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Derpy Review #101: Demon's Souls (Spoilers, obviously)

(Part 2)

Bosses:

Shekra: It wouldn’t be a Soulsborne game with the bosses being the one of the most memorable part of the game and Demon’s Souls is no exception. The bosses in this game are rather the most unique in the series even with it being the first of the series. True that some bosses you could look at and it wouldn’t look that much different from what you might be fighting in other Soulsborne game, but remember, Demon’s Souls is the first of the series to do these boss, and almost every boss in later games would take something from one of these bosses to shape them of what they become and if you play any other Soulsborne game before playing this game, you will easily find the comparison in the bosses as well as which bosses in this game gave massive influence to other bosses into the series, or even which bosses are still remember to this day with some bosses people will point to as the definite boss that helped them love Demon’s Souls.

Micro: Every boss is very memorable in this whole game, even some bosses that are a joke, looking at you, Phalanx. While a lot of these bosses look rather simple to fight, given the mechanics you got to deal with in this game, these guys will give you a challenge no matter, unless you’re doing a magic build in which case about maybe a third might, still do not underestimate these guys as when they decide to punish you, they’re punishing you greatly and if you die, there’s no stake of Marika next to the boss door. Remember what we said earlier people, this is the grand pappi of Soulsborne, and Elden Ring is the first game to be doing the whole closer checkpoint in the series, which means if you die at the boss, you’re the walk of shame all back to the boss room while trying to no die from everything else that wants to stab your butt, have fun Storm Shrine level 2.

Shekra: Still, the bosses are worth it I say as while some bosses are surprisingly easier than the level itself you just went through, I really like the fights and designs of a lot of these guys, even as every boss in this game has a major gimmick. Let’s start with arguably the most iconic boss in the whole game, that being the Tower Knight, this guy is building of boss as he’s like two stories tall, and carrying a shield that is just as tall and a spear that he’ll use while also using magic spears for distant range, but he’s not alone as he has archer friends ready to snipe you in the fight if you don’t deal with them first. Tower Knight is one of the best bosses in the game and one of the most memorable bosses in the whole series, while he may look simple as you have to chop at his ankle to make him fall so you can smack his head, he can still be very punishing as he has a lot of tricks to hurt you as he can use his size to smite you, either from just simply slamming his foot down or worse, slamming his shield down which will hurt like the dickens. I really love the Tower Knight fight a lot as tis definitely one of the best fights in the whole series, as well as Tower Knight having probably one of the most iconic boss theme in the whole game, which should mentioned this again, and this will be the only time we’ll say this in this marathon, you don’t listen to music unless you are in the save hub zone or fighting a boss, it is dead silence everywhere else in this game.

Micro: Which I might as well bring up the other boss in that is also arguably the most iconic boss in this whole game, that being Flame Lurker. This fire golem bastard look like the most basic of enemies to deal with, but with the mechanics of this game, Flame Lurker is a speedy, powerhouse beast to fight as he is easily not only one of the fastest bosses to fight in the game, but also the most aggressive boss in the game as he loves to close the distance between you and him and tries to beat your ass with either powerful swings or a powerful AOE attack that he has. True that Flame Lurker can be a joke to beat given how weak to magic he is, he still a force to fight as you need to remember, if you’re using spells, you still need a moment to cast the spell to which that moment needed just became Big M’s golden ticket to treat you like punching bag. Besides that, the other bosses, while maybe not to the extension as being as great as Tower Knight or Flame Lurker, are just as memorable in one way or another once you play this game or beaten the boss, you won’t be forgetting these guys any time soon. One of my favorite bosses that since we’ve been mentioned him for a while now is the Adjudicator, and that’s mostly because I can’t help but love how silly he looks. While this tub of lard might look like a copy version of Tower Knight, your mom still stands on its own as Adjudicator can’t be fought the same way as Tower Knight as any attack to his stomach will just bounce off because he’s so fight. To beat Super Kami Guru here, you either have to shoot the bird on his head as that’s the actual weak spot, or hit the knife sticking through his stomach so he can fall down and you can take the moment to beat the birb, and I can’t but love the fight as it help make Adjudicator more memorable, as well as his boss theme with how silly it sounds just like him. And that’s something to point out with this game, as much as every boss in this game has a major gimmick that once you understand the gimmick it can make the boss easier to fight, each bosses are unique in this game and unlike future Soulsborne game including Dark Souls, there are not reskin bosses in this whole game at all. Seriously, take every single boss in this game, but them side by side, and just try to find anything that makes them look like they’re just another version of a different boss, cause you’re not going to find one even with bosses like Leechmonger or the Dirt Colossus, and those two are very similar that they could be the only thing that is even remotely a reskin of a boss.

