Demon's Souls (2009) - Boleteria-ing For Soup
The year is 2009. Baquack Odoula is giving birth to Obunglercare and telling Americans that if they like their doctors, they can keep their ashes in urns above their fireplaces after they are rounded up and incinerated (Google “doctor’s plot”). Jay Cutler is filling Chicago Bears fans with hopes of a better tomorrow. Taylor Lautner is at the height of his powers. It may not be morning in America, but we all woke up at 2 PM, so same difference.
Across the world, a coder employed by From Software eager to prove his mettle is told by his employers that they just so happen to have a game that is so poorly made, behind schedule, and over budget that if he really wants to, the former Oracle employee can take over its development and try to make something playable. Now free from the clutches of the Ellisons and their blood sacrifices, the man and his team work day and night to turn a quagmire that was previously called something like The Terrific Reclaim of Dark! [1+3=0 Edirion] YOU ARE INFINITE into something playable. That 30 something boy that nobody liked grew up to be Hideteka Miyazaki. And the game? Our inaugural entry for Season 2 of Player’s Club, Demon’s Souls.
Frequent collaborator and long-suffering podcast dungeon master Patches was kind enough to join me on this first step through From’s contemporary catalog. This game may be the least of From’s efforts from the catalog of games it kicked off, but it’s not for a lack of ability or vision. Even just making something functional out of such a mess would have been an achievement by Miyazaki and co, but they did more than that. Demon’s Souls may lack some of the more brilliant level design and deceptively deep combat of later entries, but it cannot be overstated how little they had to work with and just how deeply this entry deviated from the standard fare put out by Japanese publishers the size of Bandai Namco in 2009. While everyone else was making once-challenging and open-ended titles more linear and centering every level around scripted set pieces, Demon’s Souls broke the mold by harkening back to a time before endless handholding, and delivered a game that respected its players enough to allow them to tackle individual levels and bosses how and when they saw fit.
For this entry, I did my playthrough on a PS3 emulator, meaning I went without the quality of life adjustments in the 2020 Blue Point remake. That said, I found myself enjoying my experience more than my first go around on the PS5 version years prior. To say this is the least challenging or exciting of the remaining 6 (or 7, if you count Shadow of the Erdtree as a separate entry) games on our docket is not a knock on this game, but a compliment to the massive leaps in quality From achieved in each consecutive release. The fact that such a catalog grew out of a game that was almost abandoned before Miyazaki became the stepfather that stepped up.
Praise aside, I don’t care for Stockpile Thomas. He always has to be such a downer. I didn’t ask for your life story!
The wonderful Patches can be found on Twitter (@Senator_Gun) and as the dungeon master of my personal all time favorite DnD episodes we’ve ever done. He does not necessarily share my opinion that Stockpile Thomas is responsible for his family’s awful deaths.
AS ALWAYS: The first episode of this season of Players Club is free and available on all podcast platforms. All subsequent episodes will be available exclusively for Chapo Patreon subscribers.
Comments (167)
Patches sounds like the straight Ben Mora
The music in the remake is, technically, better, just woefully generic. Can't say it goes against the intention of the game; the first thing From bought when they could afford The London Symphony Orchestra was The London Symphony Orchestra. But, they made something very distinct sounding from a lack of resources.
Garl of Vinland
The man and his team 💀
Art
Happy birthday 🎉🎂
The boss most inspired by Old King Allant, I think, is Dark Souls 2's Burnt Ivory King. There's a lot of overlap to their movesets, though no level stealing :(
Amen (TV series) - Wikipedia https://share.google/lJofmjjjEHkojx2PC
Are they doing an episode on Armoured Core 6?
This is such a bizarre format for a podcast
I am a rare long time woman listener. My husband is a huge Souls fan so I put this on in the car with him. For the first time ever, he turned the volume of a podcast up.
On the lore-in-item description: one should also consider that Miyazaki was a fan of Magic the gathering. Earlier card had cryptic flavour text (snippet of text in italics at the bottom of the card) that provided a small window in the history of the game world, that could be pieced together by reading all the flavour text.
