Quick Look: Demon's Souls [PS5]

Let framerate be stable so the world might be mended.

Brad and Vinny again for Demon Souls 2020

I made a knight but uh, then i went and found all the items the royal starts with ingame and equipped them lol. it feels less like cheating this way

Brad and Vinny should watch the DF interview with the Bluepoint devs. It will answer all their tech questions.

So I forget the lineage of Demon's Souls vs Dark Souls, like why they both came out, the responses to them etc.

But if I remember correctly, Demon's Souls wasn't as popular because people felt it was hard to understand and progress, not from a difficulty(I mean it WAS) but from a design aspect.

I personally find this WAY more approachable than any souls game after it besides bloodborne(which took from from this than Dark Souls). The level design/progression is very straightforward, I explored the entire first world as much as I could and the game made it clear I needed to go to a different one. The fact that you can just farm healing items vs just having 3 or 4 pops is SUPER helpful. And the story is pretty straightforward too. Obviously the lore of the various worlds BEFORE the game takes place you need to dig for, but the game itself and what you're doing is pretty clear.

This might actually be the first souls game I finish just because it is relatively simple and easy compared to all the other ones. The fights are still rough of course, but that's part of the enjoyment.

Load our last souls is gonna be so much faster now

I think it's mostly that it was ps3 exclusive, and most people owned a 360 instead.

Top 10 thumnail right there

The first Demon's Souls with Vinny, Dave and Jeff is one of my favorite Quick Looks to watch. I still go back and watch it just to get good chuckles out of it. Oh, how the times have changed...

Original Demon's Souls did not have lore stuff in the loading screens IIRC. It was just pictures of the NPCs you can meet throughout the game

Can't wait to take down some of these majestic and dignified foes.

@reap3r160: I think Dark Souls hit because Demon's Souls primed people for it. When Demon's Souls came out, I basically didn't have the capacity to understand it. It was really bewildering, and figuring out the game took a while. But with Dark Souls, I already knew the score

Vinny and Brad the power combo!

As far as the triggers in this game to the only thing I noticed was some resistance when using the bow

The mysterious door has been opened.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/demons-souls-mysterious-door-has-been-opened--heres-whats-inside/1100-6484687/

Quality thumbnail

You have to break Brad first to mend him

Fantastic. I've been waiting to see some pro Demon's Souls players.

I would say "some less great art" married to "some infinitely better tech."

Floogan Reborn

People don't talk enough about "summoning shame". Like brad said, you feel like you have to do it yourself. Even people who say they don't judge but have to do it themselves, there is implicit if not explicit judgement in that.

"Well I would never do it... but I guess other people might"

I feel for Brad and his anxieties with Souls. Follow your own advice about grinding: it's in the game, it's fair. Don't feel ashamed about grinding. Don't feel ashamed for summoning. Don't feel ashamed for picking Royal. It's all in the game, it's all valid.

(There's a streamer I used to watch who equated collecting your souls from a death as cheating, and that felt like the shittiest judgement on people who don't want a game that punishing)

I was just rewatching the original series. Play through it again! I love the Brad/Vinnie dynamic and I adore these games.

This game is pretty.

Brad going from a Royal build to a fat roll build is like the most amazing overcorrection lol

@alistercat: All of that "the real souls" sentiment is lame. It's a game made for fun. Do what you think is fun. The internet loves to gatekeep...but rarely is there anything cool on the other side of that gate.

Ugh fuck this game.

It's so fucking amazing.

But fuck this game.

How long till LG just sends brad a New CX as it would get on the bombcast

Yeah, the difficulty-shaming in this series is one of the most ridiculous things that goes around the Internet with every Souls-like release. The games are made with certain features (leveling, summoning, different builds) that will make encounters more or less difficult. They are all in the game for a reason. Use them if you like. It will still be a hard game you get enjoyment out of, even if you overlevel the content and summon for bosses.

From has demonstrated itself more than capable of changing things up when they want to create a different experience. Bloodborne takes out tanking/shield builds entirely. Sekiro basically removes leveling and forces parrying in many encounters. Presumably Elden Ring will have entirely different systems that create different challenges or opportunities to exploit. They are all different games and have different fanbases as a result. Lots of people hated Sekiro because it doesn't have leveling as an outlet to override difficult encounters!

ugh, that framerate.

@reap3r160: It's hard to remember now that there's a whole "Souls-like" genre, but Demon's Souls was bewildering to people when it first came out. Go check out the GB Quick Look of the original. One of my favorite Quick Looks, inspired me to play the game, but it's hilarious how baffled they are by the game.

@dirty_duck: That is the only thing I want to have resistance if every attack on the R2 had resistance that would be extremely annoying. I have seen a lot of complaints the controller doesn't make good use of the haptic feedback and they need to put the vibration on normal in the settings to realize the difference is night and day.

I wish there was a way to increase the size of the health/magic/endurance HUD, it seems kind of small and easy to lose track of your health in the heat of battle

Level progression in Demons Souls is not linear, you can go from 1-1 all the way to 1-2 then skip all the way to 5-1 and finish all of it should you choose too. You choose the order you can do, however nothing is to stop or gate you other than the arbitrary demon soul doors you need to bypass.

Is this what it looks like with HDR off? I can barely see more than 10 feet in most spots.

Correction to Vinny saying this is a full priced $60 game it is $70.

Boy it's real obvious that a lot of game critics forgot all about Demon's Souls and continue to confuse it with Dark Souls, at least they preface so in the QL.

I've never been a stickler for remakes being faithful to the original, but the new VO for the Maiden in Black pains me a bit. It's not bad by any means, but the original VO is just so iconic that I feel the loss.

@alistercat:It's weird that it exists especially since I've never had trouble being summoned in these games so it's not like there's not a ton of people using the feature.

I think even if you think you have to clear bosses on your own or whatever I recommend people drop a summon sign down as they play. It's a risk free way to explore a level and net you souls, and can be a really fun interaction as well. I remember especially in DS2 were they made healing spells aoe being able to support another player with heals in co-op felt real nice.

And I am Floogan, the chivalrous kn-kniiiigh...paladin. Demons is the only Souls game that I never beat. Maybe when I get a PS5 I'll finally muster the courage to surpass Flamelurker...

Brad running around with a maxed item limit is crazy considering you can now send items/weapons/ armor to storage from the menu. Also you don't need to be carrying upgrade materials cause they are now automatically taken from your item box.

Brad you know who loves Brass Telescopes are talking crows............

@brad 4k is about as awe inspiring as HDR, definitely splurge and treat yourself.

I wonder if PotatoMarshall is doing well and trolling people with their scraping spear on PS5

Can't fault them for confusing it, Demon's Souls is basically a prototype for Dark Souls. Compared to how different Bloodborne and Sekiro turned out, Demon's Souls is pretty much the exact same style of gameplay as Dark Souls except owned by Sony.

So this time Vinny plays and Brad helps!!!!

Can't wait to play this in about 2 years when I finally get a PS5

Hoping for a Sackboy quicklook with two people playing through shareplay!

this is uh gorgeous

@brad What's the name of the monitor you mentioned in the quicklook? I'm looking to get one with HDR.

@99bajakid: Brad has stuck with a crappy old 1080p TV for an inexplicably long time now. And a lot of his commentary on how PS4 Pro and X1X games look in the past four years has been pretty useless because of it.

Love the visuals, love the QOL improvements like sending items to the nexus, love making the story + lore clearer... don't like the boss music :( Oh well

This quicklook made me want to get a new TV!