Beware of the Demon's Souls bandwagon

Overall, YES it is a good game and i enhoyed my short time playing it.

but it is also very short and pretty devoid of replay value.
Because the game relies heavily on trial and error gameplay every level plays out exactly the same every time you visit it. yes your first playthrough you will likely die alot from pulling additional enemys, not knowing the attack animations to time your dodges and the possible trap.

on the 2nd plathrough every level wont take you longer than 15 minutes hell some can be finished in under 7 minutes because there really is no motivation to explore every nook and crany just to get another dozen copys of the items you already have collecting dust in your bank.
All gear has a 100% droprate and there is some artificial longevity built in by only making you able to acces one of two loot tables for some rare enemys but 90% of the time these are not even worth getting in the first place unless you are going for a very specific build.

By level 80 wich is easily obtainable in 6 hours of play because the game throws a 1 minute leveling spot at you very early ontop of the massive xp you already receive from regular levels all difficulty is removed and you can easily breeze through the first playthrough. In new game+ there are very few items worth getting and knowing the levels structure and enemys allows for 7-15 minute breezethroughs (albeit they do hurt alot more IF you get hit) by this time however souls are in such a huge abundance that you have a infinite amount of recovery items at your disposal removing any form of minimanagemnet from the already severely reduced challenge.

Try getting invaded by 2 black phantom or invading people, It will greatly increase replay value / let you see stuff you didn't if you were playing on white tendency and increase difficulties

Having finished the game 6 times and having a lvl 200 knight and spending over 100 hours in the game i am inclined to dissagree with you about there being no replay value.

Having finished the game 6 times and having a lvl 200 knight and spending over 100 hours in the game i am inclined to dissagree with you about there being no replay value.

zarshack

[QUOTE="zarshack"]

Having finished the game 6 times and having a lvl 200 knight and spending over 100 hours in the game i am inclined to dissagree with you about there being no replay value.

hot114

You sound like you hold a grudge against DS, amigo. Doesn't look good on you

You sound like you hold a grudge against DS, amigo. Doesn't look good on youparvie

Not at all, i enjoyed DS but it is in no way worth all that hype its getting for such a short game with so little lasting appeal 2 playthroughs (white/black) and you'l have every single gear drop in the game and levels only take 7 to 15 minutes after your initial playthrough.

I was hoping for a much more challenging game and for RPG standarts its rediculously short

Overall, YES it is a good game and i enhoyed my short time playing it.

but it is also very short and pretty devoid of replay value.
Because the game relies heavily on trial and error gameplay every level plays out exactly the same every time you visit it. yes your first playthrough you will likely die alot from pulling additional enemys, not knowing the attack animations to time your dodges and the possible trap.

on the 2nd plathrough every level wont take you longer than 15 minutes hell some can be finished in under 7 minutes because there really is no motivation to explore every nook and crany just to get another dozen copys of the items you already have collecting dust in your bank.
All gear has a 100% droprate and there is some artificial longevity built in by only making you able to acces one of two loot tables for some rare enemys but 90% of the time these are not even worth getting in the first place unless you are going for a very specific build.

By level 80 wich is easily obtainable in 6 hours of play because the game throws a 1 minute leveling spot at you very early ontop of the massive xp you already receive from regular levels all difficulty is removed and you can easily breeze through the first playthrough. In new game+ there are very few items worth getting and knowing the levels structure and enemys allows for 7-15 minute breezethroughs (albeit they do hurt alot more IF you get hit) by this time however souls are in such a huge abundance that you have a infinite amount of recovery items at your disposal removing any form of minimanagemnet from the already severely reduced challenge.

hot114

So your opinion matters to a future purchase of mine why?

I also don't recall this "hype" of which you speak of.

"Hype" is for simple minded folk.

DS is being thrown about like no tomorrow in the systemwars thats not to be called hype?