Khazan is good actually
Im holding my bare forearm over an open flame to this and restarting the episode every time I pull it away.
The amount of Ace Combat references in here leaves me with hope of an Ace Combat / Project Wingman season sometime after Wings of Theve releases.
You can’t do 1-3 after beating tower knight! The game says a powerful fog blocks the way and you can only progress after a full clear of one of the other worlds!
Americans be like "I only understood that other people in the world have lives bc of videogames"
Did the Demon Soul games implement world tendency first? Seems like Knights of the Old Republic did this first.
I learned so much about ASOIAF in the ep - weirwood net? The others are people?? Maester Conspiracy??? It's all here folks
Less than ten minutes in and Felix has pronounced “Shenmue” 4 different ways.
Great episode. Thank you Felix and Patches!
Point of order: those trophies for alternate ways to kill bosses were added by bluepoint to the ps5 release. They weren’t part of the ps3 trophy list. It was a great addition by bluepoint and it sounds like they got added to the ps3 emulator as well.
Some factual errors and dangerously bad takes in here, but I will allow it cus at least they rightfully shit on the remake. I hope subsequent episodes have guests who actually played the games on launch, cus that adds a lot of necessary context. Demon’s souls WAS considered a notoriously difficult game upon release - that was how its mythology in the west built up. Sure the combat seems slow and easy now going back, but the lack of checkpoints, penalty for dying, and general obscurity of the mechanics were the complete antithesis of game design at the time.
Interesting context thank u. how do I get gud so I can see all these characters they’re talking about? Maybe I’ll just play god mode cuz it’s a game and I have shit to do and pods to slop. It does look really good on the emulator.
W THE Iw8,,,,,98'
This is a single fucking EPISODE!?!? Like don’t get me wrong: I love that, but when I looked at “season 2”, I thought that meant the whole season was just being released as one episode. That being said, I’m kind of curious if Felix can even make a 3rd season. Is there a game he’s talked about as much as Metal Gear solid? I say MGS because he talks WAY MORE about dark souls, so I perceive MGS as the lower “relevancy bar” EDIT: probably Ace Combat
I think it's reaaaaaaalllllllyyy hard to talk about Ace Combat in a vacuum for more than an hour and I'm a big fan of the series and PW. You gotta just start doing a plane autism podcast discussing how cool the F-15 strike eagle is.
Honestly, the fastest 4hr podcast I’ve ever listened to about my least favorite souls game. Cannot wait for episode two.
Felix’s mic sounds like unacceptable dogshit, true chapo energy even on a solo pod
The first couple minutes is some great writing on Felix's part
Praise the Son (of Chapo, who is Felix)
I’m a few hours in I feel like I missed the part where they explain any of the shit they’re talking about??? Did I miss something
Soul of Cinder does the same thing as Owl. Uses player specific mechanics.
felix if you wanna know the outcome of introducing mercantilism to the Lands Between you just gotta look at the bottom of the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds
Yeah... I played the shit out of this game
Is this showing up on anyone's greywolf feed in the iphone app?
Got its own feed now. Same for Movie Mindset. What ya wanna do is go to memberships and then collections - inside collections you'll see the players club, and when you click on that there'll be 3 dots in the upper right corner and the first choice I think is "add to podcast app".
Shenmue (rhymes with Venmo)
It’s a shame these guys didn’t experience when it came out. They cannot appreciate how awesome it was at the time because Miyazaki has spoiled them with blood borne and dark souls. The obscure mechanics and the focus on the experience of exploring the game instead of pure entertainment value was unique.
Ok, THIS kind of stuff might get me back on the paid tier for a month or two.
Please do the David Cage games as the series finale.
