Which game is Harder Demon or Dark souls

Oh boy Flamelurker.
His 3 explosive fist combo is as deadly as it sounds.

If you take 100 gamers, none of whom have any idea about either game -- no wikis, no guides, no cheats, no nothing -- and give 50 of them Dark Souls and 50 Demon's Souls, I'm willing to bet the reaction would be pretty similar between the 2 groups. Demon's may be a little more discouraging due to its oppressive atmosphere, but on the other hand you can carry soooooo many grasses for healing, whereas in Dark Souls you're likely to get through most of the game before you realize you could've had 20 flasks. Something always seem to balance the other out.

For those of us that have played both it'll always seem like the first one you played was harder, as others have said.

I believe that most of them would say Demon Souls is easier because you can start off as the Royal class which already has one good magic spell. Than you can pretty much Op most of the enemies and bosses in the game. In Demon Souls you basically have unlimited magic, but in Dark Souls you have certain limits than you have to go rest at the bon fire. Plus you can always buy grass in Demon Souls which allows you basically explore for hours without the intent of dying

Same thing could be said about the Sorcerer class in DkS.

callipygias wrote:Same thing could be said about the Sorcerer class in DkS.

Actually no.

You can't spam as much in Dark Souls so it's really hard in the early game for the Mage.
That and he doesn't get a weapon which scales with magic until he gets a green titanite.

As well in Dark armor is more important, so while the armor of the Royal doesn't matter the starting set of the Sorcerer does.

While the individual enemies in Dark may be beefier, in Demon's you had to maintain a perfect play throughout a sprawling level. Very much like Megaman. Dark is very much station to station with the Bonfire system. So you may have several severely tough enemies in front of you but the penalty for failing that test is a kick back to a point that is typically not far behind you.

I'd say Dark Souls was more difficult. I had a fairly easy time in Demon's Souls, and the Flamelurker wasn't that hard for me as long as I had patience. Same goes for the Maneaters - never had a problem with them. Even as far as areas went, Demon's Souls seemed easier to me in general. I attribute a lot of that to the fact that Faith builds were pretty strong in Demon's Souls with the sick amount of stacked HP regen you could get. The only thing that really was tougher for me in Demon's Souls than Dark Souls was the BP enemies - the BP and BP NPC enemies posed a challenge to me, whereas the BP NPC enemies in Dark Souls were a joke.

It never ceases to amaze me how the bosses in DeS (even the like of Flamelurker and the Maneaters) have gotten so easy in the past couple of years.

I wonder why that is...? :roll:

DMC wrote:It never ceases to amaze me how the bosses in DeS (even the like of Flamelurker and the Maneaters) have gotten so easy in the past couple of years.

I wonder why that is...? :roll:

I can tell you're skeptical of people finding the bosses on demons easier now because there are glitchy ways to beat them..

I've never used glitchy ways though, and having fought the flamelurker twice, i'm proud to say i haven't died to him yet, though i'd agree with most that he's the most difficult boss on a base playthrough, it's a fight for your life, kinda like how gwyn would be if they had made him without parry and made his moveset a bit more impressive.

Still though, the bosses on demons souls are easier because they have in built gimmicks in many to make them easier to defeat, and thats pretty much it. Though i dunno what from were thinking when making the dirty colossus.. you just strafe slightly outside his hit zone and occasionally wail on him..

There's also the small factor that in demons souls, you have unlimited heals which in a boss fight is incredibly useful and your movement is much faster in demons souls, along with the base 50 percent roll is like fast roll in dark but with more invincibility frames, longer distance and smoother motion. It just makes avoiding hits from bosses much easier on demons than dark without having to know perfect roll timing etc.

True.

But the gimmicks aren't immediately obvious, especially when under the pressure of a boss fight in difficult games like these.

So I'm also skeptical about people's claims of discovering these 'gimmicks' blind (and don't get me started on the different definitions of what is actually playing 'blind') on their own and still defeating the boss first time. But I've been through this before with you and I'm not talking about you. Just 95% of the others lol

The bottom line is these forums are like locker rooms except they're full of gamers. They are full of bluster, posturing, boasting, gross exaggeration and immeasurable amounts of BS. And this phenomenon is actually worse when it comes to difficult games requiring a modicum of skill and determination. And of course the BS is all exacerbated by the relative anonymity of the internet.

