[zombieman000]

If you buy the Asian/Japanese version of this, can you go online with a U.S. PSN account? If I needed to make a Japanese one to take part in the online stuff I would do it but I couldn't make my way through the sign up process.

[zombieman000]

What's making me hesitate in getting this (besides not having the money :( ) is the thought that it might get an overseas release with bugfixes and updates. But maybe any additions would be sold as DLC. So I could sign onto PSN with the US account and play on that...but what about downloading any add-ons? Would those only be usable with a Japanese account?

[zombieman000]

Man I should stop looking at this thread, it's torture. Did anybody catch any King's Field/Eternal Ring references in this? Maybe some from other From games? I wonder if anyone who worked on King's Field had a hand in this.

Oh.

[zombieman000]

I think I'm playing this wrong. You probably don't need to resort to farming to make progress, but that's what I'm doing, and I feel bad about it :(
The 4-1 boss would have ripped me open if I didn't get help, because I kept going for the weakpoint as he wedged me into a corner and crushed me against the wall with his girth.

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

The 1-4 boss was a major pain in the ass, and I wouldn't have been able to beat him without summoning somebody. Apparently, the Death Cloud spell works for the blue dragon too, and it seemed like my buddy cast it, since its health was visibly draining away, but we had to fight the boss directly for some reason (maybe my partner had no spice left). I felt bad for the summoned guy because he kept getting caught in chokeholds, but he had some awesome-looking equipment on so I wasn't too worried about him. (actually, the partner might have been letting himself get grabbed so I could wail on the boss while his back was turned. What a nice guy!)

I thought 2-3 was a nice change of pace. Getting the rubble cleared out was the hardest part for me, but you can get the boss to punch it out of the way.

[zombieman000]

Astraea was a saint/missionary type who supposedly only went down to that valley to help the suffering (or, uh, maybe just sit and talk with them? get them to pray? not as if she could have done much for them), so I guess killing her should have that effect. I'm still pretty unclear about the plot of this game, even with the intro/ending and the Monumental's explanation. Maybe a lot of it is supposed to be left to interpretation? Another thing about the ending:



The narrator says your character eventually becomes a Monumental, but what if the Old One is woken again and the game events occur once more? That could give some meaning to the new game +(+++...) feature, or maybe I'm just reaching.
New Game+ is whooping my ass, as I expected, but I wish that you would still be allowed to upgrade even after beating the bosses. I did that, assuming that I could still cash in souls, but then the game ended/went to the next loop.

[zombieman000]

I'm not sure if you need to kill the blue dragon there. I summoned help and my partner killed him off with Death Cloud. If you don't have that spell, I think you can infect him with the plague using rotten arrows from 5-* (GameFAQs says 5-2).

If 1-4 is the last stage you have left to beat, you won't be able to talk to the Maiden in Black to exchange souls. Don't beat it until you've leveled up enough to feel safe for the next playthroughs.

[zombieman000]

I hope they make it easier to switch between world tendencies.

Does anyone know if the amount of experience/souls gained from enemies increases anymore after the 2nd playthrough?

[zombieman000]

I kind of want to say that some parts would be too frustrating to enjoy without a guide, but a lot of the fun here is in figuring things out on your own. (yeah not a clear answer) I would try to use the guide only for bosses you're having trouble with.

[zombieman000]

So far there's been no news of DLC. No explanations for that broken archstone. The NA and Asian version save files aren't compatible with each other, and the NA version will use new servers separate from the Asian ones.

[zombieman000]

Royal is the easy mode class :(
Just equip the fragrant ring to regenerate magic juice, hang back and shoot soul arrows at everything.

[zombieman000]

If you equip the thief's ring and stick to the far left or right of the tunnel, you can just spam arrows at the 2-1 boss. Fighting it at close range is a little rough because the camera doesn't track too well in small spaces.

[zombieman000]

Run between his legs when you have the chance, and keep behind him as you slash at his ankles. If you need to heal, that courtyard is spacious enough to run to a safe distance.

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

Melee attacks work well with him when fighting on the ground but the collision detection on his weak spot/belly wound is kinda rough, so it's a little frustrating having to fight with the camera and get hits in while avoiding his almost 180 degree slashes.

[zombieman000]

Soul arrows/rays work well for Flamelurker. Use a kris blade and ring of magic sharpness to boost damage and he should go down quick. Rolling backwards to evade, then rolling to the side when he backs you into a wall should work. He gets stuck on the terrain often too.

[zombieman000]

Atlus is shifting world tendency to pure black online for Halloween.

[zombieman000]

You can just use the thief's ring and whittle him down with magic or arrows. Not sure how effective demon's prank would be but I'm thinking you probably don't need it. As long as you wait after he roars in pain between attacks he shouldn't find you.

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

Yeah, that plot point wasn't clear to me for a while. I assumed that I exhausted all the NPC dialogue so I eventually stopped talking to anybody.

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

For me, the most reliable way to reach pure white WT was to play offline and beat the bosses. I used a magic-focused character and couldn't go melee against the BPs, so that was my only option.

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

I became too attached to my character to try another style :(
I'd better think about doing that since it's too costly/boring to farm for soul levels after a while.

[zombieman000]

I wish the dragons in world 1 went down easier. They're pretty much the only reason I carry the clever rat's ring/morion blade. Also the experience isn't worth the time spent killing them. I'm getting used to running the gauntlet in 1-2 though. That's probably how you're meant to tackle that level anyway, for the big adrenaline rush.

[zombieman000]

Yeah, the door to 1-3 isn't sealed after the first cycle.

[zombieman000]

1-3, 1-4, 4-1, and 4-2 are hot spots for invasion because of the big open spaces by the archstones.

[zombieman000]

I would raise endurance to 40 for max stamina. If you want to make the most of your str/dex points I'd get into using quality weapons. Putting points into faith would help for Anti-Magic Field if you want to go strictly melee.

[zombieman000]

I carry a lot more than I'd ever need - talisman+bow, crescent kilij, moon winged spear, makoto/kris/morion blades, the funnel hat and rings for magic and bow damage, and the large sword of searching for those pointless days I spent ore-farming. Plus I hold onto every ring for some reason. I still can't muster the courage to take on dudes like Flamelurker and Maneater mano e mano. I don't play this game like it's supposed to be played.

[zombieman000]

You need to raise your magic (intelligence?) level to 20 before you can start casting spells. Miracles need a faith level of 20.

Yeah, I like the dull gold set best for females. After a while all armor becomes pretty useless.

[zombieman000]

sorry about that :( Don't know what made me think it was 20. Maybe because one of Urbain's followers gives you a pure faintstone and stone of ephermeral eyes at 20 faith.

[zombieman000]

For quite a while I took the coward's way out and whittled him to death with arrows since I was too afraid to face him in the courtyard. He telegraphs his moves enough to give you time to evade all of them as long as you're not too equipment-burdened. Keep behind him and slash at his legs, then roll away as he collapses and wail on his face. I still can't get a grip on melee-ing his cousin Penetrator :(

[zombieman000]

There's a moon short sword in 3-2 at the Maneater bridge.

[zombieman000]

I think Sony owns the IP (the producer was from Sony at least) so ports probably won't happen :(

[zombieman000]

I used http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/. I probably would've enjoyed myself more with this if I never looked at strategy guides. I wonder if I could have figured out how to get by on my own. Maybe I would've given up on it before I "got it."

[zombieman000]

Another thing if you're going for the world tendency stuff - don't play online unless one of the holiday events shifts tendency to where you want it, because there's a glitch that seems to reset all worlds to neutral/sorta white when logging on.

[zombieman000]

[zombieman000]

No, you need to beat the first boss to get the blue eye stone (for summoning phantoms or to lay down a soul sign to be summoned, if in soul form), white eye stone, and black eye stone (for invading as a black phantom)