You can tell Felix wants to talk about Sekiro and Elden Ring so bad
33:32 Felix says six seven
It’s nice to hear patches talk sincerely about something without getting made fun of by those 3 hooligans from pod about list
Guys, I think Felix might have been over leveled.
when does Patches kick Felix into a pit
Been waiting for this one 😻
game difficulty existed long before the souls series. demon's souls is definitely difficult for the average player. bloodborne is easily the most difficult souls game, especially with the expansion of the old hunters. elden ring is a cake walk compared to the old hunters
i'm not trying to be an asshole, but i wish you guys got into the complex level design of tower of latria, especially part 2. the verticality is quite impressive, and you go down into the muck before you go back up to break the chains. there's also the spiraling staircases that are really fucking cool. i know you guys expressed the coolness of this area, but you didn't get into details about level design that i'd hope to hear more about with your insightful analysis. i also feel like the boss ai is not as bad as you guys express, i'm playing the original right now on ps3 emulator, and getting owned by the maneater boss. the pouncing maneuver kicks my ass.
Felix can talk with a guest for 4 hours about anything and I'd listen to it.
Felt like crack hearing Felix finally talk about lies of p. Maybe it'd make a good bonus ep?
So pumped for the rest of this series
loved the ep, lots of fun. also enjoyed the magixx shoutout we love team spirit dont we folks
Big ups to patches and maybe? Felix for the pillars of eternity mention, love those games
A delicious amuse-bouche
I gave it a shot but not a single minute of this episode is interesting.
miyazaki got the idea for black phantoms when a complete stranger stabbed him right before a really important meeting.
Zullie the Witch mentioned 😎
Felix has gone through maybe the worst most fucked up play order of from games ive ever heard of. Starting with sekiro is weird enough, but his first dark souls game was 3???
why does he sound so different
Helping me understand the mechanics of this fuck ass game so much better thank you 🙏
terrible take about Khazan but otherwise great episode
“THE DEMON WAS DESTROYED”
Pay Brendan whatever it takes to produce these!
I'm never going to play this game. So it's very nice to have someone who plays it for me. Thank you for your service, Felix and Patches
In regards to the dragon god talk at ~2:57:00, as you guys talked about, demons manifest in some way related to humans’ beliefs and will, since the soul in this world’s metaphysics is basically the mind and the the fog makes the inner workings of the mind bleed into reality. Proximity to physical objects associated with that belief also factor into where/how the demons manifest. Flamelurker is the demon version of the stonefang city inhabitants’ beliefs about Big M, since he’s their Culture Hero, and the temple his arena is in front of is probably dedicated to him. The dragon god is there because all the dragon bones from the ancient dragons Big M killed are littered around there, and the dragons are like the stonefang people’s satan figures. As for why the ballistas are there, ehhhh, I guess something like the dragon god also manifested during the previous cataclysm? Can’t really say, it is kinda lame.
And to the Q Felix poses in relation to dragon god and astraea, astraea doesn’t care about what you do to other demons, she just doesn’t want you to interfere with what she’s doing in the valley. She sees herself as ending the suffering of the people in the valley by removing their souls, since that makes them mindless and thus unable to feel pain. It’s kind of grim and hard to parse, but that’s more because of what you guys said earlier that the game doesn’t really present any viewpoints or motivations for stuff. Is Astraea doing the right thing and you’re cruel for interfering and killing her and Garl? Hard to say, what’s the alternative? Returning the world back to “normal?” Selen says the valley feels “strangely pure,” referencing Astraea’s purity as a saint, which shows in some way Astraea IS honestly following through on her goal to do saintly work to the people in the valley. She’s absorbing the impurity from them by taking their souls. But that’s all the info we really get.
pure unedited dog water - who is this even for?
me
Father ted is a British sit com about a priest(?) which was on in the 90s set in Ireland. I didn't watch allot of it but could be what you were watching.
Father Ted couldn’t be less the BET show that Felix was referencing. Good show though.
folx
My reaction to this upload at 1:56:10
The fuck is this shit? I am N0T gay!
I’m over an hour in but lost the thread after approximately 10 seconds.
Truly some of the worst content ever committed to pod
“Why even bother” is explicitly the conclusion that True King Allant comes to. “No one wants to go on.”
Only four hours?
Played Demon’s Souls when it came out. The really special part of the experience for me was having to resort to poorly translated Japanese wikis to try to navigate 5-2. Reminded me so much of early final fantasy 11. It was a unique kind of communal gaming.
Shenmo’
Can't wait to hear the episode on DS2! despite the weird/impossible sense scale/location in the game, I've always thought it has my favorite world building in the whole series. I'm interested to hear what y'all have to say!
“SHENMO”?!
These games are bad. Lost Kingdoms died for this garbage.
hopefully they talk about how fucking good the valley of defilement and maiden astraea are, these games don't need nearly-impossible bosses to sing
My favorite part of this episode was turning up the volume to hear the subtle whispers of Felix , only to get my ears blasted by patches much louder audio track.
A bowling for soup pun? Truly the podcast all the bad guys want.
God I love this series makes my work day so much better
it embarrassing how excited i am for this
Miyazaki did not "do programming" on Armored Core, he directed Armored Core 4 and For Answer. You guys also keep saying he directed 6, which just isn't true. He didn't work on 6 in any capacity.
Calm down
Pretty sure 2 pm is the earliest I ever woke up in 2009
When I was a teenager me and my friends did acid while my mom (who is a heavier set woman) was at the house. When she caught us, my friend recalled her stalking of the hallway akin to that of the prison keeping chaos demon in the beginning of dark souls. I still don’t know how to feel about that
Thank you so much!
4 hours holy moly
"Dark Souls 1 is so easy compared to DS3 😂😂😂" Meanwhile I'm struggling with my 1st playthrough tho I've played ds3 multiple times 😭
Can’t wait to listen to this over several days in the gym
I’ve never played a FromSoft game other than Elden Ring and a brief foray into Bloodborne but I’ll go ahead and listen to every single one of these
59:30 the swamp “dry heaving” is the overencumbered effect. If you use the iron flesh spell in later souls games (demons souls warding spell doesn’t have any slowing effect) or wear 100+% encumbrance armor in any souls game the same thing happens. Later souls games have a special slowing for walking in swamps where you can still roll but I guess for convenience in DeS they just copy/pasted the overencumbered effect
This and the lies of p damage type convo are examples of why it’s hard to talk about demon’s souls, 17 years of history overshadow and obscure so much. Felix didn’t realize the dry heaving was the overencumbered effect because he is so used to souls games, he would never accidentally put on the brushwood set and get overencumbered. He sees that the 3 primary enemy types from lies of p are weak to the 3 different elemental damage types, and sees that as equivalent to using different damage types in demons souls. Something people miss about Demons souls is that, even moreso than dark souls 1, is a dungeon crawler. It started development as a king’s field game, after all. In the debug mode you can activate a glitchy semi-usable first person mode. That’s why there’s the carry weight system, to incentivize you to bring only what you need, make a foray into the dungeon, haul back your loot, and separate what you want to sell, store, and take with you into your next dungeon crawl. That’s why this is the game in the series that introduced the multiplayer messages. It’s why the combat is slower and clunkier than the subsequent games, and why there’s no weapon arts, or even special attacks like ds1 dragon weapons. And why the bosses, like the weapons, are not super focused on spectacle, with so many being puzzle bosses and with rather simplistic and slow movesets. It’s why the healing is the moongrass instead of the estus: the estus forces you to focus on combat so you master fights and don’t have to consume all of it and backtrack. The moongrass, as a typical rpg healing potion, only forces you to think about it in terms of carry weight and purchase price (or item drop rate LOL). It’s why some high level upgrade materials are easily permanently missable. You don’t really need them, they are a reward for a mastery of map exploration. It’s why the traversal tools like the vaulting is half-baked (there’s a video, it might be a cre5t video or illusory wall, showing a cut animation for full-on climbing a wall). Action-y traversal is not the point of the game. It is a dungeon-crawler with action elements. It’s not a very GOOD dungeon crawler, which is why the series has had wayyy more mainstream success leaning into the action and spectacle setpieces. But I think the discussion is rather lacking in not pointing out demons souls’ own influences and design decisions, since they’re important for why the later games are the way they are.
Random thought: yal should cover Max Payne in your catch-all series
4 hours of autism style millennial "humor"
Not quite right to say there are no shields in Bloodborne. the wooden shield item offers one of the most enduring descriptions of the combat mechanics of BB and the wider series generally. "Shields are nice, but not if they engender passivity".
