Demon's Souls: The Beginning

On 08/12/2014 at 07:05 PM by asrealasitgets

Linked to Article Series: PixlBit Game Club: Demon's Souls

My revisit to DS started off with a female mage I named Rasputina. I am trying for a pure magic build which means no reliance on weapons, for the most part, and is more of an endurance challenge to see how far I can get withough melee. While there are players that can get through this game without ever leveling, they also do so with rare weapons and items, and usually know a lot about the layout of the levels and enemies before they try. I'm not that brave, but trying builds you aren't used to is kind of fun too. I'm used to playing with armor and large swords with a bit of magic, or else a light weight character with fast sword striking and bows for ranged damage. Now I'm going for more of a squishy ranged type who avoids combat.

I started of in World 1 last week thinking I would die a lot, as is expected with this game, but I was surprised to find out that I was able to get through to World 1, 2 & 3 without too many deaths at all, and this includes bosses. I'm sure at a certain point I will hit a wall with this build, but so far the magic class does make this game much easier, as has been noted on many forums for this game. You don't even really need to start off with a magic character. Any character will do as long as you have a catalyst and pump levels into INT and MAG stats. My only real issue thus far is the reliance on consumables, which isn't much of an issue in Dark Souls games.

I have to say that I still feel that this game is much better than Dark Souls 1 & 2. It is just so atmospheric and dark from the very beginning, and the game utilizes a lot of the space much better with enemies and traps, than Dark S. empty, wide open areas. Sure, the Dark S. games do things like scale much better, but Demon's Souls is not worse for lacking a large scale. It's claustrophobia is really well executed from beginning to end. Not even light can escape the world. It doesn't allow for any color to exist either. This game is mean!

I've also got a bow-arrow build going, but not doing so well. It's kind of hard at first. Thank you axe!

And now back to the Nexus!

BrokenH

08/12/2014 at 08:35 PM

I'll probably pick up Dark-souls 1 soon. I enjoyed the brief time I spent with the original (playing a friend's copy) and people seem to mostly agree the first one is just a little better than the second.

asrealasitgets

08/12/2014 at 09:27 PM

Dark Souls is defiitely easier for beginners. There are checkpoints close to the bosses and you dont have to rely as much on consumables. But this post is about Demon's Souls. Have you explored the darkness of Demon's Souls @BrokenH? lol

08/12/2014 at 11:17 PM

Demon souls is on a console I don't own currently so it might be kind of difficult. lol. How does Demon Souls compare to the first Dark Souls? You seem to be implying it's harder,heh.

08/13/2014 at 02:35 AM

Dark Souls series is a spiritual successor to Demon's Souls. Dark Souls 1 & 2 are quite similar in mechanics and scale but Demon's Souls is a self contained game with a much darker, almost depressing theme. Dark souls emphasizes exploration, like Castlevania SotN, where as Demon's is more like Castlevania 4, where you have worlds seperated by levels like 1-1, 1-2. 1-3, etc. Dark Souls is more about reaching the next checkpoint, where in Demons Souls there are no checkpoints. In Demon's Souls you have to get through the whole level and reach the boss without dying, which is a bit more difficult than Souls. You also have to utilize consumable items which you have to buy and keep in stock for health and magic, etc. Yeah, Demon's plays differently.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

08/13/2014 at 02:09 AM

yeah this game has the atmosphere up to your ears, but Dark Souls is no slouch. It's just hard to compete with the oppresive majesty of Demon's SOuls. Plus, we had never had a game like this before, and it was so unexpected.

08/13/2014 at 02:38 AM

But actually games like Silent Hill 2, and Resident Evil sort of had similar atmospheres. I always felt like Demon's Souls played like a survival horror, which is what drew me to it in the first place.

08/13/2014 at 03:41 AM

yeah that's true. I was just thinking the other day that those original RE's were like the first Dark Souls.

KnightDriver

08/13/2014 at 02:25 AM

In returning to this game after many years, I forgot how many different characters you can create. I'm trying all different ones to try and find one that works for me.

08/13/2014 at 02:40 AM

That's the cool thing about the club, we're all in it together, and we are all going through the same decisions. lol. In the end, the starting builds don't matter aside from the beginning weapons and items because you can just put points into stats and make whatever build you want. Royal is a really great class for beginners. You can use both melee and magic. I'm trying hunter and the game is kicking my ass. I think knight and soldier is hard actually, for starters.

08/13/2014 at 02:51 AM

I'm going to do a Royal next week. See where that goes.

Chris Yarger Community Manager

08/13/2014 at 06:09 AM

When I went through the game and got my Platinum, I used a Magic build.
If you need to farm out some Souls, head to the Shrine of Storms area, and use Fire based spells on the katana wielding skeletons, you'll do crazy amounts of damage!

08/13/2014 at 02:32 PM

I'm at the point where I can use some soul farming.

PixlBit