Bought "Demons Souls" and Thought of You Lot!

Death is the ultimate teacher

You have the heart of a rougeliker. (is this a word? Sounds better than just rougelike fan).

+10 respect earned and you've unlocked the hidden "Congratulations! You Have Died." achievement.

I have pre-ordered the Dark Souls limited edition. Can't wait. I loved Demon's Souls, and have often wondered why neither game has been covered here. If you hate dumbed down modern games, these are the games for you.

Dark Souls is open-world, too. No hub, just one big world with no load-screens. Said to be about three times bigger than Demon's Souls, too.

Originally Posted by Badger
OKAY… big demon..sodding big demon… OUCH!! that's a big sword you just stabbed me with, that's going to hurt in the morning! Ughghghg… I appear to be dead. <snip>
Never fear though folks, it turns out that this was an unavoidable death

You can actually kill Vanguard (the sodding big demon) in the tutorial. It takes a bit of patience and memorizing his patterns. Defeating him here instead of later on will give you a bunch of upgrade stones, souls and grass in addition to his Grey demon's soul.

But after that you get a cutscene where the dragon god punches you to death. Tough nuggets, slayer of demons.

@Rane: thanks a lot, now I know how you go to Nexus even if you killed Vanguard .
In 4-1 it's a piece of cake fight btw, you can just shoot it 'til death xD.

I'm glad you brought this up here. I've been reading all the glowing reviews of Dark Souls (available on XBox, which I have) and was about to go to the store to pick up a copy. Then I thought, maybe I'll watch a few vids first. Some looked doable and enjoyable. I was getting excited. Then I came across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6MoyFTQrM4

Long ass boss battle that took a guy a day to prepare for. He defeats the boss and then is killed almost immediately afterwards. Meaning he has to do it all over again.

No thanks. Not for me, I guess.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
Then I came across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6MoyFTQrM4

Long ass boss battle that took a guy a day to prepare for. He defeats the boss and then is killed almost immediately afterwards. Meaning he has to do it all over again.

No thanks. Not for me, I guess.

Yep. Even if I might have convinced myself that Dark Souls wouldn't be as bad as Demon's Souls, that video just purged that misguided thought entirely.

Hell no!

I wish all you masochist many hours of joyous self-flagellation though

That's not true. Bosses do not respawn. Even if you die as you make the killing blow (as one reviewer of the game did).

This is a game that has real consequences, do you kill that guy you just freed? Hmm, if you do, maybe you cut yourself off from something. If you don't, maybe he goes and kills some other NPC. Do you trust him?

These games do away with anything that we might describe as dumbing-down, and then takes a few extra steps after that. It's almost never cheap or unfair, though. If you died, it's because you made a mistake, or you need to experiment with different approaches.

The narrative is almost all conveyed environmentally, it doesn't try to emulate a movie or a book. There is plenty of loot and strategy, but the loot is never stupid or overdone. Figuring out what to equip for what fight, and how to build your character to support your playstyles takes a lot of thought, and there are no respecs.

The actual gameplay is brilliant. It's the best action-tactical combat with swords and spells that I know of. You learn attack patterns, figure out weaknesses, work out which kind of attack a given enemy might be vulnerable to. The game tells you almost none of this, though, you have to work it out for yourself. You will die, and you will learn from it.

The game is save any time, but you can't reload an old save. If you need to quit right now, you will be exactly where you were before when you come back to it. On the other hand, you can't pause, if you want to fiddle with gear and look at your stats, you'd better make sure you're somewhere safe at the time. Almost nowhere is safe, though.

These games are the perfect antidote to all the dumbed down cinematic crap that AAA studios are making these days.

Originally Posted by Badesumofu
These games do away with anything that we might describe as dumbing-down, and then takes a few extra steps after that. It's almost never cheap or unfair, though. If you died, it's because you made a mistake, or you need to experiment with different approaches.

Except that experiment on a different approach to get past point Z requires you to replay everything from A-Y before reaching Z again. No fun. Seriously, that is probably THE thing I hate the most in games: Having to replay unrelated sections over again because I die further on ahead.

This game isn't for everyone, which is hardly a shock for a game that plays like the mainstream audience didn't dominate the market.

Now if only their could be PC releases!

I think my IQ dropped to the lowest ever, from 15 to 5. I bought Dark Souls, i played Demon Souls, destroyed my Controller doing that screaming not again. Not again - and now i bought Dark Souls.

I love easy games, i love arrow pointing me to where i suppose to go. I hate boss fights and i hate getting frustrated. But i bought this - at full price. And now i am itching to play Demon Souls again?

What happened? I don't know. I think i'm just in love with the combat and the mood of the game…

Or i just have to face my own stupidity. I am no smarter than this.

Dark Souls and Demon Souls games i just cant stop hating, or playing, or love. I think it is the feeling of accomplishment, something when you move forward after the umpteenth time. And dieing is part of the game, its not a save -reload thing.

Welcome to the world of every roguelike player. We love them, we hate them, but most of all when kick the ever living crap out of some big nasty monsters that keep killing us we feel like we accomplished something. Sure it may have been just getting a bit farther in the game than we had before, but it's something that wasn't easily accomplished. I get the same sense of accomplishment when my ideas at work pay off in ways that I didn't foresee.

I'm dying to play this game when it's out on the PC.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
I'm dying to play this game when it's out on the PC.

I'd plan on buying it for the Xbox 360 if I were you. Not trying to sound pessimistic, but it's highly unlikely Dark souls will see a PC release considering From Software's history.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'd plan on buying it for the Xbox 360 if I were you. Not trying to sound pessimistic, but it's highly unlikely Dark souls will see a PC release considering From Software's history.

I will unfortunately have to second that… It's very rare for Japanese developers to even acknowledge the existence of the PC platform, let alone port their games to it. This normally isn't a problem considering that most JRPGs aren't exactly what PC gamers usually enjoy, but Demon's Souls/Dark Souls seem like good fits for the PC market.

Ironically, From Software has always made titles that might have appealed to the Western crpg crowd. I think quite a few PC gamers would have enjoyed their King's Field games that were exclusive to the PS1&2. Also, Eternal Ring.

Yeah, as much as Demon's/Dark Souls would each appeal to PC gamers, I think the King's Field series and Eternal Ring - especially given the time of their release and "PC style" gameplay - would have appealed to the PC crowd just as much, if not more. I wonder why it's never occurred to From Software that there is a PC market in the west that would probably be more receptive to their games than the western console market, given their design approach and the current console trends.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'd plan on buying it for the Xbox 360 if I were you. Not trying to sound pessimistic, but it's highly unlikely Dark souls will see a PC release considering From Software's history.

Well that sucks. I thought I read somewhere that this might come out on the PC. Ehhh, must have been another difficult RPG X-box360 first game. Haven't a clue as to what it could be though.

Oh well. I have a 360 and might pick it up eventually, but it's sorta not worth it since I never get to use the dang thing. My girlfriend takes over the TV and pouts whenever I want to play the 360.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
Well that sucks.

Yep.
The unavailability of this and Demon´s Souls on PC rather pisses me off.

I can't imagine playing this on a PC with wasd movement. It'd be too frustrating I think. You really need an analog stick to move around quickly, at least for most people.