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Trying Demon's Souls on PS3, played on The Archstones private server ( https://thearchstones.com/serverinfo.html ). Blood is Off.
(The fan-run private server allows what became Souls-standard networked features to continue; set its IP as your PS3's "Primary DNS" and they just work. Apparently for emulator too, with a more slightly complicated set-up.)
Had thought this disc-only but nope, $19.99 on the current PS3 PSN store. Oh: disc hit 2009, Store not til 2013.
20+ years ago I played a demo of a Souls game on PS3. Until today, I wasn't sure which game it was, or that I hadn't somehow imagined it: splashing footsteps in a narrow canal, wooden catwalks between high stone walls, armored foes on a parapet, and ghosts of other players running past me, which amused me--but not enough to have bought it, or to remember its exact name.
It didn't match what I saw in my play of Dark Souls: Remastered a few days ago. But I saw it again, today: the tutorial stage, Nexus hub, and first main area of Demon's Souls.
The internet has no record of a PS3 Demon's Souls downloadable demo; neither does my PSN download list. Could it have been on some other Atlus game disc? No: DeS was their first PS3 disc. Had someone loaned me the disc? But my memory says this was before I had friends with PS3s--and I didn't save notes of it as I did with most of the non-demo games I played. The internet mentions a "demo" shown at TGS 2008, the year before the game's launch, the demo revealing to Sony the incredible difficulty they thought awful, and doomed to flop, and decided not to publish outside Japan, where it indeed sold poorly at first. But Atlus brought it to the States, selling 3x what they'd hoped, probably saving what would become the "Soulslike" genre.
There is clarity. There is pace. There is balance. There is art. There is harmony. There is elegance. There is care. There is strategy. There is thought. There is growth. There is a beautiful gradual organic unfolding of the mysteries and deepening challenge of the stage played over and over from the beginning after each death, each death a joyful opportunity to find new ways through a living environment continuously evolved by your own action.
This is the Souls game I'm going to keep playing.
Like the later Souls games I've just briefly tried--DS:R & ER--there's a Blood toggle. |
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| | | | Ah the TGS demo was different, at least from the sound of this description https://www.engadget.com/2008-10-15-tgs-08-hands-on-with-demons-souls-ps3.html -- going straight from character creation to the palace, bypassing the tutorial and Nexus. |
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| | | Slightly OT but the JP PS Store has 12 free DS2 avatars and 9 free DS1 dynamic themes:
(Later found Darkmoon Blade (the cathedrally one in the thumbnail) DOES change from sunlight to moonlight at night. : ) I have a screenshot of the night version on my tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/smbhax/735928485106876416/that-one-of-nine-free-japanese-dark-souls-ps3?source=share ) |
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| | | | Argh it's been so long since I recorded a 720p game I forgot to change quite all of the settings over, so that first video came out blown up to 1080p--and I forgot it's only a 30fps game so it was unnecessarily recorded at 60 fps, too. Sheesh! Next one'll be proper 720p60. |
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| | | | Oh, not quite: it was 720p, blown up to 1080p, then shrunk back to 720p for the output--so it came out slightly blurry. : PP |
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The scimitar is fast but kinda short range and "has a limited effect on metal armor and hard scales"; I should probably go back to the long sword.
Managed to click though Ostrava's introduction somehow so I missed it when playing through. The Brass Telescope they gave me magnifies so weakly it's barely useful. ^ _^ I wonder what they would have done when wandering around the level after being freed if there had still been live "dreglings" about?
Hadn't realized you can save mid-stage! And uh that the fact I'd broken the cage of boulders would be saved, but not the fact that they'd previously rolled out. So when I saved right in front of their then-empty cage, and loaded back up... |
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| | | Download added: 03_roasty.jpg (178823 bytes)
"Roasty toasty, blobbos, & touching demons in the nexus"
I'm gonna have to wean myself off shields, just like I did the Guard button in VF--holding Block all the time just ain't ergonomic! Darn my old shoulder. ; )
Heck maybe I'll have to see if I can sprint across that dragon-riddled bridge in time if I take off my armor... = o
That first boss fight was really unexpected, pretty mellow, and a lot of fun! Really cool! So
(MINOR SPOILERS here, I mean they're all right there in the episode)
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there ARE mid-stage save points, and multiple bosses (probably =o) per stage. And yeah after that, talking to wax-covered-eyes lady in the Nexus lets you raise stats, and various other things open up in the Nexus as well (miracles, and magic (I think? Oh that guy probably won't talk to me 'cause my INT is too low ; D)).
