So, I know it’s been a good while since I wrote, but I have an excuse – just let me think of a good one.
I actually got my hands on a PS5 this christmas, and let me tell you, it’s been a BLAST! I’ve played both Jedi Fallen Order – not a game I recommend, to be honest, but had it been a TV-series I would’ve recommended it, the story was actually that good, gameplay not so much – and a bit of Dark Souls 1 and 3. But I also got to play Demon’s Souls finally. Funnily enough, I pre-ordered the game over a year ago, before the PS5 even came out, because I thought I’d just save up a bit of money and get the PS5 just slightly after launch. I did not expect that the PS5 would be this hard to get.. but over a year after the launch, I finally got to play it.
I tried to play Demon’s Souls on the PS3 a couple of years ago, but the clunkyness, the slow loading times, the fact that it was a PS3 when I had a PS4 and gotten used to the games on that one.. and the fact that the game was so damn dark that I couldnt make out many details.. I didnt even play past the first boss – the actual first boss, not the tutorial one. I’ve also seen a bunch of streams playing this game, like Happy Hob, LobosJr, and a few more, but since it’s a game I havent played yet, I decided to not pay that much attention to it – I’ve seen some bosses and how Hob cheeses a few of them, I’ve seen the general tone of some areas, like the tunnel levels, but I have made sure to not look at too much, like where items are, the layout, where you have certain NPC’s, etc. But yeah, things to stick over the years, so it’s not a completely blind run I’ve had. But with the PS5, I’ve been having the time of my life.
While I know of the mechanics of World Tendencies and generally how they function, the basic idea of how miracles and spells are separated and so on, most things were new to me. I purposefully had not paid attention to the routes, so finding my way around these areas were just great. I did cheat at one point, I had completely missed a wheel turning on an elevator in the second level, and after a couple of hours worth of searching I actually looked it up – I was just blind, since the wheel to turn on the outside elevator were just beside the door. I still think that it has been mostly a blind playthrough – I had nothing major spoiled before, like hidden enemies, world maps, where you find important items such as keys, and so on.
Which is also why I was so caught off guard by an NPC that I met.
So, I first played through the first level, got a couple of great weapons and armor pieces – I decided to kill Old King Doran, mostly because I found the area and they were hard-hitting and I assumed they would give me lots of souls, so I just decided to make sure they died – looked everywhere for every secret I could find, killed the first boss, got through the next area and fought the tower knight and realized that the next area would whoop my delicate bee-hive.
So I tried out some of the other areas. Got into the fourth map, and realized that I remember that Hob often finds his main weapon there, quite early. I knew it was up the stairs, to the left and then out on the ledge, so.. yeah, if it’s good enough for him throughout the game, it’s good enough for me. I found it and actually cleared out large parts of that map, killed the first boss and unlocked some guy as a vendor, Bilge. His Soul Remains got me through the next part down to the next boss – which I decided against doing. I then switched to the second world, which I cleared out in one single run – from first archstone to last boss. By that time, I had enough health, enough damage on my falchion and still the Old King Dorans armor, so the boss I believed was the hardest – Flamelurker – was actually very simple. Then I decided to play through the prison area, so I played through the prison, got up to the towers, cleared that out and realized that the next area is a swamp area… yeah, no, I dont feel like doing that right now. Oh, I also remember that Lobos always kills this one guy in a prisoncage that acts like an elevator, so I did too, and realized that I had actually found an armor that was way better than the one I had. A little heavier, a little less defense at some parts, but resistances against poison and plague were just awesome.
So I went back to the fourth map, went through the catacombs and cleared out the entire fourth map, last boss and all. So, now back to the first map, and played through after the Tower Knight.
Searching through the first world after the Tower Knight, I realized something, and that was that I had made the right choice. Everything hurt a lot more past Tower Knight and took more of a beating – even with an upgraded Crescent Falchion and my stats upgraded as much as they were, I barely three-hit basic enemies. Dont misunderstand, it’s great that I dont just breeze through enemies and maps, it’s still fun to have a challenge, but if I were trying out that area before the other two maps, I would’ve had a hard time.
I cleared out every nook and crannie I found, killed every enemy, unlocked shortcut after shortcut, found keys, items, weapons, and kept going. I found the next boss, “The Penetrator”, and basically instantly died to him, and I mean.. yeah, that’s kind of expected. But during that run, I had found a couple of keys, and I remembered I had run into a couple of locked doors, and there had been other areas I could see but not reach, so I figured I might as well look into that instead. Sure enough, eventually I found this small prison with an enemy there, killed him and started opening cell doors and found this one guy sitting there, Biorr. I wasnt sure at all what he was all about, but he seemed gentle, merry, friendly.. I decided to let him live, he reminded me a bit of some of the other NPC’s in later Dark Souls games, so he was just great like that.
When I had explored through the entire map again, I decided to run to the boss and just homeward-bone after I picked up my soul-patch again, there was about 30 000 souls there. True, I had a bunch again after having cleared out the map, but I figured I might as well, and then use all those souls to level up. So I clear out the stairs, prepare to bone home, enter the fog gate, and out of view to my right, I just hear in my headphones, a deep, friendly voice calmly says – “Do you need some help?”.
Caught completely off guard, I just turn around and sure enough, there’s Biorr. Standing inside the boss room, waiting for me to get there. He then continues, “By the honour of the good knights! This demonic folly shall be stopped once and for all!”, and just charges the boss. So, yeah.. I had planned to just find my soul-patch and bone home, but this guy starts wrecking the boss, so I’m just, “Yeah, I guess we’re doing this.”
And he just tears through the boss, but at one point I’m a bit worried because he gets pierced and lifted into the air and I see he just has about half health left. Finally we bring the boss down to almost nothing, I back off to heal a bit, and Biorr, the absolute badass he is just shaves off the last centimeter of life the boss has left, and I just hear him roar of laughter.
I got goosebumps from that, he was just a badass through and through.
Things like that in a game, taking me completely by surprise, is the best. It’s a shame I never played the game before this, but I’ve got to say, it was completely worth the wait. I’m still not finished, I still have the final boss in first map, the rest of the prison map past the swamp, and the entire valley of defilement, but honestly.. in the entire Soulsborne series, I actually believe that Demon’s Souls – the remake, atleast – is my new favorite. It used to be DS1, then DS3, then DSR, Bloodborne, and DS2 – but DeS just picked the first place above DS1. And I still have lots left to play.
And since I got the PS5 for myself this christmas, I actually gave my oldest the PS4 as a hand-me-down, and created a PS-account and started to buy a few games on there, so there’s still use for the PS4. It just changed owner.