Shekra: We could go on and on with the bosses in this game, how they function, the arena you fight them in, or the gimmicks they all have like how the Blind Warrrior is a major threat despite being blind but if you have the thief ring, you just turn the fight into a bit of a breeze, or we could even say how some fights are a pure spectacle like with the Storm King in that to beat this airship of a sting ray is to use the Storm Ruler sword, but there are plenty of videos that goes in depth of every bosses, as well as we want you guys to fight these guys yourself. I will say that I do have to other bosses that are a personal favorite of mine, Old Monk and Maiden Astraea. For the Old Monk, I like this fight out of the biggest unique gimmick this fight has in that it’s the only boss in the whole game that changes if you are playing online as the Old Monk will actually summon a player and that player will be the actual boss you have to fight. Now it can annoying to fight a player that spams the worse of spells to deal with when fighting another player, but I can’t help but still love how this mechanic works, and its something that has been done in future Soulsborne games. As for Maiden Astraea, she’s one of the more unique bosses in that she’s not the one you’ll be fighting, its her body guard, Garl Vinland, and this is the only fight that has two major different ways to beat the boss, in that you could ignore Garl and just try to kill Maiden Astraea and that will end the fight given how passive she is, and its easy to kill if you shoot her with area from a very safe distance. But if you choose to fight Garl instead, get ready to for a brutal slugfest with Havel .9 here as Garl delivers painful swings from his weapons while is one of the girthiest enemies in the whole game, only second to one of the optional mini bosses in the game that might as well be a actual boss as well as one of the most difficult bosses to fight, Old King Doran, at least you get half of a sword for beating him. Garl is very painfully tough to beat, but you can use your surroundings to have his attacks bounce off so you can hurt him yourself, unless you are a parry master in which case go to town with him, and if you beat him and walk over to Maiden Astraea to talk to her, she’ll just kill herself in defeat and you just won the fight, and once again, I really love the boss theme of the fight that is playing.

Micro: Is all the fight in this game as great as some of the ones we just mentioned, nope, let’s be honest here people, there some fights that just sucks no matter what, at least two fights I can easily point to of being one of the worst fights in the whole game. Remember that Dragon God near the beginning of the review, that one that if you beat Vanguard, you’ll die to the Puffer the pissed off boi as he punched you in the cheeks, and you’d are hoping that once you see him after you beat Flame Lurker that you get a spectacle of a fight? Yeah, keep dreaming cause this is Metal Gear Dragon: Jank addition as you are only sneaking behind pillars just to shoot two arrows into this dumbass to knock him down and just smack his chin a few time and for some dumb reason that kills the giant guy, talk about a massive disappointment, don’t worry, the next game really tops that by having arguably the worst boss in the Soulsborne series in terms of disappointment. I really don’t like the Dragon God “boss” fight and not because you have to sneak around, but because sneaking around is awkward in this game as you have to be in the right spot behind pillars for him to not see you while you have to destroy some rubbles that is in the way, else you getting a knuckle sandwich to the face. But you want to talk about the worst boss, and something the remake once again disappointedly did not fix at all is of course the maneater fight. This fight is awful, no arguments, it’s the worst fight in the whole game, you’re fighting not one Maneater, but two where the second shows up midway through the fight and have to hope you kill the first Maneater cause fighting both is terrible. You are in a very narrow arena with only one section that is decently wide to roll around in, there is no guard railings to prevent you from falling off, and then there’s the Maneaters themselves. These guys are one of the more aggressive bosses in the game, second to Flame Lurker, and they will charge at you, try to swing at you, blast you with some f$%k you soundwave that hurts like hell, and worst of all, they love to fly. Ok, so they’re a tough fight, what makes them a hard fight you might be thinking, its because they’re also idiots. The Maneater’s AI has to be the stupidest thing in this whole game as they will just love to do attacks that makes no sense at all, even in the air where they might charge in the air, which they are only supposed to charge while on the ground. This might not sound like the worst thing except it does as it makes the Maneaters the unpredictable boss in the whole game where they’ll either do nothing and you can go to town on them for a minute or they’ll cancel their attacks midway of a attack to do something you have no control of avoiding, or in the worst of case, f$%ck off and fly back to the arena and now you’re stuck in arena with no choice but to kill yourself and do the whole thing all over again, as well as the walk of shame to the boss fight. And to the developer that put that black phantom Mindflayer in the middle of the way that you can’t walk around, f$%k you too.

Shekra: Yeah, some of the worst fights in this game can defiantly suck a lot, but at least they are far and few between depending on how you play this game.

