I'm ready to take the plunge into Demons Souls( as a Dark Souls vet)-What should I know?

[Dalisclock]

A few months ago I finished my first run through Dark Souls and rather enjoyed it, despite my initial hesitation to pick the game up(The "Git Gud" reputation put me off for a long time). Afterwards, I asked around about which DS game was a good follow up and while I discounted Demons Souls at first, several people said it was probably the best game in the series along with Dark Souls. So because Dark Souls 2 is too long for me to want to jump into right now and Dark Souls 3 isn't complete yet, Demons souls seems like a good next game.

So with that being said, I know Demons Souls and Dark Souls are different in a few notable ways. Among them being no bonfires and no Estus(apparently you eat healing grass or something like that). I'm curious what I really need to know going in to avoid making really stupid mistakes, lessons I learned from Dark Souls that don't apply to Demons Souls.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Stay cautious. Demon's Souls has even more environmental hazards than Dark Souls, and keeping strict attention to your surroundings is essential.

Temper your expectations. Demon's Souls is, ultimately, a rougher, less refined Dark Souls. There's no poise, the camera is absolutely horrid at times, the combat is less balanced, there are less spells, miracles, weapons, less of everything. The bosses are underwhelming for the most part. The upgrade system is really unintuitive, carry weight limit is maddening as is also the mechanic of halving your health on death.

Always level up as soon as your have the required souls.

 

[DeadProxy]

You can't hoard everything like you can in the other games. Everything you pick up weighs you down, so you have to routinely return to the Nexus (firelink basically) to drop off everything you don't plan to use.

Upgrading is not all that straight forward, because some types need a weapon to be +4 or something, and some need them to be +7, and upgrade materials are not in abundance as they are in the future games. Bring up a wiki or something when you want to upgrade.

Dying in your human form can be bad, especially if you do it multiple times in the same world. Your health will be cut in half, or 75% if you have the vital Cling Ring that you find in a shortcut in the first zone of the Castle world. Dying as a human also "darkens" that specific world in a way. The more you die as a human, the darker a worlds tendency becomes, and enemies get stronger, but drop more souls and items more frequently, but killing bosses and helping other players kill bosses "lightens" your world and you get weaker enemies and less souls/items. This Black/White tendency stuff is how you access the character sidequests basically.

If you enjoy parrying, or would like to give it a try, I found it easiest in Demon's Souls because a lot of enemies swing slow, so you can see it coming more consistently. But backstabs are probably easier to go for if you play that way.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

If you enjoy parrying, or would like to give it a try, I found it easiest in Demon's Souls because a lot of enemies swing slow, so you can see it coming more consistently. But backstabs are probably easier to go for if you play that way.

This is the main thing I noticed going from Dark Souls 1 to Demon's Souls. I'm a very average parryer in Dark but know I can nail almost any parry in Deomon's. Except for spears and halberds, I still have trouble with those in both

Another thing is crystal lizards have a finite amount of lives, if they die too many times they are gone forever, so be super careful when you come across one

 

[meiam]

Look up how to get the cling ring, it's pretty important. And look how the world tendency work before you start if your trying to get most of the stuff on your first play trough. Kill Yurt the silent chief the moment he shows up in the nexus. Early in the game you'll have to talk to some weird boy/monk things, he's on the nexus on a high floor (but not the highest) about in the middle surrounded by identical one, the only difference is that there's a candle lit next to him.

 

[shrekfan246]

Among them being no bonfires

Checkpoints are given after you beat bosses. They still function in much the same way, but they're far less frequent.

and no Estus(apparently you eat healing grass or something like that).

If you're not careful you can pretty easily run out of watercress sandwiches (of all the Yahtzeeisms to stick with me). You can buy them, but that's a pretty expensive investment of souls and farming for them is frustrating.

I'm curious what I really need to know going in to avoid making really stupid mistakes, lessons I learned from Dark Souls that don't apply to Demons Souls.

It kind of depends on your playstyle. Like Dark Souls, Demon's Souls allows for a wide variety of different methods of actually engaging the combat, and some are more frustrating than others. If you, like me, enjoy tanking up and using swords (or preferably large swords), then you need to know that Demon's Souls is a lot more strict on the encumbrance system; as mentioned, items in your inventory have their own weight limit in addition to the equipment load, and medium armors tend to really chew through your equip load. If you're one of the people who plays very light and dodge/parry-happy, though, then Demon's Souls is still perfectly suited for that as well. And if you find that playing one way is frustrating for you, then be willing to mix things up.

