Demon's Souls

[Xeogred]

I got the Bastard Sword but am too weak to use it. Gonna assume you can level up eventually and stuff in this game or something?

I went with Soldier for my class too. Pretty basic but whatever.

[brunoafh]

You use the souls you collect to level up. I think you have to beat the first boss before you can do that though... it's been awhile so I can't remember. Basically, while in the Nexus, try talking to The Maiden in Black. The blind chick. You can raise your stats through her, which is basically leveling up.

With weapons, the skill requirement shown is the value that stat has to be to hold the weapon one-handed. You might still be able to hold it two-handed, try that out, unless you're using a shield.

Be VERY careful when you're around her though. If you accidentally kill her, you're completely fucked and you'll have to restart the entire game. Don't worry about what class you started with either, it's not going to matter, especially if you are going for a melee build.

[flex wood]

Be VERY careful when you're around her though. If you accidentally kill her, you're completely fucked and you'll have to restart the entire game. Don't worry about what class you started with either, it's not going to matter, especially if you are going for a melee build.

This is not true she it's the one npc that won't get agro and attack or die. She will always get back up. She says something about being bound to this world by the power of the nexus.

[brunoafh]

Whoops. Guess I gotta put my foot in my mouth then, I never killed her in the Nexus because after accidentally killing one very important NPC, I put my weapon away every time I approached her lol.

You can kill her though, if you know what I mean

[Xeogred]

How do you put your weapons away? I accidentally hit the blacksmith once... scared me, lol.

Are the Unknown Soul things best used when you're in the Nexus so you can safely spend those souls? I figure that's what I'll do with those, unless they have some other use.

I'm going to guess this red dragon flying around is the first boss.

I upgraded my broadsword so through more trial and error I'm getting the hang of things. I'm glad when you open up stuff in the levels at least that stuff stays like that. So it makes running back through the area's less tedious. I wish there was a map though, at least covering where you've been.

[Xeogred]

Oh yeah... that first boss wasn't bad. Still seems to be a lot to do in that level though. Should I keep exploring and running through it or move on? Think I'd be more likely to just go back and keep exploring.

I assume for melee I should beef up vitality and strength a lot (trying to get that Bastard Sword on one hand now), anything else?

[brunoafh]

Just tap left or right on the d-pad (depending on where you house your weapon, probably on the right) so it toggles to empty, or a tailsman or whatever is in the slot. You might want to glance over this if you aren't familiar with the controls, especially the "special moves" part.

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/controls

I would always use unknown souls (there are various types of the "souls" items that give different amounts of souls) in the Nexus after beating a boss or something and consider it cashing in. As for the Demon's Souls you're going to acquire from bosses after beating them, they give large amounts of souls, but can also be used to acquire unique weapons, miracles, and sorcery. Refer to this for info on that. This wiki should be your bible, heh.

http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/bosses

The bosses for the most part, aren't that hard in truth, but the battles get your heart pounding because there's a lot at stake. There are a few bosses that are a real pain in the ass, but I'd say there are more easy bosses than overly difficult ones.

It's up to you with the exploration really. Keep that world tendency stuff I mentioned in mind, when you get an area to be pure black or pure white tendency, different areas open up and new enemies called Black Phantoms appear (with unique gear and weapon drops). Like in the very beginning of the area you just cleared, when it's in pure black tendency, the sealed off stairs to the left on the bridge opens up, and there's one of the Black Phantom enemies down there and some loot.

You should also consider your dexterity for melee, a lot of weapons rely on that stat and get stat scaling off it. Quicker weapons, like katanas and stuff. You'll have to decide if you want to have like a quicker based melee character (focus on dex), or a slower but more powerful one (focus on strength).

One last thing for now, if you're eager to get into the online portions of the game, try to clear the first stage of the Tower of Latria. There's an enemy there before the first boss that drops some items that will enable you to do PvP. Also keep in mind that while in your body and not in the Nexus, you're open to invasion from other players.

[Xeogred]

The bosses look so awesome.

Final question for now and I should be good, but is there more stuff I have yet to unlock? Like I'm wondering if you can sell items/equipment or maybe break them down. Can you even drop stuff? It didn't look like it. But yeah I have a bunch of junk and handed it over to the collector guy. Aside from obviously storing some good stuff, I wonder if there's any purpose to all the junk you can pick up as well.

[brunoafh]

Yeah there's more to unlock. You still have to get miracle and sorcery teachers (and populate the Nexus in general), the world tendency stuff unlocks pretty significant content, lots of shortcuts you can unlock in areas, the second blacksmith that allows you to forge unique weapons, side quests NPCs, more vendors, and again the online portion of the game once you get near the end of the first part of the Tower of Latria. I'm not sure if that's exactly what you meant... but there's some general info that probably answers the question in one way or another.

You can't sell stuff (you can in Dark Souls though), but you can drop stuff. Not really a bad idea to save your stuff with Stockpile Thomas though, never know when you might need the seemingly random items you're getting. There's a trader you can access later on that will trade valuable and rare items for junk items.

[MrEco]

I know this is a bit late, and maybe you figured some of this out already Xeogred, but I want to give a few tips to make it easier for you.

If you didn't know, you actually have a limit on the total number of items you can hold and almost everything has a weight to it. This is why Stockpile Thomas exists, because you will eventually HAVE to drop stuff in his bank or be unable to acquire new items.

Next, you have a separate weight number to consider from your inventory weight. This is your equipment weight, the stuff your character currently has on them. It's very important to stay below 50% of your total equipment weight otherwise you won't be able to dodge roll effectively in the slightest. In couple with this I will also say that in most situations it is more effective to dodge attacks in this game than it is to block them with your shield (Assuming you're using a shield of course).

Lastly, from your posts it seems like you're going with a strength based melee build. This is actually a really good choice for a first time run through the game, but I must mention two things. Firstly, it will make your life a lot easier if you grab a bow so that you have long range option when it would help. Most bows require a high dexterity stat to be powerful, but their is one bow that you can get which is useful even for a strength character. It can be obtained by upgrading a regular bow with the soul of the boss from 2-1. Secondly, miracle spells are fairly overpowered. Combine this with the fact that miracles mix well with a melee character means that you could very well grab a talisman and start a faith/strength mix character. This is only a suggestion of course, you can still beat the game just fine without using miracles.

Hope some of these help.