Demon's Souls Changed Everything: A Dark Souls Retrospective - Part 1

[@mushymcmushington7176]

"The capacity to suffer is the burden of clarity" goes so hard it's unreal

[@TheHazmat347]

15:33 I love this moment so much. Astraea's line 'may you be unharmed' is completely peaceful and positive, in line with her character, but the context it's in as she says it to the man you're on your way to harm gives it a sort of menace.

[@nore5888]

This is the type of video that would blow up 8 months from now

[@Volk.Matrinex]

Moooooom, moooooom! Dark Souls Retrospective just started!

[@Volk.Matrinex]

Gotta admit, the 3:47 Situation is Crazy

[@theSHELFables]

Good video. I cried when Astrea told me "Do as you like. Take your precious Demon's Souls for PlayStation 3"

[@ForsythtobeReckonedWith]

The promised day arrives! Time for truly SOULFUL content

[@bonafideknight7136]

Just the thing to listen to while I toil in the bladestonemines. Umbasa 🙌🏻

[@dylangarza1237]

Liked before I watched. Don’t let me down Bopper

[@Volk.Matrinex]

I wonder... Could it be said that this essay was the Dark Souls of essays of this series? Mmm... You know, I know a certain Hawk that could extract real value from here, considering how his near future looks like. For instance, and I believe I have mentioned this before, I am a follower of the "git gud" doctrine in the Soulsborne saga, but maybe not in the way that it might seem in its immediate understanding. Obviously, I use that language with intent because I am a gremlim that tends to use inflammatory words for the only reason that I find it ammusing sometimes. I, up to an extent, apologize for that hehe. Getting back on track, you are spot on in your section about the mechanical difficulty of the game and goes hand in hand with what I meant before. Getting good in these games is less about having impressive reflexes and parrying every single possible blow and more about understanding the world around you, about being resourceful and about knowing what your tool kit is and how to use it adequately. Yes, of course, learning the animations of the enemies and positioning yourself in the correct spot is key, but I would argue that that also falls under being a "resourceful player", considering that what you have to do there is watch the enemy, comprehend what it is doing, and react accordingly to what the game is throwing at you, rather than trying to always beat said enemy in the marketplace of sick combos. It is a battle of the mind, one where you have to steel yourself, your nerves, and not do anything reckless if you want your chances of surviving to increase. Even if this example is disconnected to Demon's Souls, you are not Artorias: You are not a killing machine that should go mindlessly and head-on agaisnt your enemy, you should analyze and react to the dangers that are trying to kill you. Sometimes it is easier said than done but that is really all; Artorias fell into the abyss for a reason, you are given the chance to not to, and you should not to. This is something that I always try to make new players understand, when I can. Will you die? Yes, but do not fall into despair. Learn from that experience and do it again. Just like in life itself... except the literal part of dying, naturally. Onto something entirely different, I must say that I enjoy how you twist the perspective of an issue in Demon's Souls and try to shed a new light into it. What I am refering to is how you find a different way of seeing how the last choice in the game's ending seems separate to the rest of the game. Where some would say that it is that way precisely because of how primitive and crude the formula was still, you stand up and present the idea that it might be because of the possibilty of a last minute change of heart from the character. Interesting. Not entirely implausible, even if it might seem a little strechted out, considering that we, as people, are the product of our circumstances and, if we are surrounded by actions of "evil", we are likely going to follow through and continue acting like "evil". Yet, those changes are not unseen, so looking at it in that way is a good spin. Anyways, I will stop myself. I could say a couple of things more but I have spoken about the things that caught my attention the most and this is long enough already. Thank you for going through my ramblings. Also, as you surely can guess, since this is the last opinion regarding the Soulsbornes that I have heard, Demon's Souls has become my favorite game of all... for now. See you in my next favorite game of all!

[@blueberriesinmycoffee1234]

Johny Cash's cover of "Hurt" is a soulsborne. The Nine Inch Nails version is a first person shooter. The 2000s gamers weren't ready for peak.

[@Profecy02]

29:51 From Soft really thought of everything when building their world. Miyazaki heard that PS3 fan and was like 'this is worldbuilding material'

[@SoupWizard776]

I miss world tendency

[@Mr.Rexfire]

Yes! Souls weekend is still going strong bae-bee!!

[@DoofeFlussferd]

Wow! These demons sure have soul

[@ProfessorBopper]

multiple soul even!