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END spoilers!
OH I forgot I gave some equipment I was too low-stat to use to the storage guy in the Nexus, I'll have to check on that, maybe I can use some of it now. I think there might've been a two-handed sword?
And yeah maybe I should try going lighter equip weight for non-clumsy rolling, since I'll have to do lotsa rolling going without a shield, I'd think. Phew probably gonna die a lot more, oh well, it'll at least be faster action and probably more fun just to play--and more ergonomic, hopefully! I think my shoulder was feeling it particularly this time because of all the blocking I was doing vs the blobbies. Blocking just drains your stamina anyway so, pfft!
OH and I should probably ditch stuff I don't really need in the DOWN equip slot, like the throwing knives and the darned Brass Telescope that I've got myself killed with twice now forgetting I had it equipped instead of a crucial healing item! ;o; And it doesn't help see stuff really anyway!
And I should ditch--can they go in storage?--the MP stuff like those eyes things since I don't think I'm even gonna be trying to use them anyway.
Dang soul form is just annoying graphically, my character looks so much shinier and clearer in human form. Oh I see, I guess that clumsy roll I made earlier didn't make noise because you don't make noise in soul form? = o I love the footstep sounds in this game though, so dang. Dang the aesthetics of soul form! (And apparently dying in human form in the world pushes the world toward black tendency and makes things harder, so that's why you see players suiciding off ledges in the Nexus: they always want to be in soul form when they go into the worlds so as not to risk dying in human form and pushing world tendency toward black. This is what reddit says anyhoo. https://www.reddit.com/r/demonssouls/comments/jxu7lc/noob_question_human_vs_soul_form_advantages/ And apparently https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/606312-dark-souls/60505376 soul form is not a thing in the later Souls games; there's hollow form but I think it looks more "zombie like" rather than spectrally, so you don't lose SFX, don't have a darned glowing rim all the time, and don't have the big health reduction requiring you to wear a ring just to get some of it back. Oh well for DeS just gotta get used to it I guess, blah. I was thinking DeS was gonna be my favorite system in the series but ah I guess probably not, probably the changes they make for later games make some sense. ; )) |
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| | | Download added: 05_light.jpg (130686 bytes)
"Going with a lighter build"
The light build went better than I expected, uh maybe aside from a certain torch-wielding dregling near the end. : PPP |
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Yeah maybe spear for the blue visor guy. Gotta keep it together there, not get distracted by the dragon breathing down my back. : PPP
Hope I don't run outta turp for the dogs! Then I'd have to learn to fight them legit or somethin', sheesh. |
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This Tower Knight guy could be a problem. ^ _^
Was reading some wiki or other about the bridge, turns out I passed right by a stairway I gotta check out, and also there IS a way to bypass the dogs! It just might take several hundred+ bolts... = o
And apparently the second blue visor at the end of the bridge is due to the server's World Tendency being in the black?
I kinda wanna grind my strength up to see how my character handles that two-handed sword. Is it just gonna be slower than the long sword? If it is, maybe I'll just hafta stick with solo-handing. I like the speed & range. Hm.
Also wanna see how I do against the red guys now~~ = o
The blobby guys with the shields are called Hoplites, the wiki said--which fits in with their boss' name of Phalanx.
Oh yeah I gotta try talking to the Dregling Merchant now, maybe he'll have something new to say since I've seen the Tower Knight. |
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Used the walkthrough at https://demonssouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Gates+of+Boletaria to look up some of this stuff like how to get that soul item stranded on that beam down in that cistern thingy. ^ _^
Just two more points in Strength and I'll be able to try the two-handed Bastard Sword and the bow! Then I'll just have to grind for like maybe 300 arrows to use on the next thing I wanna try. ; D
Those "Black Phantom Dreglings" just off to the left side of the bridge at the start of Boletarian Palace sure are the place to farm cheap grass now that I can take them on! Suddenly got like what over 70 or something, jeepers. Although the walkthrough says you can only open the entrance to get down there off the bridge when the world is in either pure white or pure black tendency, so I guess I got lucky when I first tried going down there, because I don't think it's pure white or black now, otherwise a certain special NPC would have appeared in there somewhere, according to the walkthrough.
