Sully907

Dark Souls(Demon's Souls successor)

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Original thread wasted away so I figured I'd create this because Project Dark now has an official title! We have new gameplay info, and most importantly, a new trailer that pretty much cements this game as exactly what we've been waiting for!

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/dark-souls-gets-official-announcement

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/rpg/projectdark/news.html?sid=6297337&mode=previews

Gamespot probably got the first story because they awarded Demon's Souls their 2009 Game of the year across all platforms, but I'm not going to rag on them for bringing us the great info and having general good taste :)

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I still haven't played Demon's Souls, and I feel bad about it. However, I am also somewhat wary of the game. I don't necessarily think I need to spend my free time being punished my my choice of entertainment. Unlike some I don't believe difficulty to be a virtue on its own, and I've yet to really hear a convincing argument for why Demon's Souls is a good game that doesn't include references to how "hardcore" it is.

Hopefully I will eventually play it and discover that I like it for other reasons.

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I thought they were shutting down the server's for Demon's Souls? That had me thinking that I may never play it, because the persistent online stuff seemed pretty integral to the game.

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The online adds something to demon's souls, but it's not crucial to it being an enjoyable experience, and they have since guaranteed the servers will be up until at least october of this year.

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I still haven't played Demon's Souls, and I feel bad about it. However, I am also somewhat wary of the game. I don't necessarily think I need to spend my free time being punished my my choice of entertainment. Unlike some I don't believe difficulty to be a virtue on its own, and I've yet to really hear a convincing argument for why Demon's Souls is a good game that doesn't include references to how "hardcore" it is.

Hopefully I will eventually play it and discover that I like it for other reasons.

demons souls' difficulty was all up front, by which i mean the learning curve is basically a vertical line. once you sink 2-3 hours into it and begin to understand exactly what it is that the game is asking of you, it's not too much more difficult than your average game. after that it only really "punishes" you if do something stupid like approach a fight the wrong way or try an area you're not really equipped for yet.

i think the most "hardcore" part of the game is that you can't just wander into a situation for the first time and hope to just "wing it." you really need to play quite deliberately and cautiously and not be afraid to die a few times along the way.

i'm generally pretty bad at a lot of games, and i'll freely admit it. i think it took me double the normal amount of in-game time to beat DS the first time through and i had to ask for advice from friends just to get past certain areas. but i stuck with it and eventually pushed through to the end, and found what was ultimately one of the most satisfying game experiences i've had in a long time.

there was a "breaking point" i hit where i had struggled and struggled and had only beaten 3 or 4 stages over the course of like two months of intermittent play. at that one point, everything clicked and almost immediately i was knocking out stage after stage. that moment of realization, of mastering a skill, and having things change like the flick of a switch is what made it so rewarding. if you persist until you get to that point, you'll find one of the best console games of this generation.

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That is honestly the closest I've ever come to being swayed by the idea of the game. I did have a friend who kept threatening to lend me it, I may ask him to make good on the promise.

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That is honestly the closest I've ever come to being swayed by the idea of the game. I did have a friend who kept threatening to lend me it, I may ask him to make good on the promise.

Do it! Borrow it from your friend!

Yet again, I freely admit to having only gotten to the second level of Demon's Souls. It's one of those weird games with pride of place on my backlog, I just never reach up and put it in the PS3.

Even my limited experience leads me to strongly encourage you to have a go at the game.

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The people behind the game are saying they are going to make the game even harder.... Seriously? That game is practically broken and unfair! I only beat bosses by being as cheap as them! Most bosses can kill you with one hit and armor is useless...:violin:

How are they going to make this harder and still playable? I won't blame any gamer who isn't willing to put up with the "abusive relationship" you'll have with Demon's Souls, but making the sequel even harder seems like a terrible idea.

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Yeah I want a minorly more accessible game of Demon Souls, not the other way around. It was great, but I have no patience for redoing things a million times to get nowhere.

Movement, feel, visually, the mood, everything about it was awesome.

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The game can still be challenging, but it needs to explain it's core systems and upgrade methodologies better then Demon's Souls did. That was the only big issue with the first game. Learning how to upgrade and what stats affected what in different ways.

