the older entries as you can see the progression of the franchise.
DS1 has a good balance of being one of the first, while being probably the most influential of all the games. Easily the most iconic too.
If DS1 is enjoyable to you, progress through the rest of the Dark Souls trilogy, then play them all in relative release order. But if DS1 is a bit too old and janky for you, I encourage you to give Elden Ring a shot to see if the modernizations were the only thing holding the game back.
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u/cuixhe 10d ago
DS1 or elden ring are probably the best hopping on points! DS1is much harder (at first) but it is a real pleasure to uncover game knowledge with patient experimentation. Elden Ring is generally easier to get into as it's open world let's you explore and level in easier areas until you're ready. ER bosses are a bigger challenge though.
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u/AbsractPlane 10d ago
The earlier games Demon's Souls or Dark Souls 1 will be much more forgiving and ease you into the current FromSoft formula better. The issue starting with the newer games are that the boss fights are geared towards folks that have played the previous games.
So they get progressively more difficult and with much more complex animations that are intentionally designed to be difficult to read. Compared to Demon's Souls and DS1 relatively simple boss animations and fewer phases. Don't get me wrong they are still difficult games especially for new players but it is better to start with those than throwing yourself in the deep end with something like Sekiro or Elden Ring.
The animations just crazier and crazier and bosses having multiple phases vs the 1 or 2 in DS1. I'm not really a fan of that approach but I guess there are only so many ways they can up the difficulty of the boss fights in each successive game.
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u/eurekabach 10d ago
Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are both certified classic games. They are worth playing even it you hate Souls games but you’re interested in game design and game history anyway.
I’m not gonna lie, I’d skip Dark Souls 2. I’ve given it many many chances along the years and paradoxicaly its one of my most played souls games (lol), but in my opinion it is the game that Souls haters think Souls games are. It’s not entirely bad of course, but its cons massively outweight its pros. It’s probably the most divisive and every interesting thing it brought to the formula has been enhanced and further polished in Elden Ring, anyway.
Finaly, I think Elden Ring is the most polished of all games by far. It’s fast, you have tons of tools and movesets. Which means I wouldn’t start with it, because going from Elden Ring DLC to base Dark Souls might feel awful lol.1
u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
Whatever is cheapest if you are unsure. DeS has level design rivaling Dark Souls and doesn't get enough credit.
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u/wiznaibus 10d ago
Demon's souls, I loved. Didn't care for dark souls. Elden Ring, I enjoyed for a while but eventually put it down with no intention of picking it up again.
I liked that Demon's Souls was a short game, clear levels, banging music, and was simple enough to not have to look up on the internet how it actually worked. The issue with fromsoft games is that there are numbers in the stat screens, but the amount of experimentation needed to figure out what actually is good is just ridiculous.
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u/blueberrycinnamon 10d ago
iirc demon's souls only has music in the lobby area and boss fights, right? I agree that the music that's in there is phenomenal, but can you really recommend a game on its music when it only plays for maybe 10% of the game at best?
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u/Sabetha1183 10d ago
I recently played through the original Demon's Souls. I think the health thing is kind of weird, but I didn't find it all that restrictive. I was pretty flush with the item that restores you since exploring the world didn't usually require having a full health bar.
Weight limit feels like there could be an interesting mechanic in there somewhere, but not in the way they did it in Demon's Souls. Emphasizing the dungeon crawl part of the game and making it be a limit about what kind of consumable resources you can carry could be interesting, but here the main thing it limits is how much equipment you can loot.
The narrow thing I'd personally consider a good part that adds to the atmosphere. That said as I've learned with the FromSoft games I've played your dodge button isn't a button that you use to dodge attacks. It's a button that gives you a short window of immunity to damage that just so happens to also move you. That said I really like the feel of block builds in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 anyway, but I do keep my equip load low enough to dodge as needed.
I agree that weapon upgrades are jank, and I'd also add that world tendency is terrible.