Micro: Before we forget and continue on, there is one more thing that I should address that gives the original version the one up over the remake, and that is the boss themes. I’ll say this right now, the boss theme in the remake, I do not like compare to the original, provided I can hear the damn things. Yeah, I’m not kidding, for some reason, I know this is from the game itself cause I tried other games on my PS5, but the sound direction in this game is so quiet that I had to crank the volume on my tv just to hear anything, its almost like the composers are embarrassed to play any decibel higher than for a ant to hear. As for when you can hear the soundtrack at all, which you’ll need Youtube to do that, I’m still not a fan of the remake versions, and no, I’m not saying that because you’d be thinking I’m some purest for the original. If you listen to the original, they stick out just as much as the bosses they are associated with, some songs are creepy in the way they sound, some sounding mythical, some sounding very weird and dumb, and plenty sounding bombastic that I really love. Take the biggest example that you can easily hear, Tower Knight’s theme, you can hear a contrast difference between the original and the remake, and I prefer the original by a country mile with how the instruments are used, the choir with their “Ha, haha ha,” voice in the theme, it fits Tower Knight by a lot, where as the remake sounds almost generic to a fantasy theme. I know once again that this sounds like nitpicking at its finest, but again, bosses are the only time you’ll be listening to music in this game besides the Nexus, and so its important that the theme is just as good as the bosses you are fighting in some way.

Shekra: I guess it help fuel the debate of which version you want to play more of in this title, granted you could just mute the PS5 version and pull up the song of the boss theme to listen to while fighting the boss themselves, but in the end, no matter what, at least you’ll most likely be fighting a great boss that you’ll enjoy in this game. That said, about time we wrap up this review.

Ending:

Shekra: So something we neglected to mentioned is that the finale boss in the game is in fact in the first world you visit, Boletaria Palace, ergo why it has four levels instead of three like the rest. However, after you beat Tower Knight, you can’t continue the world until you have at least beaten one of the other archdemons in the other regions, the Dragon God, the Old Monk, Storm King or Maiden Astraea, after beating one of them, you can fight the “finale” boss of the game. I say that now because you’ll find out that the real finale boss of the game is after you beat world 1-4 boss, but compare to the true finale boss, world 1-4 is the real finale boss and you’ll see why. Not that it matters as the only way to fight the true finale boss from what we understand you still need to beat every archedemon in the game no matter what, so every boss at this point.

Micro: And you’re defiantly going to want to fight the other bosses first no matter what, cause the finale areas of Boletaria is not a f$%king joke to say the least. You got some of the hardest enemies ready to ambush you, knights that will shred your health while ganging on you, fat asses ready to be a smug prick of running away like a b$%tch, if that wasn’t enough, you got the blue dragon to deal with as well and this bastard is more annoying to shoot arrows at than his red brother but at least you get a shortcut in the terms not having to deal with the dragon anymore. But that’s nothing compare what the game is building up, the real finale boss of the game, False King Allant, and holy crap, unless you this is your second time beating the game, get ready for the ass beating of your life as Allant is arguably one of the hardest bosses in the series as well as possibly being one of the scariest if you’re a cocky prick. Allant can hit like a semi truck, has several long range attacks to cover distance, a giant f$%k you blast that covers half of the arena if you don’t take the moment to hit him when he starts the attacks, and covers distance faster than amazon delivery boy during same day shipping at 11:59 PM, god bless those poor bastards.

Shekra: Can you please stop doing that, I’m pretty sure Scale got banned last week when asking for parts.

Micro: Never. But that’s not why I’m saying False King Allant is probably the scariest boss in the series from all the hard hitting attacks he brings to the table. No, the reason I say that is because King Allan is the only boss in the whole series from what I can tell that steal one level up from you if he manages to grab you. No, I mean it in that if he grabs you, he will steal one level up that you work your ass to get the souls to level up at least one time from you, and you aren’t getting it back without grinding, and he can do it several times. Now, I’m not sure how many times Allant can steal your levels from you and to top it off, he does give a very obvious animation that you can dodge to avoid getting grab, but remember that he can close the distance very fast, his attacks hurt like hell, and if you die, you have to not only go through the walk of shame, but the elevator of shame where you have to spend at least 49 seconds riding the damn thing to the boss arena, not including having the thing go down to the first floor, and yes, I did indeed time this damn elevator just to let you know of that specific number.

Shekra: Even with your best of builds, do not underestimate this guy as he is defiantly the most punishing of bosses in this whole series. And be so glad that a cut concept didn’t make it to this game where the original idea was to have the blue dragon join the boss fight, that would’ve been pure hell to deal with. But no matter what, once you manage to master this game, or be cheap cheater to use the gold coin glitch if you know how to use it, you’ll defeat False King Allant and finale beaten the toughest of challenge in the game. And good thing too as there is still one matter to deal with and that is the Old One, yeah, remember him, well, we still need to deal with it and once you beaten all the major bosses in the game, the Maiden in Black will take you to the Old One that is… a giant tree with hole for a mouth….. for incomprehensible monster to drive weak minds insane, it sure looks like an easy Australia flint starter. But you have to go inside it, and once inside it, you have to fight the true finale boss, the real King Allant…. And boy talk about a push over after everything you dealt with before this slug of a broken man.

