Breaking Brad: Breaking Brad: Demon's Souls: Part 06

Hurray Brad's Souls!

only two hours? BOO!!!

weird. Did this just get put up? Right when I get off work? Why, thank you Giantbomb. You're de best!

Finally out, saw the live show was running but decided to wait for it to get up on site. Took longer then expected.

And the speedy uploads continue...

@brad I'll miss ragdoll in Dark Souls 2 as well, but removing it probably allowed for a more predictable framerate.

Loving this game/ feature

oh....hell.....yes

@jerry_seinfeld: I was under the impression that this was a "marathon" of sorts... two hours?

I'm seeing you on Friday night, very excited.

How long was the live stream? Prob going to release them as they convert or whatever if this isn't the whole thing

It was about 5 hours.

cool, in that case I wouldn't be surprised if they are up by tonight

So we CAN expect the other batch of content from the stream then? I opted out of watching it live because I had to leave in the middle. Wanted to wait.

awwyiisss

There was a short break in the middle of the live stream. I assume they are breaking it in two for the archives. I would imagine part 7 is in the pipeline?

Well yeah, that's usually how it goes during live streams, no? Break it into ~2 hour chunks for archiving.

They did it in 2 sessions for optimized posting on the site. Like what they did for the 24 hours for Child's play.

That man is not a bad enough dude to hold back Floogan.

@packs217: Come up on stage and say hello. I'll let you talk to the audience.

BRAD

GO FIGHT FLAMELURKER

The Maiden in Black is so Moe.

They said something about Drew having played some Souls, does that video content also exist somewhere?

The video player lets you skip to an arbitrary time, like a real video player. I'm in tears.

Man Brad's gotta stop being wishy washy about magic. He goes through this in every video. It's a valid tactic. Use it. Why go down and get pummeled by the boss when you can effectively destroy him from range? There's nothing to debate there.

I think he's slowly coming to grips with the path he has chosen from the moment he picked Royal. Brad wants to be a cool knight and he's kinda fighting himself, but at this point having dumped so many stat points into magic and not leveling anything else really has somewhat shoehorned him into this role. All better armor and weapons will have stat requirements that will now take a long time to level up. Also despite always mentioning how he likes swordplay, each time things don't go his way he backs off and uses magic in a "fuck this" moment. It's not wrong or anything, but once you start playing 1-1 and realize soul arrow is your Get out of Jail Free card for most difficult opponents it's hard to shake the habit.

And now he's got soul ray which puts him back to being OP with the magic for the moment, so I think he's stuck being a monk wizard.

Besides, demon's souls is terribly designed in regards to melee weapons. The 2 most powerful easy to get early melee weapons in the game rely on magic or faith. When you've dumped a bunch of points into on of these stats to take advantage of one of those weapons you're locked in. You would be fine going 100% melee with a strength faith build (even OP if you craft the meat cleaver) but you'll have to use magic if you went the magic route.

Pure melee is perfectly viable, thats what I played on my first run-through. It's just a lot more challenging, which is why the game got the infamous reputation for being extremely difficult. So when it came time to make a second character you bet I made a royal and laughed all the way to the soul bank basically crushing everything with soul arrow and cheesing enemies and bosses alike as much as I possibly could. The only reason I even got the fire AoE spell was so that I could run up to Maneater and laugh in his face as a single casting obliterated the life bars.

It was a fun experience after the rather difficult journey I went through with my Winged Spear +10, but one that I'd only recommend for laughs after you beat the game any other way. Once you know where everything is, and how everything works, then as can be seen in Brads case, the game isn't all that difficult. If Brad was playing the game blind, he would probably choose a regular melee class, and struggle a lot more. I don't mean to say anything Brad is doing right now is wrong or cheating - but it is rather humorous how he's playing the game in the best possible order, allocating points to make a very good glass cannon build and generally hitting all the right drops. Whether by chance, osmosis or just reading up on it beforehand, he is literally breezing through a game that I remember was a completely different beast when I played it all confused and unsure of how anything worked.

At the end of the day, however people find they enjoy playing the game, they should probably play that way.

I found the most enjoyment working my way to the Dragon Bone Smasher, maxing that and Str and just crushing everything... it was glorious.

