I don't know, I miss Demon's Souls' variety in bosses. It had this enjoyable freedom from convention. If anything, constant leaning towards "bosses are only hard, bossfights should not be able to be outsmarted, boss arenas are fair and wide" is what I'm growing tired of in the later entries. When you equip a silencing ring to beat the blind warrior boss, it's like being in an ancient myth, in a fantasy novel. When every boss is just a combat challenge it is kind of immersion-breaking, very game-like. Not a single archstone past the first one has a combat-oriented arch-demon, and that's lovely. They're all gimmicks, they're all weird and memorable. Astraea can't even fight you, Storm Lord is just this weird sky beast. And, after looking at the cut content exploration, the Sixth archstone finale had this weird circular dome room, its walls made of pentagonal ice panels, and you know what, I've always been *incredibly* curious what that arch-demon might have been like.
I completely agree with you. The boss design is a lot more interesting to me in how they test more than just memorising movesets; they also challenge your wits (just think about how you defeat the Tower Knight). They're also far more distinct from each other. When playing Demon's Souls for my first playthrough, there was a constant sense that I had no idea what to expect when crossing a fog gate, and this created a very compelling atmosphere of dreading what lies in wait. I believe that Miyazaki once said that his goal with designing the bosses was to make players "think on their feet", which I think describes well what it feels like to battle them. In other words, when I encounter a boss in Demon's Souls, I'm anxiously thinking, "What the hell am I going to do?!", while in Dark Souls 3 (which has very little variety in boss design), I'm apathetically thinking, "Oh, a boss, I wonder what moves it's going to have..." And furthermore, the boss fights themselves often feel like natural extensions of the level that precedes them, rather than artificial arenas. The Fool's Idol, for example, tests your skills in avoiding spell attacks, which is what you've been learning the past level in the claustrophobic hallways of the Tower of Latria in the Prison of Hope. Demon's Souls is full of design like that, it's just a much more "adventurous" kind of experience It genuinely bewilders me how this guy could call Demon's Souls only "average" or "decent". To me, it's superior to everything that came afterwards (at least in terms of immersive roleplaying); the game is FromSoftware unfiltered and untamed, as weird and mysterious as they were allowed to be before they became so popular, and their games only becoming increasingly generic. I feel like a lot of people that didn't play Demon's Souls first come to the game expecting a pure action experience similar to what has been established in later titles, only to find that this really isn't the root of the series; at the start, the roleplaying was just as strong as the action, instead of downplayed and dumbed down as in later games. And then they're inevitably disappointed, because the game is just so different (and better in my opinion). My favorite boss in Elden Ring is actually Rennala (the first phase mainly), because she represents to me the past heights of Demon's Souls, a game that knew that reaction-based skill in boss design is far from the only way to create a memorable experience. There is definitely a place in the series for more traditional boss fights like the Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Ludwig the Accursed (some of my favorites in that category), but it's far from all I want; I also want bosses like Micolash, Divine Dragon and Gwyndolin, fights that throw me off my feet and force me to think differently
@@kristianj.8798 I guess they changed their boss design cuz of complaints about every boss not being the most challenging thing ever. But I always thought it was nice to have gimmicky bosses In between the real tough ones, it feels good to figure out somethings weak spot
@@Tulip_bip "it feels good to figure out somethings weak spot" - and that happens to be closer to how an actual adventurer would be acting: discovering particular weaknesses to exploit, when in a situation faced by an overwhelming opponent. Thinking about the situation somewhat in terms of reality, you would want to avoid risking death and suffering in fighting such a powerful enemy, therefore the idea of having "honorable duels" (such as with Artorias and Gael) would be pure nonsense. How you defeat most bosses in Demon' Souls just puts me more in the head of my character; Demon's Souls just makes me think at the level of the game's world more than the other ones do. That's why I describe it as "immersive roleplaying"
@@kristianj.8798 I guess the biggest example is how people really don't like high lord wolnir and yhorm the giant cuz they're gimmick fights I wouldn't fight some bosses any other way tho, like artorias and gael. I beat sword saint isshin yesterday and he's An amazing boss
I think the boss design choice is what split the souls fandom. Bosses in the latest titles have been more about a big spectacle and difficulty which leans it more toward and action game. Where as the earlier titles really had a sense of overcoming the world and its inhabitants. I still say dark souls 1 was the closest to blending them both.
Yeah, a lot of Demon's Souls and DkS1 bosses were more about figuring out how to beat a boss rather than anything akin to a skill floor. The bosses who couldn't be killed by a gimmick were special because those were the real "Oh shit, only the best can win" fights.
@@joshuakim5240 And then there's Elden Ring. It feels like demon souls in the first half, and then jumps straight to dark souls 2 DLC levels of hard right after the halfway point with gank bosses and roll checks.
@@joshuakim5240 While I love the later souls games and the boss fights, particularly in DS3 and Bloodborne, there is something so quaint and charming about the boss design in DeS and DS1. I love the gimmick fights, even if they are stupidly easy nowadays. I did find it interesting replaying the series that DS1 actually expanded on the gimmick fights somewhat. Yes, they were more action oriented, but there are some interesting set pieces and ways of taking down bosses that I thought were really cool. Like the Taurus Demon ambushing you in Undead Burg, being able to kill the Iron Golem by knocking him off the tower instead of killing him, Nito and his immortal gank squad, and being able to kill Kalameet without grounding him. A personal favorite moment of mine is Priscilla refusing to attack you when you first meet her, which brings back some Maiden Astraea memories from DeS. I really wish the later games had moments like this.
14:33 Demon Souls came out before the series’ marketing banked on the “difficulty” sales pitch. Miyazaki in one interview back in 2011-ish was asked about why he made his games so difficult. He corrected them, saying that the purpose of the game [Demon/Dark Souls] wasn’t to be difficult for the sake of difficulty, but to challenge the player and give them a sense of satisfaction when exploring the world. After all, discovery doesn’t mean anything if you didn’t have to work for it. Whether the development team succeeded in doing so is subject to debate, but that’s another argument. So yes, the bosses were meant to be part of the level, rather than a separate entity to serve as a flashy challenge (at least in Demon Souls). The design philosophy did change as the entires went on, which left some fans of Demon Souls behind.
I've realized that Demon's Souls is something only first time players can appreciate because of how blind you entered. Every part of that game was all new to players. Nobody had any idea which builds worked, how to fight, etc etc. There weren't many UA-cam videos to help - You really just had to grab a wiki and read. The world tendency mechanics etc were punishing and you honestly felt fear and would run away if things looked sketchy. Now, you really can't avoid a Souls-like and you probably know how to play it and what to expect - So it would be easy and boring. That unknown quantity was the real magic and the later games had to pivot into other ways to maintain the challenge which, whilst good, could have never focused on that unknown quantity again as Dark Souls had to cater to both new and seasoned players. To some degree, Bloodborne captured some of that unknown again, and it explains why so many people have such attachment to it.
@@spoots1234I disagree. I played DS2 as my first, then DS1, then DS3. Never finished any of them initially, but played a good amount of them when I did. My first souls to be played to 100%, like to Platinum, was Demon's Souls Remake, then Elden Ring, then Demon's Souls. Something I rather the Remake, cause I'm a die hard for game juice like particle effects, sound design and the vibration on the new PS5 controller, and since I'm a mage player the Remake is fucking orgasmic, every spell is beautiful, their sound effects are eargasmic, and the vibration for each one of them is amazing. The vibration works even when we're not seeing everything on screen is amazing cause it added another layer to your reflexes to take advantage of (fire bombs for example have the same vibration for the fire ball spell). That said, Demon's Souls is my favorite game among all of the ones I've played, excluding Sekiro because for me it's not a Souls Like and I love Sekiro (still haven't played BB cause I don't have a PS4/5, I played Demon's Remake on by ex's PS5). Demon's Souls is THE ONLY GAME that's marketed as an action role playing game that actually let's you ROLE PLAY the fucking game and immerse you in it, just like someone on the comments said, as a real person and adventurer. Since I'm a mage usually, Demon's Souls is the only game I can completely do a 100% caster run through the whole game, because no bullshit scrolls limiting my ability to cast spells and no stupid flask that I have to choose between heal or mana replenishment. From Software doesn't know how to implement magic in their games and that's fucking annoying because you force people to a specific play style one way or another. "Oh but using spells you don't engage with the enemies", and the the point of being a fucking mage!!! People seem to have never played D&D before or any RPG at all. The whole point of being a mage is keeping your distance and using spells to defend and to dish out damage, From Software handicaps mages on their games after Demon's Souls instead of actually improving their magic system and force mage players to engage in physical combat where we're not equipped to it at all, we don't do a lot melee damage, we don't have good gear because we get heavyweight roll if we equip a slightly better armor or a better shield, and we have low health because if we want to do damage with our spells we need to lvl up int and the stat to increase memory slots so we have more casts. From Software is basically forcing people to play battle mages and completely ignoring the caster mages. That's why I loved Sekiro, if they want to force people to engage in a specific way with the game, why not make the games Sekiro-like? Sekiro is perfect, we have the gadgets to use and evolve them, the katana play is amazing, every boss is tailored to that style of combat and everything works out well.
@@spoots1234not really, i played demon souls after playing blood borne sekiro elden ring and still found myself feeling like a new player, mainly because of the world tendency and figuring out how the game is different from the others.
Personally I really love the bosses in Demon's Souls them being a last huzzah for getting through the level instead of a kick in the pants is just more my style. For me the meat and potatoes of souls games for me will always be exploring the levels and not the bosses which is probably why Demon's Souls is my second favorite souls game. Thanks for helping me put my feelings into words on this game.
I also definitely prefer bosses that don’t take 20 attempts to beat. That’s probably one of the reasons dark souls 2 is my favourite. The bosses in that game let you breathe and are mostly pretty easy. Many people were turned off by that and then in ds3 they made a lot of the bosses incredibly complex, fast and almost impossible to beat first try. While ds3’s bosses are visually very impressive, I prefer when bosses let me take in the atmosphere and look at their design a little before fighting. In ds3 I can’t do that because I’m constantly trying not to get 2 shot.
I like that perspective. Not everyone wants to fight some wyvern-tier boss with every encounter. It's somewhat subjective I guess. Probably part of why some people might not enjoy the Souls games as much as other 3rd person action games.
@@illusion8457 for me it’s about the contrast it yields I also loved DS2, and my most memorable experience from that game was FINALLY beating the Darklurker after using almost all of my humanity. I used melee and had to learn how to fight two powerful ranged enemies without relying on the lock-on feature. It was like, 4am after all night of trying. About 50 deaths in. No other boss killed me more than like 7-8 times. When I knew I’d finally make the last blow to the one remaining lurker, my heart nearly stopped. When all was done, I squealed with joy! Later, I taught my older brother how to beat him because he was struggling. It was unforgettable
Demons souls has such an indescribable amazing atmosphere. There's just something about it I can't put my finger on, but I think it's the games best quality that sets it apart from the rest of the series.
It's the lack of having to avoid copyright infringement. Sony owned the rights to the lore so in order to keep similar themes, the basically had to go with knockoff names because they use much from the previous game. This game seemed more cohesive in some ways as a result.
Same bruh. The first time I listened to Souls of Mist and entered the Nexus, then saw that cloudy Boletaria, I just knew this one was going to be one of my fav games
All the bosses were like puzzles. Most of them had tricks that you needed to figure out. That was the beauty of it. You can't compare a first game with newer Souls game mechanics that literally didn't exist in 2009. It's like using a computer from the 90s and being like "This isn't as powerful or well made". For its time, it is a masterpiece.
Well said my thoughts exactly. When this was the only souls game out, everything about it was amazing. Of course, the newer games refined mechanics and gameplay, but when nothing else existed to compare it to, as a stand-alone title, it was truly a magical experience. Still my favorite souls game
The idea of supernatural creatures existing simply because a great number of people believe that they should has always been super intriguing to me, similar concepts are used in the Percy Jackson series and Chainsaw Man (two series I never thought I would compare to demon souls)
Yes, this idea originated in many eastern cultures outside of media. A “Tolpa” is a creature that is manifested in physical reality based purely on widespread belief of it’s existence.
Oh my goodness. I'd love to see seperate video's for hollow knight and blasphemous. Like on a soulslike level, I don't think any game does the dark tone as good as blasphemous and is genuinely one of my favourite soulslikes.
Nothing but facts! I wasn't expecting much from the story of Blasphemous but I was completely blown away by how incredibly well written and dark it was. I'm super hyped for the sequel.
Probably my favorite thing about Demon's Souls is the ending. After all these other vague or mysterious endings in the other Souls games, there was something uniquely satisfying about making it through all of Boletaria's challenges and having your character straight-up just save the world (or ruin it, if that was your choice). It's uplifting, if a bit more played out in terms of plots. It was also nice to have a similarly hopeful and satisfactory final boss and ending for Elden Ring as well, and not just "it's all a cycle, lol".
Yeah it's honestly really depressing when you think about it. As the player in dark souls, you can kill literally anything in your path, even eventually god, but you still can't get a happy ending no matter what you do. The story is like the total opposite of a power fantasy.
Part of that may have been unintentional, at least in the first game. The idea of permanent improvement is a Western one; Miyazaki may not have even realized that people would see the good ending of Dark Souls 1 as any different from the good ending of Demon's Souls. You saved the world in both of them, though at a steep price, and while the world will of course need saving again (that is, after all, how the world works), it won't be for a very long time--long enough that it doesn't really matter. Of course, Dark Souls II takes kind of the opposite approach, and the endings of Dark Souls III are basically three different ways to face death (fighting to the end, acceptance, doing whatever it takes to ensure it doesn't happen). That said, I think the dark ending of DSIII is pretty good and about as hopeful as you can get, given that it's about death.
