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Demon's Souls vs Dark Souls, your experiences and opinions.

Where do I start...
 
Definitely preferred Dark Souls. To me, Demon's Souls is to Mega Man X, as Dark Souls is to Super Metroid. Sort of. Anyway, I really love the interconnected world in Dark Souls, the larger scope of the game, and the more varied locations in the game. Armor and weapon designs were also better in Dark Souls overall, and the story and NPCs are more interesting. Also I like the fact that you can upgrade armor, so it's actually important. What I prefer about Demon's is the way weapon upgrading works, and the framerate. Both excellent games, but overall, I though Dark Souls was a big step up.
 
Don't have time to write a long post here, but I'll say this:

I fucking hated Demon's Souls.
I fucking loved Dark Souls.

Put over 90 hours into Dark Souls and finally beat it.
 
I enjoyed being killed in Demon Souls, but never finished it. I'm well on the way to completing Dark Souls and won't stop until I have. I'm finding the way the levels interconnect feels much more cohesive to me.

I don't like the 'hollowed' part, much preferred the soul form in the first game

When I'm done with Dark Souls (and after a break), I'll go back to demon souls and try again.
 
I'm not a fan of the overpowered strategies used in dark souls (pvp wise)..fog ring, lightning weapons, tranquil walk of peace, iron flesh...and so fourth. I like the multiple viable pvp strategies/builds in demon's souls.

I also didn't like that bosses kill themselves.

demon's souls had chuggy sections in quite a few of the areas, but from what I recall it didn't have ENTIRE chuggy areas.

I couldn't tell if dark souls was much easier (referring mostly to the bosses) or that I just handled it better being that I played a lot of demon's souls, but I preferred the challenge that demon's souls offered.

dark souls was an incredibly fun game, but for me I preferred demon's souls.
 
I ended up preferring Dark Souls by quite a lot for the same reasons I was dreading the game in the first place. I heard "open world" and "magic charges" and started to get really worried before the game came out. It turned out that the way the game is structured, with the bonfires and shortcuts, the magic charges/flask charges system works out much better than I could have ever dreamed, and for that reason alone I found the game much more engaging for me than Demon's Souls. Dark Souls's world design worked a perfect balance with the mechanics, even if it does have some actual terrible areas. I honestly can't say that about many other games.

I also honestly don't know if I'll ever want to play a mage in Demon's Souls again after Dark Souls.
 
I played Demon's Souls for about 50 hours and started to feel a bit bored, mostly due to getting all the trophies. I'm nearing 100 hours in Dark Souls and still plan to keep playing, but if I had to say which was better I'd say Demon's Souls.

I can't think why other than the fact Demon's felt new.
 
If you have interest in PVP, wait for the patch. Also, if you'd actually like to try to resort to playing the game without using online help, I would wait for the patch there too(a lot of the best OP strategies for PvE in the current build were basically found by a collective on players in constant communication; you're unlikely to have as much luck by yourself). Otherwise, you might consider going ahead and picking i tup.
 
I say Demon's Souls was the better overall experience, especially in multi. Dark Souls still has great JOLLY COOPERATION, but PVP sucks.

Dark Souls is still an amazing game, and I love the single player.
 
I like them both about the same, but they're too different to directly compare to one another.

There are overlapping problems and successes native to the series. There are also many incomparable aspects between the two games. Most changes in Dark Souls are neither inherently good nor bad, but some are polarizing.

I think there's room for both games to coexist. I prefer the level design in Demon's Souls, though.
 
YOU STEALED MY THREAD ! ;)

Anyway, I like to think that the two games are somehow connected, I like them both, as a single entity, a multiverse made of doom, gloomy castle, demons and athmosphere.
 
The_Darkest_Red said:
I keep posting in here because I keep having more and more to say about this discussion. If any series of games from this generation is worth talking about it's this one.

Another thing I loved about the open world in Dark Souls was how the geography added to the atmosphere. Blighttown is a perfect example. You access Blighttown from The Depths, which you access from Undead Burg. On your trip to Blighttown you spend tons of time making your way farther and farther down. By the time you reach the ground level right outside of Quelaag's Lair you truly feel like you are deep within some despicable pit of an environment. That feeling is incredibly difficult to accomplish with a hub-based world. Even more striking is the feeling that comes with the first time you emerge from The Great Hollow into Ash Lake. At that point you've gone even farther down, and you come out into a relatively open environment that is truly unexpected. It felt like Journey to the Center of the Earth to me. That sense of wonder born from exploration is unparalleled in any other game, in my opinion.

Another great example is reaching Anor Londo. The city truly feels high and lofty thanks to the transportation that you take to reach it. I found this aspect of the game to be absolutely breathtaking.
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This is a great post. The whole world is stitched together brilliantly. Discovering new areas and unlocking shortcuts is fantastically satisfying. I went on a year-long media blackout for this, and it's paying dividends now.
 
Demon souls coop and mp seemed much better to me. Darksouls felt a lot easier from beginning to end. I didn't get chocked up at any boss really. I liked the dark-souls open world type environment but everything just felt cheaper even though there was more of a lot things.
 
I'm not gonna choose one over the other, BUT I will say, the Soul games are BY FAR the best thing that has come out this generation.
 
I hear Demon's has a dedicated server so big plus to that. I also heard the roll had more invincibility frames so it was probably a much easier game.
 
Sullichin said:
I HATED the health system in demons souls. I stopped playing the game because of it :| Prefer Dark Souls implementation much better. It's much more forgiving and less tedious.

In Demons Souls:
Farm 1-1 for grass, or buy it
Die on a boss or a regular level
Restart with none or less of my health items and less health because I'm in soul form.
Repeat


Dark Souls:
Spawn at bonfire with a fixed amount of health items
Die on a boss or a regular level
Restart with all of my health and the same amount of health items as before, thus giving me the same chance to make progress. Unless I get cursed of course

Repeat

Also prefer the open world of Dark Souls.
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oh, I remember that now. Thats a definite plus point for Dark Souls. Once you're at a checkpoint bonfire you have a fixed set of health and magic charges to get to the next bonfire, or to beat the boss. So as you get more adept you can start charging through trying to use less health/magic to leave more for the boss. With Demon Souls you're often forced to spend time farming for health before repeating a boss.
 
le.phat said:
- demons souls art direction feel more coherent, and just better designed. The worlds feel much more menacing and bleak. Every world feels and plays alot different from the next. The nexus and its inhibitants feel alot more interesting. And tie up brilliantly into the story. The boss designs are also much better realized and feel way more menacing.
- the story is much more interesting, especially when doing the sidequests. Npcs feel like they have actual personalities and motives for being un the situations that they are.
- the gameplay feels more responsive. This one is a little hard to explain but the controls just feel tighter somehow.
Less emphasis on magic / better balance between magic and melee.
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This and the ending makes Demon's Souls a better game for me. I liked weapons progressions and the unique weapons in Demon's Souls a lot more as well. But I like the armours in Dark better.

MechaX said:
Story-wise, even though they both tell the story in similar ways, I have to give the advantage to Demon's. I was actually curious about Boletaria and seeing so many of these great prolific figures lose their minds or give in added a sort of mystique in the land. Moreover, it also helped that it is implied that Boletaria wasn't always the way it was, giving the impression that there was a serious fall of society in this place. In Dark, I'm just exploring places at random, it seems. Plus, keeping a firm goal in sight at all times ("are you a bad enough dude to stop the Old One?") indeed gave me further motivation to care about what was going on around me. In Dark, I felt like I was really going through the motions; I didn't, and still don't care about the gods/dragons what-not, what they were trying to do, what you were trying to accomplish, other characters like the daughters of chaos, Laurtrec, etc. I feel like Demon's gave me just enough to make me care about what was going on.
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That's also another reason why I like Demon's Souls better than Dark. The endings, both good and evil, were more fleshed out. In dark the good ending doesn't make much sense AT ALL, hell even the evil one doesn't. Some events like
a few NPC's going mad in Dark and turning hollow randomly and attacking you
are so random, and I know there's always a reason why but its never explained well. At least the stuff with Ostrava in Demon's is sort of explained and you know
when you're going to fight the BP version of him
. I guess I just liked Demon's Souls NPC's a lot better than Dark.

