Breaking Brad: Breaking Brad: Demon's Souls: Part 01

@wolfhazard: Yep

Dark Souls (DkS) is definitely harder than Demon's Souls (DS); lots of people say DS is easier because it was the first game in the series, and it was everyone's introduction to that style of game-play; everyone remembers DS as more difficult because, at the time, they had no frame of reference. Demon's Souls prepared everyone for Dark Souls. I too thought DkS was easier than DS until I returned to DS after putting 300+ hours into DkS; I had little trouble completing DS with a SL1 character, yet still have not been able to do that in DkS.

Think about healing in Dark Souls compared to Demon's Souls; in DS you have stacks of healing "grass," and a rechargeable mana bar which enables players to cast spells a ton per "level." In DS you have a limited number of healing (Estus) and castings between bonfires; resting at those bonfires also respawns all non-boss enemies. Players can bring 50-100 "grass" and "spice" to a DS level and heal/cast to their heart's content.

The majority of the bosses in DS also had built-in safe zones, whereas there are almost no safe zones during boss battles in DkS; almost no bosses in DkS can be "cheesed," yet most bosses in DS -- including some of the hardest melee fights, like Allant and Doran -- can be "cheesed."

Some of the Black Phantom NPC encounters in DS are brutal (Selen Vinland), and some of the enemies are downright murderous (Giant Depraved Phantoms, Red Eyes Knight) but overall DkS is harder. A.I. in DkS is much more aggressive than DS.

Even P2P connections make DkS PVP encounters more difficult and unpredictable than the dedicated servers of DS; I win most DS invasions with parries -- even with my SL1 character -- but I'll be damned if I can regularly parry successfully in DkS.

I encourage everyone who thinks Demon's Souls is the harder game to go back and play it after playing Dark Souls. It's still a fantastic game, but it's not the harder of the two.

Nearly an hour in and Brad has died one time; how many times did Brad die during his first hour of Dark Souls?

Also: Brad should play his first time offline because playing on-line basically resets your World-Tendencies every time you visit The Nexus, whereas playing offline will preserve them, and will prove for a more interesting game. World-Tendency is more difficult to appreciate during on-line play; everything is pretty close to white all the time, regardless of your actions.

Oh man, this is going to be good. I wonder how long it will take him to get past the first level and if he will take the red eyed knight bait or not...

Vinny played Dark souls like such a boss.

Brad is the exact opposite.

I believe in Shoemaker.

Just to add to the mix, this is fantastic.

@driftspace: Difficulty is a personal thing really. SL1 runs is a very specific way to play the game and I don't think works as the best way to judge the difficulty.

I've played many hours and playthroughs of both games and I still feel Demon's Souls is more challenging overall, opposed to Dark Souls which becomes easier and easier every time I play through it. I think its mainly because Dark Souls is a far better designed game where as Demon's Souls can just feel unfair at times. I never enjoy 4-1 with the flying creatures that snipe you throughout the area while the really tough undead enemies relentlessly roll at you. I also always have trouble with the Maneaters.

Again I feel there is no way to confirm or deny which game is harder as they both have a few really challenging moments.

In the beginning Vinny jokes that his advice will all be wrong, like "A + D = 17"

Does Vinny know that A + D actually does equal 17 in hexadecimal? Or was that pure luck?

Brad would break in under a week if it was every day. I mean, if his character wasn't so OP I guess.

This is super interesting to me because vinny is an italian that plays with passion and fury, brad is a mathimatical robot that malfunctions on occation, to see the difference in approach will be great to see.

this is my favorite comment ever

I am super excited about this!

They have them on Amazon you know. I've been dedicated to Xbox for years and never owned a Playstation until this past month when I bought a PS3. So far I played Flow, Flower, Journey and The Last of Us. The Last of Us and Journey alone is enough reason to get a PS3, but I'll be playing Demon's Souls soon enough.

Watching Brad play this is super frustrating at times.

Yes Demon's Souls requires you to play patient and smart, but good lord Brad overthinks EVERYTHING. There are definitely times I just want him to do anything instead of standing there pondering every single outcome that could possibly happen.

Brad definitely is not a risk taker.

Should be re-titled "Breaking Vinny".

Good God, this was hard to watch. Way too much over thinking. Just play the game and learn from deaths. I don't care that Brad was standoffish when it came to engaging oncoming enemies since that is playing it smart, but to double guess every little thing and not just see what happens was driving me nuts. I can only imagine what chat was doing when this was live.

Skittish as shit, is the phrase that came to mind regarding Brad while watching this.

But hey, it's still fun. And I think this'll hopefully push me to continue my own playthrough so that I can stay ahead to prevent spoilers. Though I'm just a little bit past where Brad is now.

Man, this is the antithesis of the Dark Souls feature. I feel like I watched 20 minutes of gameplay stretched across a long 2 hours.

The above comments saying Brad overthinks is kinda harsh. I've seen people blind let's play Dark Souls that pay zero attention to anything that's going on and that's way more frustrating to watch than someone playing sensibly.

Jesus Brad is bad at video games...and I love it.

A breaking Brad so quickly after the last one finishes? God Bless you Brad and Vinny. And Demon's Souls at that. Bravo!