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I read a bit more about this in the latest copy of Edge. I'm wary of the extra difficulty having not got far into Demon's Souls but I enjoyed every last minute of it. So as long as they have all the rest of the ingredients in there, I'll still enjoy getting my arse kicked.

Also, I'm so pleased it's coming out on 360. I broke up from a long term relationship a couple of months ago and had to make concessions on the joint ownership of the PS3. I got the 360 instead. I still hung on to my copy of Demon's Souls though!

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So this is out in a few days, I am looking forward to playing it. Never played Demon's Souls, but it was one of the games that very nearly had me finally investing in a PS3. Very glad Dark Souls will be multi-platform.

Giant Bomb has an enormous hour and a half-long "quick"look for the game that seemed fairly well researched and informative.

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I started watching this at noon and will finish off later... looks cool and improved from Demon Souls... I'm scared though.

I played Demon Souls, that is to say, I tried Demon Souls. I love everything about it except the difficulty/redundancy of making me replay the same shit over again. I never, ever got to the "good part" of the game, but, boy, that mood, that combat, it's the closet thing to a modern Diablo I could think of and for that I just love the hell out of it.

One day I hope for a wussy North American version, but I am willing to give it another shot with Dark Souls.

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It's a hell of a lot more then just a modern diablo. Diablo is fun because of the easy satisfaction you get from mowing down hordes of enemies and leveling up and collecting loot. Demon's Souls is fun because every encounter matters, the basic baddies can destroy you, the environment you're fighting in matters, and the exploration is magical

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Very glad Dark Souls will be multi-platform.

I want to know what happened to the PC version. Fucking Sony.

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I want to know what happened to the PC version. Fucking Sony.

If you're complaining about the lack of a PC version for Dark Souls, Sony has nothing to do with it.

Both of the games were developed by From Software, and Dark Souls is being published by Namco.

From Software has just never made PC games.

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They at one point were promising a PC version. That quickly slipped off the radar though. :violin:

Well, I bought a PS3 for Demon Souls anyway, may as well dust it off.

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It's a hell of a lot more then just a modern diablo. Diablo is fun because of the easy satisfaction you get from mowing down hordes of enemies and leveling up and collecting loot. Demon's Souls is fun because every encounter matters, the basic baddies can destroy you, the environment you're fighting in matters, and the exploration is magical

I just mean in terms of mood and feeling, not the actual gameplay

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This is the first game I've pre-ordered in ages. I must have made about 20 characters in Demon's Souls, never really took any of them very far though (despite loving it). The PvP stuff was pretty messed up (guys jumping in and destroying all my gear with magic etc) and I never managed to get anyone to help me out with anything. I hope that stuff is a tad less obtuse in the new one although I appreciate the mysteriousness of it all as well.

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I am pretty in love with this game so far, played for about four or five hours.

Really love the weird MP systems, seeing random ghosts appearing around me while i explore, touching bloodstains to see how other players died, co-op requests appearing as signs on the ground, and reading all the messages people have left lying around. In fact, my first death was me seeing a message at the edge of a cliff on an odd little outcropping. "Try Jumping" it said. I looked at my souls, didn't have much to lose, and i thought it looked promising.

So of course i died.

Impersonal trolling at its finest.

Other than that though, i've only died a few times, but nothing that made me feel like flying into a rage. Every time i've died, it was me running recklessly into things and creating unfavorable situations for myself. Whenever i'm playing methodically and deliberately, i remain very in control and i feel like the game is rewarding my patience. (Reading up on some of the basic systems probably helps too, like what humanities do, what being hollowed does, what kindling a bonfire does. The game explains almost nothing.)

I don't expect the whole game to be as relatively pleasant as this has been, i'm sure parts of the game are as truly fucked up as everybody says, but thus far i have had an incredibly entertaining time.

Protip - If you find humanities and souls as items, don't use them until you need them. If you just add them to your active stock right away you risk losing them on death.

