The world dies February 28th. This is our last chance to play this videogame together, maybe ever.
This is as good a time as any to get this topic up, and give people a few days to remember they should start digging out or digging up PS3’s and copies of this game.
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my ps3 is quite dead and not going to be replaced anytime soon, unfortunately.
i will be there in spirit.
pretend i invaded you and beat you to death with a blessed mace.
im in. never managed to finish this one before.
I started up a week ago but my PS3 chugged during 1-1, couldn’t even load past the first Blue Eyes Knight right.
Came back and was able to beat Phalanx, hope those were just early hiccups
my disc is too fucked
Things to do to improve your old PS3’s performance:
A: if your PS3’s hard drive is nearly maxed out, try deleting some old game files/patches or whole digital games you aren’t using anymore.
B:Try booting into the PS3’s recovery menu and doing the following things:
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I hope to get into this as soon as my gaming to-do list is pared down a bit. I have never really managed to get this game working good online though, always seems like I will see the ghosts and messages for a little while and then I suddenly realise they are all gone and I am basically offline despite still being connected.
Didn’t stop that jerk teenager invading me twice and disconnecting before getting killed in 1-4, then sending me salty messages on PSN though
Thanks for the recovery menu tips! I cleared up about 30 more GBs of space, and rebuilt/restored both the database and file system. It does seem like the PS3 generally operates a little more smoothly, however Demon’s still get choppy with sound stuttering at the start of 1-2.
I cleared out the stage but forgot there’s two Knights at the end…woops
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Hmm! Maybe try deleting the game files (which are separate from your save) and reinstalling Demon’s Souls?
As with any Souls game, it does have some degree of hitching here or there. But sound studdering difficulty moving through an area----I don’t recall that. That doesn’t seem like the game itself.
Right yeah that seems worth a try! It’s been like 7 years since I last played DeS extensively but I know this wasn’t happening so much then. I’ll do a game data reinstall.
I sat down today to give this a go around. I have played it to completion once with the idea of doing the whole trophy set but I quickly lost interest shortly after NG+. And since I’ve never really done much magic, it’s time to be a Royal and shoot everything with Soul Arrows!
Random thoughts while running through 1-1:
- Environmental things littering the path are sometimes sturdier than their Dark Souls counterparts. It’s interesting because of the contrast towards being stopped short by larger pieces like shelving units or crates versus being able to roll through practically anything wooden in the later games.
- I was good on remembering the general layout of the place until Ostrava shows up, though some of the ambushes still caught me off-guard. I didn’t die to those, however! After Ostrava that lower bit that you can shortcut by running at the edge of the battlements to climb it (never really specified by the game as A Thing you can do, just something I remembered) I had difficulty finding my way to the other courtyard and had to spend three or four attempts looking for a way there.
- I was really happy to have not died and figured I would be able to get to Phalanx but then I did the dumb thing and tried to grab the dragon’s goodies. Got tail swatted pretty good in exchange for the fire resistance ring and the shield. And then I died on the bridge trying to run through all the soldiers that managed to clump up just right. Third time was the charm.
- Magic simplified the fights. No more messing much with timings here, just spam the Blue/Red Eye Knights enough to guard break or wait for their attack safely out of reach and knock off a good third of their health if they aren’t shielding it. Normal baddies take a hit and maybe survive with a sliver, making for an easy follow up with a rapier poke.
- There were showcases of the physics engine with the rock balls but I don’t remember them really taking advantage of it later on. Tech demo work for the snakemen palace in Dark Souls, perhaps?
- I liked how they foreshadowed what Phalanx was like by having a couple of the mini-mes hanging out on the staircase leading down on the other side of the big gate.
- Phalanx itself was a grindy fight because lock-on liked aiming for the smaller versions instead of the main mass. I also ran out of MP mid way through and the rapier is not a very good weapon for poking at Slimes With Six Inch Shields. Has a good pressure to it forcing you to run around and consider your options while investing in attack nets you several spears to the face.
- And definitely noticeable is fall damage being a shadow of what it was in Dark Souls. Falls from two or three stories is only a sliver of health. Even knocking dudes off the sides of things rarely guaranteed they would die.
