I've only ever played Bloodborne before in the Soulsborne series, and after starting this my immediate reaction was just how little the developers have evolved these games, at least from 2009-2015. Obviously that's not this games fault since it was the first of the kind. To be fair though this game does make shields useful which was nice, even though they become a bit useless near the end (at least the shield I was using, I never got a chance to use a huge one because my equipment limit wouldn't allow it).

For the first 2 or 3 hours of this game I was frustrated to no end, the lack of ability to level up before beating the first boss was infuriating when you got stuck on a section because there was no way to actually improve, and with each run your healing items would keep decreasing making it harder and harder. It didn't help that I chose what is apparently the worst starting class without realising. But once I beat the boss and the game opened up, I started enjoying it. There were times I had fun, there were times I enjoyed the challenge, and there were times I was angry. But as I kept playing the flaws started seeping through and it felt like with every new obstacle I came to resent the game more and more.

Anyway Demon's Souls is at its best when you're fighting one on one, and, funnily enough, in the boss fights. The game is at its worst almost every other time. I think it'll just be easier to give a full list of things I didn't like about the game:

-Combat is absolutely not suited for fighting multiple enemies at once. While using your chance to attack one enemy (and it's a pretty rare chance in later enemies), the other 5 enemies around you will be on your ass before your first sword swing animation has hit. Plus there's an amount of time after performing a parry or backstab where your character is finishing their animation but you can still be attacked. So... even when you get rewarded for a perfect parry the game still punishes you. It's also possible to be stunlocked after getting hit once, as then the next enemy will hit you and stun you, and while he recovers from his animation another enemy will do it and so on. I'm sure there are builds that can tackle multiple enemies, but it feels like you'd need advance knowledge of the games mechanics, weapons and spells to plan for that.

-Many of the locations aren't suitable for fighting, particular on stairs and bridges where you have no room to roll. And god help you if you're somewhere with no barriers. I remember trying to get to one specific boss room, but it was up a huge flight of stairs with no barriers, and half way up was a magician that had this AOE blast spell that would just knock you off to your death every time. It killed me more than the boss ever could.

-The game is VERY unintuitive and doesn't explain anything. In many cases this can be as little as missing out on a ton of items and content because the thing you need to do is so obscure you'd never work it out without looking it up (swapping items with the crow, wearing a specific outfit to unlock some stairs). But in some cases the game progress is even blocked behind a specific thing you need to do that is never told to you, such as a boss that will infinitely respawn if you don't kill a specific NPC first. Even the world and character tendency, something the entire game is built around and has an entire tab for in the menu, goes unexplained in-game.

-The above also applies to the level design, it's not unusual for the game to introduce new enemy types, or stage hazards in a non-safe environment, leaving you no time to work out what they can do and how to counter it.

-Just like Bloodborne (and I assume Dark Souls), other players can come into your world and just kill you. It once happened to me right after beating a boss and before I could go to the nexus, so basically I lost some world tendency without being able to do anything about it. A mechanic that lets uninvited players come and grief you just sucks ass.

-Just like Bloodborne the visuals are dull. It's just dark grey colours everywhere. They do have some pretty cool location concepts, such as mines and a prison, but it all just looks so bland in practice. Level layouts themselves were a mixed bag. Sometimes they were pretty good and offered shortcuts to reward the player for getting through them, or otherwise were a straight line to the boss but offered side-routes for exploration. Other times they were just a labyrinth where everything looked the same and if you died there was no fast way to get back to where you were (such as the tunnels or Valley of Defilement). You just generally spend waaaaaay too much time retreading the same parts over and over.

-There's this very annoying thing where I'd try to hit an enemy with the usual attack button but he'd just nudge the enemy instead. I never managed to figure out what caused this, even after looking it up, and everytime it happened it just screwed me over.

-The non-linearity of levels creates an incredibly unbalanced difficulty curve. I did 1-1, 1-2, then 2-1, 2-2 and 2-3, then went back to 1-3. After beating 1-3, the first stage of each remaining world was incredibly easy to the point where I'd often just make it to the boss and beat it in a single try. But then the second stage of each world would be a mix of enemies I could easily tank and big enemies that could kill me in 2 shots (and then the boss in x-2 would always be super easy and would do less damage than the big mooks for some reason?). When you let the player do stages in any order you really aren't able to balance the game with their progression.

-The swamp stage exists. I think that's my least favourite stage from any video game ever.

-And then there's the last thing that pissed me off. I was debating whether to give the game a 2 or a 2.5 for a while, but then I fought the 1-4 boss and I saw the message "Soul level drained". There's a boss that can literally undo your progress - multiple hours of your life - and you don't even get the levels back if you die, meaning that the boss you just lost to will now be even harder because you've just lost some levels.

-Equipment weight limit means you realistically only have 50% of what it says you have if you want to have any kind of chance. Also the world tendency thing, if you wanna do it right, means playing the game with 50% health the whole way through.

Basically I just don't like this game because it's boring to look at and its difficulty comes from ignoring game design 101; creating battles that are massively against the players odds by making the enemies attack much faster and stronger than you ever could. Throwing a thousand newb death traps everywhere so that players will often have to spend their time trekking back to their old spot, with the huge risk of losing their souls if they die on the way. Putting battles on stages that go against your defense mechanics, like making rolling impossible, making enemies that can't be blocked by a shield (and getting hit will stun you and turn your stamina to 0).

Weirdly even though Bloodborne is the technically harder game (I can at least say I never needed a co-op partner to beat any of this games bosses), this one felt way more frustrating with its unfairness.

There are definitely times when the game hits the sweet spot of being hard without just punching the player in the face and pissing on their corpse, but damn are they overshadowed.

Reviewed on Feb 17, 2021


8 Comments


1 year ago

Wow you are bad at Souls games. I'm an advocate to go against Demon's Remake but this is just you not getting the formula, like, at all. Which is fine

1 year ago

Maybe they should make a formula that isn't shit then B)

1 year ago

Eh, I disagree completely with A lot of your points, but I understand a lot of them. I think (generally) the games give plenty of windows and attack planning to strike the next group of enemies. You are supposed to take it slowly and kill enemies by alluring them when there are way too many of them. If you use the thief ring (which you'd probably didn't get) enemies become dumber than rocks, if you are having too hard of a time. Bloodborne being your first Souls game wasn't the best idea, as it pushes its fundamentals to the extremes (for better or worse).

Also, the cryptic shit was touched upon Demon's Souls' manual (yeah, I'm an advocate for manuals when they came with games and gave valuable info to make you invest more into it, instead of just reading through outpullling boxes). Anything that didn't was actually on purpose. The purpose of the game being so nebulous (in offline and online interactions) was to raise an old-school feeling of community that certainly has gotten lost in time, except for highly competitive games. It's intended so players would discuss mechanics, go deep into them, buy the two(?) perfect guides and give advice through the messaging. And it certainly worked! That's one of the strongest bonds of the Souls series, but I can absolutely understand why would you take them as mere slog of bad design.

I could argue your points one on one just for the sake of discussion, because I love talking

1 year ago

I do miss game manuals. I think I got the community aspect more when playing Elden Ring since I played it around the time it came out. Though that still mostly just boiled down to looking up guides for things the game doesn't explain.

The messages system are still one of my favourite aspect of the games though.

1 year ago

Lemme tell you this is from my experience and a friend's experience that recently beat Dark Souls 1 with a bit of help, and went Demons blind. Just so we can have a more in-depth discussion. I'm actually working on a video essay right now lmao.

"There was no way to actually improve"
Because the first boss is incredibly easy, actually. Just walk sideways until every phalanx separates and you make room for it. Spam your weapon, use magic or just throw every bomb at the guy (the game gives you at least 6 free). You can make the case of the targeting there though. Targeting in every Souls is kinda ass when dealing with large groups of enemies.

"Combat is absolutely not suited for fighting multiple enemies at once"
In theory? Yes, but it totally is. When I got pancaked by myriads of guys I went to rush in against the enemies. Lure them out, run to a safe place and kill them one-by-one, use spells, backstab, use your shield wisely, etc. Etc. Every enemy has weaknesses and easy exploitables, but you need to experiment with your equipment to know it. Coming from Bloodborne, I absolutely get why this was a problem for you, since that game incentivizes R1 spam like crazy. Demon's is a lot more paused and simplistically methodic

"feels like you'd need advance knowledge of the games"
You say that like it's a bad thing. It's not. It's just not your preference. You can pinpoint the moments where the game is actually unfair with one hand. I'll tell you: the 1-2 boss way, brutal, 4-2 mid portion, 2-2 if you don't take the completely obvious shortcut, MAYBE 4-1's certain multitudes. Knowledge of the systems? Yeah, that was kinda the point.

"Many of the locations aren't suitable for fighting"
Funny you say because the game does tell you about corridors and walls and unsafe places in the manual. I didn't even know it, I just checked on yesterday.

"The game is VERY unintuitive and doesn't explain anything."
Already touched a bit on that. There's a magic to it. It's not like Monster Hunter. Sucks you don't get the pleasure of getting lost and finding answers through others.

"swapping items with the crow, wearing a specific outfit to unlock some stairs"
What build you were playing? Mage? You don't need Yuria at all to beat the game. And the crow was a little secret to find. In all honesty most of the spells are very specific in use.

"such as a boss that will infinitely respawn if you don't kill a specific NPC first"
The game does tell you. At the boss area you can find two messages that declare that NPC is an imposter. Let's not even bring up online people left a loaaaad of messages about the guy. Also, what other mechanic? Dragon God? That's a gimmick and I understand that part though, since not a lot of people likes that fight anyway. I love it as a set piece more than a fight.

"world and character tendency"
Once again, intended, BUT...
I do think they went waaaaay too overboard with its mystique. Like you can really get fucked by it.