[@Profecy02]

1:11 my tongue did not need to be outed like that

[@Profecy02]

If Demons Souls is so good, why didnt they name a subgenre based on- wait a minute

[@goodgamer1419]

The fact ppl pretend that games journalists hate hard games when they consistenly rate games like demon souls so highly, is so weird like, of course ppl whos job it is to play and review games are good at games.

[@AnAverageGoblin]

just because they do it for a living doesn't mean they're good at it. the number of terrible reviews is proof of this.

[@goodgamer1419]

@AnAverageGoblin you dont notice good reviews

[@AnAverageGoblin]

Cherrypicking isn't the Gotcha you think it is lmao

[@goodgamer1419]

@ not saying bad reviews dont exist, but the amount of them are severly overblown. Its very rare a game jornalist is actually severly bad at a video game, to the point it impact their thoughts.

[@Pwrplus5]

I still own my game informer issue where they gave a hugely glowing review of DeS and talked about how refreshing and insane the game was and the depths of its secrets, and finally getting my hands on it when my friend got his PS3 later that year was cathartic. No other souls game has ever recaptured that feeling, but I guess that's just your standard 'first souls' experience that most people ended up having with DaS1

[@MrPeanut1234]

King K mentioned

[@lordpent]

Can't stand that IGN and their SCATHING 9 out of 10 Dark Souls review, it's so casual/pretentious/whiny/glazing/biased of them to give such an unfair score (very eager to learn about more tasty treats of Gamer delusion)

[@hi-i-am-atan]

something that i'll always find a bit frustrating about these games is how the rpg elements of the series ( or at least, the degree of impact they have ) are constantly in tension with the tools the devs provide the player, because the preciousness of resources means that the player is naturally incentivized to pigeonhole themselves to the point where those tools are either ineffective or outright denied due to stats, upgrade materials, and nonreplenishing ammo and consumables. like, it makes _sense_ that a rapier or pewpew laser would be far more effective in a narrow corridor than a giant mallet that can barely fit, and those might be options the game gave away for free or barely any cost ... but they don't exactly seem like _actual_ options when you lack the dex to use the rapier and the int to use any staff you have, and even then they'd be competing with your +8 mallet and your +6 sidearm axe that have hoover up all up your upgrade mats but i think what really frustrates me is that it's not even a hard dead end. even if you're running around with 8 vig and 60 str with your main weapon alone forcing you just under heavy load, you _do_ always have the option to pivot if you're getting stonewalled by a boss ... it's just that pivoting _sucks._ few things are truly in limited supply and souls least of all ... but you're gonna be spending a significant chunk of time doing banal farming loops to take advantage of that, with each stat point asking for more and more time without necessarily even making you _stronger,_ you're just building up to the point where you can try an alternate solution to something you're stuck on and hoping it'll be the difference. with a good chance that even if it _does_ work, all that effort still amounts to nothing more because what you were doing previously is just way more effective at everything after what you were stuck on also: who is it at fromsoft that has _such_ a fetish for slaughtering rats, seriously there's a lot of other stuff that the series has clung to that, to me, seems to justify itself entirely on the basis of "well demon's souls did it" at the expense of how the series has moved on from its origin, but this one in particular has always bothered because of how it also impacts the joy of exploration and discovery, something the series still holds up as part of its core. certainly takes a lot of wind out my sails when i uncover a cool out of the way niche with a super badass weapon that i am absolutely _never_ going to use because it'd require me to commit a mind-numbing amount of genocide to properly use it

[@ProfessorBopper]

I think the two games that handle this problem the best are actually DeS and Elden Ring, because in DeS, upgrades don’t actually matter that much and using different damage types has more effect than upgrading (the mail breaker, for example, has no dex requirement and is found in 1-1) and ER expanding the variety so much that all builds basically had free access to all damage types and a lot of the good tools in DeS (Adjudicators shield, thief ring) have no stat requirements at all. But, the games between DeS and ER really don’t pressure the player as much for different damage types (esp. DS3 and Bloodborne). I’d actually say that grinding out levels really only helps in DeS because you get a flat defense buff with every level which escalates beyond enemy strength pretty quickly