Anyways, what kind of builds are you guys trying for? I read that armor was buffed pretty heavily from Demon's, so i'm trying to play as a Knight. The spear and shield combo has been working out pretty well for me, and i have a bow in one of the alt slots for pulling enemies away from groups.

A few hours later - I think the people who have been covering this game and reviewing it in an offline capacity have missed out on a fairly crucial element of the game. The degree by which it is an entirely unforgiving trial and error experience is reined in by this weird crowd-sourced hint system they've built into the game. For example, if i am walking up to a door and i check a sign on the ground that has been upvoted a bunch and warns me about a powerful enemy to the immediate left of the doorway, i probably will not die because of that enemy. (Maybe.)

I mean, and because it's from the people who have been playing it, it somehow makes it an oddly personal kind of experience. It's like you and gamers everywhere are collectively working together to figure out this weird sadistic japanese RPG. By the same token, it can also be abused, so it's unreliable at times and even malicious at others. That element and the choice to keep it anonymous and limited to very vague terms makes it interesting, it is not so transparent that it spoils the sense of discovery.

I am really fucking loving this game. I've gotten into some tougher sections, had some really incredibly tense moments, and definitely some obscenity-inducing deaths.

It feels like... Maybe people will think i'm crazy for saying so, but it reminds me of playing Stalker, just the really incredibly cautious and deliberate pace and constant tension. (The games are obviously otherwise nothing alike, i mean.)

Edited by Sno

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Oh man, I'm very excited about this game! Edge's review of it is beautiful.

I'm going to go buy it as soon as I finish work today.

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This is where I lament that I sold my Playstation…

Anyway, here is how I'd explain the things going on and WHY it is hailed as such a great game. Note: These points are all gathered from my extensive experience with the predecessor, but after viewing some videos of the sucessor I think I'm same in my assumption that they are the same for both.

  1. The system of discovery, learning and understanding which makes the core concept so rewarding.
  2. Nigh-perfect combat mechanis (it only suffers in pratice at some points) coupled with perfect tactility of controls.
  3. The implementation of character development is such that it directly translates to your performance in combat (i.e. you feel every stat-point, ability and weapon. More or less).
  4. A fiction and aesthetic which fits the systems of the game very well to how it is presented and looks. You are lonely, you don't know what the hell is going on, everything is opaque.

These things, synthesized so well together, is what makes the game so compelling to me.

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Pretty much agree with that, as X360 owner I was happy to see they released the sequel on both consoles as that is the exact vibe I am getting.

And then a fucking dragon set me on fire.

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  • A fiction and aesthetic which fits the systems of the game very well to how it is presented and looks. You are lonely, you don't know what the hell is going on, everything is opaque.

I think the game really nails what you'd want out of a dark fantasy aesthetic. Any NPC's you actually find in this grim, fading world are just tired and broken people. I actually really like the voice acting here, everybody just sounds so spent and beyond their limits. I understand Demon's Souls had a really great grasp of that mood as well.

It's also interesting, reading up on these games, that they didn't actually just come out of nowhere. From apparently has a very long history of weird, unforgiving action RPG's. It seems like Demon's Souls was just the first time all the pieces coalesced into something really special.

Anyways, i have been playing a lot of this game over the last few days, and i feel like i've been exposed to such a wealth of incredibly great RPG's lately, because this game is definitely another major, major hit in my books.

I'm apparently about a third to half of the way into the game in at around... twenty? thirty? hours in. (First run through the game is apparently usually anywhere between 40-80 hours, which i assume is probably a disparity created by whether or not you have played Demon's Souls.)

The game world opens up in a really bewildering way, it gets to a point where there's maybe six different paths you could try and explore, it's pretty overwhelming. (After ringing the first bell, if something you're trying to do seems particularly fucked, double back and try exploring elsewhere, you have options.) The gameworld is just absolutely sprawling, and eventually begins weaving back in on itself in a lot of really smart ways that prevent navigation from ever becoming too much of a burden. There's also no map, but you spend so much time meticulously exploring and back-tracking around that you can't help but completely memorize the layout.

Also been invaded a couple times, got spammed by fireballs the first time, second time i just completely destroyed my invader.

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