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dsj49's Demon's Souls (PS3)
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| [April 29, 2011 11:20:22 AM]
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Demon's Souls:
Demon's Souls is an action RPG from the third person perspective. The Game is renowned for its difficulty and daunting boss battles. It also has an innovative online that is "passively" multiplayer.
Story:
The Kingdom of Boletaria has been swallowed by a deep fog, and all those who venture into it are never seen again until. Only after Vallarfax of the royal Twin Fangs is able to break free of the fog that the world learns the terror that has befallen Boletaria, The Old One has been awakened and with it an army of demons who consume the vary souls of the people. Those without souls soon fall to madness. And without and resistance against the Demons the deep fog is spreading and will eventually consume the whole world, but there are those that will venture into the Deep fog to fight or seek the power of Soul magic that originally awakened the Old One.
Character:
At the beginning of the game the player is able to customize their hero, by choosing appearance, name, gender (which affects what gear you can use), and one of 10 classes. The classes are a preset arrangement of Character Stats and Starting gear, but have no affect on what you can evolve your character into overtime. Stats are the main way you create your own class as the Class you choose is just a starting point based on where you put your Stat points will determined what you can do well. Weapons and Shields have stat requirements that if unmeet make the weapon very ineffective, and magic and miracles are more effective when you increase your Magic or Faith Stats.
World:
The Game World of Demon's Souls is Broken into 5 Lands that are all accessible from the Nexus. The Nexus is a place of Power that your hero is was bound to after your death which occurred after entering the deep fog. The Nexus Function as a kind of town where the Hero can return, it has a place you can store your stuff, a couple venders, and trainers for Magic and Miracles. The Nexus also contains Arch Stones that you use to travel to the 5 different lands that you must free from the Demon's grasp. Each of the five lands is broken into three sections, and each section has a boss at the end. The first two sections of each land are fairly large and difficult to traverse, and the third section is always the Arch Demon of that Zone and is accessible immediately from the end of the second section of the zone. The first land Boletarian Palace, is the only exception to this as it has four sections all of them contain a level before the boss. After any boss is defeated a new Arch Stone appears which can be used to travel back to the Nexus and from the Nexus back to the new Arch Stone.
Each land is drastically different from the others. They each have a unique setting and Set of Monsters and challenges to face. And even from one Section to the next the Setting can change greatly as well as new and more difficult monsters are encountered.
Combat:
The core of the game is its excellently implemented combat system, your character is very free to move, dodge, block, and attack. You do not feel limited by the controls(once your familiar with them of course). You can roll at almost anytime which allows you to dodge the vicious onslaught of your enemies. You are also able to block, how you perform your block is different based on if you have a shield and if you are wielding your weapon in a one handed or two handed grip. Unless you have a shield when you block you will still take damage but you will take reduced damage, with a good shield blocking will prevent all damage at the cost of stamina. Weapons have 2 basic attacks, a strong and a weak attack, but you also have a dodge attack, a guard break attack, a rolling attack, a running attack, and combo attacks. In addition all weapons can be wielded either 2 handed or single handed and each stance has its own variation for each move, also you can with a single button switch between the stances, making it viable to change mid combat to the appropriate grip. Where you swing is where you damage, meaning if you make a large arcing swing you will hurt every monster in your path, but if you hit a wall your swing will be interrupted, this forces you to choose the proper swing when fighting so as not to be impeded by the environment.
Spells are also not to be left out. In order to cast a spell you must have a catalyst equipped in one hand and have enough mana to cast the spell. You can put the catalyst in either hand so you can use it with a sword and mix magic and melee or you can use it with your shield and maintain your ability to block. Most spells are quick to cast so can be worked into the fast pace of combat fairly easily, though some are slower so must be carefully planned. Mana does not recharge on its own so mana is limited, but there are recovery items that allow a player to play a pure magic build.
Online:
The passively online feature of demon's souls is Multifold. Players can leave messages to other players in the world in the form of glowing runes that can be interacted with to be read. It is simple to leave messages, as they are all in preformed structures that have variables that are filled in. For example "Beware the ______ ahead" where you c an fill in the black with a large selection of items such as "Floor" or "Dangerous Foe" and so on. By restricting what can be said like this it maintains the feel of the world as players cannot type their own messages, this is great as think of what some would say given free reign as well as it makes leaving a message speedy. Players are encouraged to leave good messages by the game because they receive an Instant full heal anytime someone recommends their message, and messages with a high rating are seen by more people and stick around longer.
The Multiplayer also involves blood Stains and ghosts. A blood stain is left by a player whenever they die, and player in other world can interact with it to see a the last 10 seconds or so of the players life before they died, they see in the form of a ghost of the player who died replaying all the actions that the player took. While you can only see the players ghost from this you can get a pretty good idea of what happened to them before they died so you can avoid the same fate. Ghost are players in other worlds that you can sometimes see in your own world, they are just other people playing the game but you may gain some insight by seeing their actions.
Black Phantoms and Blue Phantoms. This is how Demon's Souls Does Multiplayer. A player can use special stones that allow them to either invade and attempt to kill another player and by doing so returning the Phantom to life or they can use the stone to come to the aid of a living player where they are returned to life after helping the player defeat a Boss.
Conclusion:
I love this game, there is so much variation in the combat that it doesn't get old, and the enemies are dangerous enough that they can easily kill you if you are not careful, this makes it so every fight is satisfying and remains so.
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dsj49's Demon's Souls (PS3)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Friday 29 April, 2011
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