My theory for the bosses has been for a while that the strategy of the Old One isn't just "big monster go smash," but that it very intentionally has its demons corrupt/possess/take the form of whatever a particular land most believes in or respects, whether that's a god, a saint, a king and his round table of knights, or a royal sage of incredible knowledge. That way, before they ever have to do any violence at all, many people just walk up and willingly offer their souls to them without a fuss. Then they can send those husks out to hunt other people's souls and bring them back to their masters
It is also interesting to understand the context this game was originally released. With a sea of games that were oversimplified to the point of being boring (in a vacuous attempt to make them more "accesible"), many of us were about to abandon the medium. Then, this strange Japanese game with exactly zero "anime vibes" suddenly appears out of nowhere and dares you to complete it. For many of us, it was a challenge we could not back from... And while it had many flaws and was far too punishing at times, it was everything we were asking for and more. Truly, this game was revolutionary at the time.
This was exactly me, I was so tired of singleplayer games becoming more and more mindless exercises of just going from one scripted spectacle to the next.
When playing foundational games it is important to go in with an open mind and try to see the origins of the things you love about the newer entries. I was lucky enough to play this back when it came out and simply saw it as it’s own thing without all the expectations the series had put on it. I encourage anyone who wants to play it to do the same. Think of it like looking at one of your best friend’s childhood photos or something.
I never really cared for the whole "it isn't difficult so it sucks" argument the community has, since they all seem to crave needlessly high damage numbers over actual stories. Things not being difficult has really poisoned Fromsofts game design choices and it's honestly a shame.
They usually do because toxic fans are the most vocal and will even threaten creators lives over it. I’m sure you’d also cater to someone who was willing to murder you over stupid shit.
There's one point that Gingy weirdly forgets to mention or is unaware of in this video: FromSoftware - at the time of developing Demon's Souls and Ninja Blade (a game which bombed painfully) - was in the slow verge of financial bankruptcy and possible company closure. As such, a lot of Demon's Souls is reflective of that: a beautiful, experimental and messy climb up through developing a spiritual successor to avoid company death - literally a quality product of constraints. A lot of the issues Gingy has with Demon's Souls are almost all linked to this, like Yuria not being expanded (NPC quests), the lack of boss cohesion with the level, and the lore not being elaborate. As you may understand, it's hard to figure these things out with such a tight circumstance (e.g. budget, time, etc.), which naturally forced the development team to focus on gameplay elements (e.g. enemy and level design, gameplay loop, etc.) over thematic elements (e.g. story, lore, etc.). This can be plainly seen in the data-mined game files for Demon's Souls, and has been discussed many times in interviews post Demon's Souls release. Even Miyazaki said that Demon's Souls did not get the benefit of a flourishing game development cycle, which Dark Souls 1 and Souls games after had (except for Dark Souls 2). Thinking about all the hurdles the development team had to go through to develop Demon's Souls, it's astonishing that Demon's Souls exists. As such, comparing it strictly to Souls games released after is kind of ignorant, considering that - if Demon's Souls was not successful/amazing for its time - what Souls games we have now would not even exist to compare Demon's Souls with. Shit, *we wouldn't even get Armored Core VI*. Stop and think about this for a moment. If Demon's Souls was not developed, we would've just had Ninja Blade (which sucks arse), and FromSoftware might've closed around 2010.
Demons souls was a brilliant game for its time. While parts do not hold up well, all the fromsoft games we love wouldn’t exist without the trials and tribulations of it. It’s interesting to look back at aspects of demons souls that they used in future games
Ah, you seemed to have missed talking to Freke and Urbane, after the path to the Old One is open, they say some very interesting things. Urbane says he hears a awful cry, like from a child. Freke asks you to kill the Maiden in Black for her power.
Really surprised you were disappointed with this game. Jank and limited mechanics compared to the future entries aside, it's one of my favourite games of all time and I place it as superior to Dark Souls in many ways. I respect your opinion though, I just don't agree on it being "just decent".
Imo the man eater boss was far worse than any of the lowest points in the franchise, same w the run ups in that area. But the locations were amazing (apart from the swamp area)
@@christopherlyndsay8611 Bed of Chaos. But yeah I do agree mechanically the bosses of Demon's were pretty horrible, presentation and lore-wise they're amazing though.
i find myself feeling that way too bout the game, first souls experience and really strugled and really loved it, but whenever i have the chance to replay it i see how the things he say are actually makes more and more sense... i mean, the first playthrough was wildly satisfying, but sadly after beating it once it starts to get soooooo tedious feels like ive fallen victim to the childhood nostalgia
Because once you figure out each boss's gimmick, they stop being a challenge and the game has zero replay value unlike Dark Souls 1,2,3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, etc. The weapons also suck. His review was very fair and the truth
the level design is what keeps me looking forward to replay the game, i find the gimmics on bosses fun til this day tho, i just wish there were more bosses bc its so fun to feel like "they are stronger but we are smarter" and finding out how to overcome it, i strongly agree with ppl on the comments saying that its funnier if its less of a fighting game and more of a fitting and rewarding puzzle
Gimmick bosses are my favorites in this game and it's a shame that FromSoftware has focused less and less on them as the series has gone on. It's funny that Rykard ended up being one of the most memorable ones for the community in Elden ring despite not being that challenging and being more of a spectacle whereas Malenia, which primarly challenges your mechanical skill ended up being more divisive amongst the fandom along with hundreds of other ER bosses that require basic roll and punish gameplay.
Because once you learn the gimmick the boss stops being a challenge. There is no reason to replay the game. FromSoftware was right to move away from gimmick bosses for that reason. Malenia is not divisive. She is a measuring stick boss and a challenge you can replay with different builds. Unlike say gimmick bosses
@@staticcharm3808 Malenia breaks the rules and balance of the game and is a pretty awful boss imo. Any play style should be viable in some way shape or form. Malenia hard shuts down most classes and the most efficient way to beat her is through cheesing blood damage and low poise. She was one of the rare times in a Souls game where i didn't feel accomplished or happy defeating her the first time. It left me with a disgusting taste in my mouth and i haven't touched that fight at all in any other playthroughs.
@@staticcharm3808 To assume that bosses alone are the reason to replay a game is just ignorant. This game has amazing levels that are so much fun to play through and explore that the next entries areas that can match it are only in Ds1 and Elden RIng, it's not just bosses dude.
rykard is one of the better gimmick bosses, and is harder than most of them imo. ie. compare to yhorm from ds3. I wouldn't count malenia as a gimmick boss, she's just a really unfair boss because of waterfowl
As janky and unpolished as this game is, I absolutely adore it, not just as a start to an entire genre of games, but as a piece of art in of itself. The fact that a game that was considered a failure both by Sony management and it's own developers managed to turn out this good is something I will never not be amazed by. The game even at release had tons of bugs, glitches, and wasn't even properly finished by the end of it (The Lost Land of the Giants). However, Miyazaki and Fromsoft had a vision and they stuck by it to the end, and it paid off.
11:30 death isn't a complete reset of progress, you keep all of the items that you gained before you died and your souls are left on a bloodstain where you died so you can pick them up.
They are most likely referring to a reset of progress through the stage. As their point is you have inconsistent healing and if you waste some on a failed run you have to go back to the beginning and try with less healing. Could they of worded it better sure but they are not saying dying resets all progress.
@@ARK-ep4bb Let me tell you a story about the regen ring, the regen shield, and faith stone infused weapons. If you equip any of these then your health will regen a little bit between each fight but if you equip ALL if these then your health with regen in like 20 seconds while you look at a couple memes.
Demon's Souls is still my favorite FromSoft game. It is just so special and memorable, and has some of the coolest and most unique mechanics that never appear again in future titles, such as world/character tendency. And I really like how each archdemon fight is so "weird" and novel; with most of them being copy and pasted with a new coat of paint in future titles.
Great video, though Upper Latria not having any shortcuts is not true, you destroy the chains so the doorways in the tower aren't blocked by walls of flesh anymore. Also, this is probably just a personal take, but I think calling Demon's Souls bosses "gimmick" bosses is kinda condescending, those gimmicks are what make each fight memorable in some way. I feel like with DS3 we got to the point where most bosses were basically the same, long endurance tests after you died to them enough times to memorize their attack patterns, and DeS is the exact opposite of this.
Demons souls has great atmosphere. Not as good as bloodborne but this is the og souls game besides kings field. Gotta pay respect to the original souls game.
Demon's Souls and Bloodborne have different atmospheres. Bloodborne is a beautiful, pure, horrific nightmare. Demon's Souls is depressing nihilism with sparkles of foolish hope.
I’ve enjoyed all of these retrospective videos (even though I haven’t played many of the Souls games). I would love to see one on the Fable series cause I remember playing Fable 3 when I was a lot younger and didn’t understand most of it, being able to see a look back on all that would be cool
Such a great souls rogue like game can’t wait for part 2 (blasphemous) the lore and story is right up their with a souls game and the combat is so satisfying 😎❤️
Genuinely such an unfair expectation and comparison he keeps making to later games He also seems unaware that difficulty is not and was not ever the point of the souls series And this video is riddled with errors and assumptions
@@ShyBug42 just as I suspected, gey as a 2 dollar bill, "a wannabe youtuber". I mean why post videos when you get 1 view 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I don't like showing my face alot: something an insecure girl in her teens would say😂 Maneaters lol: of course you would think the name Maneater is funny, cause you can relate
The demons are created based on the legends of that civilization. Boletaria believed in the strength of humanity, so their demons were based on their legendary knights, because Allant's reign had attained renowned prosperity. The Armor Spider could be a creation of the burrowers, it uses lava as a power source and its covered it elaborate armor, maybe part of the lost technology of the soul arts included combat golems and this is how people remembered it. The flamelurker is probably how people remember Big M, with the explosions being how people thought of his powerful punches and the magical damage of the gloves.
The armoured spider is literally a model someone at Fromsoft made that they used because it looked cool. The exact same model is seen in their other game Ninja Blade which came out around the same time and I doubt there's a lore reason it exists there either
It's been funny to me that my only real joy in having a decent gaming rig, Ryzen-style, has been being able to emulate this game, since I haven't had a console for years. This was the greatest game of its time. I never got halfway through it back in 2009, but I knew it was the Future of games, just like the first time I played Minecraft in alpha.
I think the charm of Demon Souls on release was the mystery to it. There hadn't been many games like it before with that combined combat, difficulty, story telling and multiplayer style. I remember my first playthrough being so excited, because it was the first RPG that allowed you to use a spear like that. Honestly, though the difficulty wasn't that bad and the game seemed to get easier as it progressed. I think only the first two fights were really that memorable for being difficult, the only other fights I remember were the red dragon on the bridge, and the king when you return to 1-1. I was trying so hard to Platinum the game back when it first game out but the world affinity or whatever it was called became really hard to manipulate. It isn't hard to do in off-line mode but by the time I got to those trophies I was ready to move on. Also, the Valley of Defilement is probably one of the easiest levels since you can fall from the start down to the boss door, you just have to know the route.
After playing Dark Souls 1 & 2. 2 when it came out I tried Demon's Souls next and I honestly love it more then Dark Souls 1 - 3 storywise I really love it from the lore to the bosses it's awesome! Demon's Souls and Bloodborne for up there for me.
Demon souls being my first souls game , blew away on so many levels , but I can understand your perspective as someone who came from later installements of the genre .
I do not agree, Demon Souls has the most cohesive and immsersive game world opposed to other titles, it really comes close to bloodborne, in fact bloodborne's story is sort of a reboot of demons'. It's a world thats grounded but still very much dark fantasy and evocative. It's also the game with the freshest ideas, with dark souls and even elden ring borrowing many themes and ideas from this game's story. Demon Souls remains the best in terms of lore and coherence. Do not trash talk my precious little boi :c
@@Omega77232 Yea he just said his, in my Opinion the game is GREAT but Overall my least favorite souls game, but one of my favorite games of ALL time for sure
I think the reason how Doran locked away is because he was always there and they just locked the door. It said in game that Doran is the guardian of the twin swords and where we found him is problably his post. So when demons invaded , they problaby just locked the door and forgot about him
Interesting. This person didn’t account for the industry’s state when DeS was released. This game changed the entire field. It’s not going to be the same reviewing it in 2022, as you miss a lot of the genuine sense of feel that existed at the time. You might have better luck reviewing old Call of Duty games with your style to be honest.
"prides itself on difficulty" does it? Didn't miyazaki say that the difficulty was just there to further suck you into the world? Difficulty was not what demons souls prides itself on.
@@Metalton95 IIrc the box art on my ps3 copy of the original Dark Souls (no dlc) has "Prepare to Die" on the back. It could've been just a re-release but I do believe Bandai Namco pushed the difficulty marketing earlier.
Yeah Bandai Namco pushed difficulty as a marketing ploy which is the entire reason we got a Dark Souls 2 when it should've never existed (as Miyazaki stated he wasn't doing sequels, and was working on Bloodborne). Demon's Souls wasn't even difficult to begin with, the difficulty only came as a result of the story it was trying to tell. Future titles unfortunately put difficulty at the forefront, and therefore muddied the integrity of the experience.
@@CJ-sl4pk damn, glad I got my Xbox360 copy in November 2011 😅 Best birthday gift ever, though! What a ride it’s been to follow FromSoft since then, while witnessing the fall of Bioware, Bethesda, Blizzard and rise & fall of CD Projekt Red.
