Demon's Souls PS3

[C']

Two more archdemons defeated - Storm King and Maiden Astraea.

Storm King took a few attempts but in the end just hid in the destroyed building taking shots at him with my Heavy Crossbow. Was gutted when i explored the area afterwards finding the

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Stormruler

. Would have loved to have beaten him using that. Next time!

Maiden Astraea wasn't actually hard but the entire experience with the opening cutscene, the music, the comments made during the fight contributed to what has probably become my favourite level so far.

Get the impression I'm getting close to completing my first cycle now.

[ItsThere]

Two more archdemons defeated - Storm King and Maiden Astraea.

Storm King took a few attempts but in the end just hid in the destroyed building taking shots at him with my Heavy Crossbow. Was gutted when i explored the area afterwards finding the

->Open Spoiler<-

Stormruler

. Would have loved to have beaten him using that. Next time!

Maiden Astraea wasn't actually hard but the entire experience with the opening cutscene, the music, the comments made during the fight contributed to what has probably become my favourite level so far.

Get the impression I'm getting close to completing my first cycle now.

Make sure you do everything you want to do before finishing 1-4.

I made that mistake and it affected my NG+ a bit!

[Golgo]

Finally beat the Maneaters, the awful cheap bastards. Had to do it the hard way - melee style - as I didn't have the demon boss spam-spell

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firestorm

, having spunked away the required soul on some fairly useless miracle.

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Old Monk turned out to be pathetic. Played online but I guess no-one was around to liven things up for me. Used his soul to upgrade to insanity catalyst before realizing that it drains half your magic bar, so downgraded again. What a stupid waste. My fault for not reading the small print - haha!

Found a terrific farming spot, by the way, which I used to raise my stats for Maneater melee extravaganza:

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4.2 Adjudicator Archstone: pile outside, shoot arrow at first manta, jump down into middle of chamber and ping 3/4 arrows at Reaper (which will auto-kill all the Shadowlurkers), then pile outside and arrow centremost silver skeleton who will run off cliff in panic, then jump off cliff at spot near mini-manta corpses. Repeat.

With Ring of Avarice equipped it yields a little under 8000 souls for a risk free 1 minute run which you can repeat until you get bored.

[ItsThere]

Finally beat the Maneaters, the awful cheap bastards. Had to do it the hard way - melee style - as I didn't have the demon boss spam-spell

->Open Spoiler<-

firestorm

, having spunked away the required soul on some fairly useless miracle.

->Open Spoiler<-

Old Monk turned out to be pathetic. Played online but I guess no-one was around to liven things up for me. Used his soul to upgrade to insanity catalyst before realizing that it drains half your magic bar, so downgraded again. What a stupid waste. My fault for not reading the small print - haha!

Found a terrific farming spot, by the way, which I used to raise my stats for Maneater melee extravaganza:

->Open Spoiler<-

4.2 Adjudicator Archstone: pile outside, shoot arrow at first manta, jump down into middle of chamber and ping 3/4 arrows at Reaper (which will auto-kill all the Shadowlurkers), then pile outside and arrow centremost silver skeleton who will run off cliff in panic, then jump off cliff at spot near mini-manta corpses. Repeat.

With Ring of Avarice equipped it yields a little under 8000 souls for a risk free 1 minute run which you can repeat until you get bored.

I love that spot! I've used it to boost my levels quite a lot when I hit a brick wall in certain places.

I love the fact that, with the proper preparation and knowledge, you can really take advantage of the game and play it to your advantage - yet it somehow doesn't seem to get boring!

[C']

Who do you trade the boss souls to for equipment?

Only people I've found willing to accept them have been the spell and miracle vendors.

Also do they all have multiple things that they can be traded for?

[Golgo]

Who do you trade the boss souls to for equipment?

Only people I've found willing to accept them have been the spell and miracle vendors.

Also do they all have multiple things that they can be traded for?

Blacksmith Ed in 2.1. He's in the underground chamber behind the dirty vendor bloke right at the start.

And (to 2nd question) yes, or rather some do. Some can be traded for a weapon upgrade, spell or miracle, leading to a difficult choice...

[ItsThere]

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But you have to give Blacksmith Ed the Soul from the Flamelurker first

[C']

Hmm, strange. I've spoken with Blacksmith Ed plenty of times (and used him to upgrade my Dragon Long Sword) but never had a 'Buy Items' option. Will go talk to him again.

With regards to New Game+ what (if any) items are carried over? I presuming these boss souls won't so I should use them all up before finishing the game?

[ItsThere]

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If I remember correctly you have to have the Red Hot Demon's Soul in your inventory. Talk to him (using the talk option) until he keeps repeating the same thing. Then get out your RHDS to look at it - careful not to consume it or anything and talk to him again, he will take it off your hands and you will be able to upgrade to unique weapons that aren't available before that. Hope that helps!

