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Denver, 10:04 AM
Thu Dec 3
65 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/02/09
The satisfaction was so immense, that even after these many years, whenever I play a hard game, I remind myself of God Hand and make myself continue playing the game. #difficulty
10/31/09
10/31/09
It is possible to kill him early on, but for all intensive purposes, you're better off avoiding him until you've gained a few levels and better equipment... plus have familiarised yourself with the game a little more.
You won't be able to level up until you defeat the first boss, but once you do, if you sink a lot of souls into improving your health then you'll find the game a lot easier to get into.
And to get to that boss I can only suggest you explore both of the towers in area 1-1 to open the gates from the beginning of the level... it saves on the frustration of backtracking every time you die. and stay the hell away from the dragons on the cliffside unless you are a hunter with over 300 arrows! #difficulty
11/01/09
I'm not going to make a big deal, but the phrase isn't "intensive purposes" it is "intents and purposes". ;) #difficulty
11/01/09
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11/02/09
The game is so hard when you get started that most players really appreciate all the help they can get... I know I did! When it gets to a point later on where you have gone from being the apprentice of other players to a master in your own right and you have the opportunity to help out less experienced users then you get a really awesome sense of satisfaction... like things have come full circle.
That's my take on it... or it might even be something like: people get very passionate about this kind of game and want other people to enjoy it too, so they try to reduce the early frustrations for players until the game gets it's hooks in! #difficulty
11/02/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
I completely agree, difficulty is something that has been increasingly engineered out of games. You can't push a Demon's Souls to your parents who like playing Wii Sports Tennis. But there is still a huge number of players who crave the challenge of a Demon's Souls. The more I read about this game, the more I had to own it. I needed a game like this in my library.
I was actually suprised to find that I was not forced to return to my corpse naked to retrive all of my gear. I was pleasantly surpirsed to find a ring that negated half of the HP loss in soul form. The game is not just a bastard for the sake of it. The game just puts a lot on the player. It doesn't make it easy to figure out the best stuff or even which stats you need for certain weapons. It expects you to take the time to learn and do the right things, figure out what those symbols mean, the information is available, it is just not all in the easiest spots. If you can't use something you spent your souls on, well pay more attention.
I think this sense that the player controls their own destiny in the game is a big part of the draw. You know that if you go and kill a few more easy guys you can get that next stat point that might help you defeat the next boss or something. You know that if you get a few more kills you can spend your souls and go into the next area with only a few souls to lose, thus feeling safer about learning a new area.
There are just so many little bits that come together to make it a very satisfying experience. This approach to difficulty is something I can really get behind.
Games that I rent are best played on normal. I rented it to see the story or just check the gameplay out. I don't need it on hard or whatever to do that. However, a game like Demon's Souls needs to be savored. You look around and try to find everything because you know you are going to need everything you can get. This is the type of game I like owning because I want to play it, put it up, play it, put it up, etc. I don't feel like I need to play it endlessly, but I also always want to keep coming back to it.
I hope more games will offer players the challenge of learning from their failures. Gamers and people in general are better off being pushed like this. It is what really had me falling in love with games to begin with. I don't play games to unplug and unwind, I play them to plug in. Demon's Souls really forces you to plug into the game. #difficulty
10/30/09
10/30/09
That's the part that makes me put the controller down saying, "Screw this game!" And then the next day, "Okay, maybe one more try..." #difficulty
10/30/09
MMmmmmmmm.....snickers. #difficulty
10/30/09
10/30/09
Also... "betta wash that Snickers down wit' sum milk, foo!" #difficulty
10/30/09
Mr T pities the obsessive-compulsive.
10/30/09
Reducing everything to a timesink, and merging all stats (until we eventually end up with one, "pwnyness") ruined what was an exciting and addictive game, and turned it into essentially a lame, expensive 3D IRC client.
I like hard games. I also like games with intelligently designed difficulty levels that you can turn into hard games without stopping them from being playable. A game which is just an expensive bit of anime with button mashing makes me a sad kitten.
