dark souls is a masterpiece but demons souls has so much character and charm and just oddball weirdness. for how similar they are they do dramatically different things.
demons souls in many ways reminds me of classic FPS’s in terms of its level design and aesthetic, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Umbasa.
if you didn’t play Demon’s Souls in 2009 when it was this mysterious out-of-nowhere experience, trading wisdom on the SB playground, you probably won’t get as much out of it
no way, I was a year late (I only got a PS3 in late 2010) and still adored it
I did have that experience – a smart friend I’d lost touch with invited me over in 2009 to play the Demon’s Souls Hong Kong import and the Spelunky early release
quite an important night
maybe, but I first played it in like 2015 and it was magical
ok, maybe it was a slight exaggeration. but there was definitely something truly special and unrecreatable about that first year or two of its existence when it still felt like a secret
Yeah - it felt like we were the only place on the internet that knew about it. But that was in the Asian release days. I didn’t buy it til a good number a months after it came out for regular in the US.
The first day Demon’s hit NA I happened across someone losing their mind over how arcane and unintuitive it was (I did not know of SB only IC), wish I could remember the thread clearer but they spoke in the best of ways (excuse the purple prose) like a deep drink to the parched throat of fantasy role playing. Unbelievably demands spiriting you to learn systems like none else.
Rushed out and bought, lost to a colourless fog all of October, roommates wondered how I could be up till 5 playing it almost every night. Information exchange and discussion felt more underground and fervent than anything since pre web 2.0
Plok.
Plok was one of my favorite games when I was younger.
I never finished it. It’s a longish game without saves or passwords.
I’m playing through it slowly with save states.
The graphics and music are still appealing, but I don’t like the game as much as I used to.
I want to beat it.
Dead Space 3 Checklist
Recap 
Hapless playable character you know is going to die in the prologue
200 Year Time Jump to “Present”
Predictable corpse that rises up to aggress you
Standoffish military types who are probably mostly going to die
Snow Planet
Beyond that, amusing that living human enemies, which are a thing now, are completely trivial to dispatch compared to Necromorphs. Playing on hard mode those guys pack a wallop but resources are surprisingly not very scarce at least in the early going, I filled my inventory to max quite quickly. Baddies are faster than I remembered.
DID SOMEONE SAY PLOK?!
OMG I opened up the shortcut, found new areas, got my first insight, and dumped my first 10,000 blood echoes into upgrades.
Bloodborne finally starting to click!
It was only on this playthrough that I understood the reason the doll wakes up is collecting your first insight (so good!). Yes, this means dropping back to 0 insight re-inanimates the doll.
HMM.
I know it’s a standard thing, but seeing how Sony skipped PSX in December and is skipping E3 this year, the Dreams NDA seemed pretty odd! You’d think you’d want any kind of word out there at all.
Anyway - yeah it’s neat. There are an awful lot of “super moody dark industrial tunnels with hissing steam pipes/vents” kinda experiences that have floated to the top, along with a few remarkably competent FPS demos. But there’s a good amount of goofy stuff that makes it fun to dabble around in.
I can’t sculpt a face for the life of me, but I could see picking this up just to mess with what people whip up over time.
So E1M1, 1-1, and PT ad infinium.
There’s a 1-1 recreation with a very defiant “PEOPLE KEEP TELLING ME TO TAKE THIS DOWN AND I WILL NEVER TAKE IT DOWN” description.
got my first insight
Cleric Beast or Gascoigne?
In Castlevania Rebirth Dracula says “Humans” the same way he does in SotN 11/10.