That Red Eye Knight is still way too tough--just runs right at me and gores me, ouch! = oo
Was really bad at staying on those beams. ^ D^ |
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Hm yeah just past the two-hour mark in the previous episode https://youtu.be/px77KZE0vmg?t=7220 , with the Winged Spear at +3, I had the option to forge it to +4, or to a "Quality Winged Spear+1" for more souls (770 vs 520) and less damage (98, vs 119 for going to regular +4)... Oh I see, it required three "Shard of Clearstone" but I didn't even have any. And then once I leveled to regular +4, there was no "Quality" version option! |
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| | | Download added: 09_drag_knight.jpg (146352 bytes)
"Vs Red Dragon, Havok physics maybe, and Tower Knight, in Boletarian Palace"
Think I'm gonna pack the Long Sword in, just not tempted to use it now, having too much fun with the spear. ^ _^ Bow worked better'n I thought it would! : D And the Knight wasn't nearly as tough as I thought he'd be, whew!
The Havok physics engine is still around, even after being acquired by Microsoft in 2015 = oo. For instance it was used for cloth physics in Street Fighter 6, according to the Havok web site https://www.havok.com/havok-powered/ . 'p'
And yes it's stayed in the Souls series all along: Wikipedia lists DeS, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls I-III as using it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_games_using_Havok -- but no mention of Elden Ring there, curiously; the Havok site lists Demon's Souls (with a screenshot obviously from the PS5 remake) as using Havok Cloth and Havok Physics, and Elden Ring as using those as well as Havok AI. = ooo |
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| | | | @ philipplaysvideogames on YouTube pointed out that the demo I played wouldn't have been 20+ years ago, since the game didn't come out until 2009! ^ _^ |
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| | | | Souls is (are?) relatively slow and grindy and I've recently taken up loads more fast action games, which currently feel more like what I want. I was looking at Souls as games to carry me through at a time when I'd narrowed my game playing down to like four fighting games and was feeling the need for a change of scene. Maybe that urge will come around again if I eventually narrow down this big list of arcade-ish action games. |
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| | | | In RPCS3 (see entry 1745), "Configuration - GPU - Write Color Buffers" fixed black screen in Demon's Souls. |
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| | | Oops actually there are various settings and patches, including a 60 fps patch: https://wiki.rpcs3.net/index.php?title=Demon%27s_Souls
Problem is though the downloadable version, which is what I have, is misconfigured, and uniquely among PS3 PSN games, attempts to mount itself as a disc game--this does not work in RPCS3: https://forums.rpcs3.net/thread-197387.html
So, gotta rip a disc version, d-arr. |
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| | | | Hm but I wonder if my PSN saves for it will work with the disc version. ; ) Guess it'll be worth a shot. : P |
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| | | | The talk is that games that this has something to do with Demon's Souls having started as a disc-only game for PS3, and only later got a downloadable PSN version. |
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| | | | https://thearchstones.com/serverinfo.html has instructions for getting its Demon's Souls private server netplay working through RPCS3. You set up an account with their open-source version of PSN, RPCN. |
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| | | The disc version automatically used the save created in the digital version, and it worked fine.
Copying the files from disc to my 64 GB USB thumbdrive, Managunz File Manager says will take a little over a half-hour for 9+ GB in 12K+ files. |
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| | | | After 18 minutes, Managunz shows nearly 3 GB of oh maybe it was 8.11 GB for Demon's Souls copied from the disc, but still just over 30 minutes remaining, so who knows. : P |
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| | | The only PS3 game I've checked so far that has patches available for it.
Runs kinda dark. I upped the brightness to 8. Looks pretty good at 1080/60. It's gonna have to wait until I'm in the mood for a slower-paced game, though. Also feeling kind of uncomfortable with the analog stick and hold-button-to-run controls. |
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| | | | Oh and yes, the save file from the digital version just worked in the disc version. Online seems fine, too. Pretty smooth! |
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