by elvishlunatic Mon Jan 23, 2012 3:32 am
In Demon's Souls, your character will be in one of two forms: Body Form or Soul Form. In Body Form (like being Unhollowed in Dark Souls), you can summon others/be invaded, but you can't put a summon sign down or try to invade others. You have normal maximum HP. In Soul Form (the one you'll be spending most of your time in), you can be summoned/invade others, but you can't summon others or be invaded. Your maximum HP is halved, but there's a ring you can pick up early on that brings your HP up to 75% of your maximum HP. You also deal slightly more damage than you do in Body Form, but the extra damage is so small that it really doesn't make a difference.
After being summoned and successfully killing the boss, you and the other player(s) all rate each other from S-D, and the higher your rating, the more souls you get from the boss. As an invader, you can heal yourself, but you can also kill the enemies throughout the stage (so if you really want to, you can be a helpful invader). After killing a boss, you get a Demon's Soul, which you can consume for souls or give it to someone to get something cool, like a new weapon or a new spell/miracle.
The healing items in Demon's Souls is various types of grass, and you can carry as many as 99 of each. Also, magic isn't limited to a certain number of uses; you have an MP bar that you can refill with spices.
There are only 3 speeds: Fast (less than 50% equip weight), Slow (more than 50% equip weight), and Snail (more than max equip weight), there is no medium speed like in Dark Souls. Also, your character has an Item Burden (which is increased with Vitality) that determines how much you can carry; no more carrying around whatever you want.
For stats, the Magic stat increases MP and # of spell slots, and Faith increases miracle power and slots. Intelligence simply increases spell power. There's also Luck, which increases plague resistance (Plague is like Toxic, except that it also decreases stamina regen) and item discovery.
The various weapon upgrades are Standard, Crushing and Sharp (for Str/Dex, respectively), Moon/Crescent (the Magic upgrades, Moon is more powerful but Crescent gives MP regen), Blessed (Faith-based, and gives HP regen), Tearing (Dex, and adds bleed), Fatal (extra critical), Dragon (Fire damage), and Mercury (adds poison). Standard maxes out at +10, everything else ends at +5. Not every upgrade applies to every weapon; for example, you can't make a Crushing Falchion or a Sharp Great Axe. Armor isn't upgradeable, what you see is what you get.
This was a long post, I know, but these are all the differences I can think of between the games.