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Demon's Souls (PS3)

Status: Stopped playing - Got frustrated
I started playing this game on Saturday 23 April, 2016  //  I stopped playing this game on: Monday 25 April, 2016
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.

April 25, 2016 12:21:51 PM
I'd decided to take an honest stab at my backlog, especially the PS3 games since I've been spending a fair amount of time on the PS4.

With the recent release of Dark Souls III, I thought I'd go to the source and play a bit of Demon's Souls - if anything to be able to say that I had and that I knew something of the game in addition to what I've read. Most of the people I've talked to have noted that it isn't worth it because it's clunky and there's things in the game that have since been refined. But still... I felt like I could spend a few hours with it seeing how it goes. I feel like I kind of owe it to the game? (not quite a humblebrag, but my copy is signed my Miyazaki, who I met on a DePaul study abroad trip to Japan!)

Needless to say, in a few hours I didn't get too far - completed the tutorial and started a section. I didn't too terribly well and I can now state that, as I expected, this isn't really the kind of game I'd probably play too much of. To be fair, I'm still a bit curious about a bunch of things and I'll probably read an FAQ to scratch that itch. I was surprised by some stuff though:

a. For an action-RPG, I wasn't expecting there to be that many fiddly RPG bits to the game. There's encumbrance in the amount of stuff you can carry (based on weight of each item, if I understood it correctly) as well as items that fall into disrepair and such.

b. I wasn't expecting the nexus: a sort of mystical (otherworldly) central hub from where you venture out into different zones to fight baddies. Also, there's some characters sitting around who sell stuff (and repair your items, and improve them, and more)!

c. The tutorial ended with a boss battle that I died in almost instantly. I then appeared in the nexus, so I thought everything was ok. I'll have to check if that's the actual plan? However, I thought it was weird that I still had all my souls and I was curious to know if you could die - so I climbed all the way to the top of the place and dropped down. I then died. And lost all the souls I picked up in the tutorial. There wasn't, from what I could see, a way to get them back. So, sad face for me.

d. I only ventured in to a castle area - you start on a bridge and there's a giant castle wall and you sort of make your way through the battlements and up on to the top. Things were going fine until I got to a baddie who basically killed me in one fell swoop. That was unexpected. But then I died again. That's when I decided I was done.

e. There are 5(?) different character classes to choose from? I had no idea - I thought you could work out builds based on your gear and such, but hadn't really thought of the character diversity that was so prevalent from the start. I wish I had more info on the characters before starting because I didn't really know which one to pick (for my play style).


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria