Never played a Souls game. Demon's good place to start?
As much as I love the game - I have to say it isn't. Start with Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3. While all FROM games do so little explain their mechanics to you, Demon's Souls can be especially punishing in terms of making the game even more difficult for you if you make wrong moves. Which more often than not you will make by accident. I'm talking about experiencing the game the way it was intended, without wiki walkthroughs and save scumming. Ruining your best weapon by "upgrading" it with a rock that makes it scale to totally different stats than yours? No problem, tap a button, and unless you have all the rocks required to reverse it (which you won't) - congrats you're screwed. No warning signs. How insane it sounds that every time you manage to achieve human form (200% more health right?) - the best idea is to immediately commit suicide in the nexus, otherwise if you die to an enemy - the world you die in shifts it's the tendency to black so the enemies get more health, more attack power and so on. The game doesn't tell this stuff and it's full of such painful surprises.
Also, this is a game from 2010. Not exactly a looker by today's standards. Doesn't really matter when you're hooked - but is sure to make a rough first impression.
I'd love to see a twitch stream of a 100% souls rookie play Demon's Souls totally wiki-less blind. If you feel like doing it - you have a viewer
If you were to detail what the key differences between dark souls and demon's souls that gives them their own identity despite all the similarities, what would you say they are? What makes them unique from each other in other words besides lore obviously.
Interesting question. I'd agree the difference is in narrative motivation given to the player, Demon's Souls it a way more uplifting story of becoming the hero to save a kingdom from demons, while Dark Souls is this hopeless medieval post-apocalypse and you're goal is just to fulfill your destiny as part of the downfall... In most ways, Dark Souls feels like a fleshed-out rendition of the same concept, with the addition of the ever so awesome world interconnectivity.
The key identity difference here are world and character tendency systems, as undercooked and often frustrating they might be in practice. I think this might be a great concept if done right, with the world changing depending on your choices in more meaningful ways than this. And since FROM was attempting such features already in Dark Souls 3 I have a feeling will see something like this returning in Elden Ring.
Can't wait.