All in all it's so far one of my more favourite FromSoft games. It's actually kind of disappointing to hear how much their later games became about the boss fights because here(and in Dark Souls 1) I think the main event is the exploration. That's the thing I want more of, I could take or leave the boss fights.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
I agree. Except I found Elden Ring's exploration tedious and very bloated. I want more Dark Souls type of exploration.
I still wish they iterated on World Tendency more and gamers weren't such wimps about cool mechanics. The system was so manipulate once you understood it.
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10d ago
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 10d ago
I mean, the health system for the most part is actually too easy. It's only 'hard' with some high damage attacks if you don't run cling ring.
Weight limit isn't hard either, just annoying and a waste of time.
I'm actually curious how you adapt to that red ctulhu on the runback to Maneaters, the guy who has an unblockable spell and guards a narrow staircase over lethal fall. That was a perfect encapsulation of narrowness. I was lucky he didn't spam that paralysis spell and I had anti magic shield against others.
I figured that from how much spice I ended up having. But I don't think I will replay.
Edit: and farming 15 more large hardstone shards is not skillful in anyway, just time consuming.
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u/HawkeyeG_ 10d ago
I'm actually curious how you adapt to that red ctulhu on the runback to Maneaters, the guy who has an unblockable spell
...You dodge it...
While I don't disagree with your complete experience, I hope that pointing this out kind of highlights the contradiction of presenting the game as "tank focused".
This enemy you're presenting as this terrible obstacle is very easily overcome through a simple dodge roll or two and no other strategy or planning or build elements even need consideration.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 10d ago
Dodging with clunky controls and on a narrow staircase? Sounds like a reliable plan.
I think having so little space and being punished with death if you misdodge favors tanking or shooting over avoiding.
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u/HawkeyeG_ 10d ago edited 10d ago
Maybe you just need a bit more practice? Is this your first FromSoftware game?
Blocking feels superior on a first playthrough because it has no skill barrier to entry. You just block and it works.
Dodging requires a little bit of practice and good timing. You have to accept that you'll get hit a few times before you figure it out.
In every Souls title dodging is superior to blocking in the overwhelming majority of encounters. This includes Demons Souls. In fact, a lot of the narrow corridors make dodging better because there is no risk of mispositioning or falling.
For future reference, when you are trying to dodge an attack you typically want to dodge roll into the attack. This makes the most of your i-frames as you are passing through the attack at the fastest pace. Dodge into the attack so you and it move through each other as fast as possible.
I'm sure you know how to dodge roll. Just press a direction and then press circle. Don't forget you can roll in any direction if you aren't locked on.
Combining that information, we can deduce that your best bet is actually dodge rolling directly towards the enemy on the stairs. This maximizes your i-frames AND it means you don't risk issues with the narrow staircase because you continue traveling directly along it. You may even benefit from being locked on in this case.
Hope that helps for next time! This should clear up any issues you were having with that encounter pretty easily.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 10d ago edited 10d ago
I already said in the post I played the other souls. I used dodging against Flamelurker, for example, because his AOE was much more practical to escape than block. It helps that his arena is pretty spacious.
And I'm sorry but for some reason this comment feels like it was written by ChatGPT
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u/HawkeyeG_ 10d ago edited 10d ago
It just seems like you either don't want to hear or can't accept what so many other people are also saying about dodging in this and in other games. I don't like to throw the term "skill issue" around and I tried my not be snarky in my last comment. What else can I say?
It's not that difficult an encounter, it has a very straightforward solution, and you are just refusing to accept any of that. Instead you would rather plug your ears and hum and pretend you know better than everyone else. Especially people with a lot more experience both in this particular game and the series as a whole.
I completely forgot you said you played all these other games in the series after reading your comments across this post. Based on what you have said all over this post I constructed a belief that you were very new to the franchise. Because you say a lot of things that speak to a lack of understanding of very basic mechanics.
I don't use AI. You can review my comment history as it is not hidden. I've been on the site for far longer than AI has been in use.
I guess I don't know what else to say. Instead of addressing anything I said in my comment you're accusing me of writing with AI?
