" I've heard it's quite hard "

"The one specifically, is after yuo get to the second reaper in 4-2 and bring it down, you have those invisible guys, and you have to kinda turtle against the wall with a shield up and hope they don't break it in one go :P  I beat it however, with essentially a curved falchion +1 which went to a +5 by the end, and soul ray. Rough game. "

Speaking of nasty enemies - given that I don't have anti-magic field, any tips for taking down black phantom squid face-magic-Mind Flayers quickly? 
 
Especially in NG+(+) and further on. Tactic for non-BP ones I'm fine with - I can take those out quickly and efficiently, but the black phantom ones in 4-2 and 4-3 are time-consuming, basically   
grinding down their health from a distance with bows. My melee weapons (Northern Regalia, pure black CT) deals decent damage against these, but the narrow stairwell means it's hard to navigate/roll around them and get behind without risking being blasted by magic ( that in NG++ IS a one-hitter, perhaps two if in body form...) 
 
( running up towards old monk is a chore, basically with the two BP's requiring ~10-15 arrows a piece from a +5 sticky compound long bow... )  

I have a different opinion of the difficulty... the begining is easy as fuck and toward the end it gets difficult, the only stage i have trouble with is 1-3 and 1-4 (i have yet to beat 1-4, but theres too many new games coming out so i dunno when ill get back into it)

" Speaking of nasty enemies - given that I don't have anti-magic field, any tips for taking down black phantom squid face-magic-Mind Flayers quickly?  Especially in NG+(+) and further on. Tactic for non-BP ones I'm fine with - I can take those out quickly and efficiently, but the black phantom ones in 4-2 and 4-3 are time-consuming, basically   grinding down their health from a distance with bows. My melee weapons (Northern Regalia, pure black CT) deals decent damage against these, but the narrow stairwell means it's hard to navigate/roll around them and get behind without risking being blasted by magic ( that in NG++ IS a one-hitter, perhaps two if in body form...)  ( running up towards old monk is a chore, basically with the two BP's requiring ~10-15 arrows a piece from a +5 sticky compound long bow... )   "

Ironically, I wish the game kept its challenge throughout but after you get some gear, you end up just tanking shit. This is what newgame+ is for! Btw that game is amazing.

" @apekatt said:

" Speaking of nasty enemies - given that I don't have anti-magic field, any tips for taking down black phantom squid face-magic-Mind Flayers quickly?  Especially in NG+(+) and further on. Tactic for non-BP ones I'm fine with - I can take those out quickly and efficiently, but the black phantom ones in 4-2 and 4-3 are time-consuming, basically   grinding down their health from a distance with bows. My melee weapons (Northern Regalia, pure black CT) deals decent damage against these, but the narrow stairwell means it's hard to navigate/roll around them and get behind without risking being blasted by magic ( that in NG++ IS a one-hitter, perhaps two if in body form...)  ( running up towards old monk is a chore, basically with the two BP's requiring ~10-15 arrows a piece from a +5 sticky compound long bow... )   "

There is no quick strategy for beating them without anti magic field.  The boss you learn that spell from only has one other use for their soul so you should be learning it ASAP especially if you are in NG+ already. "

" Sorry for formulating that wrong - I do have AMF, but I don't have Faith enough to carry it. Oh well. Time to grind some souls and raise Faith then... :-) (14 --> 16, possibly 18.)  Hm. Or I could just equip Ring of Devout Prayer and see if that helps. But thanks for clarifying that there isn't a quicker strategy. Then I know what to expect.. :)   "

its a really great rpg imo but a bit toshort

What I meant was Demons Souls is certainly not an easy game but it's never cheap in it's challenge. Let me try to explain. Megaman is difficult. But it isnt cheap. It's frustrating beyond belief. But you know it's your own lack of skill that has you trying to make the same jump 25 times. Mirrors edge is the same way. Demons Souls is NOT not way. You run into the challenge once, you know how to counter it. AND, you know you shouldnt have died in the first place. You got impatient! I still get impatient with giant depraved ones. I still die to them sometimes. But it's always because I was careless.   (*)  So it's more unforgiving than difficult. The bosses? Timing is important but none of them comes close to .. say, a Metroid boss in terms of complex patterns to learn.
 