Demon's Souls bosses are closest to Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus style encounters since that's what inspired them, but people criticize them for simply being something they never intended to be rather than evaluate them for what they were trying to accomplish. Demon's Souls is a masterpiece, the modern Fromsoft fandom is incapable of appreciating subtly and its approach.
Calling this game just "decent" is baffling considering that every subsequent game by FromSoftware just exploits its formula barely adding anything actually new to it. From here on out, it's just more stuff, more weapons, more cryptic lore, more traps, more ganks, etc, but the core gameplay never changes, save for Sekiro. I've only got the chance to play a remake of it but even so I could appreciate its novelty and see just how safe and derivative Dark Souls games have been.
This. Souls series has become like LoZ in its standard formula + tweaks which is not a bad thing. Though, with LoZ it's style affords much more variability including having the choice of 2D and 3D. Elden Ring was a big change but also more or less just open world souls.
Demons souls was my first souls game. when there was nothing else to compare it to, and nothing else like it: the bosses did feel like an accomplishment and it did feel like an amazing if slightly janky game. Each souls game did improve on the core features but I don’t feel they whiffed on these bosses or levels entirely. They just got better. That said…the NPCs did suck.
playing it when it first emerged, without precedent, is an experience that cannot be replicated and imparts a special quality to it that garners a seemingly undue amount of ardor to it. I feel bad for those that didn't experience this and played dark souls as their first souls game. in a vacuum dark souls is better for a variety of reasons, this is patently obvious and it's silly to argue otherwise and even more silly to make a serious counterargument to the former. it seems now that the souls franchise has made a contribution to the video game medium at the fundamental level. experiencing dark souls first will enrapture someone as something great previously not experienced will but I will contend that experiencing something great previously non existent will enrapture someone greater and is a far more powerful experience. and unfortunately, those who didn't get this won't ever get the same enjoyment out of demon souls as those who did, I'd argue that that enjoyment exceeds what everybody got out of experiencing darks souls first because I experienced dark souls too, and while I enjoyed it didn't thrill me as much as playing demon's souls did because demon's souls wasn't an improved iteration of anything, it was a radical innovation.
Ok, now imagine playing through these levels and fighting these bosses when Demons Souls came out and you had never played a souls game before. Now you can imagine why it was so fondly remembered. Of course later iterations mastered boss design and made a lot of things better, that's what you are supposed to do, learn and grow. The choice to have the remake be as similar to the original was a double edged sword. Great for the memberberries, yet not as satisfying for those who never got to experience it when it came out on PS3. Count me in the memberberry crowd, as the experience was like nothing I had played before. It's fun to go through it again and relive that.
Also, since you mentioned it, back when I played I don't think I ever failed to get a player as the monk in Latria unless I played offline. And I was a college student and I played through many runs at several wired times of day. That was also my favorite form of pvp other than the arenas at 4-1, so I invaded as the monk countless times.
Also, Garl Vinland is actually a royal pain in the butt if you fight him in the pit. I beat him a couple times that way and he was tough depending on your build and how well you handled your positioning and environment as you fought. After that I just cheesed him like most other people. FromSoft learned a lot about limiting cheese tactics after this game. That's one thing I kinda wished the remake addressed, but they definitely left them in there, lol. It's just so tempting to take the easy way out of a boss fight rather than risk dying and having to come back when it's already 1am and you have work in the morning, lol.
I think alot of the bosses having a puzzle gimmick that makes them significantly easier, or flat out needed to kill them, is neat. It makes the bosses feel like a capstone environmental puzzle complimenting the rest of the level they're in. Dark Souls 1 had this to an extent with Iron Golem, Smough & Ornstein, Nito, Bed of Unfinished Development and even Gwyn. Dark Souls 2 had it for the Lost Sinner, and Ivory King in the final DLC. Bloodborne never had any as far as I remember, and Dark Souls 3 had Yhorm, and arguably P1 of Abyss Watchers, although the AI made that a very mixed experience due to unreliability. Elden Ring has Rykard as a gimmick fight but without a puzzle, like a more refined version of Yhorm. Mohg's And Margit's shackles can also be counted as a way to trivialize thier P1's if you have enough damage. But, in both cases here, the bosses still maintain the same core rythm as the rest of the game. Godskin Duo tried to replicate the success of O&S but fails miserably due to both enemies being agressive, having ranged attacks, and the pillars being extremely unreliable ways of dealing with the rolypoly mechanic of P2 Noble. Now, this makes every fight in Elden Ring feel very... Same-y after a while. There's no fight even in the side dungeons where you can use an environmental piece like a trap mid combat, or de-aggro the boss using stealth items and talismans, or even kill it before fight properly starts with clever positioning. Every single fight is designed to test you on the exact same parameters: dodging and using limited windows of opportunity to strike the boss. This gets put to obsurdirty by the insane damage and health pool spikes of later bosses. Now, this makes it so every fight feels cool and imposing the first time you get to them, but on repeat playthroughs or, if you're very thourough on first playthrough doing nearly all the side content, the combat loop begins to feel more stale as there is no bosses rewarding you for thinking outside the box. Example; Old Hero in Demon's Souls. The boss is blind, so only reacts to sound you make and a snap lockon to your most recent location if you hit him enough, then back to searching. Due to the level before him making you appreciate cover and using the Thief's Ring if you have one, the realization that the Thief's Ring makes you virtually undetectable by the boss unless you attack his ankles for too long makes you feel like you achieved something. Same with the Storm King afterwards. There is plenty of cover, maybe you have a bow or you're a spellcaster in which case you bait the small rays in one at a time and kill them. Or, you use the cover to your advantage to explore the very strange shaped and large arena and stumble upon the Stormruler, letting you use cover, timing and an insanely cool gimmick weapon to dispose of the baby rays and then the Storm King. Compare to Rykard; the weapon is instantly at the start of the arena before you even trigger the battle. It weighs surprisingly little and has such low stat requirements I think every single class in the game can use it two-handed without touching Strength or Dex as stats. The bossfight, while my favorite spectacle in the entire game by far, then plays out like every other fight except you do insane damage and have insane range, but so does the boss. The pillars in the arena are not an advantage as the boss just destroyes them and his P2 projectiles go right through them, making them just a hazzle for the player with no benefit. If the upcoming Elden Ring DLC will have a bunch of side dungeons, I hope they make a few of those bosses more environmental puzzles than traditional fights just to add some variety.
I've really enjoyed your videos on the souls game thanks for your hard work! Just a random note Patches move arch stones no idea what it means just to point it out from your point at 9:30 . He can be found in 2:2 then 4:2, both times attempts to trick you. don't really change your point or anything about the world being isolated.
Going back to play Demon's Souls after being a Dark Souls fan for so long (the original PS3 version); I saw it as a rough draft for what the first entry of Dark Souls would become. And I ultimately respect it for that.
I actually found the bosses of the game (most of them anyways) to be very interesting and a selling point of the game. They each have a gimmick and thus a different method in which to defeat them. Problem with this is, once you learn their weakness, the challenge is almost eliminated. Demon's Souls level design is fantastic in allowing you to have a quick path to each boss-fight after exploring a level that takes 30-50 minutes to clear, but because of the lack of challenge provided by most of the bosses due to leveling eventually making you simply stronger than them, or their fight is heavily reliant on a special feature that--once exploited--massively reduces their difficulty, it hurts the game's presentation a little bit. This game had not gotten any balancing of any sort, which is its biggest issue. It's the very first souls game, thus comes off very experimental in the gameplay department more-so than anywhere else. While the remake made the game look incredible (despite what some people like to believe), it hardly touched the gameplay at all (in fact, adding an option to send items to storage on a whim destroys one of the game mechanics, which lessens the RPG feel for me), and so the bosses remain in the same boat. Using the Adjudicator as an example to make the boss a much bigger threat (and a more interesting fight), let's say he wields both of his blades when you first enter the arena, and the bird on his head is covered by a helmet or the fleshy remains of the head. In order to actually damage the boss, you would need to focus attacks on its already-cracked sword, which would eventually break and lead into the Adjudicator receiving the massive wound on his body. You'll then be able to knock him down and destroy the head, revealing the bird. This would outright be my favorite game (before Elden Ring) had the developers worked on balancing the player character and also gave each boss more to work with so they could be a serious threat even on repeat playthroughs. I love the game for what it is, but it's a shame that it didn't receive the same love it does now by the developers when it was first released. And even worse, BluePoint didn't seem interested on expanding the game from what it was originally, thus it just ends up being the same experience, just prettier.
I'm sorry but you COMPLETELY misunderstood Astraea back ground and that's unacceptable and atrocious given how you keep complaining that the game story and the bosses story are bland compared to Dark Souls all the while Astraea is THE BEST demons among them all, literally. She wasn't sucking their souls, and that's obvious cause when we kill them they still have souls it shouldn't be needed yo be pointed out, but I digress. Astraea was in disbelief that the god she worships would accept the existence of a place like that, were the detective and undesirable were simply thrown down there to suffer and die, even babies born defective, and she was disappointed that they had this plague spread down there making the people really sick. Astraea then started to use her power to suck the plague from the Valley and that's why we see them worshipping her, she's making their lives less of a pain in the ass, and in return they started to bring souls for her, that she accepted in order to get more powerful and suck in even more of that plague. That's why we don't get plagued and just poisoned on 5-2, that's the extent she was able to remove the plague from the Valley. 5-1 there's not even poison, 5-2 the plague is just a poison and 5-3 is still full of plague cause either she didn't had enough power to suck in the plague or she was still in the processes. The clerics say that she became corrupted and became the worst demon of them all BECAUSE she was now questioning their god and because she was trying to make the lives of undesirable people BETTER. I also think you completely missed the point on spells, miracles and witchcraft. Miracles are how they interpreted the situation under their religion's dogma and beliefs. Spells are made by humans to bring forth the demon's power as interpreted by humans. Witchcraft is simply allowing that demon soul to show it's yrue nature, as stated by Yuria. So, Resurrection, the miracle we obtain from Astraea Soul, says "Returns any Phantom near the caster back to their own world, granting them their living body. This miracle is a countersign of the corrupted former Sixth Saint Astraea." This is how the church views her, a demon devouring souls, and thus they created a miracle to guve back human form to a Phantom. Death Cloud says "Creates a deadly cloud of plague. Astraea, who willingly accepted the corrupted and corroded, naturally became the most corrupted of them all." Freke understands that Astraea was actually sucking in the valley's sickness, the plague, and thus this is why we get this spell. Now, what is the witchcraft we get from her soul? Relief, that says "Fully recover another by touching them. Though Astraea is the most impure demon of all, her works are equal to those of divine beings." So Astraea true motives were exactly what this witchcraft suggests, as Yuria can only bring forth tthe true power from a demons soul. We also see this on the Soul Sucker from Maiden in Black soul, that says "Sucks the soul out of whoever it touches. The Maiden in Black, who aids the demon slayers with her command of Soul power, was once one of the oldest, most dangerous demons herself." This witchcraft shows us the true nature, intent and power of the Maiden in Black.
Which makes no sense because DS2 shared many similarities to Demons Souls. Ds2 and Demons Souls are so much better than every Fromsoft game (except Bloodborne) it's crazy
Thanks for your, as usual, interesting and very well built video. I played demon's souls on ps3 when it released, and was totally haunted by the game, its settings, its tone, its challenge. Still play it to this day (remaster version) and still absolutely adores it. In my to 3 sousl game with DS1 and bloodborne. The gam, at the time, was so ototally new, fresh and captivating, i could not get enough of it. A total masterpiece as far as i am concerned. But i understand that, veiewed after all the other games, frop the prism of modern sousl games, it might appear lacking in certain departments.
2022 here and the demon's souls multiplayer is still alive. Got wrecked in the Monk fight by several different play styles, and proceeded to win most likely against the A.I. with way too much caution.
Not a bad review! Now… this game is from 2008, it was a very different experience playing it back in the day. Unfortunately you cannot go back in time…
Awesome video as always , I would personally like to see an entire video on Hollow Knight. I played it for the first time at the beginning of this year and was blown away with just how fun it was. It reminded me of when my brother and I was kids and would stay up playing castlevania, ghouls and goblins and metroid.
I have a very controversial take on my favorites in the soulsborne series, and where I rank Demons Souls is usually always one of the largest disagreements people have with me. For me Demons souls is better than DS3 and Elden Ring, not only because it was the first "souls" game but also because it has the same Dark Souls feel. The ability to choose your path and bosses, the slow and methodical combat, the epic and fun bosses. And of course the insane difficulty (I'm talking about the original since the remake kind of makes it easier) where as DS3 always felt boring to me outside of my first playthrough and now I only play it for either It's PvP or for challenges, Demons Souls made me constantly want to improve and get better, there weren't many crutches you could use or skip around (I'm of course talking about Elden Ring, and it's ability to let you skip whole story bosses and get end game weapons and gear before even killing Goddrick) I wanted to constantly run through it in different ways with different mechanics. Of course this is just a given with most of the games in the franchise but of course the fact it all started with this plays a hand in It's incredible importance, outside of DS3 and Elden Ring I play these games for there lore, there story, there combat, there worlds, and of course there incredible difficulty, and with Demons Souls It is no less different from what we expect in a FromSoft game. I always have to say this as a disclaimer so people don't get up in arms but I still very very VERY much love DS3 and Elden Ring, Elden Ring has been my game of the year and DS3 was my first souls game so I can't hate either, when I say I dislike them compared to Demons Souls or Bloodborne or even DS2 It's because I am comparing them to other games in the franchise, outside of Soulsborne I consider DS3 and Elden Ring masterpieces that verrrry few games can even come close to me comparing. I believe SoulsBorne is the greatest gaming franchise in the world, and nothing can even compare to them, so when I say Demons Souls is better than DS3 and Elden Ring, or when I say both games are at the bottom of my list I'm saying relative to the whole franchise I'd play every other game over those 2 first. Anyway that's all I have to say, great video, amazing game, loved this series. Edit: I probably should have mentioned this but I actually enjoyed the bosses in this game, there simplicity helped separate them from other games, and I had a lot of fun fighting them.