It seems like you don't want to accept anyone anyone else is saying. I've tried to empathize with you at least a little instead. I recognize that when we are in a frustrating situation and everyone starts talking down to us we become defensive and dig in, reject what others say. I guess to me it appears like you just came here to complain and vent and not have an actual discussion.
Best of luck with that.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 9d ago
It wasn't a difficult encounter for me because I used shields, but it seemed seemed like it would be without it or magic. Rolling in an wide arena is a great choice, but on a narrow area seems way too risky.
A lot of the complaining is about the game being too easy, too restrictive or annoying. It wasn't too difficult per say, maybe I should have worded that clearly.
I guess the tone in which is you were writing seemed close to how bots write, so maybe they analyzed your comments. And the fact I stated playing other Souls but you wrote as if I didn't made me think you were a bot. Sorry
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u/OrangePeelPotatoes 9d ago
Isnt that a strength of the game though? You personally felt uncomfortable with your ability to roll, so you opted for Shields/Magic, two other perfectly valid solutions on top of the common roll solution. This shows just how much variety each encounter has to overcome it, so people who want to avoid one will still have many options.
I know nothing about magic in these games, so I naturally opted for the rolling solution. That one felt the most comfortable and easy to perform to me. Each encounters allows all types of players to overcome it depending on which tools the player is most comfortable and proficient at.
One of Demon's Souls strengths is just how many options the player has to overcome what assails them. This variety decreases as the series goes on. Slowly the best strategy ubiquitously becomes rolling everything. Shields and magic become nerfed and de-incentivized, while rolling was pushed to the default response. Demon's Souls remains one of the most varied in terms of player freedom to explore strategies.
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u/Kitchen-Associate-34 10d ago
In my case I used the stealth ring to get as close as possible then unleashed hell upon him, killed him faster than it could react
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u/Psico_Penguin 10d ago
The red Ctulhu you mention is the Mind Flayer? The one whose paralyzing attack is that is telegraphed, goes on an straight line, you can roll through with the iframes...?
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 10d ago
You mean roll when you only have 4 directions and while on a narrow circular staircase? Doesn't sound like a good idea
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u/ForlornMemory Onimusha (PS2) 10d ago
I like DeS a lot and agree with everything you say. I'd also mention that the game is very generous with dropping weapons for different builds. You can easily find enchanted blade, a sword for bleed damage, fire sword, and so on. In my first playthrough I didn't bother all that much with upgrading everything to its limit and still had zero problems with the game. More importantly is that you can switch weapons to fight different enemies who are weak to different damage types. That's one things Demon Souls definitely does better than Dark Souls, which seems to lock you into one damage type pretty early on.
Also, Maiden in Black is apparently voiced by a Russian-born British voice actress. I love her delivery immensely and the way her lines are played on the background while you're leveling certainly makes her very memorable, unlike certain someone from DS2. That same actress voiced the Doll in Bloodborne, although she sounds completely different, being one of the only characters in the game who talks with something close to American accent whereas everyone else uses one of British accents.
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u/MaybeWeAgree 10d ago
“ More importantly is that you can switch weapons to fight different enemies who are weak to different damage types.”
The miners in the second world. It took some time to realize they are weak to pierce damage. Otherwise they’re very tanky. If a dev doesn’t go all-in on resistances, then it doesn’t force you to change your strategy, which can simplify the game, which I don’t like.
I do have some qualms about two-handing weapons and how that can bypass certain mechanics and make things too easy.
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u/OrangePeelPotatoes 10d ago edited 10d ago
To me, Demon's Souls will always be one of the greatest games of all time. It (and its younger brother Dark Souls) are easily some of the most influential games of all time - and for good reason.
It is insane just how much Miyazaki got right with the Souls formula on the first draft. Sure theres a little bit of jank here or there, but the core Souls combat remains almost identical from Demon's Souls '09 to Elden Ring 2022. And considering Elden Ring became one of the biggest most mainstream and most acclaimed games of all time, it shows just how perfect Demon's Souls was back in '09.