Micro: I know the man point of this guy is to show just how fallen the king has gone through to be this pathetic creature that you’d had to be purposely taking hits to die from him, but doesn’t mean its still a pathetic easy boss that give Leechmonger a run for its money. But after pouring salt and putting the king out of his misery, you beaten the game and gotten your real reward, the other half of the sword that makes the ultimate large sword. If you remember earlier we mentioned a mini boss, Doran, if you pass his test and not test your luck on the tough bastard, he will give you Demonbrandt the other half of the sword that can fuse with the sword you get for beating Allant, Soulbrandt, and with False King Allant’s soul, you can take these three to a special blacksmith NPC in Stonefang tunnel that can fuse the three to make the Northern Regalia a powerful sword that I can’t use because I need to invest a s$%t ton of points to a lot of states to wield the f$%ker.

Shekra: Which leads to the final issue to deal with in the game, what ending do you choose. For you, once you beaten Allant, the maiden in black shall try to complete her finale duty and lulled the Old One to sleep, sealing herself in the process while you are free to leave and Boletaria is free from the Old One, until some idiot decides to unleash Soul Arts once again and wake this giant thing again. However, its here you get a choice, do you leave and let the Maiden in Black do what she is meant to do for the Old one, oooorrrrr, do you kill her on the spot and side with the Old one, and let it continue its rampage to consume souls and drive humanity and possibly life into extinction? There is no definitive answer or even a cannon answer, much like in almost every Soulsborne game as what you pick is on you, and to be honest, we’re not going to bother to say which one we picked for this review as we think either ending could easily fit to how the game ends, after all, we might be playing as a warrior that has been killing demons just to stop the Old One and finally be free from the Nexus, however, we also have been consuming so much souls that it might be very clear we want power.

Micro: Whatever the case is, once you beaten the game, you get New game plus where you get to do everything again to how you want to do it with everything being harder to kill. Soooo, is Yuria by any chance available if I take the option to let the big tree sleep?

Shekra: Simp.

Conclusion:

Micro: Phew, we talked a lot in this game, far more than I think we actually wanted to originally.

Shekra: I’ll say, we were hoping to get this review done last week, but because we got distracted by some things and wanted to cover everything we wanted to talk about, we may have gone overboard on a bunch of details. But on the bright side, with this review, some Soulsborne game will be easier to talk about given that most of them follow the same structure as this game but in their own way, so at the very least we won’t be trying to repeat what we said earlier but instead talk about what changes and refinements the game have made to help it stand out from previous games.

Micro: Until we get to Sekiro and it becomes its own beast to talk about, looking forward to that review…..

Shekra: But back to the main topic at hand, what do we think about Demon’s Souls and do we recommend to others. Well, obviously the answer is yes, we love the game a lot if it isn’t obvious, granted it is looking through a very bias outlook of the game, but even if we remove the “rose tinted glasses” that people love over use, the game still holds up a lot that we would recommend, especially to new players. Yes, its still a difficult game, and it can be rather janky if your playing the PS3 version, which is the most likely version you’ll be playing or emulating unless you feel like buying a PS5 version and getting this game, however, this is honestly the perfect game of the Soulsborne series to get into, it can be short enough to beat the game in a week or two if you feel like investing the time your first time playing the game, combat is the easiest to understand and can be the basics to help understand future Soulsborne games, there are plenty of items to obtain that can help you through out the game and more once you understand the mechanics of the game, as well understand the key importance of be patient with this game and make sure to look around your surroundings. Besides that, the bosses are memorable, for better or worse for some, but they can still be fun to fight if you can get to them, the levels are interesting and great to explore even if the level design is the most linear in the series, and even if you do have a hard time, there are some means to make things easier if you take the moment to invest the time to look at some things, whether through item description or just looking things up, I won’t judge if you feel like needing a walkthrough of some things. Yes there is still some annoying things that you will have to bare through no matter what, but if you can bare through them, I think you will have a very rewarding experience that you might be able to appreciate that this game is subtly trying to give you. As such, we’re giving the game a solid gold rank.

Micro: And like that, one game down, five more to go with this marathon, oh boy. Well, at the very least, we got rather the more tougher part of trying to lay the ground works of what you will be expecting in future reviews with these games. With any luck, the later games should mostly be faster to get reviews than how long it taken us to get this one.

Shekra: To be fair to game like I said, we did got distracted with something that we wanted to get it over with to make a future Derpy review faster to write instead of taking two weeks like now to get it down. Besides, like you’re complaining given you taken the moment to catch up on some manga and anime.

Micro: Fair enough. Anyways, hope you guys enjoy the review as things will get interesting as we look into the rest of the games, more so with Dark Souls 2 as I’m rather surprise with the poll I made involving this marathon.

Shekra: Well, it will have to wait until we get through the next game, until then, hope you have a good day, and remember, you have a heart of gold. Don’t let the challenge take that away from you.

Micro & Shekra: Bye.