@@staticcharm3808 I see it as more difficulty, I still enjoy Elden Ring and DS3 but I very much dislike how simple they are after the first run, my first time beating elden ring was awesome, but then after that I beat NG+ 2 in almost a day. All the games are the same in that retrospect but for me something about Elden Rings less intuitive weapon upgrade system, and boss fights doesn't excite me as much. I mean you took at the arenas doe Elden Ring bossee and then look at the arenas for DS2, or DS3 even, along with there OST's. But I think the final thing about Elden Ring for me is just the fact you don't have to fight the bosses, in past games even DS3 would force you to fight a boss at some point, you couldn't just skip them and go off into another part of the map to get something insanely OP. But in Elden Ring you can literally skip every single boss up until Leyendell where you have to fight the draconic tree sentinel, he is the first boss that you have to kill to gain access to a new area (although you might still be able to enter without killing him, I havnt tried). I still do love Elden Ring and DS3, but I would play Demons Souls or any of the other games over them any day, because for me Elden Ring just feels too easy, and too simple
The upgrade system, secrets, and the pain of fighting the fire lurker were all memorable and I still love this game more than the rest of the series. With the servers being offline you missed a huge part of the world and story with the primordial demons and world tendency.
Dude played all the games that improved all thr aspects of the original game. Goes back and expected the first entry to be the pickle of the series.... what a fun clown 🤡
Latria was pretty fun and frustrating back when the server was up. The boss would randomly summon you or another player as a black phantom in someone else run. just being there meant you were sometimes forced to invade someone else world. it wasn't just at the boss fight with the monk, it was throughout the entire world
"It's a game that is neither good or bad, just average" I feel like your review is coming from a place of privilege, seeing as you've played every other game in the franchise, you have a grasp of what the series evolved into but not on how it was, since many of the patterns you expect to see in a modern Souls game like Elden Ring are not there in Demon's Souls. As someone who has played through the series since Demon's Souls when it launched in 2009, allow me to give you some context. Lorewise you have to understand that this series started out with the foundation of telling an unfinished story. Miyazaki grew up on reading old King Arthur books in English, and because he wasn't great with the language, he could barely understand the plot and would just use his imagination to fill in the blanks. He said this in regards to Dark Souls but its really something that should be applied to Demon's Souls. In Dark Souls he had an idea of how the entire narrative played out but didnt overtly tell the players, in Demon's Souls, it is up to the players imagination to fill in the blanks, and it becomes canon to them. There's a lot of conjecture and hearsay when it comes to the lore of Demon's Souls and it was made that way on purpose. You get a framework of the world, and you get a lot of themes to invite you into certain headspaces, but you are never explicitly told what the colorless fog does, for example, or who or what The Flamelurker is. For someone with a lot of imagination, this type of story telling felt great. But I realize a lot of modern Souls fans want breadcrumbs leading to some Great Truth, like what we get in Bloodborne. The main theme of Demon's Souls (Demon's Souls as in Demon's-posessive Souls) is thought, and how mankind was given thought and clarity by the Old One, and when proven that humans are assholes, the Old One created Demons to take that thought away. The fog represents the absence of clarity. It is neither good nor evil, and the game eventually tells you this, but its necessary to have a few "Scary monster" demons like the Vanguard or the Armored Spider, to draw the player into a false sense of this is your average fantasy monster hunter game, with you the good guy, and the demons being demonic tropes. It's only until the end when you are fighting a literal maiden pleading for her life that you start to question your role in the story. As you explore Boletartia, reading item descriptions you begin to realize that the most heinous things about this world, happened before the fog even came. Witch persecution, war, slavery, poverty. Boletaria wasn't the shining utopia this poncy noble, who cant even fight, tells you it is. You learn from a dreggling that it used to be a lot worse before the fog, and some NPCs in positions of abject poverty say that they prefer it to be this way. Even with the fog, the most malicious demons of all- are humans in high standing. I feel like your take on the gameplay is also stilted, as we're used to these giant set piece bosses with a lot of reactionary dodging. Believe it or not, when Demon's Souls launched, a lot of players tried to fatroll through the entire game, the game not incentivizing rolling nearly as much as its successors. It was only by circumstance that fast rolling made the game a whole lot easier, which is why the Flamelurker had legendary status for being such a tough boss, because you were used to hiding behind a shield to avoid damage until that point. Now I suppose hes just a standard boss you'd see in Elden Ring, but he was a lesson in Demon's Souls. Many of the bosses are, and if you've played the other games, you already know the answers to them. Demon's Souls on launch felt like this weird pseudo MMO with an Online community who you could only hook up with randomly, like they were actual ghosts. And you would trade items or help or hurt eachother and you never knew when they were good, or bad. And you had to play online, there was no concept of a single player offline experience because at the time the Servers would influence World Tendency based on the date. The world would be lighter during Christmas time, and darker during Halloween. It was a surreal experience. Especially for its time. Certainly not average.
I think you really do nail it on the head here, as a massive Demon’s souls fan though this video upset me more than anything. One thing I think you missed was how many details or plotpoints he either missed entirely, invents, or flat out gets wrong. I found this channel for the dark souls explained videos, and I liked them quite a bit, but I haven’t played those games. Having played Demon’s Souls and seeing these errors it’s shaken my trust in this creator’s ability to properly represent a game’s narrative if he can come out the other end of Demon’s Souls this reductive and dismissive.
Aw man. As soon as I got to the Stonefang Tunnel section and you mention that there are no interesting NPCs in it, I was aghast. That's where you first encounter Patches! It's his first appearance in the Souls games and you don't even mention him! For shame, Gingy. For shame! 😂
I think one of the best things for the soul series was Demon's Souls being a Sony exclusive. Bc while I do find the lore interesting and has a lot of the Miyazaki quirks, it definitely feels way more typical to RPGs than Dark Souls. It falls way more into the classic story tropes of a corrupted and greedy king (he basically made a Faustian bargain), demonic forces corrupting the world and minds, and you being the hero. Unlike the later games, it's pretty much a clear cut good vs evil story. I feel like if Demon's was cross platform then they would have continued that storyline and Miyazaki wouldn't have been pushed to create brand new lore but with elements introduced in Demon's; creating the best of both worlds. So we ended up, imo, with a much more interesting story about life, fear of the unknown and death, destiny, etc in Dark Souls. Where there's really no clear right answers and the biggest enemy is just existence and time our relationship to all that; and is even accomplishing your goal a good thing? But killing Allant and putting the old one to rest is the clear right thing to do. And their motivations are purely done out of greed and evil. Gwyn may have been greedy in a sense but his actions (and of the other Lords as well) strike me more as fear and desperation. A very relatable feeling when trying to come to terms with how temporary our personal existence is. And I'm glad Miyazaki took that situation of not being able to make Demon's Souls 2 and expanded his writing past the cliche's of the genre.
You are actually correct about your takes in this video to be honest. I played this game back in 2009 and thought it was so cool and I played dark souls. Playing the remake made me realize that this game is pretty bareboned compared to their other games lol. I know I shouldn’t compare it to future material but this game’s story is pretty much just a video game akin to 90s story and it just has a fraction of what they will put into dark souls Bloodborne or Elden ring. Anyway I liked it but it was pretty tounge in cheek lol.
the lore of Hollow Knight is so deep and interesting, and I would love to see it get it’s own video to itself with your style of analysis! keep up the good work, ive been absolutely loving these videos
My stance on the bosses for demons souls is that if you played it on original release the bosses were very intimidating. But then once you figured out the gimmick or had the right gear they became a piece of cake.
You know, I remember back when gamespot gave this game the GOTY award over Uncharted 2, Assassin's creed 2, and Dragon Age: origins (all great games btw) and people went apeshit because it wasn't nearly as successful as any of those games. While I think you can make a good case as to why those individual games are better than Demon's Souls, none of them created their own genre.
I disagree with your take on bosses. In the Dark Souls series the bosses became a chore to deal with for me, rendering them boring. Boss bloat took me out of the experience of playing, particularly after the 20th or so boss creature. I know that the community seems to love the boss rush nature of later games but I loathe it.
I don't see how your point applies to the Dark Souls games and not Demon's Souls. Other than Dark Souls 2 all of the other games have similar numbers of bosses as Demon's Souls does. The number is even closer when to don't include the newer games DLCs. Also, all of Demon's Souls bosses are mandatory whereas many of the bosses in the later games are entirely optional so the player has to fight even less than in Demon's Souls.
What's your point here? Demon's Soul (22) has more bosses than the base game of 3 (19), more than the base game of bloodborne(17), it has the same amount as the base game of 1 and it has less than 2 and Elden so I guess your point could apply there? Demon's Souls suffers from 'Boss Bloat' more than 3 and bloodborne. Plus later games have optional bosses. Your point makes no sense to me.
i played the ps3 version in 2020. My good friend was in the souls series since 2016. He made me play the game and i got hocked. The original tower knight music is the best theme. The remake had new sound so no tower knight track. All in all one of the best experiences ever and got me in to the souls games, bloodborne, sekiro etc 🎮👍
Considering the hype comments of the previous videos this one might as well be called “bad”. But it’s still OK to showcase one’s own opinion! Since this game is the original I love it, even without the retrospective view of having the other games it stands well on its own. The fact bosses are more “puzzle-like” rather than a test of reactions make it stand out. And Allant and Flamelurker are good predecessor’s to current games. I recently played the PS5 version. The PS5 version is very accessible rather than nitch (PS3). Having to deal with item weight, having load times vs instant changes the vibe of the game and most important of all, having multidirectional rolling vs tank 4-way rolling. IMO demons might have the best worlds to explore, grass>blood vials. But demons is not number 1 IMO, I’m too much of a boss lover, demon’s bosses might be unique but in varying qualities, and having to fight all of them on any% kinda takes away from the essence of the later games. No lugarius, no Champion Gundyr, no Priscilla. Its a bit of a buzzkill to see the lack of “100%” bosses with HP bars.
"You will never see an NPC travel between archstones"
*Patches enters the chat*
BEST BOY!🙌
He seems to be purposefully ignoring Patches in his videos, although he has quite an interesting lore and appears in almost every game.
@@Hustler2_ because Patches is just a running joke character who has 0 significance
@@TheMan_BigBeef what? You know I'm right
@@TheMan_BigBeef there's nothing to disagree on, Patches is a joke character. Anyone who's played any FromSoft game knows this. Even in armored core
I don't know, I miss Demon's Souls' variety in bosses. It had this enjoyable freedom from convention. If anything, constant leaning towards "bosses are only hard, bossfights should not be able to be outsmarted, boss arenas are fair and wide" is what I'm growing tired of in the later entries. When you equip a silencing ring to beat the blind warrior boss, it's like being in an ancient myth, in a fantasy novel. When every boss is just a combat challenge it is kind of immersion-breaking, very game-like. Not a single archstone past the first one has a combat-oriented arch-demon, and that's lovely. They're all gimmicks, they're all weird and memorable. Astraea can't even fight you, Storm Lord is just this weird sky beast. And, after looking at the cut content exploration, the Sixth archstone finale had this weird circular dome room, its walls made of pentagonal ice panels, and you know what, I've always been *incredibly* curious what that arch-demon might have been like.
I completely agree with you. The boss design is a lot more interesting to me in how they test more than just memorising movesets; they also challenge your wits (just think about how you defeat the Tower Knight). They're also far more distinct from each other. When playing Demon's Souls for my first playthrough, there was a constant sense that I had no idea what to expect when crossing a fog gate, and this created a very compelling atmosphere of dreading what lies in wait. I believe that Miyazaki once said that his goal with designing the bosses was to make players "think on their feet", which I think describes well what it feels like to battle them. In other words, when I encounter a boss in Demon's Souls, I'm anxiously thinking, "What the hell am I going to do?!", while in Dark Souls 3 (which has very little variety in boss design), I'm apathetically thinking, "Oh, a boss, I wonder what moves it's going to have..."
And furthermore, the boss fights themselves often feel like natural extensions of the level that precedes them, rather than artificial arenas. The Fool's Idol, for example, tests your skills in avoiding spell attacks, which is what you've been learning the past level in the claustrophobic hallways of the Tower of Latria in the Prison of Hope. Demon's Souls is full of design like that, it's just a much more "adventurous" kind of experience
It genuinely bewilders me how this guy could call Demon's Souls only "average" or "decent". To me, it's superior to everything that came afterwards (at least in terms of immersive roleplaying); the game is FromSoftware unfiltered and untamed, as weird and mysterious as they were allowed to be before they became so popular, and their games only becoming increasingly generic.