Can't wait to see the boss fights for this, especially Flamelurker!

i love how vinny fucks with him during the stream.

@emtee: Considering how long dark souls is and im guessing they will complete the whole game probably around .. 30?

When I first booted up Dark Souls at time of release I also thought it somehow looked worse. There is a weird blur effect on the console version in Dark Souls. The UI seems like it's a matter of taste. What Dark Souls did better was change those cryptic squiggles to actual stat names.

While it is still great content, I'm just a little disappointed that they didn't do something more different. Dark Souls run ended? Start a Demons' Souls run. Especially because Patrick is also running Dark Souls now (I know it's not site content, but still). Would have been nice to see something totally new.

I love Vinny's light trolling of Brad lol. Way better then Ian and Roarie sitting in and fighting with each other.

Can't believe Brad is actually making that dumb telescope useful. Haha, amazing.

Thanks for the subscriber content GB! Glad i renewed my sub!

I thought Brad playing super careful was actually pretty funny. The constant stream of misinformation (or IS it???) that Vinny was feeding him just kept him in a state of constant paranoia haha. I really enjoyed this and I'm so glad you guys are doing it.

@crusader8463: Dumb conspiracy theory is dumb. But you do know if they were to do a new ER it would probably be behind a paywall too, right? Nothing wrong about that.

Wait... whattttt?

Ok. I'm down.

Brad: Its cool this guy is just hanging out in this secret room.

Vinny: Welcome to this entire series.

Truer words have never been spoken

so much souls content.

A + D = 17 in hexadecimal.

I mean, so do I but..he's actually doin' just fine in this part.

This skittishness will probably keep him alive for a good chunk of the game. It's just bad for the part they left off on since both paths seem like terrible ideas.

Looking forward to watching this when I come home from work, didn't catch it live.

(Brad throws himself into encounters and doesn't see all of the angles)

COMMENTERS: Brad sucks at games, he should pay more attention. This is so frustrating, I hate watching Brad play.

(Brad hangs back and thinks things through before he acts)

COMMENTERS: Why won't Brad just move? Why doesn't he just run at that crowd of enemies? Brad sucks at games, I hate watching him play.

Seriously guys, he just started blind-running a Souls game live on a stream. Cut the guy a break, he just doesn't want to seem brash or arrogant.

My favourite moment of this so far. This is a great watch.

Oh shit.

There was a hole left in my life after the Vinpocalypse had defeated Dark Souls. Thank you for doing this, Brad! :)

A blind run with his guide dog actively trying to pull him off a cliff, no less.

Best of luck brad. From what I understand, these games can be somewhat tricky.

Awesome guys. Vinny is a real bastard and I love him for it.

I have now seen Brad, Vinny, Ryan, Matt and Patrick play a Souls game. Jeff, when you gonna step up and do a Dark Souls 2 ER?

OH FUCK YES I AM SO PSYCHED FOR THIS.

As someone who prefers Demon's to Dark, I can't wait to see what they think of this. While Dark was probably the better designed game, Demon's has an art style and world that are vastly more interesting.

But, see, that's kind of the thing. After putting in a bunch of hours with both games, I agree Demon's Souls is easier. Dark Souls, as you correctly pointed out, is stingy with healing items and magic by comparison, and the Demon's Souls bosses have more cheesy ways to win. You can run Demon's Souls with weaker characters with less trouble.

But as a first time player, none of that really mattered. I didn't know the cheesy ways to win. Nabbing the game before most people meant no extensive wiki, no breakdown of mechanics. The caution element wasn't burned into my brain, I didn't realize danger lurked around every corner (though you do wise up quickly), didn't realize some bosses were optional, some enemies should be bypassed. I didn't understand world tendency or black phantoms or any of it. As such, I died a lot! A hell of a lot.

By the time I got my hand on Dark Souls, after a hundred hours of Demon's, I died perhaps five or so times. I knew what to look for, made sure to consult wikis, and so on. In that, you are 100% correct; Dark Souls only seems easier because we had that trial by fire. Returning to both after extensive playtime, I can beat Demon's with a speed I cannot match in Dark Souls.

But for a person that's touched neither, I really think that whichever one they play first will be the hardest. Once you know how to cheese your way to victory, once you realize bringing in phantoms kills the difficulty, once you get the combat mechanics, the remaining game has to be easier by virtue of experience. They are very comparable, and when you stop letting it pull the rug out from under you, they both lose some of their punch. While Dark Souls may remain harder than Demon's after hundreds of hours of gameplay, how may people really will experience that? To Brad, who has limited experience (and limited time), he'll never see the same definition of difficulty that you or I would.

In the end, Demon's and Dark Souls are both bastards to the unsuspecting.

Dark Souls has a lot more color and detail in the environment. I think Demon's Souls has better atmosphere, but it's kind of hard for me to put why into words. It just feels very different.

Vinny's constant misinformation makes this whole feature! I haven't played Demon's Souls and I have no clue if he's talking shit or telling the truth most of the time.

I don't like that this is called Break Brad. Vinny did way too much hand holding IMO

It was a poor example anyway, if my memory of high school math is anything to go by. They can be variables! A and D can represent numbers that when added have a value of 17!