UPDATE
I finished the game, and my god was it awesome.
It was not as hard as I thought it would be, mainly because everyone was calling the difficulty the biggest feature of the game.
Mind you...with enough skill the game will be incredibly fun. It is intense when you are running low on health and know that at any time you can die and have to start from the beginning.
The boss battles are pretty epic, not only because of the monster design but also because of that fear of having to restart the level.
It may sound dated, but it is a very important part of the game.
if there were no death penalties, then everyone will just finish the game eventually. If you have lots of checkpoints, then theres no problem with dying repeatedly.
Please note, that you do not lose all of your souls for good if you die.
If you die, you leave behind a bloodstain, then enter the level from the beginning with enemies completely respawning, and have to touch your bloodstain where you died to get those souls back. However if you die AGAIN before you touch it, you leave behind another blood stain. You can only have one bloodstain at a time, therefore you lose however many souls were in that first blood stain.
It adds a level of intensity that a lot of games havent given me in the past. Diablo 2 was awesome in that death lead to a loss of exp, so you had to be careful.
Theres a world tendency system too. Some games, when you die repeatedly, offer you an easy mode since you suck so bad (devil may cry series for example).
However, when you are in body form, and you die, the world shifts to a black tendency.
The blacker the world tendency gets, the MORE HP the enemies have, the MORE DAMAGE they do, the LESS HP you have, but the better the drops.
So if you start playing stupid, the game punishes you. Mind you, if you die even once, your soul form only has half the hp lol.
This game has consumed a large part of my life. You have to perfect your skill, strategy, and place careful emphasis on your stats and gear.
The PVP adds a huge bonus to the game. When you are in body form, a player in soul form has the ability to "invade" your game as a
black phantom. His goal is to kill you, and your goal is to kill him.
If he kills you, he revives in body form, and if you die, you go to soul form (thus stealing your life).
If you kill him, your world shifts to the white tendency.
The game can be frustrating, but when you die, its your fault. So you learn to play smarter, and you get better at the game.
Its one of those things where, you as a player get better to beat the game, you dont just keep playing while sucking but end up beating it because theres no penalty to dying.
Im now in New Game +. Everything is harder lol.
LAST NOTE:
You can drop red eye stones. What these do is lay down a challenge in the form of a message on the floor. If someone chooses to accept, you go to their world and fight in a duel. The loser drops a level, and the winner gains the amount of souls equivalent to the amount of souls needed to gain that level. Its like gambling with game time almost since it can take hours to gain the amount of souls at the higher levels through normal means like farming.
EDIT: Your weapon choice plays a pivotal role in both pve and pvp. The
strongest weapons may not be the best choice because of how they attack. They are sluggish, and you cant roll. But if you connect an attack it will do insane amounts of damage to the other person and stagger/knock them down.
My weapon of choice is the
Halberd. It has good reach so sword users cant reach me., and you can do both slashing or peircing attacks.
Spears however gain the ability to attack while your shield is raised spartan style. Someone can deck themselves in armor, carry a
large shield, and stay defending WHILE attacking. However this person cannot move quickly or dodge attacks. This means it may be hard to break through his defense to attack him directly, BUT It can be easier for me to dodge his attacks and get behind him leading to a high damaging back stab attack.
The upgrade system works like many crafting systems in other games. Example, my Halberd is now called, "Crushing Halberd +5". I followed the "Crushing" upgrade path which deviates from the standard upgrade route. Using stones found in the game (shards, large shards, chunks, and perfect stone like diablo) you can upgrade your weapon based on your likes/dislikes. The "Crushing" attribute requires "greystones" and as you upgrade using this stream, the weapon increases in damage scaling from your "Strength" attribute. Other stones can be used to increase based on dex, or strength and dex, or magic and faith, or a combination of all of the above. The system is relatively deep. You eventually gain the ability to forge the souls of felled bosses into your weapons.
Edited by retrovirus, 12 November 2009 - 04:14 PM.
Sign In
Create Account
Back to top