I don't agree with anything you've said. Honestly, I haven't played a game this generation that I feel has as much replay value as Demon's Souls. It's absolutely impossible to get and see everything on one, or even two playthroughs. And depending on your play style or equipment, the experience changes vastly. raven_squad

[QUOTE="raven_squad"]I don't agree with anything you've said. Honestly, I haven't played a game this generation that I feel has as much replay value as Demon's Souls. It's absolutely impossible to get and see everything on one, or even two playthroughs. And depending on your play style or equipment, the experience changes vastly. hot114

There is no way the average gamer will hit level 80 in 6 hours, more likely 20-30. You either used a cheat guide or were extremely lucky. If you can beat this game in one day, then what game gives you more playability? By those standards I would assume you completed inFamous in 2 hours, both good and evil with all 300 shards.

There's replayability because you might want to focus on magic with one build, archery with another, melee with a third whereas your first build might have had little focus. Even if you really did beat this game so quickly, you must have spent hours scouring online sources in order to have done so, count that as part of the time invested in the game and it's not so short anymore.

To anyone else thinking what he/she has said holds any validity, it does not. Even with some preparation from an online guide I'd guess most people will spend 40-50 hours to get through the campaign once and there is still tons more to do especially for completists. There are plenty of things you cannot do in one playthrough and must continue on into new game+ in order to do those things. Even then you might feel like starting all over with your knowledge of the game to make a better character.

[QUOTE="parvie"]You sound like you hold a grudge against DS, amigo. Doesn't look good on youhot114

Not at all, i enjoyed DS but it is in no way worth all that hype its getting for such a short game with so little lasting appeal 2 playthroughs (white/black) and you'l have every single gear drop in the game and levels only take 7 to 15 minutes after your initial playthrough.

I was hoping for a much more challenging game and for RPG standarts its rediculously short

Yes the game is SOOOOOOOOOOO short, I mean JEEEEEZE. I have put in 40 hours and I am not half way through. Darn, if only this game wasnt so short....*facepalm*.

weren't you the one complaining about the sexism in this game? You just seem to want to find reasons to hate on it

[QUOTE="hot114"]

[QUOTE="parvie"]You sound like you hold a grudge against DS, amigo. Doesn't look good on youKapG

Not at all, i enjoyed DS but it is in no way worth all that hype its getting for such a short game with so little lasting appeal 2 playthroughs (white/black) and you'l have every single gear drop in the game and levels only take 7 to 15 minutes after your initial playthrough.

I was hoping for a much more challenging game and for RPG standarts its rediculously short

[/QUOTE

Yes the game is SOOOOOOOOOOO short, I mean JEEEEEZE. I have put in 40 hours and I am not half way through. Darn, if only this game wasnt so short....*facepalm*.

weren't you the one complaining about the sexism in this game? You just seem to want to find reasons to hate on it

[QUOTE="KapG"]

[QUOTE="hot114"]

[QUOTE="parvie"]You sound like you hold a grudge against DS, amigo. Doesn't look good on youMelpoe

Not at all, i enjoyed DS but it is in no way worth all that hype its getting for such a short game with so little lasting appeal 2 playthroughs (white/black) and you'l have every single gear drop in the game and levels only take 7 to 15 minutes after your initial playthrough.

I was hoping for a much more challenging game and for RPG standarts its rediculously short

[/QUOTE

Yes the game is SOOOOOOOOOOO short, I mean JEEEEEZE. I have put in 40 hours and I am not half way through. Darn, if only this game wasnt so short....*facepalm*.

weren't you the one complaining about the sexism in this game? You just seem to want to find reasons to hate on it

Agreed.

Also, this is my first character (well second, i made a holy knight but than thought better of that after playing for an hour...I dont like the church much with their taste for young boys so I made a barbarian lol). He is a pure melee character. I can easily see myself playing this game as a magician the second time around which would make the gameplay and strategys used very different.

This is actually probably one of the longer games of this gen...:S

[QUOTE="Melpoe"]

[QUOTE="KapG"]

Not at all, i enjoyed DS but it is in no way worth all that hype its getting for such a short game with so little lasting appeal 2 playthroughs (white/black) and you'l have every single gear drop in the game and levels only take 7 to 15 minutes after your initial playthrough.

