Demon's souls is getting a lot of hype for being difficult. I'm now hooked on difficult as easy feels like watching TV or the latest Hollywood movie. A game that gets me killed must be a good game except Another World pisses me off because it seems to be mostly about remembering patterns rather than acting quickly given a set of advantages/disadvantages. Another World is kinda like I Wanna Be the Guy.
Well, actually, if you look it up online Demon's Souls is kinda like both of them, but your character can be made to be a lot more capable over time.
You start off having to rely on shield ripostes and backstabs, but then as you rapidly make yourself a slash-and-go killer things get easier until they get harder again when you're fighting large festering giants with giant clubs that knock you off your balance as you trudge through a poisonous swamp (that poisons you and then poisons you again after you've gotten better but is the only way to get through the level. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcXLyMVz-nI). After finishing your first playthrough, the game lets you play again with your beefed-up character only the enemies are much more beefed up and the game has a concept of diminishing returns where the benefits of raising stats past 40 become incremental.
Demon's Souls lets you improve your stats by collecting the souls of your dead enemies. You can improve strength which lets you equip heavier equipment. You can improve endurance which allows you to strike with your weapon more often, run farther, and dodge more times. You can improve dexterity which reduces fall damage and boosts the attack power of some weapons. Magic boost magic power. Intelligence boosts total magic points. Faith boosts magic defense and Miracle powers (which are like magic but connected to the realm's religion). There are shitloads of things to do with the demon's souls that you get, but as time goes on it takes more and more to improve your stats.
I spent thirty hours trying to balance having an armored character who could use magic and still dodge and have a big shield before finding one sword that boosted my sword damage by my magic stat. Great, but I wasted all the stat boosts in too many different categories and now the enemies are harder and I'm fucked and every time you die you lose all your souls unless you can reach the spot where you died and I keep dying where this specter shoots a beamgun of light from his spectral bullshit and it knocks you off the ledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oBq0ef2V7Y&feature=watch_response
So there's two or three nights where I'm sitting down hoping to relax and have a little fun where instead I die at the same place every time and lose my souls and have nothing to show for the time I've used.
So, at this point I casually threw my controller against the wall.
FUCK THIS SHIT!
Demon's Souls is a great game, but to complete the game without research (a.k.a. Gamefaqs, Gamespot, Demon'sSoulswiki), relying solely on trial-and-error requires more time than your average working adult has to spend on a video game.
I just got my refurbished PS3 and a copy of Dragon's Age: Origins. I will not make the same mistake again. I've read three guides already about the character I want to make and in doing so have ruined parts of the plot, but saved myself tens of hours (a.k.a. several nights) of frustration in trial-and-error and reboot.
Shit pays off.
Alex Rogan (a.k.a. The Last Starfighter) can make it through Demon's Souls 1-5 at Soul Level 7 upside-down with his underwear on his head and Mom screaming at him to come eat Dinner already.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Basement of the Last Starfighter
A quick couple of changes to focus on what the blog's been about.
Yep. When MS(g)B gets going, we'll make a new site.
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