Also, as a general rule don't be afraid of jumping between worlds. You may already know this, but they're not interconnected like in Dark Souls, and while all of the areas are technically possible at any level, there are definitely ones which are far more difficult than others.

 

[Dalisclock]

Among them being no bonfires

Checkpoints are given after you beat bosses. They still function in much the same way, but they're far less frequent.

Also, as a general rule don't be afraid of jumping between worlds. You may already know this, but they're not interconnected like in Dark Souls, and while all of the areas are technically possible at any level, there are definitely ones which are far more difficult than others.

I know others have mentioned it before you, but I'll ask: How does moving between worlds work? I know there's a central hub(the nexus) but how easy is it to get back there and when you return to a world, can you go back to a checkpoint or do you need to actually do the entire world over again?

Also, does anything special happen when you complete a world? I know DS had the bosses blocking progress so 90% had to be fought to complete the game and the remaining ones guarded special items that helped make shit easier.

 

[CaitSeith]

1. There are bonfire equivalents. Not sure where you learned about not being there. They are the exits from the worlds to the Nexus.
2. You have items weight limit too. It doesn't make you fat roll at certain percentage like equipment. There is someone in the Nexus with whom you can leave your stuff.
3. There are different kinds of grass, the most rare ones heal more than the common ones.
4. Dragons seem to love bridges here.
5. Access to some routes depend on the online global community actions (world tendency).
6. Don't die unintentionally as human outside the Nexus. It affects the world tendency (that's why you'll see mass suicides in the Nexus)

 

[shrekfan246]

Among them being no bonfires

Checkpoints are given after you beat bosses. They still function in much the same way, but they're far less frequent.

Also, as a general rule don't be afraid of jumping between worlds. You may already know this, but they're not interconnected like in Dark Souls, and while all of the areas are technically possible at any level, there are definitely ones which are far more difficult than others.

I know others have mentioned it before you, but I'll ask: How does moving between worlds work? I know there's a central hub(the nexus) but how easy is it to get back there and when you return to a world, can you go back to a checkpoint or do you need to actually do the entire world over again?

You can travel back to the Nexus at any time through any Archstone (Bonfire equivalent), and you can warp to any active Archstone from the Nexus. The worlds themselves are separated by different platforms on a stair arch in the Nexus.

I believe you also have a ring that lets you return to the Nexus at the cost of dropping whatever souls you have, and I believe there's an item and miracle that both function like the Homeward Bones, though I'm a little fuzzy on that and have never really used miracles in Demon's Souls.

Also, does anything special happen when you complete a world? I know DS had the bosses blocking progress so 90% had to be fought to complete the game and the remaining ones guarded special items that helped make shit easier.

Once you beat 1-2, the second part of Boletaria Palace, your way will be blocked and you'll be forced to go to a different world because you need the power of an archdemon to get through the blockade, which means you need to fully clear out another one of the worlds.

There aren't really optional bosses, necessarily, though there are some encounters that seem like they should be and at least one of those gets you one-half of an interesting weapon.

 

[stroopwafel]

Demon's Souls is phenomenal(next to Bloodborne probably my favorite 'Souls' game) but beware of World Tendency and equip load which are total bullshit. I would recommend playing offline and every time you defeat a boss(or any time you're in human form really) to return to the nexus and suicide by jumping off a cliff to keep world tendency 'white'. When you die in human form otherwise and world tendency goes to 'black' the game can become nigh unplayable in my opinion(espescially Shrine of Storms). Equip load also sucks so you have to remain aware that if you can't pick up an item then said item is lost for good(meaning you sometimes have to make trade-offs with your current items). Finally the way you have to upgrade weapons also sucks beyond a certain level when you have to tediously grind for rare materials. Also boss souls make for really powerful spells in this game(espescially from Yuria and Freke) much more so than in Dark Souls I think. It also makes the game quite easy to cheese when you have like high magic and Soulray.