I was hoping for a much more challenging game and for RPG standarts its rediculously short

[/QUOTE

Yes the game is SOOOOOOOOOOO short, I mean JEEEEEZE. I have put in 40 hours and I am not half way through. Darn, if only this game wasnt so short....*facepalm*.

weren't you the one complaining about the sexism in this game? You just seem to want to find reasons to hate on it

KapG

Agreed.

Also, this is my first character (well second, i made a holy knight but than thought better of that after playing for an hour...I dont like the church much with their taste for young boys so I made a barbarian lol). He is a pure melee character. I can easily see myself playing this game as a magician the second time around which would make the gameplay and strategys used very different.

This is actually probably one of the longer games of this gen...:S

Yes the game is SOOOOOOOOOOO short, I mean JEEEEEZE. I have put in 40 hours and I am not half way through. Darn, if only this game wasnt so short....*facepalm*.

weren't you the one complaining about the sexism in this game? You just seem to want to find reasons to hate on it

KapG

So why are you rushing through the game/using a guide? Because that's the impression I'm getting fromreading your post.

So why are you rushing through the game/using a guide? Because that's the impression I'm getting fromreading your post.

King9999

Out of the 40+ co-op session ive done my ranks are
70% S
20% A
10% D

The game allows you to clear the storms level where the big xp mobs are very early without the risk of losing any xp aslong as you rare in co-op so just use that to learn the levels while amassing tons of XP after wich unlocking the levels in your own game is a breeze and at the end of it is a grinding spot.

I have played World of warcraft before this so i am familiar with managining time efficiency in RPG's and i prever action games so decent reflexes wich are important the initial playthrough i also dont lack. I do research before receiving a game wich mostly ment this forum and looking over the wiki a couple of times to make a gameplan but i refuse to use level walkthroughs and boss guides.

You know co-op will make the game easier right? Thus allowing you to beat the game faster. You said it yourself, you used co-op to get yoru grinding spot in 4-2 or whereever it was.

Not my fault u used co-op to get to an easy grinding spot... or did I missunderstand you?

You took advantage of the game in a sense. Just like some people do with the restart glitch so they dont lose their souls.

I use to be able to level up super fast in the cow levels in Diablo 2 after being rushed through normal.nightmar and hell. That doesnt mean that if playing the game properly in single player that I can reach level 99 super fast.

In other words, if you would have NOT used co-op to make an easy path for yourself to 4-2 there is no chance you would have leveled up as fast as you did.

Your fault.

Level 80 takes 1-2 days? Yea if you have zero life and play every minute! I found the game hard but I never had that much trouble with it....some levels I didnt even die! But it took me about 35 hours to finish my first playthrogh...And thats playing a few hours a day! (a week and a half) This game had plenty of length and the replay value for world tendencies/gear is THROUGH the roof! I'm about to start my NG+.

I think you're giving a false message.

Level 80 takes 1-2 days? Yea if you have zero life and play every minute! I found the game hard but I never had that much trouble with it....some levels I didnt even die! But it took me about 35 hours to finish my first playthrogh...And thats playing a few hours a day! (a week and a half) This game had plenty of length and the replay value for world tendencies/gear is THROUGH the roof! I'm about to start my NG+.

I think you're giving a false message.

SRTtoZ

The person already told us that they used co-op to advance to a very good grinding spot in 4-2 which allowed them to level up much faster then usual, once at that high level this person then just motored through everything.

Without co-op they never would have reached that part of the world at that early a stage and there for would have had a lot more trouble in the game and a lot slower of a time grinding.

So why are you rushing through the game/using a guide? Because that's the impression I'm getting fromreading your post.

King9999

hahahaha, true. Besides, he most likely farmed the 4-2 Reaper for 4.5k then suicide and repeat. I dont really get people who do that. All I farm in RPGs is for items.

Besides, this gal most likely has not even tried the online. Yesterday I was invaded, and they tried to kill me but the dude ambushed me in a cliff, I dodged and he falled :P I took the loot then I disconnected for the day. It was really rewarding and funny.

And also, the message system, it beats most guides!. Except when you find the dumbs who post: Hi!, This is where DS really starts and such. xD

I remember beating Diablo II in more or less 4 hours in all the diffs, and being lvl 80 in just 6 hours. All thanks to the coop feature.