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
10/30/09
11/02/09
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11/02/09
11/02/09
11/02/09
11/03/09
10/30/09
Still, my copy of demons souls is in the mail (had to order from the colonies). #difficulty
10/30/09
Keep playing harder games!
No, seriously. The first time I played Super Mario Bros., I couldn't make it past the first level. It took me weeks to surmount that which I thought of the time of as an ENORMOUS challenge.
SMB on the NES was the first game I can remember playing.
Then I got a gameboy a few years later with three games - Turtles 2, Metroid 2 and Battletoads. I finished Turtles in like a month, and proceeded to try and try and try and TRY again at Metroid 2 and Battletoads for years and years.
I only recently finished Metroid 2 (holy shit, that game was HARD!), and I still haven't finished Battletoads, and now my old GameBoy is broken and the start button on my GBC doesn't work, so I can't keep trying.
Well, I guess I'll probably emulate it some day just because I'm a sucker for punishment. #difficulty
10/30/09
10/30/09
I dont like easy games, but I always think "Normal" mode is how the developer would want it.
in my head normal is the base, and from their its made easier or harder to fulfil requirements of other difficulty levels. #difficulty
10/30/09
The advent of achievement points, etc., has made it hard for me to play or even enjoy news about games on consoles which have them, unless I think I can hit about 800 of 1000 achievement points. I rarely can, it turns out, and I tuck my tail between my legs in game discussions anymore since when it comes time to measuring gamerscore, mine's a little green nubbin. What's worse, with this generation, my memories of success boil down to subtitle reading -- I beat the... whatever it was, and got 80G. Remember those points pretty well. Then another 20G for something else, stacked on top. Good story for the blog? Any other imagery is overwhelmed by my hand memory of accessing a pause-menu map. Over and over.
My son and I play 360 together, and I have found myself rejecting most titles for perceived gamerscore difficulty. He gets bummed out when I accidentally unlock things that he cannot, and telling him that simply enjoying the game is the point just doesn't match what the game is telling him, or any other media lately. I don't much the line myself, especially as I literally rack up points against him, or his profile, or whatever. It's like a dad telling his kid it's okay to strike out when dad is out there knocking them out of the park in the same little league team -- sometimes the opposite team -- knowing that even when the kid does knock out one or two, he has 18 more to go before the scoreboard acknowledges it.
Non-points-related: I admit that with age I am more and more turned off by any sort of difficulty in a video game, despite loving challenges in the general sense. Some people take on insane, life-changing challenges because pass or fail, they embrace the experience it will provide. Some take on those challenges having no idea that's what they are. Superficial challenges are far less life-changing, but also less satisfying regardless of outcome -- unless compared to the amount of risk avoided by taking real challenges. I mean, not to go on and on. Serious challenges become risks become failures, fears and depression -- and we avoid them, or replace them with the far safer and comparatively better superficial ones, like increasing the followers on our blog or getting all the headshot achievements this weekend. I'm not enjoying that sort of thing lately. Which is not to say I spend one minute less on addictive gaming.
10/29/09
10/29/09
It turned me into a glutton for punishment, something even the best old school games didn't do.
It's not about repetition, pattern memorisation and mad skills. It's about strategy, something that even an "old" gamer with little-to-no patience for frustrating difficulty can appreciate. :D #difficulty
10/29/09
Of course in that is in Demon Soul's term of easy and found after countless trails and mostly errors. But like you have have nothing but good things to say about the game even with its pulverizing difficulty.
The only thing I absolutely hate about the game is that once you missed a scripted event, for e.g. kill the blue dragon and before rescuing Biorr and he will vanish into thin air. You will never see demonbrand if you dont baby Ostrava each time you visit 1-1 1-2 1-3. And lastly should you slay a vendor by mistake (did a bad aoe attack at 2-2) you are screwed for the play through. Have all this happen to you in one sitting is not the greatest of moments.