[Golgo]

Hmm, strange. I've spoken with Blacksmith Ed plenty of times (and used him to upgrade my Dragon Long Sword) but never had a 'Buy Items' option. Will go talk to him again.

With regards to New Game+ what (if any) items are carried over? I presuming these boss souls won't so I should use them all up before finishing the game?

as guys said u need to hand over a certain soul first. plus, u dont get to buy, just upgrade, altho the upgrades often lead to significantly different weapons. you'll need to lug a load of weapons over to him to see which apply.

[Golgo]

Seemingly odd thing just happened to me in 4.3:

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Was pootering along nearish the beginning when got the cut scene of beefeater-type guard going through big portcullis, which I was nowhere near at the time. Next thing I see the life-bars of a big skirmish in the distance and by the time I get over there the guard is dead, his hat on ground, and the mausoleum key nearby. Checked wiki and found out that this was some story event involving fight alongside Ostrava, which was meant to be triggered by me pulling gate lever or something? I did no such thing. However there was a black phantom in there at the time as well trying to hunt me down. Is it possible that this ****er triggered the event and deprived me of this story-moment?

[Darwock]

It's not triggered by pulling the lever, that's what you have to do to save him.

Ostrava is a bit glitchy, often he is thought to disappear but in reality he probably gets killed without the players knowledge. If you repeat sections without seeing it through to the end then he will have to fight by himself every single time, so it's inevitable.

That one shouldn't have triggered until you had been on the other side of the gate though. And in fact Ostrava couldn't get through and kill the guard unless the lever had already been pulled for him. Very odd indeed.

Oh, to answer C' - the boss souls do carry over - everything does except keys.

[Golgo]

strange. maybe was triggered by that invading black phantom who was definitely wandering on ahead of me. glad i got to put him to the sword.

[Largo]

i still own this game although i havent played it for months and months.

I enjoy it, but some aspects dont really suit me personally, for example (IN MY OPINIONNNNNNNNNNNNN) the game seems to take it that i know what im supposed to be doing, or, where im supposed to be going and of course i dont. So i dont really 'get started' or so as i tend to like some info before getting stuck.
Same with class etc and skill point spending, even the merchants, traders and options there confuse me.

[C']

Completed my first cycle this morning.

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Old King Allant/False King

was proving very tricky when I tried to beat him with the Souldbrandt (I think this is the one I got from

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Old King Doran

) but when I switched to my freshly crafted Broadsword+10 I beat him first go.

Really, really happy that I gave this a chance. In fact, and I know this will sound crazy for a game that I've got over 60 hours on the game clock, but it really felt like there wasn't enough of it. Exploring the stages was my favourite part of the game so I'm just sad that for all worlds except Boletaria Castle there is only really two proper stages. But what's there is fantastic stuff. Like I say, it's a stupid "complaint" on a game that has kept me engrossed for a solid two weeks but it's just a compliment to how much fun I had that I simply want more.

Already a few hours into my New Game+ cycle and it started with a bang. Literally 10 seconds into my game and I'm invaded by a black phantom. I see them in front of me running in the opposite direction so I try to sneak up on them and fail. Weapons drawn, we commence battle and I land a three meaty swipes and I can hear the *badumm, badumm* of their heartbeat.

They're bleeding!

I'm unable to capitalise as they roll away and appear to use some healing grass and switch to magic. I'm able to dodge most of it but unable to get close. They run out of MP and I close in but can't land enough blows and they manage to recover MP and start again with the spells. A few land this time and I realise PvP is a whole new dimension compared to fighting the mostly stupid AI. Eventually I lose to their magic so my first change for this playthrough was setting my up Anti-Shield Barrier as my sole miracle.

Clear 1-1 in soul form and enter 2-1 and again about 30 seconds in I'm invaded. I can actually see them form in front of me. This guy is melee focussed and it's a very fraught, back and to, battle. Thought I had him at one point when I landed a fierce strike that left with a slither of HP but I couldn't finish him off and eventually I die again.

Already I'm so nervous playing in physical form now. My heart literally starts racing everytime the message appears.

Decide to try and invade myself to get some practice in. First one I get decimated in about 20 seconds. Second I don't even find my prey and I get a message saying they died so end up resurrected anyway. I only manage to make it to the second room in Stonefang when I get invaded again. I get the upper hand early in this one and he disappears so I presume he quit out?

No matter because ANOTHER black phantom is quickly along to take his place. As I wait again, I spot a strange marking on the floor, slightly different to the usual messages and realise this is a white phantom summon. I quickly call him and nothing happens. I head to the doorway and can see the black phantom wielding one of the biggest swords ever running across the battlement towards me. I accept that I'm likely to die again, but then the cavalry arrives and my white phantom spawns. I run over to get his attention just in time as the black phantom enters.

He actually battled the two of us very well but the two of us were simply too much.

This game is amazing!