Another thing that I liked about Demon's Souls that a lot of the people didn't were the world tendency events. Fighting the Black Phantom versions of white world NPC's, during black world was so much fun. Especially Satsuki and Garl Vinland's sister in world 5. There's nothing like that in Dark, and the two random AI black phantoms I fought in The Depth and Blighttown were easy as hell.

I could co-op with friends easily, and I also helping randoms was more fun in Demon's. With Dark I only like to help with the boss, but with Demon's its more fun going through the whole level with other people.

They are both amazing games though, I just like Demon's a bit better than Dark for the reasons above.
 
I also feel Dark Souls is a bit more grind-y than Demon's Souls. In Demon's Souls, if I ever got stuck, I could just go explore other areas, leveling up while still accomplishing tasks. I only needed to grind for a few areas late in the game, but that was made pretty easy given how easy it was to mine 4-2 and 4-3 for souls.

In Dark Souls I'm finding myself having to grind a couple of levels or upgrade my armor just to progress fairly often. But I think that's because bosses give you jack shit for souls, so progressing doesn't automatically lead to leveling up like it did in the previous game.

The only boss I've beaten so far that's given me more than a few thousand souls is the Gaping Dragon, which gave me 25k.

In Demon's Souls, the FIRST boss, the goddamn Phalanx, gave me a few thousand souls.
 
I enjoyed Dark Souls much more than Demon's Souls...except for the online. Demon's Souls online always worked for me, while Dark Souls online barely works for me. The idea of covenants is amazing as well, but again the online blows. Still like Dark Souls more.
 
makingmusic476 said:
I also feel Dark Souls is a bit more grind-y than Demon's Souls. In Demon's Souls, if I ever got stuck, I could just go explore other areas, leveling up while still accomplishing tasks. I only needed to grind for a few areas late in the game, but that was made pretty easy given how easy it was to mine 4-2 and 4-3 for souls.

In Dark Souls I'm finding myself having to grind a couple of levels or upgrade my armor just to progress fairly often. But I think that's because bosses give you jack shit for souls, so progressing doesn't automatically lead to leveling up like it did in the previous game.

The only boss I've beaten so far that's given me more than a few thousand souls is the Gaping Dragon, which gave me 25k.

In Demon's Souls, the FIRST boss, the goddamn Phalanx, gave me a few thousand souls.
Click to expand...

You can farm souls really easily in Dark Souls from the very first hour of gameplay. An odd area of the game to bitch about tbh. :s

The downside of Dark vs Demon's is the PVP/Message/Co-op stones aren't in your inventory to start with. You either have to join a covenant or buy it from a vendor. Silly design choice there.
 
I have to say that Dark Souls is the first RPG to use "magic charges" (e.g. you can cast magic missile only three times per day, in DnD terms) where the concept didn't boggle my mind in a "this fucking shit makes no sense.. why would they do this" sort of way.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well but they handled the concept of limited uses for magic spells very well in this game.
 
Gattsu25 said:
I have to say that Dark Souls is the first RPG to use "magic charges" (e.g. you can cast magic missile only three times per day, in DnD terms) where the concept didn't boggle my mind in a "this fucking shit makes no sense.. why would they do this" sort of way.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well but they handled the concept of limited uses for magic spells very well in this game.
Click to expand...
So much about how you utilize the bonfires just works. It's an elegant solution to some common stat and inventory management issues. It's the secret to what makes Dark Souls so much smoother of an experience than Demon's Souls.
 
Dark Souls was better but I would like the hub/level based structure back. I love free roaming but for the kind of game it is I felt it made it a bit more cohesive.
 
After a bunch of playthroughs of Demon's Souls, and two of Dark Souls I can easily say Demon's Souls was better.

The level design and enemy placements were better, the weapons/stat stuff and inventory tactility was better, bosses and combat tactics and options seemed better. And the performance was massively better in Demon's Souls and I preferred the world/char tendency too. I just feel Dark Souls felt very rushed and not as thought out as Demon's Souls was.

A PC release of Dark Souls would theoretically help the performance issues, which is still my biggest gripe overall.
 
Much preferred Demon's Souls.

-better online
-self contained levels are better
-I like that each world had it's own distinct feel
-better bosses
-don't really like the humanity and bonfire system
-more consistent as a whole (some of the later levels in Dark Souls sucked)

300 hours vs 90 hours
 
Oh God. The level up menu in Dark Souls is an abomination. Who thought it was a good idea to not tell you had many souls you needed to get your next level up?

Also, the help text for one of the stats (curse resistance, I think) stretched off the screen.

So silly...
 
Also it's very easy to miss the red soapstone if you don't know where it is.

Really, having inventory items for online functions is a terrible idea.
 
I never really finished Demon's Souls, and I finished Dark Souls and still wanted more. That has to count for something on a purely personal level.

However.

Demon's Souls had a couple things going for it that Dark Souls didn't. Demon's Souls was the first legitimately hard game in a long time that didn't rely on cheap tactics to up the difficulty. You definitely earned your deaths. I never once got upset at the game when playing it, just at myself for doing something stupid.

Dark Souls has some definite balance issue, often tied into the level design of some of the crappy later levels. The lock on system is mandatory to hit enemies in some situations, but will certainly lead to your death. Often, late game the smart choice is simply avoiding enemies. Some areas have too few bonfires, or have far too many enemies between them and the boss.

The world was much more fun to explore in Dark Souls, but some remnants of the single stage game design of Demon's didn't translate as well as it could in this. Primarily, the merchants being such a damn hassle to get to, yet being mandatory for certain items. In particular, the last blacksmith being damn near end game was obnoxious.

The Lordvessel and the mechanic it offered came far too late, and was far too limited. It was sorely needed about 20 hours earlier - not to alleviate challenge, but boredom.

The final few bosses were utterly devoid of personality, IMO. Seath was alright, but the rest were dull to the extreme and all had some sort of gimmick to them. Not really my cup of tea, personally. I rushed through them, annihilated them with none of the challenge (the Anor Londo boss encounter was the REAL final boss, really) of the earlier stuff.

Drops are far, far, far too rare, even with full humanity and the special ring. Adding additional tedium to the game for no reason scores no points in my book.

Orange soapstone was pointless and lead to far fewer interactions.

I hated that I basically had to rock 3 weapons and 3 sets of armor through the whole game. More balanced stuff next time around would keep people from the Gold Hemmed/Drake Sword/Lighting Spear/Smough/Havel variations.

...now, it sounds like I just shat on Dark Souls for a few paragraphs, but it really was an awesome experience. Great game, and I hope they improve some of the stuff in the next Souls game.
 
Aside from online issues, Dark Souls seems like the clear winner to me. They both suffer from the same problems(leveling mechanics lowering difficulty, poorly balanced magic/ranged, epic bosses weak to cheesy tactics), though I guess it would be fair to say Dark Souls handles those flaws better. In Dark Souls corner it has one of the most immersive worlds in a videogame, more and better weapon, ring, and armor selection(whip <3), the ambitious(if flawed) covenant system, and generally speaking takes every design and monster and expands it to a new level of complexity(for example compare "The Old Monk" to the area based covenant invasions, or the NPC phantoms of both friendly and hostile persuasions to encourage you to be human). Also I think Dark Souls has one of the best boss fights ever, in Anor Londo, which topples some of the great boss fights in Demon's Souls. Personally I don't hold the second half the game against it, personally loved Tomb of the Giants even. True horror that place was, and vicious fun invading in it was. (P.S. World Tendency sucked)


WanderingWind said:
Demon's Souls was the first legitimately hard game in a long time that didn't rely on cheap tactics to up the difficulty.
Click to expand...

lol. That is only true if you were only paying attention to certain "mainstream" games. Dark Souls isn't cheap either, so whatever.
 