I feel like a lot of people that didn't play Demon's Souls first come to the game expecting a pure action experience similar to what has been established in later titles, only to find that this really isn't the root of the series; at the start, the roleplaying was just as strong as the action, instead of downplayed and dumbed down as in later games. And then they're inevitably disappointed, because the game is just so different (and better in my opinion). My favorite boss in Elden Ring is actually Rennala (the first phase mainly), because she represents to me the past heights of Demon's Souls, a game that knew that reaction-based skill in boss design is far from the only way to create a memorable experience. There is definitely a place in the series for more traditional boss fights like the Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Ludwig the Accursed (some of my favorites in that category), but it's far from all I want; I also want bosses like Micolash, Divine Dragon and Gwyndolin, fights that throw me off my feet and force me to think differently
@@kristianj.8798 I guess they changed their boss design cuz of complaints about every boss not being the most challenging thing ever. But I always thought it was nice to have gimmicky bosses In between the real tough ones, it feels good to figure out somethings weak spot
@@Tulip_bip "it feels good to figure out somethings weak spot" - and that happens to be closer to how an actual adventurer would be acting: discovering particular weaknesses to exploit, when in a situation faced by an overwhelming opponent. Thinking about the situation somewhat in terms of reality, you would want to avoid risking death and suffering in fighting such a powerful enemy, therefore the idea of having "honorable duels" (such as with Artorias and Gael) would be pure nonsense. How you defeat most bosses in Demon' Souls just puts me more in the head of my character; Demon's Souls just makes me think at the level of the game's world more than the other ones do. That's why I describe it as "immersive roleplaying"
@@kristianj.8798
I guess the biggest example is how people really don't like high lord wolnir and yhorm the giant cuz they're gimmick fights
I wouldn't fight some bosses any other way tho, like artorias and gael. I beat sword saint isshin yesterday and he's An amazing boss
@@kristianj.8798 Cause Demon's Souls is very average and decent when you compare it to the better Souls games. It is very flawed
I think the boss design choice is what split the souls fandom. Bosses in the latest titles have been more about a big spectacle and difficulty which leans it more toward and action game. Where as the earlier titles really had a sense of overcoming the world and its inhabitants. I still say dark souls 1 was the closest to blending them both.
Yeah, a lot of Demon's Souls and DkS1 bosses were more about figuring out how to beat a boss rather than anything akin to a skill floor. The bosses who couldn't be killed by a gimmick were special because those were the real "Oh shit, only the best can win" fights.
@@joshuakim5240 And then there's Elden Ring. It feels like demon souls in the first half, and then jumps straight to dark souls 2 DLC levels of hard right after the halfway point with gank bosses and roll checks.
@@joshuakim5240 While I love the later souls games and the boss fights, particularly in DS3 and Bloodborne, there is something so quaint and charming about the boss design in DeS and DS1. I love the gimmick fights, even if they are stupidly easy nowadays. I did find it interesting replaying the series that DS1 actually expanded on the gimmick fights somewhat. Yes, they were more action oriented, but there are some interesting set pieces and ways of taking down bosses that I thought were really cool. Like the Taurus Demon ambushing you in Undead Burg, being able to kill the Iron Golem by knocking him off the tower instead of killing him, Nito and his immortal gank squad, and being able to kill Kalameet without grounding him. A personal favorite moment of mine is Priscilla refusing to attack you when you first meet her, which brings back some Maiden Astraea memories from DeS. I really wish the later games had moments like this.
That’s a good name
I approve
god skin duo the best bosses in all of souls
14:33 Demon Souls came out before the series’ marketing banked on the “difficulty” sales pitch. Miyazaki in one interview back in 2011-ish was asked about why he made his games so difficult. He corrected them, saying that the purpose of the game [Demon/Dark Souls] wasn’t to be difficult for the sake of difficulty, but to challenge the player and give them a sense of satisfaction when exploring the world. After all, discovery doesn’t mean anything if you didn’t have to work for it. Whether the development team succeeded in doing so is subject to debate, but that’s another argument.
So yes, the bosses were meant to be part of the level, rather than a separate entity to serve as a flashy challenge (at least in Demon Souls). The design philosophy did change as the entires went on, which left some fans of Demon Souls behind.
I've realized that Demon's Souls is something only first time players can appreciate because of how blind you entered. Every part of that game was all new to players. Nobody had any idea which builds worked, how to fight, etc etc. There weren't many UA-cam videos to help - You really just had to grab a wiki and read. The world tendency mechanics etc were punishing and you honestly felt fear and would run away if things looked sketchy. Now, you really can't avoid a Souls-like and you probably know how to play it and what to expect - So it would be easy and boring. That unknown quantity was the real magic and the later games had to pivot into other ways to maintain the challenge which, whilst good, could have never focused on that unknown quantity again as Dark Souls had to cater to both new and seasoned players.
To some degree, Bloodborne captured some of that unknown again, and it explains why so many people have such attachment to it.
@@spoots1234I disagree. I played DS2 as my first, then DS1, then DS3. Never finished any of them initially, but played a good amount of them when I did. My first souls to be played to 100%, like to Platinum, was Demon's Souls Remake, then Elden Ring, then Demon's Souls. Something I rather the Remake, cause I'm a die hard for game juice like particle effects, sound design and the vibration on the new PS5 controller, and since I'm a mage player the Remake is fucking orgasmic, every spell is beautiful, their sound effects are eargasmic, and the vibration for each one of them is amazing. The vibration works even when we're not seeing everything on screen is amazing cause it added another layer to your reflexes to take advantage of (fire bombs for example have the same vibration for the fire ball spell).
That said, Demon's Souls is my favorite game among all of the ones I've played, excluding Sekiro because for me it's not a Souls Like and I love Sekiro (still haven't played BB cause I don't have a PS4/5, I played Demon's Remake on by ex's PS5). Demon's Souls is THE ONLY GAME that's marketed as an action role playing game that actually let's you ROLE PLAY the fucking game and immerse you in it, just like someone on the comments said, as a real person and adventurer. Since I'm a mage usually, Demon's Souls is the only game I can completely do a 100% caster run through the whole game, because no bullshit scrolls limiting my ability to cast spells and no stupid flask that I have to choose between heal or mana replenishment. From Software doesn't know how to implement magic in their games and that's fucking annoying because you force people to a specific play style one way or another. "Oh but using spells you don't engage with the enemies", and the the point of being a fucking mage!!! People seem to have never played D&D before or any RPG at all. The whole point of being a mage is keeping your distance and using spells to defend and to dish out damage, From Software handicaps mages on their games after Demon's Souls instead of actually improving their magic system and force mage players to engage in physical combat where we're not equipped to it at all, we don't do a lot melee damage, we don't have good gear because we get heavyweight roll if we equip a slightly better armor or a better shield, and we have low health because if we want to do damage with our spells we need to lvl up int and the stat to increase memory slots so we have more casts. From Software is basically forcing people to play battle mages and completely ignoring the caster mages.
That's why I loved Sekiro, if they want to force people to engage in a specific way with the game, why not make the games Sekiro-like? Sekiro is perfect, we have the gadgets to use and evolve them, the katana play is amazing, every boss is tailored to that style of combat and everything works out well.
@@spoots1234also, I love the world tendency mechanic and I would always make my world pure black, even playing as a caster mage
@@nox_cadit If you like Sekiro, then keep quiet. You have probably have no idea what you are talking about.
@@spoots1234not really, i played demon souls after playing blood borne sekiro elden ring and still found myself feeling like a new player, mainly because of the world tendency and figuring out how the game is different from the others.
Personally I really love the bosses in Demon's Souls them being a last huzzah for getting through the level instead of a kick in the pants is just more my style. For me the meat and potatoes of souls games for me will always be exploring the levels and not the bosses which is probably why Demon's Souls is my second favorite souls game. Thanks for helping me put my feelings into words on this game.
I also definitely prefer bosses that don’t take 20 attempts to beat. That’s probably one of the reasons dark souls 2 is my favourite. The bosses in that game let you breathe and are mostly pretty easy. Many people were turned off by that and then in ds3 they made a lot of the bosses incredibly complex, fast and almost impossible to beat first try. While ds3’s bosses are visually very impressive, I prefer when bosses let me take in the atmosphere and look at their design a little before fighting. In ds3 I can’t do that because I’m constantly trying not to get 2 shot.
@@illusion8457 big agree my dude
I like that perspective. Not everyone wants to fight some wyvern-tier boss with every encounter. It's somewhat subjective I guess. Probably part of why some people might not enjoy the Souls games as much as other 3rd person action games.
Same. To me, Dark Souks 1 and Demon's Souls are favorites in that regard. A level of exploration thanks to the jank controls.
@@illusion8457 for me it’s about the contrast it yields
I also loved DS2, and my most memorable experience from that game was FINALLY beating the Darklurker after using almost all of my humanity.
I used melee and had to learn how to fight two powerful ranged enemies without relying on the lock-on feature.
It was like, 4am after all night of trying. About 50 deaths in. No other boss killed me more than like 7-8 times. When I knew I’d finally make the last blow to the one remaining lurker, my heart nearly stopped. When all was done, I squealed with joy! Later, I taught my older brother how to beat him because he was struggling.
It was unforgettable
Demons souls has such an indescribable amazing atmosphere. There's just something about it I can't put my finger on, but I think it's the games best quality that sets it apart from the rest of the series.
Although can be hectic it is calming everywhere
It's the lack of having to avoid copyright infringement. Sony owned the rights to the lore so in order to keep similar themes, the basically had to go with knockoff names because they use much from the previous game. This game seemed more cohesive in some ways as a result.
Same bruh. The first time I listened to Souls of Mist and entered the Nexus, then saw that cloudy Boletaria, I just knew this one was going to be one of my fav games
All the bosses were like puzzles. Most of them had tricks that you needed to figure out. That was the beauty of it. You can't compare a first game with newer Souls game mechanics that literally didn't exist in 2009. It's like using a computer from the 90s and being like "This isn't as powerful or well made". For its time, it is a masterpiece.
Well said my thoughts exactly. When this was the only souls game out, everything about it was amazing. Of course, the newer games refined mechanics and gameplay, but when nothing else existed to compare it to, as a stand-alone title, it was truly a magical experience. Still my favorite souls game
+1
The idea of supernatural creatures existing simply because a great number of people believe that they should has always been super intriguing to me, similar concepts are used in the Percy Jackson series and Chainsaw Man (two series I never thought I would compare to demon souls)
You have good taste 👌
Yes, this idea originated in many eastern cultures outside of media. A “Tolpa” is a creature that is manifested in physical reality based purely on widespread belief of it’s existence.
I like "American Gods" spin on belief manifestation. No at all an original concept, but still cool
It is taken from stormbringer like 80% of everything fantasy related tends to be.9
@@feelthepony You mean Moorcock?
I think Demon's Souls is probably more *directly* inspired on Berserk
Oh my goodness. I'd love to see seperate video's for hollow knight and blasphemous. Like on a soulslike level, I don't think any game does the dark tone as good as blasphemous and is genuinely one of my favourite soulslikes.
Nothing but facts! I wasn't expecting much from the story of Blasphemous but I was completely blown away by how incredibly well written and dark it was. I'm super hyped for the sequel.
@@nonono7973 THERE'S GONNA BE A SEQUEL!? WHEN!?
Blasphemous is awful
@@Adrian-zs3ol Probably whenever Silksong comes out
Blasphemous, please!🙌
Probably my favorite thing about Demon's Souls is the ending. After all these other vague or mysterious endings in the other Souls games, there was something uniquely satisfying about making it through all of Boletaria's challenges and having your character straight-up just save the world (or ruin it, if that was your choice). It's uplifting, if a bit more played out in terms of plots. It was also nice to have a similarly hopeful and satisfactory final boss and ending for Elden Ring as well, and not just "it's all a cycle, lol".
Yeah it's honestly really depressing when you think about it. As the player in dark souls, you can kill literally anything in your path, even eventually god, but you still can't get a happy ending no matter what you do. The story is like the total opposite of a power fantasy.
Part of that may have been unintentional, at least in the first game. The idea of permanent improvement is a Western one; Miyazaki may not have even realized that people would see the good ending of Dark Souls 1 as any different from the good ending of Demon's Souls. You saved the world in both of them, though at a steep price, and while the world will of course need saving again (that is, after all, how the world works), it won't be for a very long time--long enough that it doesn't really matter.
Of course, Dark Souls II takes kind of the opposite approach, and the endings of Dark Souls III are basically three different ways to face death (fighting to the end, acceptance, doing whatever it takes to ensure it doesn't happen). That said, I think the dark ending of DSIII is pretty good and about as hopeful as you can get, given that it's about death.
My theory for the bosses has been for a while that the strategy of the Old One isn't just "big monster go smash," but that it very intentionally has its demons corrupt/possess/take the form of whatever a particular land most believes in or respects, whether that's a god, a saint, a king and his round table of knights, or a royal sage of incredible knowledge. That way, before they ever have to do any violence at all, many people just walk up and willingly offer their souls to them without a fuss. Then they can send those husks out to hunt other people's souls and bring them back to their masters
If that's the case, I feel very sorry for the people who decided to worship a robot spider
@@davidhong1934Giant Mechanical Spider.
I guess they're out in the wild wild west.
It is also interesting to understand the context this game was originally released. With a sea of games that were oversimplified to the point of being boring (in a vacuous attempt to make them more "accesible"), many of us were about to abandon the medium. Then, this strange Japanese game with exactly zero "anime vibes" suddenly appears out of nowhere and dares you to complete it. For many of us, it was a challenge we could not back from... And while it had many flaws and was far too punishing at times, it was everything we were asking for and more. Truly, this game was revolutionary at the time.
This was exactly me, I was so tired of singleplayer games becoming more and more mindless exercises of just going from one scripted spectacle to the next.
No one was abandoning the medium. All of you are addicts who waste their entire life on it.
Tf you mean "0 anime vibes". I'm pretty sure it takes inspiration from Berserk
@@vaihavraj7239 I know it's hard to believe but Berserk did not invent dark fantasy.
Playing it when it first came out with no expectations beyond being hard was transcendent.
When playing foundational games it is important to go in with an open mind and try to see the origins of the things you love about the newer entries.