"not unusual for the game to introduce new"
Ok, I think you need to understand that dying was thought as a mechanic. If you aren't getting the jizz of it, the game wants you to die sometimes so you can retaliate. It's all the MO on it. And it's not that hard anyway, loads of times you have those windows. Do you have a hard time with how slow the enemies are?

"other players can come into your world"
Again, sadly, this is a case of not tasting it. I liked the mechanic as a departure from the overly controlled common online scenarios with loads of personification on each player (read, toxicity). This game desensitivizes human interaction for a very very parasocial one. In the invasions thing, it's a take it or leave it scenario. I do like the next entries gave you systems to circumvent invasions though.

" he'd just nudge the enemy instead"
Aah, you discovered the attack+forward analog thing. If you press R1+forward with the stick, you press against your enemy to break its guard. Very useful, the game actually tells you that at the beginning of the Nexus. Maybe you missed it

"The non-linearity of levels creates an incredibly unbalanced difficulty curve"
You're looking it through the wrong eyes. The magic of demon's souls that no other Souls game ever gave again refined, it's the Megaman approach of its level design. I don't want to get into it too much, but basically depending on what you want each stage has its own reason to exist. Boletaria lets you farm loads of herbs, stonefang materials, latria magic stuff, storms souls, valley consumables, so on and so forth. The reason you pancake enemies in some stages than the others is because of the strenghts of your build. A mage will have quite a hard time in the shrine of storms right after 1-1, but will probably obliterate everything in 2-1. Full strenght brute has trouble in 2-1 because of piercing attacks, but will have a very easy time in latria. It's not perfectly pulled out but its a very unique way of making grinding actually engaging. Not being able to rest on each archstone is whack though.

"The swamp stage exists"
Welp, I can't do much for that case. It's a very common opinion on Souls swamps. I actually think this is one of the easiest.

"Soul level drained"
I'm surprised you had such a hard time with that mechanic, a very asshole one I surely admit! But you coming from Bloodborne I thought you would be prepared for confronting Allant. The soul drain ability is easily telegraphed and unless you're rolling too early you shouldn't have any problem with it. One of the things I love about Demon's is the challenge is always getting you out of your comfort zone. It makes you consider everything in your hands, from equipment to actual mechanics like parry-rolling, damage types, shields and other stuff. No other game in the series actually exploits that problem-solving way of combat, and that's where they become apparently the same.

"Equipment weight"
Law in Souls games: if you want some cool poise or heavy duty armor, spend the points to get it on. Armor in Demon's and Dark Souls 1 is actually very important, as you can break a lot of encounters while using it at the right time, just like damage type. It's with DS2 and beyond where it's mostly an aesthetic thing. In fact, this game has very little variety to armor, because each one has a distinct use. You can offcourse just use them because they look cool, but if anything, this (or it used to be this way) was not about fashion.

"50% health"
You missed something else! At 1-1 you can get the cling ring by breaking some chains. Two bodies drop with witch clothes and the ring. It gets your life to 75%. It is a harsh punishment though.

"just dark grey colours" and the scenarios
Well, hear me out. Demon's Souls has prowess in simplistic art design. What you see as boring, I see as a very dreamy, greenish looking game that goes hand in hand with its fog concept. Everything is strangely disconnected in a very alluring way. Also, the details may not be ultrarealistic, but again, it's more like a DnD setpiece with simple shapes telling you the exact information you need to understand part of its world. Way too many details would diminish its ghostly appearance IMHO. Lemme say I do think they went too straight with the last portions of each map (a straight line), but everything else serves kind of a purpose. The close corridors where exactly made to obligue confronting specific enemies, the labyrinthic look was deliberately made to confuse you and disconnect you. A lot of people have made the case Demon's has a veeery long return trip, so you're not alone on that.

Sorry for the long post, but I do want to hear more from you

1 year ago

Not to intervene too much here but I think you mean 'getting the jist of it' unless you said 'getting the jizz of it' on purpose its a very crude rephrasing of the saying (I promise I'm not just out to stalk your conversation bud :p).

Personally find the gothic grays of Bloodbourne way more enjoyable than the overpowering colors of, say, elden ring. But I know that's primarily a taste thing since Elden Ring shows up constantly on the atmosphere imageboards on /vg/.

I also think there's definitely something fair and reasonable about an experience of almost quite literally not getting it. It's a concept explored in depth in this video on misunderstanding you can actually kill Sinister. And the yearning for game manuals as an accompanying guidebook to experience being lost is fair and one of the reasons people love Tunic so much. I recommend always reading the readme to any game before starting to play it as a result. I think its very fair you don't like the game (especially this shitty watered down Demon's remake version).

1 year ago

I also find it funny you knock on the multiple enemies combat being a problem in this game. I agree, it absolutely is, but I don't know how this is a problem here since most of the enemies are fairly dispersed enough to not get overwhelmed for the most part, but it was way more an issue in Elden Ring in my experience with the way. Could walk 10 feet without being overwhelmed by 5 enemies at once :p

1 year ago

Bloodborne stays winning