Riposte said:
lol. That is only true if you were only paying attention to certain "mainstream" games. Dark Souls isn't cheap either, so whatever.
Click to expand...

Oh, god. Please tell me you're joking. You did not just try to go full stereotype hipster about your fucking video games...
 
WanderingWind said:
Oh, god. Please tell me you're joking. You did not just try to go full stereotype hipster about your fucking video games...
Click to expand...

What are you even talking about?

Your claim that there hasn't been hard games floating around "in a long time" is nonsense.
 
WanderingWind said:
Oh, god. Please tell me you're joking. You did not just try to go full stereotype hipster about your fucking video games...
Click to expand...

He isn't wrong though, there were plenty of hard games around the same time as DeS and before. DeS wasn't even hard, it's just a test of patience more than anything. :p
 
Riposte said:
What are you even talking about?

Your claim that there hasn't been hard games floating around "in a long time" is nonsense.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're probably right. I wouldn't have heard of the other games. I'm too mainstream.

Kalnos said:
He isn't wrong though, there were plenty of hard games around the same time as DeS and before. DeS wasn't even hard, it's just a test of patience more than anything. :p
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Opinion. Last I checked, I'm allowed to have mine. And if you re-read what I wrote, it's fairly clear that I never even said anything remotely close to there not being any other hard games out beside Demon's Souls.
 
Nothing in Dark Souls touches the Latria and then 4-1 -> 4-2 -> 4-3 progression.

But damn Dark Souls is still good. Just dies in the end though.
 
WanderingWind said:
Oh, god. Please tell me you're joking. You did not just try to go full stereotype hipster about your fucking video games...
Click to expand...

No, you are simply wrong. Nothing wrong with that. You went for the flashy mainstream "oh, Demon's Souls is hard where no game was hard before" line, and now it bites back. Nothing wrong with that either, it is simply a consequence.
 
V_Arnold said:
No, you are simply wrong. Nothing wrong with that. You went for the flashy mainstream "oh, Demon's Souls is hard where no game was hard before" line, and now it bites back. Nothing wrong with that either, it is simply a consequence.
Click to expand...

Wow. You people need to learn how to deal with differing opinions. And if you're going to act so condescending over an opinion on something so utterly personally subjective as difficulty, you may want to learn how to read. I never said that. Not even close.

There is no need for you to act like this, by the way. Not even a little bit.
 
WanderingWind said:
Wow. You people need to learn how to deal with differing opinions. And if you're going to act so condescending over an opinion on something so utterly personally subjective as difficulty, you may want to learn how to read. I never said that. Not even close.

There is no need for you to act like this, by the way. Not even a little bit.
Click to expand...

You people? The people who disagree with you? :D Btw I completely agree with the rest of the post, but it works without that part aswell. Cheapness can be subjective, but that does not mean that any claim regarding what is difficult or not is untouchable.
 
WanderingWind said:
Wow. You people need to learn how to deal with differing opinions. And if you're going to act so condescending over an opinion on something so utterly personally subjective as difficulty, you may want to learn how to read. I never said that. Not even close.

There is no need for you to act like this, by the way. Not even a little bit.
Click to expand...

You're entitled to an opinion, your opinion is just shit. I understand completely that you feel that other hard games are hard simply because they use 'cheap tactics' to up the difficulty, it just isn't true that they all do this outside of DeS the past whatever years.
 
Demon's Souls>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dark Souls.

Hub is much more cohesive and I liked returning to the Maiden to level up. Also liked leaving my loot there and coming back to pick and choose.

No player rating system in DkS.

Message system is more intuitive in DS.

DkS doesn't seem to be as active as DS.

Valley of Defilement.

Sticky white stuff.
 
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