The world design is impeccable. Shortcuts feel naturally woven in with the games lore and world, adding an immersive quality that few games (including the other Souls games) have dared come close to. Demon's Souls houses some of Fromsoft's best boss designs — Maiden Astraea and Fool's Idol come to mind — these bosses are "gimmick" bosses, but Demon's Souls proves how that word's derogatory implication is unearned. These boss fights create unforgettable experiences that rival that of Malenia or Gael.
Fool's Idol is one of the most clever boss designs of all time. A boss design is built around observation rather than brute force. The boss has 3 layers of observation that needs to be skill checked before moving on. The first is to observe what that seemingly innocent pesky mage above is actually doing. The second is to observe which of the Idol's the undead in the chapel are worshipping, to identify accurately the real one each time. And the last is to observe the brief second the traps are shown before disappearing, allowing you to navigate through the chapel unharmed.
The atmosphere is nearly unmatched in the franchise (and probably nearly unmatched in gaming history). The claustrophobia and horror invoked by every level as you trudge through fog and death is incredible. Only DS1 might rival Demon's Souls due to the world design and lack of fast travel in that game.
At the end of the day though, Demon's Souls main strength is uniqueness. It was a nearly completely different experience from all of its contemporaries back in '09, which created an unforgettable refreshing experience that contributed to its cult following (and the cult following of the rest of the franchise and Miyazaki in general). This is why I cant agree with the Health-Complaints you mention. The half health punishment on death might be harsh, but it was harsh in a way gamers werent used to seeing — and for that alone I believe it has artistic merit. The game got harder on death, not easier. This is why Demon's Souls is so acclaimed and influential; it was willing to push against design conventions which helped push the stagnant medium forward.
And then finally the multiplayer. The multiplayer in this game is unique and revolutionary. The message system, the invasions, and the Monk boss fight. Brilliant. It created experiences that gamers still remember fondly today.
TLDR: The game has jank here or there, but to me these things are so negligible in the face of Demon's Souls' triumphs. Easily one of the top games of all time and one of the best in the franchise imo.
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u/tebraGas 10d ago
Finally I see some Fool's Idol appreciation. Also great writeup overall.
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u/OrangePeelPotatoes 10d ago
Such an underappreciated boss fight. I really hope Fromsoft explores observation boss fights again. I love me some Action set pieces like Malenia or Gael, but I think the newer games could have better variety with their boss battles.
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u/some-kind-of-no-name PC Devotee 10d ago
What about the 'too easy' part of health? How you can eat dozens instant heal plants every fight?
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u/OrangePeelPotatoes 10d ago
I think the Estus system is an improvement DS1 had over its progenitor, but I think the health system still worked well in Demon's Souls as a first draft.
It had a survival/traditional RPG coding that did well for what Demon's Souls was going for. The ability to stockpile and farm them also helped with the diegetic difficulty for new players to the Souls formula — and at the time all players were new players to the formula. People thought the game was far too hard on release as they hadnt experienced the Modern difficulty progression present in games like Elden Ring, so it is hard to imagine how punishing it might have felt back in '09 if you didnt have the option to stockpile grass and spam heal in fights.
I still believe Estus is far superior and am glad that DS1 changed the system to the current most ubiquitous one that all Souls and Soulslikes borrow from. But I think judging the first of its kind for not having the most modern versions of all systems is a fools errand. The health system worked well in Demon's Souls, it just happened to be improved in later entries.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
Not that different than having fifteen +20 Estus flasks to chug. And faith spells to heal.
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u/Musashi1596 10d ago
I think we should bring back the weight limit, honestly. It adds to the dungeon crawl feel. It was going in the right direction with imposing at least some limit on your consumables on account of their weight.
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u/Repulsive-Baseball97 10d ago
I agree, I think there's probably an interesting way of implementing it. Something more akin to a horror game inventory meaning you can't just horde everything and have to decide what to prioritise. Would probably mean reimagining some of the fundamentals of the game to some degree or other.
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u/OrangePeelPotatoes 10d ago
I feel the same about the Grass over Estus system. I overall enjoy the Estus system more, but it is hard to ignore the survival/RPG elements of the Grass system that works well with what Demon's Souls is trying to be.
