Breaking Brad: Breaking Brad: Demon's Souls: Part 04

"You're playing it wrong, Shoemaker!"

I don't have a signed poster, but I have this...

praise the sun

Mad Brad is a bad fad.

Another exciting episode of Brad Brad on the way! Stay tuned.

POTATO SALAD

Thanks for the quick upload Vinny! Team Brad!!

@brad Awesome brad ! However, stop dumping points into Magic and get your Strength to 16 so you can equip the Dark Silver Shield found in 5-3, as it's the best in the game when upgraded to +5 with Colorless Souls.

Really enjoying this feature as i don't have a PS3 so i've never played demons souls.

Bit disappointed at the lack of experimentation he's doing. "oh i found this cool axe, i wont bother trying it out because i was guided into this over powered weapon early on so i guess i gotta build my character around that!" It's just odd that he wanted to play a melee based character from the start but somehow got talked into playing a heavy magic based guy via peer pressure i guess?

Still great to watch, even though its BABY SOULS.

@authenticm: Like hes going to get a single colorless soul.

Am I crazy or did Vinny whistle a MGS theme at the 20minute mark?

I dont know how I can possible avoid the Dark Souls 2 thing Vinny was talking about...

I want to go into Dark Souls 2 knowing as little as possible...I feel like I know too much of it already, so might as well watch it?

noooooooo

but are they gona only talk about the Beta material? which I'd seen many times

The "leaked" video that was mentioned on the stream seemed to have just been stuff from the Beta and areas that were available for everyone to play at past preview events.

If they were shown the intro video then that would have been new. The mechanics that people learned about during the Beta might be getting more exposure now. It seems that a large number of people didn't know that you could get invaded while Hollow, which was one of the first things we learned about the game months ago.

@authenticm said:

This is some real nerd shit right here

Im becoming the person i hate the most a back seat Souls player. It bothered me so much for some reason when Brad had to be told to kill the guys with bags. How was that not not obvious especially when you were killing everyone earlier already, why stop now. And also going into the menu just sitting there out in the open WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT! at least go in a corner in a known safe area. Im still loving it guys sorry for freaking out.

@vinny is seriously an amazing troll

The real Demon's Souls starts here?

This exchange made me giggle.

@brad Don't worry about leveling up too quick, there's nothing that costs more as you level up. And honestly in Dark Souls, you don't want to spend souls removing sins anyways, unless you accidentally hit a shopkeeper or something, but that's pretty easy to avoid. Just if you get invaded remember that some people will try and bait you into hitting them, so just run away from that room if it they go near the npcs.

I'm pretty sure the only other thing sin does is allow darkmoon blades to invade you, and you'll be getting invaded anyways so it doesn't change much, so yeah only if you accidentally hit someone.

Also I don't know if anyone has told you, but guard break reduction reduces the amount of stamina you lose when you block hits, personally I think upgrading the shield is one of the most important things to do, maybe not all the way maxed out, but at least getting it halfway will help out a lot.

About the DS4 working with PS3 games, it doesn't work with all of them, there's some lists online about which games are compatible with it.

DS4 works fine with Demon Souls. Some games require you to use Controller #1 to play and since you can't turn on a PS3 with the DS4, it usually ends up being controller 2.

So you just have to manually switch it to controller #1, but since the PS button doesn't work, this can't be done in game. It has to be changed in the Accessory settings on the XMB.

What I have been doing to make things easier is just turning on my PS3 with the power button on the system, then turning on the DS4. That way it becomes Controller 1.

Couple of things I wish he would realize. He seems adamant on wanting to use a melee build but keeps putting points stupidly into magic. I get that that sword is a pretty decent starting weapon but unless you're comitting to the cause and going to actually double down on magic and really go for a magic build he should stop putting in points otherwise he is going to have a damn time having enough STR or DEX to wear any sort of decent armor beyond light mage clothes.

My boy is dead. Long live my man.

Great spoiler image... great idea that...

Meet Brad Shoemaker, master of disregarding what's staring him right in the face.

(but that's why we love him!)

DSII should have the first run through be only the dream of a sleeping giant. THEN the real DSII begins.

If you are playing this game for the first time I would always recommend exploring every area as much as possible before fighting a boss. Brad's decision not to explore the whole of 4-1 before killing the Ajudicator means he hasn't rescued the only merchant in 4, who now won't be available for the rest of the game. It won't hurt his progress, but it's nice to have someone available in each world to sell you grass and arrows.

YOU DEFEATED my heart.

@matthewroberts: Spoiler? Where?

@nhlmaniac: You can hit the PS button on your DS3 in game, then when you change the controller settings from controller number 1 to 2, it swaps positions with your DS4, giving that the first controller slot.

Vinny is perhaps not the most reliable guide to Demon's Souls.

I wish he was a bit less reckless. For all the caution he uses when deciding what to do and where to go he still mashes a bit in combat. Also has a bad habit of attacking AS the enemy is attacking. He's taking too much damage from normal encounters, and thus wasting too much grass. Just be more patient.

Good job on killing two bosses in one video though. Making some progress.

I face palmed when he blew his shot at just wailing on the spider boss from the side when it was doing it's big fire attack. That's a crazy-long attack, he probably could've finished him off right there or gotten close. But the thing ended up being pretty easy for him so it didn't matter.

Should Brad just become magic dude? Never played any of these, but seems like that would work for him.

I love seeing Brad be nervous about levelling up because it will make future levelling up cost more. It's the type of mad illogical RPG anxiety that grips us all at some point. Well, all of us except Vinny.

someone should post the Stone to Stats table so Brad knows what to use to upgrade and what does what. Too lazy to do it. Reason why I say someone should post it is because it's such a ridiculously veiled mechanic that you have to figure out through experimentation and I don't think he's going to figure it out any time soon

Vinny's "Use with two hands" comments had me laughing way too much.

Were they ignoring the item on the ledge above the elevator leading to the Armor Spider on purpose? Like, why didn't they even think of going up there?

Edit: Jesus, he's got the worst timing during that fight. Shooting Soul Arrows while the head's up, eating grass while a rock's flying straight at him and of course trying to roll when he's webbed instead of blocking and trying to take the hit.

That bit was driving me nuts. He even stopped for 10 seconds staring straight at the item and the path to it.

But at the point where he had 16,000 souls and decided to wander into a new area and then jump off the edge beside a cliff face - the tension was too much and I had to pause the video.

Other than that, loving the features, can't wait for another episode.

Vinny please. Those ore piles, my sides can't take this.

giantbomb.com YOUR number one source for everything Souls related~ed~ed!

Wouldn't have thought that fat guy gets done in so easily in the end, especially after how this video starts. Good job, Brad.

Can't wait for the next one.

Haha, so true. I do in every RPG that I play that I have to pick my stats.

Strength and Dexterity do not affect which armor you can wear. Endurance is the stat to increase if you want to wear heavier armor.

I have played a lot of RPG's in my time, but I have to say I have never suffered from this particular strain of madness. I wonder if it goes hand in hand with the must-collect-and-hoard-every-item-and-never-use-it-in-case-after-the-credits-there's-the-hardest-boss-in-all-of-video-games syndrome, because I couldn't give a rat's banana about collectibles either.

@dr_mantas: he could since the high level magic is hella op in this game. Of course it's much harder to get than high level miracles and boss weapons, the 2 other broken things in the game, and I don't see him getting it without a FAQ or people telling him but with his current point allocation, I'm not sure he has a choice