I was lucky enough to play this back when it came out and simply saw it as it’s own thing without all the expectations the series had put on it. I encourage anyone who wants to play it to do the same. Think of it like looking at one of your best friend’s childhood photos or something.
I never really cared for the whole "it isn't difficult so it sucks" argument the community has, since they all seem to crave needlessly high damage numbers over actual stories. Things not being difficult has really poisoned Fromsofts game design choices and it's honestly a shame.
Shadow of the erdtree shows the toxic fans won
They usually do because toxic fans are the most vocal and will even threaten creators lives over it. I’m sure you’d also cater to someone who was willing to murder you over stupid shit.
There's one point that Gingy weirdly forgets to mention or is unaware of in this video: FromSoftware - at the time of developing Demon's Souls and Ninja Blade (a game which bombed painfully) - was in the slow verge of financial bankruptcy and possible company closure. As such, a lot of Demon's Souls is reflective of that: a beautiful, experimental and messy climb up through developing a spiritual successor to avoid company death - literally a quality product of constraints. A lot of the issues Gingy has with Demon's Souls are almost all linked to this, like Yuria not being expanded (NPC quests), the lack of boss cohesion with the level, and the lore not being elaborate. As you may understand, it's hard to figure these things out with such a tight circumstance (e.g. budget, time, etc.), which naturally forced the development team to focus on gameplay elements (e.g. enemy and level design, gameplay loop, etc.) over thematic elements (e.g. story, lore, etc.). This can be plainly seen in the data-mined game files for Demon's Souls, and has been discussed many times in interviews post Demon's Souls release. Even Miyazaki said that Demon's Souls did not get the benefit of a flourishing game development cycle, which Dark Souls 1 and Souls games after had (except for Dark Souls 2). Thinking about all the hurdles the development team had to go through to develop Demon's Souls, it's astonishing that Demon's Souls exists.
As such, comparing it strictly to Souls games released after is kind of ignorant, considering that - if Demon's Souls was not successful/amazing for its time - what Souls games we have now would not even exist to compare Demon's Souls with. Shit, *we wouldn't even get Armored Core VI*. Stop and think about this for a moment. If Demon's Souls was not developed, we would've just had Ninja Blade (which sucks arse), and FromSoftware might've closed around 2010.
Great comment
Demons souls was a brilliant game for its time. While parts do not hold up well, all the fromsoft games we love wouldn’t exist without the trials and tribulations of it. It’s interesting to look back at aspects of demons souls that they used in future games
Ah, you seemed to have missed talking to Freke and Urbane, after the path to the Old One is open, they say some very interesting things.
Urbane says he hears a awful cry, like from a child.
Freke asks you to kill the Maiden in Black for her power.
Really surprised you were disappointed with this game. Jank and limited mechanics compared to the future entries aside, it's one of my favourite games of all time and I place it as superior to Dark Souls in many ways. I respect your opinion though, I just don't agree on it being "just decent".
Imo the man eater boss was far worse than any of the lowest points in the franchise, same w the run ups in that area. But the locations were amazing (apart from the swamp area)
@@christopherlyndsay8611 Bed of Chaos. But yeah I do agree mechanically the bosses of Demon's were pretty horrible, presentation and lore-wise they're amazing though.
i find myself feeling that way too bout the game, first souls experience and really strugled and really loved it, but whenever i have the chance to replay it i see how the things he say are actually makes more and more sense...
i mean, the first playthrough was wildly satisfying, but sadly after beating it once it starts to get soooooo tedious
feels like ive fallen victim to the childhood nostalgia
@@christopherlyndsay8611 swamp is the best part man, spent so much time in there i grew fond of it
Because once you figure out each boss's gimmick, they stop being a challenge and the game has zero replay value unlike Dark Souls 1,2,3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, etc. The weapons also suck. His review was very fair and the truth
the level design is what keeps me looking forward to replay the game, i find the gimmics on bosses fun til this day tho, i just wish there were more bosses bc its so fun to feel like "they are stronger but we are smarter" and finding out how to overcome it, i strongly agree with ppl on the comments saying that its funnier if its less of a fighting game and more of a fitting and rewarding puzzle
Nice profile pic
Gimmick bosses are my favorites in this game and it's a shame that FromSoftware has focused less and less on them as the series has gone on.
It's funny that Rykard ended up being one of the most memorable ones for the community in Elden ring despite not being that challenging and being more of a spectacle whereas Malenia, which primarly challenges your mechanical skill ended up being more divisive amongst the fandom along with hundreds of other ER bosses that require basic roll and punish gameplay.
Because once you learn the gimmick the boss stops being a challenge. There is no reason to replay the game. FromSoftware was right to move away from gimmick bosses for that reason. Malenia is not divisive. She is a measuring stick boss and a challenge you can replay with different builds. Unlike say gimmick bosses
Ds1 has balanced gimmick and mechanical bosses
@@staticcharm3808 Malenia breaks the rules and balance of the game and is a pretty awful boss imo. Any play style should be viable in some way shape or form. Malenia hard shuts down most classes and the most efficient way to beat her is through cheesing blood damage and low poise. She was one of the rare times in a Souls game where i didn't feel accomplished or happy defeating her the first time. It left me with a disgusting taste in my mouth and i haven't touched that fight at all in any other playthroughs.
@@staticcharm3808 To assume that bosses alone are the reason to replay a game is just ignorant. This game has amazing levels that are so much fun to play through and explore that the next entries areas that can match it are only in Ds1 and Elden RIng, it's not just bosses dude.
rykard is one of the better gimmick bosses, and is harder than most of them imo. ie. compare to yhorm from ds3. I wouldn't count malenia as a gimmick boss, she's just a really unfair boss because of waterfowl
As janky and unpolished as this game is, I absolutely adore it, not just as a start to an entire genre of games, but as a piece of art in of itself. The fact that a game that was considered a failure both by Sony management and it's own developers managed to turn out this good is something I will never not be amazed by. The game even at release had tons of bugs, glitches, and wasn't even properly finished by the end of it (The Lost Land of the Giants). However, Miyazaki and Fromsoft had a vision and they stuck by it to the end, and it paid off.
People throw around "jank" as if DS1 wasn't "jank" in the exact sane ways.
11:30 death isn't a complete reset of progress, you keep all of the items that you gained before you died and your souls are left on a bloodstain where you died so you can pick them up.
They are most likely referring to a reset of progress through the stage. As their point is you have inconsistent healing and if you waste some on a failed run you have to go back to the beginning and try with less healing. Could they of worded it better sure but they are not saying dying resets all progress.
That doesn't make sense cuz u can just do a quick run of 4-2 and get 7-10 thousand souls and buy a shit ton of whatever u need.
Literally takes less than a minute
@@ARK-ep4bb Let me tell you a story about the regen ring, the regen shield, and faith stone infused weapons. If you equip any of these then your health will regen a little bit between each fight but if you equip ALL if these then your health with regen in like 20 seconds while you look at a couple memes.
You don't say
Weird fact about the Dragon God: its what kills you in the Tutorial if you make it past the Vanguard
Demon's Souls is still my favorite FromSoft game. It is just so special and memorable, and has some of the coolest and most unique mechanics that never appear again in future titles, such as world/character tendency. And I really like how each archdemon fight is so "weird" and novel; with most of them being copy and pasted with a new coat of paint in future titles.
Great video, though Upper Latria not having any shortcuts is not true, you destroy the chains so the doorways in the tower aren't blocked by walls of flesh anymore.
Also, this is probably just a personal take, but I think calling Demon's Souls bosses "gimmick" bosses is kinda condescending, those gimmicks are what make each fight memorable in some way. I feel like with DS3 we got to the point where most bosses were basically the same, long endurance tests after you died to them enough times to memorize their attack patterns, and DeS is the exact opposite of this.
Completely agree!
I can’t believe how quickly you pump these out, amazing. Love all your FROM videos so much!
And that's the most amazing thing
Demons souls has great atmosphere. Not as good as bloodborne but this is the og souls game besides kings field. Gotta pay respect to the original souls game.
Demon's Souls and Bloodborne have different atmospheres. Bloodborne is a beautiful, pure, horrific nightmare. Demon's Souls is depressing nihilism with sparkles of foolish hope.
I’ve enjoyed all of these retrospective videos (even though I haven’t played many of the Souls games). I would love to see one on the Fable series cause I remember playing Fable 3 when I was a lot younger and didn’t understand most of it, being able to see a look back on all that would be cool
I highly recommend you Blasphemous next, it has a very good, deep and dark lore. You will enjoy being the penitent one.
Agree. It took a lot of digging to even make sense of it, but when I did...what a narrative.
Love that game and am purchasing part 2 day one of release.
Such a great souls rogue like game can’t wait for part 2 (blasphemous) the lore and story is right up their with a souls game and the combat is so satisfying 😎❤️
9:35 Patches goes from Archstone 2 (Dragon God) to Archstone 4 (Storm King)
Calling Demon´s Souls a (only) "decent" game has to be the biggest slander I ever heard on this channel.
It's mid
@pricefield2423 compared to today's standard, but at the time, it's unparalleled. The god of the genre
@artydean9892 i mean when youre the first game of your genre then there isn't much competition at the time
Genuinely such an unfair expectation and comparison he keeps making to later games
He also seems unaware that difficulty is not and was not ever the point of the souls series
And this video is riddled with errors and assumptions
@@ShyBug42 just as I suspected, gey as a 2 dollar bill, "a wannabe youtuber".
I mean why post videos when you get 1 view 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I don't like showing my face alot: something an insecure girl in her teens would say😂
Maneaters lol: of course you would think the name Maneater is funny, cause you can relate
The demons are created based on the legends of that civilization. Boletaria believed in the strength of humanity, so their demons were based on their legendary knights, because Allant's reign had attained renowned prosperity. The Armor Spider could be a creation of the burrowers, it uses lava as a power source and its covered it elaborate armor, maybe part of the lost technology of the soul arts included combat golems and this is how people remembered it. The flamelurker is probably how people remember Big M, with the explosions being how people thought of his powerful punches and the magical damage of the gloves.
The armoured spider is literally a model someone at Fromsoft made that they used because it looked cool.
The exact same model is seen in their other game Ninja Blade which came out around the same time and I doubt there's a lore reason it exists there either
It's been funny to me that my only real joy in having a decent gaming rig, Ryzen-style, has been being able to emulate this game, since I haven't had a console for years. This was the greatest game of its time. I never got halfway through it back in 2009, but I knew it was the Future of games, just like the first time I played Minecraft in alpha.
Uidyy
Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are my go to souls games. I believe Dark Souls has the better story, but Demon's Souls has the better atmosphere.
I think the charm of Demon Souls on release was the mystery to it. There hadn't been many games like it before with that combined combat, difficulty, story telling and multiplayer style. I remember my first playthrough being so excited, because it was the first RPG that allowed you to use a spear like that. Honestly, though the difficulty wasn't that bad and the game seemed to get easier as it progressed. I think only the first two fights were really that memorable for being difficult, the only other fights I remember were the red dragon on the bridge, and the king when you return to 1-1.
I was trying so hard to Platinum the game back when it first game out but the world affinity or whatever it was called became really hard to manipulate. It isn't hard to do in off-line mode but by the time I got to those trophies I was ready to move on.
Also, the Valley of Defilement is probably one of the easiest levels since you can fall from the start down to the boss door, you just have to know the route.
After playing Dark Souls 1 & 2. 2 when it came out I tried Demon's Souls next and I honestly love it more then Dark Souls 1 - 3 storywise I really love it from the lore to the bosses it's awesome! Demon's Souls and Bloodborne for up there for me.
Demon souls being my first souls game , blew away on so many levels , but I can understand your perspective as someone who came from later installements of the genre .
I do not agree, Demon Souls has the most cohesive and immsersive game world opposed to other titles, it really comes close to bloodborne, in fact bloodborne's story is sort of a reboot of demons'. It's a world thats grounded but still very much dark fantasy and evocative. It's also the game with the freshest ideas, with dark souls and even elden ring borrowing many themes and ideas from this game's story.
Demon Souls remains the best in terms of lore and coherence. Do not trash talk my precious little boi :c
Completely agree.
chill boi there is a thing called opinion
@@Omega77232 Yea he just said his, in my Opinion the game is GREAT but Overall my least favorite souls game, but one of my favorite games of ALL time for sure
@@Omega77232 There is also a thing such as fact.
@@Omega77232 in my household if you say demon souls is bad it means u simply lack gaming knowledge and also taste >w>
I think the reason how Doran locked away is because he was always there and they just locked the door. It said in game that Doran is the guardian of the twin swords and where we found him is problably his post. So when demons invaded , they problaby just locked the door and forgot about him
Interesting. This person didn’t account for the industry’s state when DeS was released. This game changed the entire field. It’s not going to be the same reviewing it in 2022, as you miss a lot of the genuine sense of feel that existed at the time.
You might have better luck reviewing old Call of Duty games with your style to be honest.
This
"prides itself on difficulty" does it? Didn't miyazaki say that the difficulty was just there to further suck you into the world? Difficulty was not what demons souls prides itself on.
Yeah, I think it only became a selling point in 2012 with DS1: Artorias of the Abyss being released as “Prepare To Die” edition 🤔
@@Metalton95 IIrc the box art on my ps3 copy of the original Dark Souls (no dlc) has "Prepare to Die" on the back. It could've been just a re-release but I do believe Bandai Namco pushed the difficulty marketing earlier.
And of course, the marketing almost never conveys the game director's intended message.