Description

Derpy Review #101: Demon's Souls (Spoilers, obviously)

(Part 2)

Bosses:

Shekra: It wouldn’t be a Soulsborne game with the bosses being the one of the most memorable part of the game and Demon’s Souls is no exception. The bosses in this game are rather the most unique in the series even with it being the first of the series. True that some bosses you could look at and it wouldn’t look that much different from what you might be fighting in other Soulsborne game, but remember, Demon’s Souls is the first of the series to do these boss, and almost every boss in later games would take something from one of these bosses to shape them of what they become and if you play any other Soulsborne game before playing this game, you will easily find the comparison in the bosses as well as which bosses in this game gave massive influence to other bosses into the series, or even which bosses are still remember to this day with some bosses people will point to as the definite boss that helped them love Demon’s Souls.

Micro: Every boss is very memorable in this whole game, even some bosses that are a joke, looking at you, Phalanx. While a lot of these bosses look rather simple to fight, given the mechanics you got to deal with in this game, these guys will give you a challenge no matter, unless you’re doing a magic build in which case about maybe a third might, still do not underestimate these guys as when they decide to punish you, they’re punishing you greatly and if you die, there’s no stake of Marika next to the boss door. Remember what we said earlier people, this is the grand pappi of Soulsborne, and Elden Ring is the first game to be doing the whole closer checkpoint in the series, which means if you die at the boss, you’re the walk of shame all back to the boss room while trying to no die from everything else that wants to stab your butt, have fun Storm Shrine level 2.

Shekra: Still, the bosses are worth it I say as while some bosses are surprisingly easier than the level itself you just went through, I really like the fights and designs of a lot of these guys, even as every boss in this game has a major gimmick. Let’s start with arguably the most iconic boss in the whole game, that being the Tower Knight, this guy is building of boss as he’s like two stories tall, and carrying a shield that is just as tall and a spear that he’ll use while also using magic spears for distant range, but he’s not alone as he has archer friends ready to snipe you in the fight if you don’t deal with them first. Tower Knight is one of the best bosses in the game and one of the most memorable bosses in the whole series, while he may look simple as you have to chop at his ankle to make him fall so you can smack his head, he can still be very punishing as he has a lot of tricks to hurt you as he can use his size to smite you, either from just simply slamming his foot down or worse, slamming his shield down which will hurt like the dickens. I really love the Tower Knight fight a lot as tis definitely one of the best fights in the whole series, as well as Tower Knight having probably one of the most iconic boss theme in the whole game, which should mentioned this again, and this will be the only time we’ll say this in this marathon, you don’t listen to music unless you are in the save hub zone or fighting a boss, it is dead silence everywhere else in this game.

Micro: Which I might as well bring up the other boss in that is also arguably the most iconic boss in this whole game, that being Flame Lurker. This fire golem bastard look like the most basic of enemies to deal with, but with the mechanics of this game, Flame Lurker is a speedy, powerhouse beast to fight as he is easily not only one of the fastest bosses to fight in the game, but also the most aggressive boss in the game as he loves to close the distance between you and him and tries to beat your ass with either powerful swings or a powerful AOE attack that he has. True that Flame Lurker can be a joke to beat given how weak to magic he is, he still a force to fight as you need to remember, if you’re using spells, you still need a moment to cast the spell to which that moment needed just became Big M’s golden ticket to treat you like punching bag. Besides that, the other bosses, while maybe not to the extension as being as great as Tower Knight or Flame Lurker, are just as memorable in one way or another once you play this game or beaten the boss, you won’t be forgetting these guys any time soon. One of my favorite bosses that since we’ve been mentioned him for a while now is the Adjudicator, and that’s mostly because I can’t help but love how silly he looks. While this tub of lard might look like a copy version of Tower Knight, your mom still stands on its own as Adjudicator can’t be fought the same way as Tower Knight as any attack to his stomach will just bounce off because he’s so fight. To beat Super Kami Guru here, you either have to shoot the bird on his head as that’s the actual weak spot, or hit the knife sticking through his stomach so he can fall down and you can take the moment to beat the birb, and I can’t but love the fight as it help make Adjudicator more memorable, as well as his boss theme with how silly it sounds just like him. And that’s something to point out with this game, as much as every boss in this game has a major gimmick that once you understand the gimmick it can make the boss easier to fight, each bosses are unique in this game and unlike future Soulsborne game including Dark Souls, there are not reskin bosses in this whole game at all. Seriously, take every single boss in this game, but them side by side, and just try to find anything that makes them look like they’re just another version of a different boss, cause you’re not going to find one even with bosses like Leechmonger or the Dirt Colossus, and those two are very similar that they could be the only thing that is even remotely a reskin of a boss.