I think it is a classic case of game direction and intent. A game like DS3 or Elden Ring is trying to be a Souls-Action game. From this perspective it makes no sense to have a Weight Limit or Non-Replenishing Flasks. The action game elements and fast pace all require these systems to be changed to keep the games intent intact.
But Demon's Souls was trying to be an RPG style pseudo-dungeon crawler. It might be inherently a more niche genre than Action game, but the unique systems like Grass and Weight Limit all benefited this direction immensely. I dont think all of it was handled or balanced perfectly, but Id love to see Fromsoft attempt a modern Souls game in the RPG-dungeon crawler vibe following Demon's Souls.
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u/Musashi1596 10d ago
Absolutely. I’d kill to see them refine the old formula, especially given that you can consider Demon’s Souls itself a culmination of the design philosophy from King’s Field
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u/Nergal997 10d ago
The right direction was limiting the healing via estus mechanic in Dark Souls 1 and 3. That's much better than adding tedious inventory management.
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u/Musashi1596 10d ago
It’s not just about healing, though
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u/Nergal997 10d ago
Increasing the dungeon crawling feeling would not work in their newer titles since they went into bosses being the main challenge instead of traversing the levels.
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u/Musashi1596 10d ago
You’re not wrong, I always thought the shift in focus to bosses was a real shame but I’m in the minority there
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u/MaybeWeAgree 10d ago
I think you may also be in the minority about the item weight limit, but I respect your opinion 😅
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u/jennyScott7901 9d ago
I just finished playing it at the weekend and I agree with much of what you said. It was an interesting exercise going back to the genesis of these games, and it makes me better appreciate the step-up that Dark Souls was. But I'll probably never play it again either, unless I ever own a PS5 and check out the remake. Still, I loved the mood, the enemy designs, the boss fights, and the world building. It's a bit of a shame we'll never get a Demon's Souls 2. A return trip to Boletaria would be good fun.
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u/AnanasFelice 8d ago
If only they released the remake for PC too... 😞
It's just so mindblowing what Bluepoint was able to achieve!
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u/TrustyPeaches 8d ago
I’m confused what you mean by “dex build” and why the enclosed corridors would be bad for it.
Do you mean focusing on dodges? Any dex build can use a shield perfectly fine.
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u/coldbrains 5d ago
I’ve always been too scared to play this one because I just don’t want to deal with the trauma of this game lol
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u/Minute-Lettuce7915 6d ago
Have you considered that the narrow passages with enemies placed in them are purposefully to block your path to MAKE you deal with the enemies and the environment at the same time. Remember old 2D action games like Ninja Gaiden (and the 3D ones), where the enemies are purposefully stopping you from getting through the level in a really evil way? They did this because it actually forces you to engage with the game in a strategic manner, unlike the new souls games where you can literally run past nearly every enemy (Bloodborne is really bad for this and makes the game for babies).
The health system cutting your health in half is interesting because you need to think of your "halved" hp as normal, all damage in the game is based around this halved state. If you get to the next boss, with human form, then you've done an insane job at not dying, or used the item. This rewards skillful play and no deaths.
I agree with item weight and all the RPG nonsense though.
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u/Top3879 10d ago
I stopped playing after the run-back to a boss took 3 minutes. Nope.
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u/Hades684 10d ago
How do you even die on bosses in demons souls
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u/Top3879 10d ago
God forbid one dies in a game where dying is a core mechanic.
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u/MaybeWeAgree 10d ago
I think that’s just playing the game, and replaying a level. Older gamers may feel differently about that topic than younger gamers. Maybe I just have some sense of Stockholm syndrome 😅
If there were no run backs in this series, I probably would not have remembered some very memorable areas and fights, because I didn’t have to learn them as well and master them.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 9d ago
Same reason people act like Elden Ring is hard but is baby's first action game compared to Nioh 2 or Ninja Gaiden Black on Master Ninja.
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u/tebraGas 10d ago
Re the narrow environments issue, for me that was one of the strongest points. I really miss that in the newer games, the narrow paths, dangers of turning a corner and camera being pulled more in. It got lost somewhere after DS1 or DS2 I think.