Yeah Bandai Namco pushed difficulty as a marketing ploy which is the entire reason we got a Dark Souls 2 when it should've never existed (as Miyazaki stated he wasn't doing sequels, and was working on Bloodborne). Demon's Souls wasn't even difficult to begin with, the difficulty only came as a result of the story it was trying to tell. Future titles unfortunately put difficulty at the forefront, and therefore muddied the integrity of the experience.
@@CJ-sl4pk damn, glad I got my Xbox360 copy in November 2011 😅
Best birthday gift ever, though! What a ride it’s been to follow FromSoft since then, while witnessing the fall of Bioware, Bethesda, Blizzard and rise & fall of CD Projekt Red.
Demon's Souls bosses are closest to Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus style encounters since that's what inspired them, but people criticize them for simply being something they never intended to be rather than evaluate them for what they were trying to accomplish. Demon's Souls is a masterpiece, the modern Fromsoft fandom is incapable of appreciating subtly and its approach.
I played this when it first dropped and I can honestly say, this game made me who I am today. 🤞🏾🤞🏾
Same! Changed my perspective on art forever
Calling this game just "decent" is baffling considering that every subsequent game by FromSoftware just exploits its formula barely adding anything actually new to it. From here on out, it's just more stuff, more weapons, more cryptic lore, more traps, more ganks, etc, but the core gameplay never changes, save for Sekiro.
I've only got the chance to play a remake of it but even so I could appreciate its novelty and see just how safe and derivative Dark Souls games have been.
This. Souls series has become like LoZ in its standard formula + tweaks which is not a bad thing. Though, with LoZ it's style affords much more variability including having the choice of 2D and 3D. Elden Ring was a big change but also more or less just open world souls.
Saying the game is decent doesn't feel fair
Bro made it one sentence in 🙏
Demons souls was my first souls game. when there was nothing else to compare it to, and nothing else like it: the bosses did feel like an accomplishment and it did feel like an amazing if slightly janky game. Each souls game did improve on the core features but I don’t feel they whiffed on these bosses or levels entirely. They just got better.
That said…the NPCs did suck.
Besides good old trusty patches
a nioh retrospective would hit, loving the content, keep them coming!
Agree with this.
Read a book about japan history.
playing it when it first emerged, without precedent, is an experience that cannot be replicated and imparts a special quality to it that garners a seemingly undue amount of ardor to it. I feel bad for those that didn't experience this and played dark souls as their first souls game. in a vacuum dark souls is better for a variety of reasons, this is patently obvious and it's silly to argue otherwise and even more silly to make a serious counterargument to the former. it seems now that the souls franchise has made a contribution to the video game medium at the fundamental level. experiencing dark souls first will enrapture someone as something great previously not experienced will but I will contend that experiencing something great previously non existent will enrapture someone greater and is a far more powerful experience. and unfortunately, those who didn't get this won't ever get the same enjoyment out of demon souls as those who did, I'd argue that that enjoyment exceeds what everybody got out of experiencing darks souls first because I experienced dark souls too, and while I enjoyed it didn't thrill me as much as playing demon's souls did because demon's souls wasn't an improved iteration of anything, it was a radical innovation.
Ok, now imagine playing through these levels and fighting these bosses when Demons Souls came out and you had never played a souls game before. Now you can imagine why it was so fondly remembered. Of course later iterations mastered boss design and made a lot of things better, that's what you are supposed to do, learn and grow.
The choice to have the remake be as similar to the original was a double edged sword. Great for the memberberries, yet not as satisfying for those who never got to experience it when it came out on PS3. Count me in the memberberry crowd, as the experience was like nothing I had played before. It's fun to go through it again and relive that.
Also, since you mentioned it, back when I played I don't think I ever failed to get a player as the monk in Latria unless I played offline. And I was a college student and I played through many runs at several wired times of day. That was also my favorite form of pvp other than the arenas at 4-1, so I invaded as the monk countless times.
Also, Garl Vinland is actually a royal pain in the butt if you fight him in the pit. I beat him a couple times that way and he was tough depending on your build and how well you handled your positioning and environment as you fought. After that I just cheesed him like most other people. FromSoft learned a lot about limiting cheese tactics after this game. That's one thing I kinda wished the remake addressed, but they definitely left them in there, lol. It's just so tempting to take the easy way out of a boss fight rather than risk dying and having to come back when it's already 1am and you have work in the morning, lol.
I think alot of the bosses having a puzzle gimmick that makes them significantly easier, or flat out needed to kill them, is neat. It makes the bosses feel like a capstone environmental puzzle complimenting the rest of the level they're in. Dark Souls 1 had this to an extent with Iron Golem, Smough & Ornstein, Nito, Bed of Unfinished Development and even Gwyn. Dark Souls 2 had it for the Lost Sinner, and Ivory King in the final DLC. Bloodborne never had any as far as I remember, and Dark Souls 3 had Yhorm, and arguably P1 of Abyss Watchers, although the AI made that a very mixed experience due to unreliability. Elden Ring has Rykard as a gimmick fight but without a puzzle, like a more refined version of Yhorm. Mohg's And Margit's shackles can also be counted as a way to trivialize thier P1's if you have enough damage. But, in both cases here, the bosses still maintain the same core rythm as the rest of the game. Godskin Duo tried to replicate the success of O&S but fails miserably due to both enemies being agressive, having ranged attacks, and the pillars being extremely unreliable ways of dealing with the rolypoly mechanic of P2 Noble. Now, this makes every fight in Elden Ring feel very... Same-y after a while. There's no fight even in the side dungeons where you can use an environmental piece like a trap mid combat, or de-aggro the boss using stealth items and talismans, or even kill it before fight properly starts with clever positioning. Every single fight is designed to test you on the exact same parameters: dodging and using limited windows of opportunity to strike the boss. This gets put to obsurdirty by the insane damage and health pool spikes of later bosses. Now, this makes it so every fight feels cool and imposing the first time you get to them, but on repeat playthroughs or, if you're very thourough on first playthrough doing nearly all the side content, the combat loop begins to feel more stale as there is no bosses rewarding you for thinking outside the box.
Example; Old Hero in Demon's Souls. The boss is blind, so only reacts to sound you make and a snap lockon to your most recent location if you hit him enough, then back to searching. Due to the level before him making you appreciate cover and using the Thief's Ring if you have one, the realization that the Thief's Ring makes you virtually undetectable by the boss unless you attack his ankles for too long makes you feel like you achieved something. Same with the Storm King afterwards. There is plenty of cover, maybe you have a bow or you're a spellcaster in which case you bait the small rays in one at a time and kill them. Or, you use the cover to your advantage to explore the very strange shaped and large arena and stumble upon the Stormruler, letting you use cover, timing and an insanely cool gimmick weapon to dispose of the baby rays and then the Storm King. Compare to Rykard; the weapon is instantly at the start of the arena before you even trigger the battle. It weighs surprisingly little and has such low stat requirements I think every single class in the game can use it two-handed without touching Strength or Dex as stats. The bossfight, while my favorite spectacle in the entire game by far, then plays out like every other fight except you do insane damage and have insane range, but so does the boss. The pillars in the arena are not an advantage as the boss just destroyes them and his P2 projectiles go right through them, making them just a hazzle for the player with no benefit. If the upcoming Elden Ring DLC will have a bunch of side dungeons, I hope they make a few of those bosses more environmental puzzles than traditional fights just to add some variety.
I've really enjoyed your videos on the souls game thanks for your hard work!
Just a random note Patches move arch stones no idea what it means just to point it out from your point at 9:30 . He can be found in 2:2 then 4:2, both times attempts to trick you. don't really change your point or anything about the world being isolated.
Patches has a ton of dialogue in the game too after you meet with him twice.
Going back to play Demon's Souls after being a Dark Souls fan for so long (the original PS3 version); I saw it as a rough draft for what the first entry of Dark Souls would become. And I ultimately respect it for that.
Saddens me that you were pretty mixed on this game as it's my second favorite souls game. I think it's spectacular
I actually found the bosses of the game (most of them anyways) to be very interesting and a selling point of the game. They each have a gimmick and thus a different method in which to defeat them. Problem with this is, once you learn their weakness, the challenge is almost eliminated.
Demon's Souls level design is fantastic in allowing you to have a quick path to each boss-fight after exploring a level that takes 30-50 minutes to clear, but because of the lack of challenge provided by most of the bosses due to leveling eventually making you simply stronger than them, or their fight is heavily reliant on a special feature that--once exploited--massively reduces their difficulty, it hurts the game's presentation a little bit.
This game had not gotten any balancing of any sort, which is its biggest issue. It's the very first souls game, thus comes off very experimental in the gameplay department more-so than anywhere else. While the remake made the game look incredible (despite what some people like to believe), it hardly touched the gameplay at all (in fact, adding an option to send items to storage on a whim destroys one of the game mechanics, which lessens the RPG feel for me), and so the bosses remain in the same boat.
Using the Adjudicator as an example to make the boss a much bigger threat (and a more interesting fight), let's say he wields both of his blades when you first enter the arena, and the bird on his head is covered by a helmet or the fleshy remains of the head. In order to actually damage the boss, you would need to focus attacks on its already-cracked sword, which would eventually break and lead into the Adjudicator receiving the massive wound on his body. You'll then be able to knock him down and destroy the head, revealing the bird.
This would outright be my favorite game (before Elden Ring) had the developers worked on balancing the player character and also gave each boss more to work with so they could be a serious threat even on repeat playthroughs. I love the game for what it is, but it's a shame that it didn't receive the same love it does now by the developers when it was first released. And even worse, BluePoint didn't seem interested on expanding the game from what it was originally, thus it just ends up being the same experience, just prettier.
Ain't no retrospective if you weren't there. Demon's Souls was a trip on release
I'm sorry but you COMPLETELY misunderstood Astraea back ground and that's unacceptable and atrocious given how you keep complaining that the game story and the bosses story are bland compared to Dark Souls all the while Astraea is THE BEST demons among them all, literally.
She wasn't sucking their souls, and that's obvious cause when we kill them they still have souls it shouldn't be needed yo be pointed out, but I digress.
Astraea was in disbelief that the god she worships would accept the existence of a place like that, were the detective and undesirable were simply thrown down there to suffer and die, even babies born defective, and she was disappointed that they had this plague spread down there making the people really sick. Astraea then started to use her power to suck the plague from the Valley and that's why we see them worshipping her, she's making their lives less of a pain in the ass, and in return they started to bring souls for her, that she accepted in order to get more powerful and suck in even more of that plague.
That's why we don't get plagued and just poisoned on 5-2, that's the extent she was able to remove the plague from the Valley. 5-1 there's not even poison, 5-2 the plague is just a poison and 5-3 is still full of plague cause either she didn't had enough power to suck in the plague or she was still in the processes. The clerics say that she became corrupted and became the worst demon of them all BECAUSE she was now questioning their god and because she was trying to make the lives of undesirable people BETTER.
I also think you completely missed the point on spells, miracles and witchcraft. Miracles are how they interpreted the situation under their religion's dogma and beliefs. Spells are made by humans to bring forth the demon's power as interpreted by humans. Witchcraft is simply allowing that demon soul to show it's yrue nature, as stated by Yuria.
So, Resurrection, the miracle we obtain from Astraea Soul, says "Returns any Phantom near the caster back to their own world, granting them their living body. This miracle is a countersign of the corrupted former Sixth Saint Astraea." This is how the church views her, a demon devouring souls, and thus they created a miracle to guve back human form to a Phantom.
Death Cloud says "Creates a deadly cloud of plague. Astraea, who willingly accepted the corrupted and corroded, naturally became the most corrupted of them all." Freke understands that Astraea was actually sucking in the valley's sickness, the plague, and thus this is why we get this spell.
Now, what is the witchcraft we get from her soul? Relief, that says "Fully recover another by touching them. Though Astraea is the most impure demon of all, her works are equal to those of divine beings." So Astraea true motives were exactly what this witchcraft suggests, as Yuria can only bring forth tthe true power from a demons soul.
We also see this on the Soul Sucker from Maiden in Black soul, that says "Sucks the soul out of whoever it touches. The Maiden in Black, who aids the demon slayers with her command of Soul power, was once one of the oldest, most dangerous demons herself." This witchcraft shows us the true nature, intent and power of the Maiden in Black.
Demon's Souls merely "decent" and Dark Souls 2 "brilliant?"
Nah this ain't it son.
Which makes no sense because DS2 shared many similarities to Demons Souls. Ds2 and Demons Souls are so much better than every Fromsoft game (except Bloodborne) it's crazy
I really recommend anyone who hasn't to watch "The lost soul arts of Demon's Souls" by Matthewmatosis. It really shows why this game is special.
Thanks for your, as usual, interesting and very well built video. I played demon's souls on ps3 when it released, and was totally haunted by the game, its settings, its tone, its challenge. Still play it to this day (remaster version) and still absolutely adores it. In my to 3 sousl game with DS1 and bloodborne. The gam, at the time, was so ototally new, fresh and captivating, i could not get enough of it. A total masterpiece as far as i am concerned. But i understand that, veiewed after all the other games, frop the prism of modern sousl games, it might appear lacking in certain departments.
As a first Souls games I couldn't of asked for a better game! Sorry to disagree but this game is the OG!
2022 here and the demon's souls multiplayer is still alive. Got wrecked in the Monk fight by several different play styles, and proceeded to win most likely against the A.I. with way too much caution.
Do Fable first!!! I'm mentally itching for someone who does such great video essays like you do to cover my favorite series so badly! 😭
Not a bad review! Now… this game is from 2008, it was a very different experience playing it back in the day. Unfortunately you cannot go back in time…
I felt physical pain when he said that the world 5 is the best in the game
Awesome video as always , I would personally like to see an entire video on Hollow Knight. I played it for the first time at the beginning of this year and was blown away with just how fun it was. It reminded me of when my brother and I was kids and would stay up playing castlevania, ghouls and goblins and metroid.
story retrospective - talks about everything but the story
dude just keeps cranking out the bangers, keep it up!!
