Demon's Souls

[Tobal]

Surprised how short the game is, basically only 10 proper levels and the rest are just short gimmick boss fights. Enjoyed my time with it, going to leave it alone for bit before coming back to try a different build (went with a Cleric build, Club to start with before moving on to a Sword with Fire props, a Raw Spear and moonlight greatsword).

[Lebowski]

Finished my first play-through over Christmas and went straight back in to new game plus as i was well on my way to platinum. In trying to get the all rings trophy id stupidly left lots of worlds in pure black and had full black character tendency so it was a real slog to start with. Pure black character tendency halves your health but gives you more souls for leveling. So i had the increase in difficulty from new game plus a ton of red phantom enemy's because of pure black world tendency and a 50% reduction in health from pure black character tendency all stacked up against me. i was getting my arse handed to me by the enemy's in the first area (two hits and i was down), all i will say is thank god for second chance as it made it so i could take more than one hit off certain enemy's.

I almost gave up but slowly clawed my character back to neutral to remove the de-buffs and moved the worlds and character tendency back to white by beating bosses and killing the named phantoms, by the midpoint of my second play through i was having a far easier time of it First souls game ive played enough to get the platinum done well chuffed.

[BIG EDD]

Think I messed up my first play through with regards to White tendencies. Killed all the bosses on Boletarian palace but didn’t complete it without dying. Is it worth carrying on with this character or starting again?

[briareos_kerensky]

Dying doesn't change character tendency, and it only changes world tendency if you died in body form (indicated by full health bar with no rings, no see-through body, and footsteps with sound).

[Lebowski]

Think I messed up my first play through with regards to White tendencies. Killed all the bosses on Boletarian palace but didn’t complete it without dying. Is it worth carrying on with this character or starting again?

It took me two playthroughs to get all the rings, i messed up one quest line and couldn't unlock the area in 1-1 to face the old king, so had to wait till new game plus, If your trying for the platinum you need 3 full runs minimum as all the miracle and magic trophies require the same boss souls to unlock, one run will be Sage frekes magic, one will be yuria the witch, and one will be saint Urbains miracles. There is a way to skip third run via save backups but that's kind of cheating

[ItsThere]

It took me two playthroughs to get all the rings, i messed up one quest line and couldn't unlock the area in 1-1 to face the old king, so had to wait till new game plus, If your trying for the platinum you need 3 full runs minimum as all the miracle and magic trophies require the same boss souls to unlock, one run will be Sage frekes magic, one will be yuria the witch, and one will be saint Urbains miracles. There is a way to skip third run via save backups but that's kind of cheating

I never understood why anyone would save scum when the game is this good.

[BIG EDD]

It took me two playthroughs to get all the rings, i messed up one quest line and couldn't unlock the area in 1-1 to face the old king, so had to wait till new game plus, If your trying for the platinum you need 3 full runs minimum as all the miracle and magic trophies require the same boss souls to unlock, one run will be Sage frekes magic, one will be yuria the witch, and one will be saint Urbains miracles. There is a way to skip third run via save backups but that's kind of cheating

I'll use my first run as a learning curve and just get used to the enemies and level layout

[wakka]

Thought I'd provide an update in here. I hit a big slump over the Xmas period for various reasons, but I got back into it this Sunday.

Since then I've beaten the end of World 3 (LOVED the last boss - such a cool idea!) and then moved onto World 4. I've got this one in Pure Black World Tendency, so Black Phantom Satsuki was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to see him off using my Quality Uchigatana+5 after some perseverance (keeping up the pressure on him when he tries to heal was the key!).

Moving on from there, I had Adjudicator. He was, to be honest, an absolute doddle. I blasted him a few times with the Lava Bow and that was that. Always a bit of a let down when that happens in a Souls game really.

I've since moved onto 4-2, and last night I spent about two and a half hours grinding Bladestones so I could create a Sharp Uchigatana. I killed myself a few times in human form to put myself squarely back in PBWT, equipped the Providential Ring, then went over and over again to the Dual Katana Black Skeleton behind the illusory wall.

I must've killed this mothereffer about a zillion times at this point. I had it down to a fine art, basically stun blocking him with the Lava Bow before he even got close to me.

It wasn't even the Pure Bladestone that was that issue - I've now got four of those - but the Chunks. The goddamn chunks! Oh lord it took a long time to get 12 chunks. My top tip for anyone trying to do this is this: do not equip the Providential Ring. It's useful for Pure Bladestones, but not Chunks. Once you've got the Pure, make sure it's unequipped. Oh, and make sure you are fully in PBWT. Initially I was only in black-ish tendency, and that was no good. You should have red dots swirling around the Tendency symbol for World 4 on your Tendency page in the Start menu. That's when you know it's Pure Black.

Anyway I finally got all 12 chunks and then created a new Sharp Uchigatana+5. The upside of having to grind the Black Skeleton over and over is that I also was simultaneously farming souls. I ended up with 400k+ by the time I was done, so I'm now sitting pretty on the following stats:

Vit 28
End 28
Str 22
Dex 42

The Sharp Uchi+5 scales S on Dex, so it's pretty powerful now, and I think positions me well to move through the rest of World 4. I did have a quick bash at the rest of 4-2, and it does seem pretty tricky, but in an enjoyable way. The fact I'm on PBWT will have ramped that up of course - I may put myself into human form to see if I can tackle some invaders to help bring that closer to White.

At some point I do want to switch my Lava Bow over to Sticky - but not sure if I'm up for the Spiderstone grind right now. Might just get on with beating up demons first and look to do that after completing another level or two

Great game. I'm at 38 hours now.

[Lebowski]

Thought I'd provide an update in here. I hit a big slump over the Xmas period for various reasons, but I got back into it this Sunday.