If you played a lot of Dark Souls then Demon's Souls plays pretty much the same(slightly slower paced maybe) so you'll be right at home. The atmosphere though is quite different I think so it 'feels' like a totally different game. But anyways Demon's Souls is a masterpiece that anybody who loves videogames should have played.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

Just to expand on the world tendency system that people have mentioned. When you first enter a world it is neutral. Each time you beat a boss it moves towards white tendency, each time you die in body form (Demon's Souls has body and soul form which are the equivalent of Dark Souls's human and hollow forms) it moves towards black. In white world tendency enemies are slightly weaker, you have slightly more health when in soul form, and enemies are more likely to drop healing items. In black world tendency enemies are slightly stronger, you have slightly less health in soul form, and enemies are more likely to drop items used for forging/strengthening your weapons. Once you get to pure white or pure black you encounter some unique NPCs and black phantoms.

The online component affects it too. Not sure of the specifics but co-op and pvp will have an effect. Also apparently you world tendency shifts towards whatever the average world tendency is of all of the players online. If you want to minmax world tendency it's best to play offline.

All that said I'd probably just ignore it on your first playthrough. Although avoiding black world tendency is easy enough. Just stay in soul form. Whenever you beat a boss you get returned to human form but you can just suicide in the nexus to return to soul form.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

1) There is a main hub. It takes some time to get to it but once you do it's a pretty normal Souls scenario: you can (mostly) access any world at any time, though there's an obvious recommended order based on difficulty curve.

2) Instead of bonfires there're archstones, but they only appear when you defeat a boss. So they're less frequent than bonfires. You can warp from any of them back to the hub, and from the hub warp back to any of these checkpoints.

3) Enemies reset every time you die or use fast travel, and unlike DS2 they do not stop spawning after you kill them X many times.

4) You heal/cure ailments eating different kinds of grass. You can heal as much as whatever you're carrying, and I never had shortage. They're pretty normal drops, at least the regular HP refill ones.

5) There's a weight limit. There's an NPC in the hub, Stockpile Thomas, who basically works as the item box from Silent Hill 4: The Room. Try to travel light and return to him regularly to drop off excess baggage.

6) To my shame I never fully understood world tendency events but basically there's an invisible counter sliding between "white world" and "black world" which is affected by your in-game actions. Look up an in-depth guide or walkthrough for this.

7) There's a magic gauge which you can refill just like your HP bar. So spells & miracles can be performed so long as you have MP and don't rely on single-use ammo like the other Souls games (I forget if DS3 did this as well).

 

[antidonkey]

There's only two words you need to know when it comes to Demon's Souls. Should you become annoyed by constantly hurling multiple corpses at the problem just remember "Stockpile" and "Glitch". They never patched it.

 

[Dalisclock]

3) Enemies reset every time you die or use fast travel, and unlike DS2 they do not stop spawning after you kill them X many times.

I appreciate your points but I'm unsure why you mentioned this. I've only played Dark Souls and I'm pretty sure I mentioned earlier that I haven't played DS2 yet.

 

[baddude1337]

Been a long time since I played, but I remember magic being a lot more powerful than it is in Dark Souls. You can quite easily spam spells on the tougher enemies, since you have a mana bar that is easily refilled. This was very handy for me as I was playing a a knight, and tough enemies were wrecking me in melee.

 

[Dalisclock]

Spoiler

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/

Feel no shame in using this resource, if you want to get the most out of the game in this lifetime. Demon's is probably the most cryptic of Souls games, perhaps because it was first. There are various peripheral systems it infuses into its design, last but not least being upgrading paths for best weapons.

I played most of the game in Soul (Hollow) form with the Cling ring, and went offline after the first play through to Platinum. It may seem tougher because of the health penalty, but it's far less of an obstacle than what the game can throw at you otherwise. The biggest reason is Stones of Ephemeral Eyes, which function as Humanity in this game; but unlike humanity they have a very finite quantity per play through. This can be maddening if you insist on being a Stone junkie but are having trouble with a boss or something else, since it's the only *accessible* way to regain body form. By that I mean the only other options are difficult tasks like killing bosses/activating their archstones, or defeating black phantoms online.