Level 80 takes 1-2 days? Yea if you have zero life and play every minute! I found the game hard but I never had that much trouble with it....some levels I didnt even die! But it took me about 35 hours to finish my first playthrogh...And thats playing a few hours a day! (a week and a half) This game had plenty of length and the replay value for world tendencies/gear is THROUGH the roof! I'm about to start my NG+.

I think you're giving a false message.

SRTtoZ

got the meat cleaver at level 40 wich is basicly a endgame weapon if there ever was one and finished off my +5 rejuv shield at level 102 since i dont use block much anyway
(rejuv shield does not completely mitigate physical and is pretty useless for fire and magic )

Having finished the game 6 times and having a lvl 200 knight and spending over 100 hours in the game i am inclined to dissagree with you about there being no replay value.

zarshack

[QUOTE="zarshack"]

Having finished the game 6 times and having a lvl 200 knight and spending over 100 hours in the game i am inclined to dissagree with you about there being no replay value.

Ronin893

If you want the platinum trophy you need 3 playthroughs but i personally dont give about those

[QUOTE="Ronin893"]

[QUOTE="zarshack"]

Having finished the game 6 times and having a lvl 200 knight and spending over 100 hours in the game i am inclined to dissagree with you about there being no replay value.

hot114

What!? I've had the asian version since back in March, and when I got my NA copy my first playthrough took easily 30-40 hours since I knew what I was doing. I rarely died, but I knew what I had to do. Farming weapons, colorless demon's souls, completely sidequests, completeing all the tendency events. Even if you don't know what you're doing, my first playthrough ever took me 20-30 hours. The levels are exactly the same in layout yes, but the difficult is also increased as you venture into more new game+. Having 300 + hours logged and 4 different characters (NA + Asian combined) I'd definitely have to disagree.

"Considering that level 100 is very easy in 1-2 days and all gear for a build can be gotten in a single day save unless you need more than 10 collorless souls that brings me to a week of casual play days of play value."

Kind of find it hard to agree with you here as well. for my heavy melee light magic dexterity build, I use a tearing uchigatana+5 and a sharp uchigatana+5. Just to obtain the +5 sharp it took me 3 days and over 200 kills to obtain my pure bladestone...and that's farming SOLELY for that item and nothing else in the game. Not to mention a lot of the other harder to get drops in the game such as chunk of cloudstone.

I think I liked it better when there was only the *** version and generally everyone who played it liked it. It's kinda funny seeing DS get a lot of hate now.

[QUOTE="SRTtoZ"]

Level 80 takes 1-2 days? Yea if you have zero life and play every minute! I found the game hard but I never had that much trouble with it....some levels I didnt even die! But it took me about 35 hours to finish my first playthrogh...And thats playing a few hours a day! (a week and a half) This game had plenty of length and the replay value for world tendencies/gear is THROUGH the roof! I'm about to start my NG+.

I think you're giving a false message.

hot114

got the meat cleaver at level 40 wich is basicly a endgame weapon if there ever was one and finished off my +5 rejuv shield at level 102 since i dont use block much anyway
(rejuv shield does not completely mitigate physical and is pretty useless for fire and magic )

yah you farmed a spot that you shouldnt be able to farm at the level you were farming it at. You said it yourself you couldnt have gotten there with out co-op. You only cheated yourself out of having a longer gameplay experience.

snipSome-Mist

[QUOTE="hot114"]

[QUOTE="SRTtoZ"]

Level 80 takes 1-2 days? Yea if you have zero life and play every minute! I found the game hard but I never had that much trouble with it....some levels I didnt even die! But it took me about 35 hours to finish my first playthrogh...And thats playing a few hours a day! (a week and a half) This game had plenty of length and the replay value for world tendencies/gear is THROUGH the roof! I'm about to start my NG+.

I think you're giving a false message.

KapG

got the meat cleaver at level 40 wich is basicly a endgame weapon if there ever was one and finished off my +5 rejuv shield at level 102 since i dont use block much anyway
(rejuv shield does not completely mitigate physical and is pretty useless for fire and magic )

yah you farmed a spot that you shouldnt be able to farm at the level you were farming it at. You said it yourself you couldnt have gotten there with out co-op. You only cheated yourself out of having a longer gameplay experience.