Since then I've beaten the end of World 3 (LOVED the last boss - such a cool idea!) and then moved onto World 4. I've got this one in Pure Black World Tendency, so Black Phantom Satsuki was a bit of a challenge, but I managed to see him off using my Quality Uchigatana+5 after some perseverance (keeping up the pressure on him when he tries to heal was the key!).

Moving on from there, I had Adjudicator. He was, to be honest, an absolute doddle. I blasted him a few times with the Lava Bow and that was that. Always a bit of a let down when that happens in a Souls game really.

I've since moved onto 4-2, and last night I spent about two and a half hours grinding Bladestones so I could create a Sharp Uchigatana. I killed myself a few times in human form to put myself squarely back in PBWT, equipped the Providential Ring, then went over and over again to the Dual Katana Black Skeleton behind the illusory wall.

I must've killed this mothereffer about a zillion times at this point. I had it down to a fine art, basically stun blocking him with the Lava Bow before he even got close to me.

It wasn't even the Pure Bladestone that was that issue - I've now got four of those - but the Chunks. The goddamn chunks! Oh lord it took a long time to get 12 chunks. My top tip for anyone trying to do this is this: do not equip the Providential Ring. It's useful for Pure Bladestones, but not Chunks. Once you've got the Pure, make sure it's unequipped. Oh, and make sure you are fully in PBWT. Initially I was only in black-ish tendency, and that was no good. You should have red dots swirling around the Tendency symbol for World 4 on your Tendency page in the Start menu. That's when you know it's Pure Black.

Anyway I finally got all 12 chunks and then created a new Sharp Uchigatana+5. The upside of having to grind the Black Skeleton over and over is that I also was simultaneously farming souls. I ended up with 400k+ by the time I was done, so I'm now sitting pretty on the following stats:

Vit 28
End 28
Str 22
Dex 42

The Sharp Uchi+5 scales S on Dex, so it's pretty powerful now, and I think positions me well to move through the rest of World 4. I did have a quick bash at the rest of 4-2, and it does seem pretty tricky, but in an enjoyable way. The fact I'm on PBWT will have ramped that up of course - I may put myself into human form to see if I can tackle some invaders to help bring that closer to White.

At some point I do want to switch my Lava Bow over to Sticky - but not sure if I'm up for the Spiderstone grind right now. Might just get on with beating up demons first and look to do that after completing another level or two

Great game. I'm at 38 hours now.

Its probably no use to you now but the much easier red eyed skeleton just before the adjudicator can drop blade stone chunks and they also drop from the skeletons with the massive swords on the outer path in 4-2. Its worth doing a farming run including them too and not just the red eyed night in the hidden area. On my farming run for pure bladestone i got quite a number of chunks and so many shards i couldn't vault them in the end.

[wakka]

Its probably no use to you now but the much easier red eyed skeleton just before the adjudicator can drop blade stone chunks and they also drop from the skeletons with the massive swords on the outer path in 4-2. Its worth doing a farming run including them too and not just the red eyed night in the hidden area. On my farming run for pure bladestone i got quite a number of chunks and so many shards i couldn't vault them in the end.

I realised right near the end of my farming session that the guy right before the Adjudicator drops them too! D'oh!

Did not realise the massive sword skeletons carried them too. I was just doing very rapid runs of:

1) Spawn at 4-2 archstone
2) Jump straight down, two arrows to kill the guy who summons all the ghost monster things in the big hall
3) Jump straight down, up the stairs, through the illusory door, kill the black skeleton
4) Collect the soul remains/bladestone shard
5) Curse under my breath
6) Suicide off the cliff
7) Repeat

I also ended up with more shards than I was actually allowed to store.

Deffo a pain to get a Sharp+5 done, but at least it's not like the near-impossible/broken grind that I hear PBS used to be on the PS3 game.

[Finsbury Girl]

Couldn't resist the sales and picked this up.

It is magnificent. Had some issues with the camera but I'm now used to it.

Playing it completely blind with a 2 hander bastard sword. Love it

[Finsbury Girl]

Picked this back up after my 4 month Elden Ring splurge & playing two relatively easy games back to back (God of War and Jedi Fallen Order).

Damn the leap back into souls is hard! Getting absolutely wrekt by Maneater. Might have to go and level up some more.

It looks absolutely amazing.

[Lebowski]

Picked this back up after my 4 month Elden Ring splurge & playing two relatively easy games back to back (God of War and Jedi Fallen Order).

Damn the leap back into souls is hard! Getting absolutely wrekt by Maneater. Might have to go and level up some more.

It looks absolutely amazing.

The worst bit about that fight is when he fly's off and the limited space you have, the time constraints don't help as you really need to get rid of the first one before the second shows up.

i put some levels into magic midway but mainly ran a strength build and found that...

->Open Spoiler<-

Firestorm, when he lands absolutely wrecks it, you can also chop of its tail to remove his poison and ranged attacks

[Finsbury Girl]

Phew finally got that Maneater mofo. Hardest boss in the game by miles. Proceeded to get trashed by min-max

->Open Spoiler<-

peeps for the Old Monk fight

going

->Open Spoiler<-

offline

was the trick. Cheating you may say but after about 10 goes the lag made me almost smash my controller.

The other bosses were a breeze, (I mean laughably easy) I think I am over-levelled (am 60 ish) and getting down to the last bits of the game. I'm doing PWWT first then planning on doing a Mick Jagger and paint it all black.

Cannot wait for NG+ and then I'll do a new mage character

This is still by far the best looking game I've seen on PS5.

[fishbowlhead]

I really should go through this again since only playing 20 mins of it on PS5 launch.