You've pretty much summed it up perfectly. Between Vinny, the chat, and "helpful" samaritans giving him hints on his tumblr, he is definitely playing the game on easy mode. I hesitate to say this is ruining the true experience for him, but I certainly can say that it's not the experience I would have wanted.

It's viable, yes, but you can find weapons that are much better than pure melee weapons even if you have no points in magic or faith easily in 4-1 and 5-1. It's understandable to put points to buff those weapons when they're so much better than the regular stuff.

Of course if Brad wanted to play a melee class he should've played a melee class but it's too late now. I agree he should just commit to being a wizard because that's the choice he made.

Yea, ColdsnapBryan.

We need more sun praising!

Why isn't Brad playing the way I play? Why does everybody else but me play the game wrong?

Why does HTLM HD not "Resume Last Saved Position" for me anymore? Now I gotta find/remember where I was last night :(

There's no such thing as an undignified dragon kill.

They'll probably ridicule comments like this, but I kinda agree too, it does feel really silly just how easily he is blitzing through everything.

To be fair, I used Soul Arrow a bit too, but my build and gear were nowhere near as ideal and I didn't have people feeding me tips all the time!

Is the subtle Dark Souls II knowledge Vinny and Brad keep hinting about for real or a troll?

@nasar7 said:

I wouldn't say "ruined" his experience. Brad's playing the game within the confines of the class, he's not like actively glitching or breaking the game or anything, and I don't want to come off like the type of angry mob that really does exist with this game when it comes to people who are playing through the game easier than most.

But yes, we should all at least accept that fact that Brad is playing Demon's Souls in "easy mode." It's just true. There's nothing wrong with it, but it is a very different way to play the game than most who played through it early on. When Brad beat the Tower Knight and said "well whatever, I knew his pattern, I could've beaten him that way if I wanted to" I just sort of chuckled.

To be fair... Demon's and Dark Souls have been solved. And talk about a ton, its kinda hard to have that pure, untouched, 'what is this, oh my god it wants to kill me' playthrough now.

I expect once Dark Souls II drops and everyone is back on that same knowledge level then more people will have the traditional Souls experience.

I laughed too. Try beating it pure melee, or even with a bow, wearing a set of fluted armor, with a regular longsword, straight after doing 1-1. Yeah, it's not that I think Brad is doing a disservice to us the audience by playing this way, it's that I think we are doing a disservice to Brad in making it easy for him and taking away part of the experience for him. But whatever, I'm crazy and a purist, so not everyone wants that necessarily.

Well Brad is doing enough on his own, making it harder on himself, like wrecking the boss withMagic then decided to NO REASON to try to swing a sword at him, and then blow through all of the health he collected, when he could of just popped a spice and ended it 5 mins. earlier.

Brad is BRad's worst enemy in this game, and it's funny watching him trip over himself, yeah he might be cheesing his way through it, but he will fuck up... and it will be glorious.

@billy_ray_valentine: They talked about their knowledge on a video about Dark Souls 2. It's real.

@onemanx: Oh totally. I don't hold it against Brad in any way, either. If I was coming to the game years after the fact I'd be doing exactly what he's doing. I just think everyone who gets upset with Brad's playstyle can meet somewhere in the middle. Yeah, he is playing "easy." And that's totally okay. But he still is. Like Patrick's Dark Souls article said, yeah, you do lose the experience, it's inarguable, so admit that frankly, and move on. You can't really stop it now, afterall.

Yeah, all the people in this thread who even use the term "easy mode" are the reason I stayed clear of these games for so long.

@edeo said:

Except I said there's nothing wrong with it. I just wish people would stop getting so defensive about it when people state, rightly, that Brad is having a very cushioned experience with the game that most people originally did not have. People should understand that people aren't wrong when some say he's playing it "easy" and that that's not really a bad thing, but it is still a thing.

There's no need to draw battle lines over it, but people should be honest about it. That's it. It's okay that he's breezing through the game because of outside help.

I have this eye thing, sounds like maybe what Vinny has.

@brad The Stray Demon gave me fits. I finally beat him by putting on the Ring of Fog, buying a hundred dung pies, and hiding in a corner of his chamber poisoning him for fifteen minutes. Cheesy as all get out, but if nothing else is working...