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@ProfessorBopper this might be one of those things where the top-down perspective of the game devs and the fans analyzing things in retrospect just don't allow for the best vantage points for predicting how things actually end up at the ground level of someone actively experiencing the games in the moment, where i don't think you're _incorrect_ per se, i just don't think that's all that right either elden ring's a funny example, actually. had i only done my first playthrough, where i mostly rocked the winged scythe and a seal on a faith-dex build, i don't think i would've thought the smithing stones all that scarce. because between the off-kilter path i took ( read: ending up in altus before even seeing _godrick_ for the first time ) and the flexibility of incantations, i ended up with quite a surplus of stuff from all the minidungeons i dove through and could easily mess with side arms and stuff like the treespear. meanwhile, on every other playthrough since ... trying to get a non-somber weapon to +6 and above is chore whenever i insist on not just rushing down the bell-bearings, because holy _shit_ is finding smithing stones with any sort of intentionality a journey and a half. a journey and a half that usually goes the exact same way every time, because there's usually like one or two mining tunnels that's _real_ good for gathering a specific level of stones while everything else is a bit dry or out of the way oh, and i also learned from my first playthrough the mantra of "level stats to your requirements, then _pump_ vig," because absolutely _neglected_ vig on that playthrough and it went mostly fine! ... until it didn't, and suddenly the game was just absolutely _miserable._ like, dying sucks in these games to the extent that i don't feel "git gud" applies to them so much as _"be_ gud," but it is _infinitely_ worse when you're poking around a spooky underground ant tunnel you've just uncovered and you're mostly holding out find, and then one of 'em shoots acid out of its ass and sends you all the way back topside in a single attack. with your runes now surrounded by ants that you have just learned will just _obliterate_ you if you fail to dodge a specific attack ... i don't think i have any actual way to work these two stories in something cohesive, so i think i'll just end with noting that foreknowledge that these games contain the options to smooth over the rougher parts of the experience has done absolutely nothing for me prior to the inevitable moment where i throw my hands up, say farewell to the process of discovery, and just look at the goddamn wiki

[@ProfessorBopper]

Where we're going to fundamentally disagree is that I don't think my perspective on the gameplay options is strictly retrospective. As a player, I'm very experimental and long cycling through options and burning consumables and looting levels. I've always played these game primarily as adventure games first (weirdly, this play style makes Pokemon way harder for me as I constantly cycle out Pokemon while it's always helped make Souls easier). The developer message in 2-1 is why I love the mail breaker. On my first playthrough, it's what I switched to when I read the messages and saw the damage the regular sword dealt to those guys. I've also always been a big fan of shields, and I find that the meta-text around the games makes them harder in this respect. Assumptions players bring from other games and what they've heard about Souls makes them think rolling is generally the only option, but I always played with shields and never had the trouble people describe with certain attacks, especially in Elden Ring, so I think the metaknowledge people bring to these games makes them harder (and also the assumption that most tools don't work. So many people don't use Sekiro tools because tools in most games suck, ergo they must suck here too). Edit; for an example of how my brain is wired, when I first fought Ancient Dragon is DS2, I died once and my first reaction was to load up as much flame resistance as I could and to try poison. The worst that happens is that I die slower and poison doesn’t work, but poison did surprisingly work, so with no stat investment and just fiddling in my menu, I managed to beat Ancient Dragon in two attempts just be comparing my inventory against his attacks (Fire) and experimenting with poison just to see what happened (vis a vis Slave Knight Gael who enjoyed the poison paper and green blossoms I could buy from the Firelink Shrine merchant)

[@OleNesie]

@@hi-i-am-atan Your description for ER play though mirrors mine so much haha. So much more fuckery than any of the souls games I played.

[@ShyBug42]

Praying this one gives demon’s souls the respect it deserves; so many judge it like a lesser dark souls instead of on its own merit Edit: :)

[@zenone9698]

Did you know Side UK dubbed og Demon souls and dark soul series and Elden Ring and mainline Xenoblade series.

[@mitchryan257]

People calling Demon Souls worse than Dark Souls is weird to me, as it is basically Dark Souls 0. Of course it will be lacking when compared to the sequels that built upon it.

[@josephbulkin9222]

Back when Souls games were the slow paced dungeon crawlers i loved, instead of the action nonsense.

[@easy_nin]

44:17 Worst FromSoft game

[@blumiu2426]

If there are Soulsborne fans that truly think the series is culminated to Elden Ring instead of Elden Ring being an open-world iteration, it's little wonder they have unrealistic expectations of From Software and will be upset if and when they step away.