Shekra: We could go on and on with the bosses in this game, how they function, the arena you fight them in, or the gimmicks they all have like how the Blind Warrrior is a major threat despite being blind but if you have the thief ring, you just turn the fight into a bit of a breeze, or we could even say how some fights are a pure spectacle like with the Storm King in that to beat this airship of a sting ray is to use the Storm Ruler sword, but there are plenty of videos that goes in depth of every bosses, as well as we want you guys to fight these guys yourself. I will say that I do have to other bosses that are a personal favorite of mine, Old Monk and Maiden Astraea. For the Old Monk, I like this fight out of the biggest unique gimmick this fight has in that it’s the only boss in the whole game that changes if you are playing online as the Old Monk will actually summon a player and that player will be the actual boss you have to fight. Now it can annoying to fight a player that spams the worse of spells to deal with when fighting another player, but I can’t help but still love how this mechanic works, and its something that has been done in future Soulsborne games. As for Maiden Astraea, she’s one of the more unique bosses in that she’s not the one you’ll be fighting, its her body guard, Garl Vinland, and this is the only fight that has two major different ways to beat the boss, in that you could ignore Garl and just try to kill Maiden Astraea and that will end the fight given how passive she is, and its easy to kill if you shoot her with area from a very safe distance. But if you choose to fight Garl instead, get ready to for a brutal slugfest with Havel .9 here as Garl delivers painful swings from his weapons while is one of the girthiest enemies in the whole game, only second to one of the optional mini bosses in the game that might as well be a actual boss as well as one of the most difficult bosses to fight, Old King Doran, at least you get half of a sword for beating him. Garl is very painfully tough to beat, but you can use your surroundings to have his attacks bounce off so you can hurt him yourself, unless you are a parry master in which case go to town with him, and if you beat him and walk over to Maiden Astraea to talk to her, she’ll just kill herself in defeat and you just won the fight, and once again, I really love the boss theme of the fight that is playing.

Micro: Is all the fight in this game as great as some of the ones we just mentioned, nope, let’s be honest here people, there some fights that just sucks no matter what, at least two fights I can easily point to of being one of the worst fights in the whole game. Remember that Dragon God near the beginning of the review, that one that if you beat Vanguard, you’ll die to the Puffer the pissed off boi as he punched you in the cheeks, and you’d are hoping that once you see him after you beat Flame Lurker that you get a spectacle of a fight? Yeah, keep dreaming cause this is Metal Gear Dragon: Jank addition as you are only sneaking behind pillars just to shoot two arrows into this dumbass to knock him down and just smack his chin a few time and for some dumb reason that kills the giant guy, talk about a massive disappointment, don’t worry, the next game really tops that by having arguably the worst boss in the Soulsborne series in terms of disappointment. I really don’t like the Dragon God “boss” fight and not because you have to sneak around, but because sneaking around is awkward in this game as you have to be in the right spot behind pillars for him to not see you while you have to destroy some rubbles that is in the way, else you getting a knuckle sandwich to the face. But you want to talk about the worst boss, and something the remake once again disappointedly did not fix at all is of course the maneater fight. This fight is awful, no arguments, it’s the worst fight in the whole game, you’re fighting not one Maneater, but two where the second shows up midway through the fight and have to hope you kill the first Maneater cause fighting both is terrible. You are in a very narrow arena with only one section that is decently wide to roll around in, there is no guard railings to prevent you from falling off, and then there’s the Maneaters themselves. These guys are one of the more aggressive bosses in the game, second to Flame Lurker, and they will charge at you, try to swing at you, blast you with some f$%k you soundwave that hurts like hell, and worst of all, they love to fly. Ok, so they’re a tough fight, what makes them a hard fight you might be thinking, its because they’re also idiots. The Maneater’s AI has to be the stupidest thing in this whole game as they will just love to do attacks that makes no sense at all, even in the air where they might charge in the air, which they are only supposed to charge while on the ground. This might not sound like the worst thing except it does as it makes the Maneaters the unpredictable boss in the whole game where they’ll either do nothing and you can go to town on them for a minute or they’ll cancel their attacks midway of a attack to do something you have no control of avoiding, or in the worst of case, f$%ck off and fly back to the arena and now you’re stuck in arena with no choice but to kill yourself and do the whole thing all over again, as well as the walk of shame to the boss fight. And to the developer that put that black phantom Mindflayer in the middle of the way that you can’t walk around, f$%k you too.

Shekra: Yeah, some of the worst fights in this game can defiantly suck a lot, but at least they are far and few between depending on how you play this game.

