Jump to content
Hondo's Bar

Demon's Souls


Newtype

Recommended Posts

I love going to metacritic for a good laugh.

Bought it at release day, traded in at next day. The problem for me is cannot pause the game no matter which button you press, even the Playstation Buttion not pause the game.

 

Big waste of time. Graphics are mediocore at best. The lag is HORRIBLE at times. The gameplay is boring and repetitive. Takes ages to level up and when you do and die. You lose plaything and start all over again. Good thing my store has a 7 day return policy.

 

Suffering is the word that comes to mind when I think of Demon's Souls. You will play for a few minutes, die, watch a lengthy load screen, start from the beginning of the level, die again, lose all your souls and be left beaten and broke... and of course staring at yet another lengthy load screen. Your reward, if you do succeed on one level, is more suffering as you move on to the next, more difficult level. The further you get in the game, the more times you will die, more load screens watch, more repetitive combat to slog through, more frustration as you lose all your souls over and over again. And no matter how many levels you gain, no matter how many stats you increase, you always feel underpowered. So you never really feel that you're improving as a player, never any suitable reward for all the crap you must endure to make progress. These brutally difficult games were popular 20 years ago when games were 2D and had shorter, more action-packed levels and no load screens. But today, with 3D graphics, the levels are longer, the action slower, so now unforgiving games like DS are tedious and tortuous. Don't buy into the hype. Avoid at all costs.

 

It is pretty, but it is not an RPG, it is a platformer/fighting game. Quests/puzzles are nonexistent. Not being able to sell loot makes most of it pointless. Not being able to bank any of your souls (gold) is more than irritating. Combat is pure hack and slash without combo attacks. My feeling about restarting each level after each death went from ok this is hard to this is ridiculous. If you think that changing a game's level of difficulty enhances a mediocre game, then by all means this is for you. For me a $5 steak at a fancy restaurant is still a $5 steak.

 

The Gamervision review is dead on in its criticism, and their score may be too generous. And in truth, I'm stunned so many people are willing to forgive poor game design by touting it as "difficulty." In 2009, forcing a player to grind through the same level for hours at end, with an autosave and experience loss system that actually punishes exploration is poor game design, not a smart return to hardcore difficulty. A bad camera and a shoddy lock-on system that doesn't work with large bosses and multiple targets in a room is poor game design, not a smart return to hardcore difficulty. Forcing players to grind for several hours, with little to no progress, simply because their armor breaks, is poor game design, not a smart return to hardcore difficulty. A nearly incomprehensible inventory system that forces players to slog through multiple stat screens just to figure out if their armor or sword is going to break is poor game design, not a smart return to hardcore difficulty. After spending 13 hours with this game, I can safely say I wasted $60 dollars. More people should be willing to admit the same.

 

Awsome graphics, ok controls, and a story you probably won't see because you broke your controller from the frustration this game causes. The difficulty level is that of playing D&D with a Dm whose dog you'v run over, spilt drink onto his pristine D&D books, and generally have pissed off, before a session. You will die alot, you will restart from the beginning of the level, alot. You will tire of it very quickly. you also restart the levels with half health when you die and don't get it back till AFTER the boss fight., unless you have somewhat hard to find item. which you'll worry about wasting cause you know that next death is right around the corner. Rent this first, you'll be happy you did.
This game is difficult and infuriating on as many levels as possible. You are constantly getting killed and losing all of your money and having to redo the entire level. Also, the combat is extra generic for a hack and slash "RPG". There is very little gore and you dont get that satisfying feeling when you smack the enemy. Its like the fan weapon from super smash bros. In the end they managed to make a mixed up sub-par version of an action and rpg game.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adventuring in the kingdom of Boletaria is going to be just a little bit easier this week, as PlayStation 3 role-playing game Demon's Souls switches to "Pure White World Tendency" today in recognition of the Winter Solstice. Wuzzat, you say?

 

Well, if you play Demon's Souls casually, oblivious or indifferent to the game world's "tendency," a Pure Black or Pure White setting has an effect on many things in the game. Enemy strength, availability of certain items and luck of the drop are all affected by tendency, a setting that can be manipulated by certain world events.

 

But Atlus is forcing a change to the world to Pure White for the next week—similar to the Pure Black World Tendency event that hit this Halloween—something that's not easy to do by oneself. The online game server goes white right about now, specifically at noon Pacific Time and ends next Monday, December 28, also at noon Pacific Time.

 

What does pure white world tendency get you? Lots of stuff, including non-player characters that wouldn't normally appear, access to certain portions of the map, all kinds of stuff! In fact, you can't get certain PlayStation Trophies without a Pure White World Tendency in effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

yeah, yeah. easy shot to take, since i beat every other game these days.

 

so far, i feel like i was sold a false bill of goods on this one. its supposed to be RPG-esque, but the plot seems negligible and there's no character to speak of, really, so much of the sell i figure is the world - which is interesting since its a style we havent seen much since the PS1 or so, but i'm not drawn in. yeah, the bridge section gave me problems, so i explored some of the other worlds...its not clicking. i can dig a slow-moving hack-and-slash lootfest, when im with other players, and its called diablo.

 

i'm down for a challenge - especially in RPGs - but only when im interested, like shin megami. im gonna hold onto this one to try later with los or something and see if its more enjoyable or gets better later or something, but if i was the kind've player that just enjoys seemingly empty challenges, id play ninja gaiden, mega man 9 etc. guess yahtzee's right once in a while, about bread hardening and all that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

yeah, yeah. easy shot to take, since i beat every other game these days.

 

so far, i feel like i was sold a false bill of goods on this one. its supposed to be RPG-esque, but the plot seems negligible and there's no character to speak of, really, so much of the sell i figure is the world - which is interesting since its a style we havent seen much since the PS1 or so, but i'm not drawn in. yeah, the bridge section gave me problems, so i explored some of the other worlds...its not clicking. i can dig a slow-moving hack-and-slash lootfest, when im with other players, and its called diablo.

 

i'm down for a challenge - especially in RPGs - but only when im interested, like shin megami. im gonna hold onto this one to try later with los or something and see if its more enjoyable or gets better later or something, but if i was the kind've player that just enjoys seemingly empty challenges, id play ninja gaiden, mega man 9 etc. guess yahtzee's right once in a while, about bread hardening and all that.

 

 

To be fair ninja gaiden & mega man 9 are made to be cheap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

true...and i don't think yahtzee's right to single out the dodge button/function as being cheap (though you get owned in corridors relying on it). still, the inability to pause, save, heal off-screen etc....i mean, yeah, you can kinda camp between waves, but if it wasnt for level exploration opening up potential shortcuts, this'd feel pretty cheap, too.

 

Ninja Gaiden 2...ok, things hitting me off screen feels cheap. MM9 is just balls-out mean/hard. you can survive this one via dying a lot trial & error to learn patterns, but how's that different from mega man? cause ive asked los, the thought of someone surviving their first go-through of a level sounds inhuman.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...