Honestly it’s not even that hard of a game it’s just demoralizing as all hell which if you go in know how to get around the systems isn’t really that big a deal and the game for all it’s lows hits some real highs for sure and it’s a game worth playing. I might even say it’s all around better than Dark Souls but that has more to do with Dark Souls Transphobia getting harder for me to overlook even as I know I will play the hell out of the remaster
This is getting me really excited at the idea of a private server where the world tendency could change to extremes at given dates or times. In the early days of DeS, they would have scheduled special events where world tendency would be placed at an extreme. This was long before I got into the series so any world tendency events I’ve encountered have been pretty annoying to get to.
The possibility of seeing some of that content without essentially grinding for it and knowing where it is ahead of time is very appealing. Umbasa.
World tendency is simply a global status that lowers or raises in brightness, black tendency generally makes it harder and spawns in special enemies, while white makes it easier, and both will have special events like open pathways or new npc’s tied to them.
It’s certainly easier to manipulate offline, because online it’ll change with the average online user base, while offline you can brighten the tendency by defeating bosses or avoid dying in body form, or vise versa for black tendency; which, yeah, is kind of a big ask especially for new players if they’re having trouble with a boss, but I wouldn’t call it confusing.
I kind of wish FromSoft kept some of those global systems in following games; they later instead tied similar events to player stats like Humanity or Insight. I was playing Bloodborne yesterday and wondered why in the world Hemwick Charnel Lane was clear of Stalkers (lanky sickle dudes) and they won’t appear until you have at least 15 Insight, things like that.
That said these systems also allow for that player discovery that comes with an obscure modifier, so it’s not like that magic is all lost.
You can use the Dualshock 4 to play Demon’s Souls on the PS3.
2 Likes
Because the start button is used so heavily in DeS and the Options button is so tiny and weird to reach, I honestly think the Dualshock 3 still makes way more sense. What I would want the Dualshock 4 for, besides just the more comfortable form factor and meatier triggers, would be using the touchpad instead of the start button and the headphone jack (so I didn’t have to stretch a pair of studio cans across my living room to play with headphones). Neither of those things work on the PS3.
Do people really hate the Dualshock 3 that much?
While it’s a bit OT, I’d say a big “yes”. I felt the 360 got a big upswing in support for the controller as the best feel for most players (even from many who had been long term DS fans). The DS4 basically takes those parameters and imports them into the Sony ecosystem (trigger pull, stick resistance - it’s not identical to the 360 but it’s so much closer than to the DS3 as to be pretty clearly designed for people who preferred that experience).
I, along with quite a few friends, got after-market clip-on extensions for the DS3 triggers as they were so far behind the 360 (so even not fixing the pull feel, just improving the shape, was a basic upgrade many felt necessary). It’s very hard to go back to a DS3.
It feels cheap overall and lacks in terms of ergonomics compared to the subsequent DS4 or Xbox pads. Particularly the (greasy) joysticks which require just a tiny bit of subconscious effort to avoid having your thumbs slip off them since their shape doesn’t have any natural resistance.
In any case, I’d like to see Dark Souls Remastered be successful enough to justify the same treatment for Demon’s Souls, since the latter needs it way, way more.
1 Like
It’s really the loose sticks for me, it feels uncanny after playing with the DS4 and Xbox controller for years. Frankly I never had a huge issue with the triggers, but the form factor does feel flimsy and cheap after being used to DS4, and xbox controllers have always felt really robust, if a bit too chunky for my tastes.
I don’t really mind not having no touchpad support or functioning ps-button, in favour of the form factor and tightness of the DS4.
FromSoftware actually make their games well for offline play, you don’t get it seen talked about a lot, in some ways it can be preferable to some people as you’re not getting constantly ganked by invaders if you’re exploring a place for the first time. I actually did this with Bloodbourne and it was Very Pleasant.
1 Like
It’s not completely on topic, but since a number of people are talking about the DS3 and its triggers, it reminded me of something funny-not-funny I read in an article a while ago about what went into designing the DS4.
“We’ve heard horror stories from Dark Souls players who have made huge mistakes in the unforgiving action role-playing world simply by setting the PS3 controller down. Because the L2 and R2 buttons are just so exposed and out there, resting them on the table or on your lap can depress them, causing, for example, your hero to take a huge swing of his sword and permanently kill an innocent but vital nonplayer character.” --from VentureBeat
I swear I’ve almost taken out Stockpile Thomas a number of times for this exact reason lol.
I get sad about all the post-Demon Souls games whenever I think about DeS’ world and character tendency systems. It makes me wish the multiplayer hadn’t caught on the way it did, so From wouldn’t have focused in on that so acutely and maybe would have been more likely to keep the tendencies.
I despise how players suicide their characters in Bloodborne’s Hunter’s Dream, but in the Nexus, it actually had a point! In MY day, intentionally dying in the safe zone meant something, dagnabbitt. You had a goal, you weren’t just doing it for the lulz. Lousy teenagers.
And while I can understand the frustration of the world getting harder the more you struggled, the loot also got better. The rarest crafting materials were only available at the darkest tendencies. So, while it was punishing you, at the same time it was offering you a way to dig yourself out.
Anyway, Demon’s Souls is unquestionably a better game offline (except during Halloween when they would force the global world tendency pure black), so losing the servers is no excuse not to play it.
One thing I haven’t seen much talk about, though its possible this didn’t happen for everyone, is how at least the east coast US servers for Demon’s Souls have been extremely bugged for the past 2 or so years, in some game-breaking way. I replayed through it in October/November of last year and could not play more than 20 min online without these bugs bringing the framerate and audio to a literal grinding halt. This had been a known issue in the community for ages but was never fixed, and now the servers are dead (Umbasa…). So Demon’s Souls has essentially already been an offline game, at least on the east coast US servers, for a while now.
Demon’s Souls is still a great game offline though, even with the lack of Old Monk PVP and co-op. You don’t really need co-op though, since aside from one boss (False King Allant who is a complete bastard with an awful and drawn out run to his arena if you die, and can steal your levels (also psychologically stressful if you don’t kill the dragon since you will then have constant godawful crunchy lo-fi fire breath sounds and screen shake throughout the whole boss fight with Allant, which really doesn’t help)), I think it’s the easiest souls game. It’s not as well balanced as later games and you can easily stumble into a build that completely shreds almost every enemy and boss (hello dragon longsword, butcher knife, or crescent falchion). A lot of the bosses have really interesting design gimmicks, and use level architecture inside of their arenas in a way that is sort of missing from later souls games. However, they largely don’t engage with the actual combat mechanics to anywhere near the degree the later souls games do, and its not too hard to accidentally cheese them with glitches or exploiting their less complex behavior, and they can get stuck on geometry. Some of them are really fucking cool (Old Hero, Maneaters, Fool’s Idol, and Maiden Astraea come to mind), but largely the bosses don’t hold up as much on replays as well the bosses in later souls games do.
The design of the actual levels though, is some of the best and weirdest in the series, and it’s worth playing for that alone. There’s a lot of really interesting ideas in there and each world feels incredibly distinct from all the others in atmosphere and mechanics. The sense of delving deep into a dangerous place and getting further and further from safety is really something in some of them, something Dark Souls 1 improved on but the souls games after that largely lost.
Anyway, the short version is yeah, Demon’s Souls is still a really excellent game, and worth playing despite the end of online play and despite how some of it has not aged especially well.
