Zero Punctuation: Demon's Souls

[SolomonGrundy]

I feel bad Yahtzee and so many others seem to not like the game much if at all.

All I can really say is try it again sometime after the frustration wears off. I know when you're starting it's easiest to start with a Royal as they get the Fragrant Ring (regen MP overtime) and Soul Arrow (decent range spell).

Those two things will save you a lot of frustration and angst. The only draw back to the class is your starting stats are a bit weaker than others like say a Knight. But you can easily compensate by farming some souls later on.

I also have to say that the first boss is a bit of a let down for sure. But the Tower Knight more than makes up for what he lacks. It's like fighting a giant Gundam mech with a toothpick. More strategy than brawn. Which for me was a welcome change from games that give you such a vast arsenal of weaponry that the only time you'll likely take damage or die is in the middle of a reload or a bio break.

As far as dodge goes. It works well provided you aren't encumbered with 100 pounds of loot. Keeping your gears weight down makes you dodge with the quickness of a ocelot. Also blocking works well too if you're shield based. Take minimal damage from a huge attack and only lose a bit of stamina. Also use your bow to pick off enemies from afar if they're apt to slicing your face off to quickly.

btw I too found it odd not to have a pause button that stops the game. But even if you're in one of the worlds you can quit the game and it'll save your entire progress. No enemies will respawn and you'll be back right where you were when you quit. It just goes for that Dead Space feel of being in the moment entirely forcing you to plan ahead quite a bit.

 

[IwuvUparaiahDog]

I picked up this game after returning to game stop in a depressed state of semi anxiety to sell Borderlands after about 11 hours of monotonous unskilled stat crunching and crappy character building, thinking that gaming had forevermore sunk to the childish depths of ineptitude and treating the agmers as if they were five year old toddlers trying to fit an entire rattle into their teething mouths? that?s when the beautiful artwork of a name enticingly titled ?Demon?s Soul?s? caught my eye? trying not to get my hopes up and thinking this was just to fill the void left in my heart after the tragedy that was the sequel to the epic game that was ?Morrowind? I purchased the game went home, put the disc into my PS3 and prepared for some button mashing hack-and-slash bullshit? whereupon I promptly DIED! OMFG I thought? did a tier one character ACTUCTUALY put up more fight than a brain-dead chicken in a den of famished pythons?!?! It seemed too good to be true, and after mastering some well timed hacks and slashes rather than wailing on my attack triggers like they were Justin Bieber?s skull I discovered a fascinating thing? the control mechanics for DS were not in fact ?mash X like an epileptic crack-head? or ?flail about like a homicidal retard with hot coals in his shorts?, oh no? this game actually required you to do something no game has done for me since I first picked up a consol controller, and that was PAY ATTENTION!

STEALTH
Moving on, I?ve always been a fan of the stealth-hide ?in-shadow-then-jump-out-and-stab-you-in-the-face characters. So you can imagine my joy when I discovered that the stealth mechanic in this game actually made SENSE! That is, if you stand in the middle of a well lit room, waving your sword back and forth like you?re trying to hail down Helios from his chariot, then the enemies will actually SEE you BUT WAIT there?s more! Unlike some broken stealth mechanics (*cough* oblivion) if an enemy Does see you then only that enemy and the enemies he could logically warn about you will know you?re there BUT WAIT there more, more!! If you actually manage to get out of sight for more than ten seconds but less than three days (*cough* oblivion) they will do something that is phenomenal and almost impossible to conceive for the stealth lovers? they will ACTUALY lose track of you! I KNOW RIGHT?!?!
BOSSES Then there?s the boss fights, which to be honest I was surprised Yhatzee didn?t adore considering his love for massive titans that can smash your miserable brains out of existence with a light sneeze if you go into battle acting like a giddy schoolgirl trying to sell them a batch of freshly baked muffins for her fourth grade class bakesale? no they will laugh at you as then promptly show you what the jelly you call your insides looks like! I almost orgasmed as I got pummeled by my first real boss (not Phalanx: the blob thing lol) for love of an ACTUAL boss to fight, complete with epic moves, retarded amounts of health, nearly impregnable defense and obliterating offence and a weakness you must exploit if you wish to survive to taste tomorrows scrambled eggs. I even started a new game to kill the tutorial boss so I could face off against Dragon God at level one? which doesn?t end well let me tell you?
RPG Elements
One of my favorite aspects of this game is the character creation, where I was thankfully saved by prior GOOD RPG experiences (*cough* Morrowind) from reliving the HELL that is multiclassing. No, you cannot weild the big fucking sword and use terrifying tier three magic spells at maximum efficiency at level 30 at the same time. Why? Because the is is a ROLE playing game, wherein you take on the ROLE of a character who expands upon that ROLE to become the best? at that ROLE. Why? Because otherwise it would be called a Role Eclipsing Tumult Amassing Ridiculous Destruction, or RETARD. Although perhaps the most gratifying part of this game is that even if you did have these powers went went gallivanting about like a psychotic Sylvester Stallone with a Gatling gun and three hundred gallons of nitroglycerin on a kitty farm, the enemies would STILL kick your ass because once again, you have to PAY ATTENTION!