Let me try to think of "cheap" games I've played... Ninja Gaiden 2. Some bosses in Afro Samurai. Sometimes Far Cry 2 (that cover system!!!). And, for some reason I had problems figuring out the beach girl bosses patterns in no more heroes but I think that was me.   DS NEVER gave me that feeling. I always felt it was ME whan I failed.
 
(*) p.s. thanks Karkarov for the kind words. One BP I would call a liitle cheap is the cleaver lady in the swamp, no? I mean you dont really run into her if you dont stray off the beaten path. But beating her takes [mad] skill.
 
psps. I just inserted the disk for the first time since january and online its terrible. well, guys waiting to kill you like I used to. So I got killed. Twice.  Gimme a few days :) But I went on and killed some black skellies wthout trouble.  (my gal is SL 38)

I just killed Garl Vinland. It was surprisingly easy to parry his attacks, he went down after two or three criticals.

The hardest part of this game is making your character's face

I thought this game was piss easy. I have no clue what everyone's on about.

Make sure you don't get near the knight with the spear and glowing red eyes. 
That guy will kick your ass.

I found it quite tough but after a hour or so or playing I hardly died again.  
Play Mushihime-sama Futari, the last boss (on hardest setting) on the arcade version is 50x harder than Demon's Souls.

" Make sure you don't get near the knight with the spear and glowing red eyes. That guy will kick your ass. "

" I thought this game was piss easy. I have no clue what everyone's on about. "

I would say it really isnt as hard as everyone says it is. If you just play smart and be careful you'll be fine. I would say its not the difficulty that is the problem, its just that the game is a bitch if you do mess up. So its not that its really easy to mess up as much as it is that when you do mess up you really get punished for it. There are some parts in that game that are pretty hard though, especially when you need to getting the timing of something down perfectly and the only real way to do it is to try and then maybe fail a few times. I stopped playing it because I didnt like the whole having to help another dude with his game if you want to get back to full health after dieing thing. I just wanted to play the entire game by myself but I constantly had a health gimp because of dieing which was really annoying. So I eventually just stopped. 

the actual gameplay isnt too hard its the fact that as mentioned before souls are everything and if you die twice before gettin ur souls back then u want to break the disk in half. You also lose souls by being cocky, everytime you have accumalated a lot of souls and have a chance to return to the nexus do it. 

The game itself is not very difficult so long as you have a competent grasp of how to play video games. People have been spoiled over the last few years by forgiving game mechanics like regenerating health, large windows of time given so you can react to an attack, checkpoints, etc. Demon's Souls has none of that.
 
The difficulty comes in having to actually pay attention and work to achieve your goal. If you expect to come into this and breeze through, you will be surprised at how "old school" the game feels. You will resort to "cheap" tactics like hanging outside of the boss's range while you plink away at it for ten minutes with arrows, then want to hang yourself when you realize you didn't stock up on them. You will be gangbanged by seven enemies at once if you don't think your plan of attack through. You'll fall off a cliff or eight in your blind rush to harvest the crystal lizard you just killed, then have to go through the level again. With all of the enemies respawned. And your health is halved. You will snap controllers in half when you're right at the boss and some asshole invades your world.
 
It's a refreshing break from more modern games. I would say it's very akin to Monster Hunter in that the sense of accomplishment gained from overcoming incredibly challenging obstacles is in and of itself the greatest experience the game has to offer.

" I would say it really isnt as hard as everyone says it is. If you just play smart and be careful you'll be fine. I would say its not the difficulty that is the problem, its just that the game is a bitch if you do mess up. So its not that its really easy to mess up as much as it is that when you do mess up you really get punished for it. There are some parts in that game that are pretty hard though, especially when you need to getting the timing of something down perfectly and the only real way to do it is to try and then maybe fail a few times. I stopped playing it because I didnt like the whole having to help another dude with his game if you want to get back to full health after dieing thing. I just wanted to play the entire game by myself but I constantly had a health gimp because of dieing which was really annoying. So I eventually just stopped.  "