The remake was incredible and here's to hoping they remake DS1/DS2.
I have a very controversial take on my favorites in the soulsborne series, and where I rank Demons Souls is usually always one of the largest disagreements people have with me. For me Demons souls is better than DS3 and Elden Ring, not only because it was the first "souls" game but also because it has the same Dark Souls feel. The ability to choose your path and bosses, the slow and methodical combat, the epic and fun bosses. And of course the insane difficulty (I'm talking about the original since the remake kind of makes it easier) where as DS3 always felt boring to me outside of my first playthrough and now I only play it for either It's PvP or for challenges, Demons Souls made me constantly want to improve and get better, there weren't many crutches you could use or skip around (I'm of course talking about Elden Ring, and it's ability to let you skip whole story bosses and get end game weapons and gear before even killing Goddrick) I wanted to constantly run through it in different ways with different mechanics. Of course this is just a given with most of the games in the franchise but of course the fact it all started with this plays a hand in It's incredible importance, outside of DS3 and Elden Ring I play these games for there lore, there story, there combat, there worlds, and of course there incredible difficulty, and with Demons Souls It is no less different from what we expect in a FromSoft game.
I always have to say this as a disclaimer so people don't get up in arms but I still very very VERY much love DS3 and Elden Ring, Elden Ring has been my game of the year and DS3 was my first souls game so I can't hate either, when I say I dislike them compared to Demons Souls or Bloodborne or even DS2 It's because I am comparing them to other games in the franchise, outside of Soulsborne I consider DS3 and Elden Ring masterpieces that verrrry few games can even come close to me comparing. I believe SoulsBorne is the greatest gaming franchise in the world, and nothing can even compare to them, so when I say Demons Souls is better than DS3 and Elden Ring, or when I say both games are at the bottom of my list I'm saying relative to the whole franchise I'd play every other game over those 2 first. Anyway that's all I have to say, great video, amazing game, loved this series.
Edit: I probably should have mentioned this but I actually enjoyed the bosses in this game, there simplicity helped separate them from other games, and I had a lot of fun fighting them.
Sounds like you just like very linear and more simple games like Demon Souls. Elden Ring is Open World and DS3 is far more complex than Demon Souls
@@staticcharm3808 I see it as more difficulty, I still enjoy Elden Ring and DS3 but I very much dislike how simple they are after the first run, my first time beating elden ring was awesome, but then after that I beat NG+ 2 in almost a day. All the games are the same in that retrospect but for me something about Elden Rings less intuitive weapon upgrade system, and boss fights doesn't excite me as much. I mean you took at the arenas doe Elden Ring bossee and then look at the arenas for DS2, or DS3 even, along with there OST's. But I think the final thing about Elden Ring for me is just the fact you don't have to fight the bosses, in past games even DS3 would force you to fight a boss at some point, you couldn't just skip them and go off into another part of the map to get something insanely OP. But in Elden Ring you can literally skip every single boss up until Leyendell where you have to fight the draconic tree sentinel, he is the first boss that you have to kill to gain access to a new area (although you might still be able to enter without killing him, I havnt tried). I still do love Elden Ring and DS3, but I would play Demons Souls or any of the other games over them any day, because for me Elden Ring just feels too easy, and too simple
The upgrade system, secrets, and the pain of fighting the fire lurker were all memorable and I still love this game more than the rest of the series. With the servers being offline you missed a huge part of the world and story with the primordial demons and world tendency.
Dude played all the games that improved all thr aspects of the original game. Goes back and expected the first entry to be the pickle of the series.... what a fun clown 🤡
Latria was pretty fun and frustrating back when the server was up. The boss would randomly summon you or another player as a black phantom in someone else run. just being there meant you were sometimes forced to invade someone else world. it wasn't just at the boss fight with the monk, it was throughout the entire world
"It's a game that is neither good or bad, just average"
I feel like your review is coming from a place of privilege, seeing as you've played every other game in the franchise, you have a grasp of what the series evolved into but not on how it was, since many of the patterns you expect to see in a modern Souls game like Elden Ring are not there in Demon's Souls. As someone who has played through the series since Demon's Souls when it launched in 2009, allow me to give you some context.
Lorewise you have to understand that this series started out with the foundation of telling an unfinished story. Miyazaki grew up on reading old King Arthur books in English, and because he wasn't great with the language, he could barely understand the plot and would just use his imagination to fill in the blanks. He said this in regards to Dark Souls but its really something that should be applied to Demon's Souls. In Dark Souls he had an idea of how the entire narrative played out but didnt overtly tell the players, in Demon's Souls, it is up to the players imagination to fill in the blanks, and it becomes canon to them. There's a lot of conjecture and hearsay when it comes to the lore of Demon's Souls and it was made that way on purpose. You get a framework of the world, and you get a lot of themes to invite you into certain headspaces, but you are never explicitly told what the colorless fog does, for example, or who or what The Flamelurker is. For someone with a lot of imagination, this type of story telling felt great. But I realize a lot of modern Souls fans want breadcrumbs leading to some Great Truth, like what we get in Bloodborne.
The main theme of Demon's Souls (Demon's Souls as in Demon's-posessive Souls) is thought, and how mankind was given thought and clarity by the Old One, and when proven that humans are assholes, the Old One created Demons to take that thought away. The fog represents the absence of clarity. It is neither good nor evil, and the game eventually tells you this, but its necessary to have a few "Scary monster" demons like the Vanguard or the Armored Spider, to draw the player into a false sense of this is your average fantasy monster hunter game, with you the good guy, and the demons being demonic tropes. It's only until the end when you are fighting a literal maiden pleading for her life that you start to question your role in the story. As you explore Boletartia, reading item descriptions you begin to realize that the most heinous things about this world, happened before the fog even came. Witch persecution, war, slavery, poverty. Boletaria wasn't the shining utopia this poncy noble, who cant even fight, tells you it is. You learn from a dreggling that it used to be a lot worse before the fog, and some NPCs in positions of abject poverty say that they prefer it to be this way. Even with the fog, the most malicious demons of all- are humans in high standing.
I feel like your take on the gameplay is also stilted, as we're used to these giant set piece bosses with a lot of reactionary dodging. Believe it or not, when Demon's Souls launched, a lot of players tried to fatroll through the entire game, the game not incentivizing rolling nearly as much as its successors. It was only by circumstance that fast rolling made the game a whole lot easier, which is why the Flamelurker had legendary status for being such a tough boss, because you were used to hiding behind a shield to avoid damage until that point. Now I suppose hes just a standard boss you'd see in Elden Ring, but he was a lesson in Demon's Souls. Many of the bosses are, and if you've played the other games, you already know the answers to them. Demon's Souls on launch felt like this weird pseudo MMO with an Online community who you could only hook up with randomly, like they were actual ghosts. And you would trade items or help or hurt eachother and you never knew when they were good, or bad. And you had to play online, there was no concept of a single player offline experience because at the time the Servers would influence World Tendency based on the date. The world would be lighter during Christmas time, and darker during Halloween. It was a surreal experience. Especially for its time. Certainly not average.
I think you really do nail it on the head here, as a massive Demon’s souls fan though this video upset me more than anything. One thing I think you missed was how many details or plotpoints he either missed entirely, invents, or flat out gets wrong.
I found this channel for the dark souls explained videos, and I liked them quite a bit, but I haven’t played those games. Having played Demon’s Souls and seeing these errors it’s shaken my trust in this creator’s ability to properly represent a game’s narrative if he can come out the other end of Demon’s Souls this reductive and dismissive.
Aw man. As soon as I got to the Stonefang Tunnel section and you mention that there are no interesting NPCs in it, I was aghast.
That's where you first encounter Patches! It's his first appearance in the Souls games and you don't even mention him! For shame, Gingy. For shame! 😂
Another day, another DS3 era fan misunderstands Demon Souls.
You are quickly becoming one of my favourite creators, thanks for the great videos man!
I think one of the best things for the soul series was Demon's Souls being a Sony exclusive. Bc while I do find the lore interesting and has a lot of the Miyazaki quirks, it definitely feels way more typical to RPGs than Dark Souls.
It falls way more into the classic story tropes of a corrupted and greedy king (he basically made a Faustian bargain), demonic forces corrupting the world and minds, and you being the hero. Unlike the later games, it's pretty much a clear cut good vs evil story.
I feel like if Demon's was cross platform then they would have continued that storyline and Miyazaki wouldn't have been pushed to create brand new lore but with elements introduced in Demon's; creating the best of both worlds.
So we ended up, imo, with a much more interesting story about life, fear of the unknown and death, destiny, etc in Dark Souls. Where there's really no clear right answers and the biggest enemy is just existence and time our relationship to all that; and is even accomplishing your goal a good thing?
But killing Allant and putting the old one to rest is the clear right thing to do. And their motivations are purely done out of greed and evil. Gwyn may have been greedy in a sense but his actions (and of the other Lords as well) strike me more as fear and desperation.
A very relatable feeling when trying to come to terms with how temporary our personal existence is. And I'm glad Miyazaki took that situation of not being able to make Demon's Souls 2 and expanded his writing past the cliche's of the genre.
Did the comments change your mind? Or did you change because they didn't like you calling the story average?
You are a interesting dude, i like your stuff keep it up 👍
If you haven’t watched it already I’d highly suggest The Last Soul Arts of Demon’s Souls MatthewMatosis as a counter example to your video.
You are actually correct about your takes in this video to be honest. I played this game back in 2009 and thought it was so cool and I played dark souls. Playing the remake made me realize that this game is pretty bareboned compared to their other games lol. I know I shouldn’t compare it to future material but this game’s story is pretty much just a video game akin to 90s story and it just has a fraction of what they will put into dark souls Bloodborne or Elden ring. Anyway I liked it but it was pretty tounge in cheek lol.
the lore of Hollow Knight is so deep and interesting, and I would love to see it get it’s own video to itself with your style of analysis! keep up the good work, ive been absolutely loving these videos
My stance on the bosses for demons souls is that if you played it on original release the bosses were very intimidating. But then once you figured out the gimmick or had the right gear they became a piece of cake.
For being the first souls game its really good
You know, I remember back when gamespot gave this game the GOTY award over Uncharted 2, Assassin's creed 2, and Dragon Age: origins (all great games btw) and people went apeshit because it wasn't nearly as successful as any of those games. While I think you can make a good case as to why those individual games are better than Demon's Souls, none of them created their own genre.
I disagree with your take on bosses. In the Dark Souls series the bosses became a chore to deal with for me, rendering them boring. Boss bloat took me out of the experience of playing, particularly after the 20th or so boss creature. I know that the community seems to love the boss rush nature of later games but I loathe it.
I don't see how your point applies to the Dark Souls games and not Demon's Souls. Other than Dark Souls 2 all of the other games have similar numbers of bosses as Demon's Souls does. The number is even closer when to don't include the newer games DLCs. Also, all of Demon's Souls bosses are mandatory whereas many of the bosses in the later games are entirely optional so the player has to fight even less than in Demon's Souls.
What's your point here? Demon's Soul (22) has more bosses than the base game of 3 (19), more than the base game of bloodborne(17), it has the same amount as the base game of 1 and it has less than 2 and Elden so I guess your point could apply there? Demon's Souls suffers from 'Boss Bloat' more than 3 and bloodborne. Plus later games have optional bosses. Your point makes no sense to me.
@@Akechifan was just about to say that
i played the ps3 version in 2020. My good friend was in the souls series since 2016. He made me play the game and i got hocked. The original tower knight music is the best theme. The remake had new sound so no tower knight track. All in all one of the best experiences ever and got me in to the souls games, bloodborne, sekiro etc 🎮👍
There are absolutely short cuts to the Maneater boss fight.
Yea I was thinking the same lol, you skip 95% of the level, just have to run across the bridge and up the stairs
You know what man, every video I’ve watched of yours has been phenomenal, you’ve earned a sub, keep up the great work
I wish you included footage from ps5 remake. Dragon fight is lot more epic and difficult in the remake for example
Your content is really good bro and entertaining, I look forward to watching all these types of videos
Considering the hype comments of the previous videos this one might as well be called “bad”.
But it’s still OK to showcase one’s own opinion! Since this game is the original I love it, even without the retrospective view of having the other games it stands well on its own.
The fact bosses are more “puzzle-like” rather than a test of reactions make it stand out. And Allant and Flamelurker are good predecessor’s to current games.
I recently played the PS5 version. The PS5 version is very accessible rather than nitch (PS3). Having to deal with item weight, having load times vs instant changes the vibe of the game and most important of all, having multidirectional rolling vs tank 4-way rolling.
IMO demons might have the best worlds to explore, grass>blood vials.
But demons is not number 1 IMO, I’m too much of a boss lover, demon’s bosses might be unique but in varying qualities, and having to fight all of them on any% kinda takes away from the essence of the later games. No lugarius, no Champion Gundyr, no Priscilla. Its a bit of a buzzkill to see the lack of “100%” bosses with HP bars.
A Silent Hill Retrospective would be incredible!!
Ah I can't wait for his "Silent Hill is not bad or good it's just avarege" video
A video on Blasphemous and Mortal Shell would be great! This vid was fantastic!
I play this game at release and did not see any of this problems. Maybe if I play it now after all others Souls game I would think the same.
Do you have plans to do a retrospective for King's Field?
Are comments being removed? I hope not nothing wrong with criticism makes us better
Found this channel bout a week ago and its my new favorite.