In the end a fan-bloodly-tastic game, absolute classic game and so far hands down my pick rpg of the year. But would I recommend it to anyone I know? No... not unless they know what they are getting themselves into. #difficulty
10/29/09
(Not recommended.) #difficulty
10/30/09
10/30/09
I wish more developers would take this approach once in a while. Demon's Souls gets it right. It's not like say Monster Hunter on the PSP, where the terrible control scheme and camera control frequently lead me to my death as opposed to using the wrong strategy. #difficulty
10/29/09
But man... I can't stop playing. I catch myself thinking about how I could possibly get around a certain boss or particularly badass guard outside the bosses chambers. I think about certain weapon and armor combos, what weapon could work better in what situation.
When I am supposed to be practicing medical math, I am instead calculating weighted protection vs. light stepping movement. When I am changing a diaper, I am wondering if maybe putting on some flame absorbing gear would help me avoid getting toasted by that damn blue dragon on the way to the False King, because even though I've already beaten it, it seems like any other game I go into have not.
I am making this sound a lot more destructive to my life than it really is, but my point is that the game has utterly captivated me. The atmosphere is pretty damn cool, too. I've compared it before on this site to "Shadow of the Colossus." It's pretty much that. It's you, alone. Yeah, there are some vendors in the Nexus, every once in a while one of which will come in and distract an enemy for a few minutes while you plug arrows into their face. And you get the occasional phantom pop in to help or try to kill you.
But for the most part, it's you against the world. A very hostile world out to kill you. But while the beautiful Colossusi weren't out to kill you as much as they wanted to be left alone, the Lovecraftian horrors that appear in this game want nothing more than to fuck up your world. Hell, one of them grabs you and actually drains an experience level off of you every time he does it. He doesn't drain experience, he drains experience LEVELS. Then, he might kill you. Maybe, it depends on if he wants to screw with you some more or not.
But when I finally killed the Dragon God, the Flame Lurker, and the Leech Monger, I can't tell you how happy I was. I actually woke my wife up one night at 1:30 am, screaming like an idiot, after I finally took down "The Penatrator." The giggle-worthy name aside, the guy has a giant sword that he thrusts forward with the speed of the Flash and skewers you like a hunk of steak next to a pineapple. I had maybe one last hit left before I died, I ran out of healing herbs, and I took one last effort. He swung over my head while I rolled backwards, dodged to the left as he thrusts the dreaded blade forward, and thrusts my dragonblade longsword into his abdomen with the last bit of stamina I have left. He bursts into flames, screaming, as energy shot from his eyes and he disintegrated into pure, consumable soul form and leaving that damnable blade for my use where he once stood.
If you haven't played this game, and you have been looking for something that will challenge you to the point of frustration and bring you back to elevated elation at least six times a night, this is it. Get this game. And if you see a blue phantom join your game, give you a bow while pointing his flaming sword and flamescale shield in the air before aiding your quest against the bloated, abhorrent Adjudicator, you may just be seeing PapaBear in a video game induced bliss that he hasn't experienced since his early years playing Shinobi and Ninja Gaiden on the NES. #difficulty
10/29/09
10/29/09
That particular irony had escaped me to this point. Thanks for that.
If it's any defense, the wife WAS sick with the flu at the time. Sex was kind of off the table at that point. #difficulty
10/29/09
I also find it a little incorrect when the developers say it's solely the player's fault when they die. I can't tell you how many times I've died because of an awful camera angle when it decides to zoom in and I actually needed it to zoom out.
The game has just the right difficulty, but its not always the player's fault when they die. Still a great attempt by the developers, one of the best when it comes to the difficulty balance. My real gripe with it being as difficult as it is, is the camera obscuring the action or some object obscuring the camera. #difficulty
10/29/09
Know this walking through Demon's Souls with more than 8000 souls is the equivelant of walking through West Philadelphia with 8000 grand in your pocket your bound to get it jacked real quick.
What makes you succeed at this game is not taking needless and learning from your mistakes. You have to play the role that the game gives you to a T. Don't try to cheat it and it won't cheat you.
Other than that classic title every one should give a try at least for a few hours. #difficulty
10/29/09