Like accessing the secret cow level in D2 right?

Man, I sure hope D3 has a secret cow level.

I have 20 hours on DS, and Im only lvl 60 and have 5 demons killed. Im an slow worker, cause I grind in the old fashioned way. I only farmed the Reaper in 4-2 to buy Holy Arrows, since the Bearbugs in 2-2 are just to bothersome. Still, all my other accomplishement have been earned by blood and sweat.

[QUOTE="Some-Mist"]sniphot114

I tend to go with the S ranked weapons. For strength you could use

crushing bastard sword +5

crushing guillotine axe+5

crushing knight sword+5

crushing long sword+5

and so on. You'll see that a lot of the crushing weapons have an S in strength rating. it really depends on your play style, because weapons without a ranking of S may have something more beneficial to your build, such as poison, bleeding, or piercing. I use the two uchigatanas because they're fast and are ranked S in dexterity. The tearing puts a bleed effect on a player and does some damage through shields, whereas my sharp hits for even more damage but doesn't penetrate.

it's really up in the air for what you'll find effective.

those are my main two weapons, but I also carry a meat cleaver on me, a blind+5 (ignores shields), a purple flame shield+10, talisman of the beats, and dark silver shield+5.

[QUOTE="KapG"]

[QUOTE="hot114"] I had clocked little over 6 hours when hitting 80 with my naked melee something alot of people are not aware off is that armour makes the game harder. (especially in pvp) i dont know if the dark silver set eventually outclasses being naked because of its high magic resistance but who needs that when your not getting hit in the first place?

got the meat cleaver at level 40 wich is basicly a endgame weapon if there ever was one and finished off my +5 rejuv shield at level 102 since i dont use block much anyway
(rejuv shield does not completely mitigate physical and is pretty useless for fire and magic )

DragoonKain1687

yah you farmed a spot that you shouldnt be able to farm at the level you were farming it at. You said it yourself you couldnt have gotten there with out co-op. You only cheated yourself out of having a longer gameplay experience.

Like accessing the secret cow level in D2 right?

Man, I sure hope D3 has a secret cow level.

I have 20 hours on DS, and Im only lvl 60 and have 5 demons killed. Im an slow worker, cause I grind in the old fashioned way. I only farmed the Reaper in 4-2 to buy Holy Arrows, since the Bearbugs in 2-2 are just to bothersome. Still, all my other accomplishement have been earned by blood and sweat.

Precisely like activating the secret cow level in D2. You get rushed to hell mode by some friends with lvl 99s and then you join the cow level and rank up to level 99 in a matter of hours.

I have about 40 hours in DS and am only level 55ish? I grind the old fashion way in this game too. No chance am I going to go fast track myself through this game on my first play through like some people do.

assuming you avoid going online id say 12 hours for first playthrough

After the first run the levels stay exactly the same and you can breeze through the segments 25 segment at 7-15 minutes each as there is no need to explore every room picking up doubles of what you already have

If you want the platinum trophy you need 3 playthroughs but i personally dont give about those

hot114

im no big fan of the game either, i dont' think its innovative or offers anything new, and ive been vocal about how i feel it shouldn't even be called and rpg. however, people really can't use the term replayability without it being bias. i think we can talk about content, in terms of what demon souls provide. and there we can say there isn't much there. but replayability depends on the player, everyone has different tastes some people will get more out of a game then others. clarkportmanken

what other console game have you played where there's player vs player battles? how about any console game where you function as the boss against other players? Why wouldn't you consider this an rpg?

Precisely like activating the secret cow level in D2. You get rushed to hell mode by some friends with lvl 99s and then you join the cow level and rank up to level 99 in a matter of hours.

I have about 40 hours in DS and am only level 55ish? I grind the old fashion way in this game too. No chance am I going to go fast track myself through this game on my first play through like some people do.