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My read is that traps in level toe the line between gimmick and interesting. They’re used significantly in 1-1 because that level is most investing in teaching the player to learn the level, and they are more predictable than the very predictable AI. Later they are abandoned entirely as enemy placement and aggro and sightline management takes their place.
i also (re)played through 1-1 yesterday. maybe my favourite souls combat, just feels so deliberate, reminds me of dark souls 2 a lot.
it’s been maybe 2 years since i last tried this game and it still kept surprising me.
I’m also getting sound stuttering in 1-2. This has never happened before to me either. I’ve been playing a NG+ run over the last few weeks and didn’t have any issues until I went to 1-2. I cleared 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, and most of 2-2 and didn’t have any abnormal stuttering. It first started in 1-2 when the dragon swept down on my second run through the level.
I’d like to know if anyone finds a solution. The stuttering persisted when I went back to the Nexus. I hope it clears up the next time I load the game.
This happened when we were playing a few weeks ago. It seemed to have been solved when @bib swapped out my US/EU copy for his Chinese one.
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Something I always liked about Demon’s Souls, is that it often leads you deep into the earth (or at least through it). To me, there’s just something about a claustrophobic descent into dank darkness, that is compelling for my play progression.
Dark Souls 1 did it, too. In fact, The Great Hollow will always hold a special place in my catalogue of gaming experiences (albeit is brightly lit). But Demon’s Souls seems to have several segments where you are burrowing into the earth. From Demon’s, the first time I was on the way to Flamelurker, I didn’t know I was on my way to Flamelurker. I thought I had discovered some off-path alternate route or whatever. Oh boyyyyyyyyyy.
*And now that I’m really thinking about it: Boletaria Castle is the only Archstone which doesn’t have you going into caves and/or descending into the earth.
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this is the best part of these games for me—the ‘levels’ are constructed in such an ingenious manner that the game tricks you into thinking you’re breaking the rules when you are really just exploring the level the way it was meant to be.
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Emulation for Demon’s Souls seems to be in a perfect spot graphically and decent spot for performance (seems to be similar to PS3 performance, with an i5/i7 quad core or Ryzen). I’m unsure about how frequent crashing is. But at the rate they are improving, I bet its fairly pain free, by April-July.
4k comparisons (Demon’s Souls is true 720p on PS3. Dark Souls 1 was not)
1080p fight with first boss Phalanx
I’ve started replaying this this weekend. I died about 3 times (one of which was exceptionally stupid) on 1-1, which is significantly less times than my previous attempted (many) and complete (1) playthroughs. I’ve spent hundreds of hours with Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, and Bloodborne since my only complete playthrough of Demon’s in 2012 and I’m finding the game’s combat much easier. It was a very hard adjustment when I first played it back in 2009, and I’m pretty sure it took me well over ten hours over the course of a few weeks to even see Phalanx for the first time.
This moment in Boletarian Palace is a significant and powerful moment, where you reemerge outside and the game forces you to see where you started. The game’s particular geographic logic is revealed.
Once you enter the doorway at the top of these stairs, too, you get attacked by a rolling ball, the game’s first permanent change to its environment. Demon’s Souls teaches a lot about its world and your place in it here.
I’d forgotten you’re not allowed to level up until you clear 1-1, which is something I don’t think any other Souls games do? It’s a little brutal, but it’s a testament to how marvelously planned and balanced this first level is that it really works.
By the way, I also got the background audio stuttering error on 1-1 when I first popped it in, the first time I ever heard that. I quit and reloaded the game to no avail. I took the game out and cleaned the disc and everything has been fine since.
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Something I always liked about Demon’s Souls, is that it often leads you deep into the earth (or at least through it). To me, there’s just something about a claustrophobic descent into dank darkness, that is compelling for my play progression.
Definitely one of the reasons I get more of a King’s Field vibe from DeS than the other Souls games.
Maybe I’m stretching it, but I noticed that another FromSoft title, the underrated Adventures of Cookie and Cream, has a large boss that has you moving around a curtain wall. The boss can also be knocked over, much like Tower Knight.
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