Micro: Before we forget and continue on, there is one more thing that I should address that gives the original version the one up over the remake, and that is the boss themes. I’ll say this right now, the boss theme in the remake, I do not like compare to the original, provided I can hear the damn things. Yeah, I’m not kidding, for some reason, I know this is from the game itself cause I tried other games on my PS5, but the sound direction in this game is so quiet that I had to crank the volume on my tv just to hear anything, its almost like the composers are embarrassed to play any decibel higher than for a ant to hear. As for when you can hear the soundtrack at all, which you’ll need Youtube to do that, I’m still not a fan of the remake versions, and no, I’m not saying that because you’d be thinking I’m some purest for the original. If you listen to the original, they stick out just as much as the bosses they are associated with, some songs are creepy in the way they sound, some sounding mythical, some sounding very weird and dumb, and plenty sounding bombastic that I really love. Take the biggest example that you can easily hear, Tower Knight’s theme, you can hear a contrast difference between the original and the remake, and I prefer the original by a country mile with how the instruments are used, the choir with their “Ha, haha ha,” voice in the theme, it fits Tower Knight by a lot, where as the remake sounds almost generic to a fantasy theme. I know once again that this sounds like nitpicking at its finest, but again, bosses are the only time you’ll be listening to music in this game besides the Nexus, and so its important that the theme is just as good as the bosses you are fighting in some way.

Shekra: I guess it help fuel the debate of which version you want to play more of in this title, granted you could just mute the PS5 version and pull up the song of the boss theme to listen to while fighting the boss themselves, but in the end, no matter what, at least you’ll most likely be fighting a great boss that you’ll enjoy in this game. That said, about time we wrap up this review.

Ending:

Shekra: So something we neglected to mentioned is that the finale boss in the game is in fact in the first world you visit, Boletaria Palace, ergo why it has four levels instead of three like the rest. However, after you beat Tower Knight, you can’t continue the world until you have at least beaten one of the other archdemons in the other regions, the Dragon God, the Old Monk, Storm King or Maiden Astraea, after beating one of them, you can fight the “finale” boss of the game. I say that now because you’ll find out that the real finale boss of the game is after you beat world 1-4 boss, but compare to the true finale boss, world 1-4 is the real finale boss and you’ll see why. Not that it matters as the only way to fight the true finale boss from what we understand you still need to beat every archedemon in the game no matter what, so every boss at this point.

Micro: And you’re defiantly going to want to fight the other bosses first no matter what, cause the finale areas of Boletaria is not a f$%king joke to say the least. You got some of the hardest enemies ready to ambush you, knights that will shred your health while ganging on you, fat asses ready to be a smug prick of running away like a b$%tch, if that wasn’t enough, you got the blue dragon to deal with as well and this bastard is more annoying to shoot arrows at than his red brother but at least you get a shortcut in the terms not having to deal with the dragon anymore. But that’s nothing compare what the game is building up, the real finale boss of the game, False King Allant, and holy crap, unless you this is your second time beating the game, get ready for the ass beating of your life as Allant is arguably one of the hardest bosses in the series as well as possibly being one of the scariest if you’re a cocky prick. Allant can hit like a semi truck, has several long range attacks to cover distance, a giant f$%k you blast that covers half of the arena if you don’t take the moment to hit him when he starts the attacks, and covers distance faster than amazon delivery boy during same day shipping at 11:59 PM, god bless those poor bastards.

Shekra: Can you please stop doing that, I’m pretty sure Scale got banned last week when asking for parts.

Micro: Never. But that’s not why I’m saying False King Allant is probably the scariest boss in the series from all the hard hitting attacks he brings to the table. No, the reason I say that is because King Allan is the only boss in the whole series from what I can tell that steal one level up from you if he manages to grab you. No, I mean it in that if he grabs you, he will steal one level up that you work your ass to get the souls to level up at least one time from you, and you aren’t getting it back without grinding, and he can do it several times. Now, I’m not sure how many times Allant can steal your levels from you and to top it off, he does give a very obvious animation that you can dodge to avoid getting grab, but remember that he can close the distance very fast, his attacks hurt like hell, and if you die, you have to not only go through the walk of shame, but the elevator of shame where you have to spend at least 49 seconds riding the damn thing to the boss arena, not including having the thing go down to the first floor, and yes, I did indeed time this damn elevator just to let you know of that specific number.

Shekra: Even with your best of builds, do not underestimate this guy as he is defiantly the most punishing of bosses in this whole series. And be so glad that a cut concept didn’t make it to this game where the original idea was to have the blue dragon join the boss fight, that would’ve been pure hell to deal with. But no matter what, once you manage to master this game, or be cheap cheater to use the gold coin glitch if you know how to use it, you’ll defeat False King Allant and finale beaten the toughest of challenge in the game. And good thing too as there is still one matter to deal with and that is the Old One, yeah, remember him, well, we still need to deal with it and once you beaten all the major bosses in the game, the Maiden in Black will take you to the Old One that is… a giant tree with hole for a mouth….. for incomprehensible monster to drive weak minds insane, it sure looks like an easy Australia flint starter. But you have to go inside it, and once inside it, you have to fight the true finale boss, the real King Allant…. And boy talk about a push over after everything you dealt with before this slug of a broken man.