We have found the Joe Rogan of the left.
It's Patches.
Lets go the vape is back
I am an hour in and unless I missed it, they never established what you're doing in the game. Like what is the goal of the player
From Software games have the thinnest gloss of story. R-slurs on gaming forums are supposed to fill in the gaps. The real question is whether or not we can prevent them from voting Republican.
The “butthole demon” motif is based on kappa folklore where they steal the shirokodama, a mythical organ that contains the soul or life essence to consume.
he called it shenmoe
When Dark Souls first came out Gamespot wrapped up its review by saying that this game is “destined to be loved and talked about for years to come.” They had no idea how right they were
In a lot of ways, it's the defining game of the 21st century. AAA Developers either slotted into making increasingly polished, cinematic, but hand holdy experiences, or games-as-games that feel more comfortable with the concept that some players simply will never see all the material it has to offer even if they followed a walkthrough
I have no idea what this is, and God help me, I never will.
Shenmoe
Yeah, what's up with that?
Excited for their co-op title on Switch 2. Too bad I have to play in on Switch 2.
How about gender switch 2... whatever you feel and I'll respect it. 🌈
damn. that early part about climate change was on point. i never thought about it like that but felix is 100% right
Shout out to Shenmoe Szyslak. Lan Deeznuts, do we have a Lan Deeznuts here?
2 cumia references already.. praying for a mancow shout
I’ve only played elden ring I’ll be using this season to decide my next fromsoft game
Project Phantasma
Not even five minutes in and this MF is calling Shenmue Shenmo. Felix heads are so back 🤗
Demon Folx
Patches is clearly David J. Roth there's no way he's not
Shen-mo?
My eternal gratitude for this AM drop
4 hours… that’s actually longer than o played this game
I ordered a physical copy of the remake to replay while listening to this and it gets here tomorrow so I was worried I might finish this before I got it but No I won’t lol
PRAISE THE FAILSON!
I didnt even get past anor londo. And yet
I listened to players club season 1 while towing my truck across the country after the transmission shit out, I will now listen to season 2 while I put a new transmission in that truck, time is a flat circle all things are good in the world
I was promised 7 hour episodes. Is this just a preview for non-members
you didn’t get the right subscription tier
Felix blaming the 60 inch television for why he was bad at Sekiro lmao
input lag can be so brutal on the average tv imo but i still laughed lol
Finally a topic that matters
Felix begins speaking at 0:04
Now do King's Field
Grossly incandescent
Never played any of these games, just like the last season, and I can’t wait to listen 😀
This is insane
Holy shit it really is 4 hours long
If this is the first episode...holy fuck... I can't wait for the DS1 episode.
kingdom hearts outsold flop's souls
Saw the title, saw the runtime, started laughing like the Mark Hamill Joker
My fingers are tented like Mr. Burns
playing this in 2009 felt truly groundbreaking and it has some features like world tendency i wish was explored further i liked it so much that i bounced off dark souls when it first came out and took two years to get into downtown
Commute guy here, and erm... You could say my listening time is accounted for 😏
The Demon inside me? Yeah, I'm thinking it's about to be touched.
sir another podcast about a game I'll never play has dropped
Imagine referencing 2009 and going with the Chicago Bears Jay Cutler instead of the comeback olympia winning Jay Cutler
The original demon's souls is still my favourite soulslike of all time, it just has such a unique vibe and a really nice slow pace of gameplay, excited for this episode
baquack odoula is crazy
Felix is going to squeeze SO much juice out of that "guy with a criminal background taking a class to become a male doula" joke
life is good 😌
i gasped when i saw the email
There is gonna be so much good slop from Season 2 of this series if the first episode is 4 hours long LMAO. Thank you, Felix
Can't believe I'm about to listen to a 4 hour podcast on a game I've never played nor wish to play
The things we do for Felix
HOGS SATED
4 HOURS ON EP 1 GOD IS GOOD
Praise the slop
Yooo Patches!
Marianne, hold my calls.
4 hours for the very first episode, I will drink deep of this radiant slop
This is my Citizen Kane
The whole game is the bird screeching.