Breaking Brad: Breaking Brad: Demon's Souls: Part 03

Love these!

Been waiting for this!!

Thanks Drew you're awesome.

:D Sweet I only just found out about this and it appears :D

So glad that Brad got bit by the Souls bug. This is some quality-ass content.

So the world might be mended.

Punch that skeleton!

Thank you GB! This is the best day ever! I hope Demon's Souls turns into the next Endurance Run!!!

That's kind of absurd when the fist=blunt weapon reveal is made. You should be better off turning your scimitar on its side and slapping skeletons to death with it, then, by that logic.

Fuck yeah! Brad playing more Demon Souls so the world might be mended and shit!

Brad has a tendency to get over confident really quick and then get killed.

I think it's more like "Brad is terrible to watch playing games" and that quickly was just shortened to Brad is bad at games. I think he's more than competent - he was pulling off parrys like no one's business in the beginning of the game - but his constant indecision, second guessing and over analyzing is maddening at times. Why Vinny is great to watch because not only is he really funny but he has this devil may care attitude of just going for it. Brad is a lot more conservative, and one can't blame him in a game like this, but it can be tough on the viewing audience.

Still, I love the feature and can't wait for him to make it up to the other bosses. Also this serves the double purpose of showing all the people who love Dark Souls but don't own a PS3 or just didn't want to go backwards, where it all started. Dark Souls can almost be viewed through this Bioshock prism as an alternate universe of Demon's Souls since so many events and enemies are the same, yet changed.

There's always a dragon guarding a bridge, there's always a friendly knight and there's always a framerate destroying swamp.

@cooljammer00: I believe not. A mace is weighted and made for smashing while a sword would probably break if you used it's side to beat stuff up. I mean, just try to hammer a nail using the side of a knife instead of a proper hammer -- that wouldn't work at all (and I think you'd look pretty stupid).

Man, whoever told Brad to play a royal sucks.

Magic is legit, but it's god awful boring to watch.

Watching Brad punch skeletons is what this site was made for

this lol

I see the bee made it onto the archive.

Use your damn shield Brad

are those senn hd201 headphones any good ? Better than my Cal! ?

It's all the damn input lag.

Wow, I wish I knew about pummeling skeletons with fists.

Also, use the shield! Always be blocking.

sound if terrible when they speak slightly higher than normal, my ears are bleeding

Gotta love Brad's face after losing all those souls.

Can'*t wait for the next episode.

Man, Brad really needs to remember how to parry. And also how to read messages that could have useful info.

Yeah whatever buzzing there was is surely better than two blown out mics

Indiana... let it go. Great episode, just listen to our Dark Lord Vinny and all will be well.

Highly Entertaining!

Got the popcorn ready for the next one.

@crazy_horse: HE just has noooo patience which is something you really need for SOULS games.

The longer the journey the darker the soul.

I never thought I'd say this but Vinny started to piss me off in this episode.

His whole "Hit his sword with your sword" thing constantly and then when Brad questions it Vinny just doesn't answer him. You could tell Brad was reluctant to try it as last time he did nothing seemed to happen but Vinny just didn't offer anything else.

Maybe it was because it was approaching 2am for me and I didn't want to watch Brad fight his way through to the boss again to try something that turned out to be a troll by Vinny (I've not played demon souls so don't know if it's true or not).

Other than that it was a great episode, good to see Brad picking things up and progressing and can't wait for more.

Even if Brad doesn't like to use magic, he should try using it to pull enemies out of packs, at least, so he doesn't get in situations like the one where he was fighting 3 skeletons at once. That, or get a bow or something.

Man, Dark Souls is so much better than this game. Don't get me wrong; I love Demon's Souls. Some of the boss and level designs here are just stunning. I love the blind giant guy who tracks you through sound, for instance. The whole castle archstone. The vibe of early Latria. What's-his-face who starts killing dudes in the Nexus.

But man, like Vinny said last episode when going through the archstones, it's like every level you look at is like, "Ugh, that level, right? Fuck that level."

I beat Demon's Souls twice. I beat Dark Souls like four or five times now. It's just such an improvement in terms of making areas that are memorable, challenging, and fun all at the same time. Like, Blighttown wasn't great, but Blighttown would've been a relief in Demon's Souls.