Micro: I know the man point of this guy is to show just how fallen the king has gone through to be this pathetic creature that you’d had to be purposely taking hits to die from him, but doesn’t mean its still a pathetic easy boss that give Leechmonger a run for its money. But after pouring salt and putting the king out of his misery, you beaten the game and gotten your real reward, the other half of the sword that makes the ultimate large sword. If you remember earlier we mentioned a mini boss, Doran, if you pass his test and not test your luck on the tough bastard, he will give you Demonbrandt the other half of the sword that can fuse with the sword you get for beating Allant, Soulbrandt, and with False King Allant’s soul, you can take these three to a special blacksmith NPC in Stonefang tunnel that can fuse the three to make the Northern Regalia a powerful sword that I can’t use because I need to invest a s$%t ton of points to a lot of states to wield the f$%ker.

Shekra: Which leads to the final issue to deal with in the game, what ending do you choose. For you, once you beaten Allant, the maiden in black shall try to complete her finale duty and lulled the Old One to sleep, sealing herself in the process while you are free to leave and Boletaria is free from the Old One, until some idiot decides to unleash Soul Arts once again and wake this giant thing again. However, its here you get a choice, do you leave and let the Maiden in Black do what she is meant to do for the Old one, oooorrrrr, do you kill her on the spot and side with the Old one, and let it continue its rampage to consume souls and drive humanity and possibly life into extinction? There is no definitive answer or even a cannon answer, much like in almost every Soulsborne game as what you pick is on you, and to be honest, we’re not going to bother to say which one we picked for this review as we think either ending could easily fit to how the game ends, after all, we might be playing as a warrior that has been killing demons just to stop the Old One and finally be free from the Nexus, however, we also have been consuming so much souls that it might be very clear we want power.

Micro: Whatever the case is, once you beaten the game, you get New game plus where you get to do everything again to how you want to do it with everything being harder to kill. Soooo, is Yuria by any chance available if I take the option to let the big tree sleep?

Shekra: Simp.

Conclusion:

Micro: Phew, we talked a lot in this game, far more than I think we actually wanted to originally.

Shekra: I’ll say, we were hoping to get this review done last week, but because we got distracted by some things and wanted to cover everything we wanted to talk about, we may have gone overboard on a bunch of details. But on the bright side, with this review, some Soulsborne game will be easier to talk about given that most of them follow the same structure as this game but in their own way, so at the very least we won’t be trying to repeat what we said earlier but instead talk about what changes and refinements the game have made to help it stand out from previous games.

Micro: Until we get to Sekiro and it becomes its own beast to talk about, looking forward to that review…..

Shekra: But back to the main topic at hand, what do we think about Demon’s Souls and do we recommend to others. Well, obviously the answer is yes, we love the game a lot if it isn’t obvious, granted it is looking through a very bias outlook of the game, but even if we remove the “rose tinted glasses” that people love over use, the game still holds up a lot that we would recommend, especially to new players. Yes, its still a difficult game, and it can be rather janky if your playing the PS3 version, which is the most likely version you’ll be playing or emulating unless you feel like buying a PS5 version and getting this game, however, this is honestly the perfect game of the Soulsborne series to get into, it can be short enough to beat the game in a week or two if you feel like investing the time your first time playing the game, combat is the easiest to understand and can be the basics to help understand future Soulsborne games, there are plenty of items to obtain that can help you through out the game and more once you understand the mechanics of the game, as well understand the key importance of be patient with this game and make sure to look around your surroundings. Besides that, the bosses are memorable, for better or worse for some, but they can still be fun to fight if you can get to them, the levels are interesting and great to explore even if the level design is the most linear in the series, and even if you do have a hard time, there are some means to make things easier if you take the moment to invest the time to look at some things, whether through item description or just looking things up, I won’t judge if you feel like needing a walkthrough of some things. Yes there is still some annoying things that you will have to bare through no matter what, but if you can bare through them, I think you will have a very rewarding experience that you might be able to appreciate that this game is subtly trying to give you. As such, we’re giving the game a solid gold rank.

Micro: And like that, one game down, five more to go with this marathon, oh boy. Well, at the very least, we got rather the more tougher part of trying to lay the ground works of what you will be expecting in future reviews with these games. With any luck, the later games should mostly be faster to get reviews than how long it taken us to get this one.

Shekra: To be fair to game like I said, we did got distracted with something that we wanted to get it over with to make a future Derpy review faster to write instead of taking two weeks like now to get it down. Besides, like you’re complaining given you taken the moment to catch up on some manga and anime.

Micro: Fair enough. Anyways, hope you guys enjoy the review as things will get interesting as we look into the rest of the games, more so with Dark Souls 2 as I’m rather surprise with the poll I made involving this marathon.

Shekra: Well, it will have to wait until we get through the next game, until then, hope you have a good day, and remember, you have a heart of gold. Don’t let the challenge take that away from you.

Micro & Shekra: Bye.