So yeah I suppose this game is hard if by ?hard? you mean ?treats you like an actual player with an IQ superior to that of a catatonic beaver stranded in the Sahara desert, hitting a cactus with its bloody tail while a vulture with a flashy game cover and instructions that play the game for you stapled to its forehead, pecks away at its already disembarked brain? for those of you who didn?t read that, this game expects you to actually learn? you know? that think you did when you learned to walk, or eat? or press buttons?

I could keep going on because there is just too much good stuff in this game to write on a single thread, but by and by, DS is a great game, a worthy but or at least something every gamer should try if not to chellenge themselves then just to experience something that immerses you in a beautifuly crafted, wonderfuly functioning, elaborat, unique and all round great game world

 

[samaugsch]

What a terrible review, and this considering that I'm usually a fan of Zero Punctuation. I guess he just played the game for two hours getting his ass kicked and just gave up on it. I'm also shocked at how many facts he got completely wrong about the game. Dodging is really quite easy, especially if you have a character with light armor. And not all attacks can be dodged, but that's why you have that nifty shield to block attacks with. Learning magic also makes the game quite easier, as its quite overpowered compared to melee/ranged IMO.

Having said that, this game can get pretty difficult, so it's a matter on how willing you are to learn about the game and how to do combat effectively. Reading the manual and gamefaqs.com helps a lot.

This game isn't that much harder than Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry.

1. We need to stop looking at Yahtzee as a reviewer. If anything, he's our Andre Bazin. He's a prototype film theorist. Read between the lines in his videos/writings. In this case, he's showing how game mechanics made to artifically enhance challenge are foolish and alienating to the gamer. A sufficiently challenging game will kill you, but you'll never have a sense of helplessness; you'll think (in that instance) 'I deserved to die.' This game does not adhere to that. Think of Capcom's maxim: 'easy to play, hard to master.'

2. Here's a theoretical dilemma: should a game require external help? You've mentioned that the manual/gamefaqs told you how dodge effectively. What if you had no manual and no gamefaqs? What would your level of competancy be then? Would people still leap to the game's defense?

It's not funny if what he says isn't true though...

 

[RockPlazaCentral]

Yahtzee, I wish you had played the game long enough to discover where the real problems lie. This game is not hard; it's boring. An excellent combat system was wasted on constantly pitting you against monsters in narrow hallways, ledges, pathways, etc. When I had a fight out in the open, it was thrilling. But those moments were so rare. Most of the time, I was creeping along in levels that would take five minutes to walk through in any game that would strive to make combat fun. At least the bosses were cool.

And why the developer's thought it would be interesting to do most of your stat, weapon, and spell upgrades at a shopping centre called the Nexus is beyond me.

To sum up, Demon Souls was short, boring, and inconvenient.

 

[David Englebretson]

Thank you so much for that...I spent my last 30 dollars on this game for a long challenge to get me through a semester through school... 'Fuck you demon souls' pretty much sums it up...
The last fucking boss steels your fucking levels(not just one try 20) so when you replay the game through the second with the hope that maybe it will be fun this time not dieng every ten seconds...BAM you suck again.. that?s not a challenge as much as it is fucking retarded...just saying

Honestly fuck the fan boys on this one fail game is fail.

 

[Steve Schmaling]

That's actually pretty close to how difficult that game is. I don't play a game based on how hard it is but based on the story and re-play ability.

 

[The Apothecarry]

"Being dead isn't the handicap it used to be"

...Is that a Red Dwarf reference? Please tell me it is!

 

[awdrifter]

Being a hard game is one thing, but it seems like all these one hit kill deaths are just there to lengthen the gameplay. That's definitely a cheap way out, no thanks, I'm definitely not touching the game.

 

[cerberus118]

well, I kinda feel sorry for him since the next boss(and therefore the next savepoint) was just beyond the elite group of soldiers. Since said boss is stupidly easy to kill with a ranged weapon/magic, I assume he could have done quite well. I also assume that he didn't have the sound on while playing as he would have been able to hear the wolves from down the corridor.

All this leads me to the conclusion that no-one would help him in game so apparently the help/invade system doesn't work that well.

 

[Meunier251]

One of my favorites! I love this game but it pisses me off so much at the same time lol

 

[DaMan1500]

The thing that bugs me most about Demon's Souls is that, while the actual combat was fun, the game intentionally cripples itself in several ways to make the game more frustrating and time consuming. For example, in addition to the inability to pause and being forced to redo hours of work after dying like Yahtzee mentioned, the game also takes away all of your souls (money) every time you die, and if you can't reach your dead body without dying again then they're gone forever. This means more grinding to get back the resources you already had that the game stole from you. Also, when you die all the enemies you killed come back but you can't recover any of the items you used, so it's even harder the second time around. Making players go over the same section over and over again by not letting them pause or save isn't difficulty, it's being a dick. The same goes for taking away their stuff as punishment for dying, as if watching their character getting chopped into little bits wasn't incentive enough. I thought we were done with such bullshit after they finally took the ink ribbons out of Resident Evil, but apparently not.