Also, yeah, I agree with everyone that Brad should just be more confident in his play style and he'd be way better, but that's Brad and that's why we love him. Jeff doesn't stop for nothing, Vinny's a devil may care rogue with OCD tendencies, Ryan was a beautiful, murderous goofball, Patrick is an academic, Drew is a damn machine, and Brad is your classic Tentative Timmy with flashes of HOLY SHIT HE'S A MONSTER (see: Brad playing any classic FPS or MOBA). Sometimes it's frustrating to watch, but oh well. That's our Brad!

Holy shit skeleton punching.

I cannot believe you can just punch those guys. And hug the wall on the left or right to not get hit by those trap arrows.

TRUTH

Brad's downfall is that he cared too much about his souls. I'd rather jump in and die trying to understand the situation first, before worrying about souls.

That's why Vinny was so cathartic when Brad failed to retrieve his souls.

@whatisdelicious: Ehh I kinda feel the opposite. The only levels I found fun and memorable in Dark Souls were Tomb of the Giants, Catacombs, and New Londo. Whereas I love every level in Demon's, and the bosses I feel had more dignity (to use yesterday's quote) as well, with better music.

Agreed. I think it gets better near the end, or at least it sounded just fine on the end of the stream, but yeesh, the arrow trap after they fiddled with the compressor was loud.

On the actual video, I think sometimes Brad should just go. Get right up in there. And stop worrying so much about souls! Took me a while to learn that in Dark Souls.

Still, really enjoying these videos. And Brad should listen to Dark Lord Vinny some more, he's not always going to lead you into certain, hilarious death.

The audio (voices) in this recording are terrible.

Looking back at this, I really remember how much of this game was trivialized by the bow. Sticky Bow pretty much made this game a cake walk. What's that in the distance? Fuck it. Monsters shooting you from afar? Fuck it. Skeleton gonna roll at you? Fuck it. Giant boss monster wants to fight you up close? Fuck it.

Loved the level design in this game though, so good. Way better than Dark Souls

I agree that Brad is a skilled player, especially when things mesh and/or he knows the game. Brad is a person for whom the highs are high and the lows, they are low. It doesn't help sometimes that Brad is Brad, lol. He reluctantly listens to Vinny, although I bet he suspects he is being helped and not trolled at the moment. He knows both are on the table, which makes it funny. And who likes to be helped?...But that Boss is F**KED up! (for the moment) The nature of these games is that it is almost impossible not to want to gain some kind of at least impersonal info cause the average guy/girl(say me) could find themselves spinning in place. That was Ornstien and Smaugh in DS for me, and my leveling and reinforcing myself for those 2 guys(one a lady?) made the 2nd half of the game too easy..

Really enjoying these, keep up the great work guys.

Your favorite list of favorite levels is exactly the same as my list of least favorite levels, haha. I guess it's just an aesthetic thing. I usually like the glamour and grandeur of an Anor Londo or a Boletarian Palace than the grimy underbelly of the Catacombs or the Valley of Defilement. Obviously, if that's your thing, more power to you, not gonna argue or whatever. Pretty awesome that that's how it worked out though.

And yeah, the Demon's Souls bosses are probably stronger overall. Dark Souls had a ton of cool ones, but on a dignity scale, definitely: King Allant > Lord Gwyn, Tower Knight > Iron Golem, Vanguard > Asylum Demon, Red & Blue Dragons > Kalameet, etc.

The Bell Gargoyles are a lot more dignified than the Maneaters though, and frankly, I'd call it a dignity toss-up between Lautrec and Yurt.

And absolutely, the music in Demon's Souls definitely trumps Dark Souls. The main theme is incredible, the Phalanx boss theme straight-up sounds like it should be in a Zelda game, etc. Though I really do love Lord Gwyn's boss music though. I think Dark Souls overall just put less emphasis on the music.

So yeah, I definitely love Demon's Souls. I just have a much stronger reaction of, "Yeah, fuck that level" to it than I do to almost anything in Dark Souls. Regardless of which one was harder, I think Demon's Souls was definitely more bleak in its design.

Out of curiosity, what's your character look like? I tend to model mine after the knight on the box. Elite Knight Armor all the way. I flirted with Yurt's armor for a while in Demon's Souls, and a Black Knight body with a dragon head in Dark Souls (which is an awesome look, by the way) in Dark Souls, but eventually I always go back to Elite Knight.

I like Brad but this is so frustrating. Maybe spend some time learning the menus and hitting square and triangle on the equip screen when you need to match symbols. Also have a shit-ton of more patience. And the fact that he doesn't repair anything really bothers me. These are all just my problems though I guess.

Punching Skeletons. Oh god this is fantastic.