KapG

Call me old fashioned but i hate using consumables as it feels cheesy to make up for a mistake with a instant ability and my first play i solod all the bosses for increased enjoyment
Flamelurker reminded me alot of Agni and Rudra for some reason hehe

[QUOTE="DragoonKain1687"]

[QUOTE="KapG"]

yah you farmed a spot that you shouldnt be able to farm at the level you were farming it at. You said it yourself you couldnt have gotten there with out co-op. You only cheated yourself out of having a longer gameplay experience.

KapG

Like accessing the secret cow level in D2 right?

Man, I sure hope D3 has a secret cow level.

I have 20 hours on DS, and Im only lvl 60 and have 5 demons killed. Im an slow worker, cause I grind in the old fashioned way. I only farmed the Reaper in 4-2 to buy Holy Arrows, since the Bearbugs in 2-2 are just to bothersome. Still, all my other accomplishement have been earned by blood and sweat.

Precisely like activating the secret cow level in D2. You get rushed to hell mode by some friends with lvl 99s and then you join the cow level and rank up to level 99 in a matter of hours.

I have about 40 hours in DS and am only level 55ish? I grind the old fashion way in this game too. No chance am I going to go fast track myself through this game on my first play through like some people do.

I just farmed items, and got to that level. Also, I stayed my ground and killed the Red Dragon. And in 4-2, you make lots of Xp. Normal skels give 994, and gold ones 1999 so you get lots of souls in a short time, and sometimes I just had to get back to Nexus, because I runned out of items, so I ended up doing sections many times

tc really hates this game. give it a break pal

C'mon guys... you may not agree with TC about the game. But you have tyo admit that this game has had a bunch of bandwagon hype. I'm not saying that it is on par with KZ2 or UC2 in hype, but its there. Although it has started to die down a bit recently, but for a while there was a lot of hype on these forums.

C'mon guys... you may not agree with TC about the game. But you have tyo admit that this game has had a bunch of bandwagon hype. I'm not saying that it is on par with KZ2 or UC2 in hype, but its there. Although it has started to die down a bit recently, but for a while there was a lot of hype on these forums.

Seritonin

I'm not saying the game is good or bad, or deserving or undeserving of hype. All I'm saying is that it is/ was there. And if you deny that you are being ignorant or lying.

Basicly this game is a rollercoaster, one amazing ride but after that first ride your body knows when to expect the twists and you no longer have that excited feeling in your gut.

I'm not saying the game is good or bad, or deserving or undeserving of hype. All I'm saying is that it is/ was there. And if you deny that you are being ignorant or lying.

Seritonin

Of course it had hype, all good games have.

What's wrong with hype?

I'm not saying the game is good or bad, or deserving or undeserving of hype. All I'm saying is that it is/ was there. And if you deny that you are being ignorant or lying.

Seritonin

no one said the hype wasn't there. I hope you're having fun arguing with yourself.

[QUOTE="clarkportmanken"]im no big fan of the game either, i dont' think its innovative or offers anything new, and ive been vocal about how i feel it shouldn't even be called and rpg. however, people really can't use the term replayability without it being bias. i think we can talk about content, in terms of what demon souls provide. and there we can say there isn't much there. but replayability depends on the player, everyone has different tastes some people will get more out of a game then others. Some-Mist

what other console game have you played where there's player vs player battles? how about any console game where you function as the boss against other players? Why wouldn't you consider this an rpg?

A RGP is a roleplaying game you take on a role and get to progress through a story with your customized character which you develop through the progression of the game. this is more like mario with zelda combat. not a bad thing but not an rpg in my book either. all the have is a very simplistic leveling system.

im not picking on demon souls in particular i think a lot of rpg don't deserve the title its as if people forgot what rpg stood for. Atlus knows what an RPG is they gave us the persona series, they should know better.

demon souls is a solid title in my book, it doesn't really offer a new experience but its enjoyable non the less. at 60 bucks i think its a bit over priced with the content they provide you, but like i said there is no accounting for peoples tastes, and they can get tons of hours off the game if it suits them. also id like to add that these are my opinion there not facts, so im sure people will disagree with me as we all have different ideas of what we think defines certain genre's and make good games