The biggest burden/nuisance in Demon's is dealing with carry weight, which I'm glad they got rid of for Dark since it's mostly illogical and counter-intuitive to these games' design. It will make you plan accordingly though. Deposit any loot you don't readily need with Stockpile Thomas whenever returning to the Nexus. Equip the best lower weight armor set you have at any given time, and if you're not going for a full magic build, leave plenty of room for arrows, of which Light are the all around most useful throughout the game. The sooner you can upgrade a compound long bow, the better.

Unlike simply taking swigs of Estus, rationing your grass inventory will make life plentifully easier. Dark Moon variety will negate status effects like poison or plague which is invaluable for Valley of Defilement (Demon's version of Blightown).

Having said all that, like any Souls game the point is to just enjoy it as you go, and when in doubt, (carefully) explore some more. Don't get too wrapped up in playing the "right or wrong way", as the game will do enough teaching as it is. You already have some good experience with the series, so all the better.

 

[Fox12]

A few months ago I finished my first run through Dark Souls and rather enjoyed it, despite my initial hesitation to pick the game up(The "Git Gud" reputation put me off for a long time). Afterwards, I asked around about which DS game was a good follow up and while I discounted Demons Souls at first, several people said it was probably the best game in the series along with Dark Souls. So because Dark Souls 2 is too long for me to want to jump into right now and Dark Souls 3 isn't complete yet, Demons souls seems like a good next game.

So with that being said, I know Demons Souls and Dark Souls are different in a few notable ways. Among them being no bonfires and no Estus(apparently you eat healing grass or something like that). I'm curious what I really need to know going in to avoid making really stupid mistakes, lessons I learned from Dark Souls that don't apply to Demons Souls.

Demon Souls and Bloodborne are both tied for second place for me. They're phenomenal.

I heard that the game was less refined then Dark Souls, but once I got started I was stunned by how smooth it was. That said, it makes some strange decisions that can get confusing, so let me break it down.

First of all, unlike Dark Souls, the world isn't one interconnected metroidvania style map. Instead you have a hub world called the Nexus where most of the NPC's are. This is the area where you'll repair and buy equipment, or learn magic. You no longer level up at bonfires. Instead there is an NPC that levels you up called the Lady in Black. The system for leveling up is identical to Dark Souls. From the Nexus you can travel to five separate areas. Each one has its own story and lore, though their all related to one another. Each world is broken up into roughly three areas. For instance, 1-1,1-2,1-3. Each area gets progressively harder. You can do the worlds in any order you like. It sounds complicated, but it really isn't.

The only confusing part is a feature called World Tendency. Certain actions in each world will trigger the world towards light or dark. Certain characters only show up if the world is pure white or pure dark. This also affects certain items and weapons, and can influence quest lines. Defeating an area boss will push the world towards light. Dying in your human (non hollowed) form will push it towards darkness. This means that, if you use the equivalent of humanity in this game, and die, then you can get locked out of certain quests. Since you get returned to humanity after defeating a boss you may want to return to the Nexus and kill yourself. This way you can push the worlds to white tendency and see the whole story. Yes, this is needlessly confusing. I suggest looking up a guide.

Otherwise it's pretty simple. You have an item burden, like skyrim, limiting how much you can carry before you need to drop stuff off at the Nexus. The game plays the same, but when your in your soul (hollowed) form your health is cut in half. This sucks, but you'll get used to it. Just think of your reduced health bar as you "normal" health. There's an item that gets rid of this penalty later. Finally, there are times where key NPC's can get killed in the world by enemies. Make sure this doesn't happen or their dead for good. These cover the negative differences.

Don't let that get you down, though. Demon Souls is a work of genius in its own right. It lives in Dark Souls's shadow, but it's one of the best games I've ever played. The music, game play, lore, world, story, and characters are genius. I can't recommend it enough, and I hope you love it as much as I did.

 

[Evonisia]

There are only a handful of optional bosses in "Demon's Souls", and two of them are glorified environmental hazards. So chances are if you've killed a boss you have actually made progress towards the endgame.

 

[Dalisclock]

So I started the game and so far everything is feeling familiar, though the intro movie makes me feel like I've stumbled into an episode of Berserk. I do like the feel of the Nexus, but I feel like I'm missing something. I can reach the the third level but it looks like there are levels above that I can't seem to find the way up to. Am I just missing the way up or does that unlock later on?