So yeah , please forgive my skepticism

Like the poster above I actually don't believe the question can be answered by anyone who played either game before the other. Only someone who played both games contemporaneously and truly blind could say for sure. And even then two different players might differ in their experiences and their answer to the question!

DMC wrote:It never ceases to amaze me how the bosses in DeS (even the like of Flamelurker and the Maneaters) have gotten so easy in the past couple of years.

I wonder why that is...? :roll:

Flamelurker is fine as long as you have some sort of magic source of damage, be it a blessed weapon, sticky white stuff, spells, or holy arrows. My first playthrough I had a ton of fun with my hunter build dodging and timing when to hit Flamelurker with holy arrows (didn't use the glitch where he gets trapped). Maneaters are hardly a problem if you keep them separated and stay around the bonfire. Coming back with a build using a blessed weapon (blessed greataxe, for example) just makes it way too easy. If there weren't blessed weapons in Demon's Souls, my bets are it would be the more difficult game. Here's AGermanSpy's video on why blessed weapons are broken for reference.

Absolutely my friend

I forgot about that.. Though then again arguably that point is just an extension of the knowledge pitfall, the fact you know about health regen and massive stocks of grass is whats making it easy, not the gameplay.

To be fair, demons without health regen would make it harder, but only if you didn't wanna put in a few minutes getting the grass you need.. it's a sort of bump in the road to me rather than actually making the game harder/easier with or without it.

Serious_Much wrote:I forgot about that.. Though then again arguably that point is just an extension of the knowledge pitfall, the fact you know about health regen and massive stocks of grass is whats making it easy, not the gameplay.

To be fair, demons without health regen would make it harder, but only if you didn't wanna put in a few minutes getting the grass you need.. it's a sort of bump in the road to me rather than actually making the game harder/easier with or without it.

Well, then there's still Second Chance... come to think of it, that should be the elephant in the room when talking about Demon's Souls. Funnily enough, I never found the need to abuse it.

vatar5 wrote:

callipygias wrote:Same thing could be said about the Sorcerer class in DkS.

Actually no.

You can't spam as much in Dark Souls so it's really hard in the early game for the Mage.
That and he doesn't get a weapon which scales with magic until he gets a green titanite.

Actually, yes.

You may not have quite as much quantity, but the boss-killing power of sorcery in Dark Souls balances it out. You get Soul Spear and HSM on NG and it's pretty well over. Get your int in the 40s and the lesser spells will 1-shot most mobs, while the greater spells will destroy otherwise challenging bosses.

As James from Gamefront's NG+ battle vs. the Bell Gargoyles illustrates, Sorcery is just as insanely op in NG+ too. He got whooped in melee, so he went back, spammed a few Soul Spears and it was over. Don't think he even got hit.

If you took magic outa both games demons souls would be harder

It's an interesting topic for discussion. As similar as they are with their core mechanics, they really are quite different games. Demon's was a very systematic design, and navigating through the worlds required observation, repetition and then choreography. You operated within the parameters of the board, and followed the groove. I knew that once I did A, then B would happen and so forth.

Dark always felt more random to me. Although the enemies follow patterns, their tendency to gang up and their "awareness" radius seemed to make for a bit more unpredictability when navigating the terrain. The onus is more on knowing your weapon and how it moves.

Very subjective feelings I know.

Let's see. I've never cheated at Dark Souls at all.

And I never cheated at Demon's Souls untill after I beat the first boss. I cheated because it was so damn hard.

So Demon's Souls it is!

Fun little side-game to play here. Watch this and think of it as a Demon's Souls vs Dark Souls comparison. Alot of the points match up eerily well, as well as reflect my own opinions on the matter in general

Vinyl Scratch wrote:Let's see. I've never cheated at Dark Souls at all.

And I never cheated at Demon's Souls untill after I beat the first boss. I cheated because it was so damn hard.

So Demon's Souls it is!

If by cheated you mean duping, it doesn't make the game any easier.

Before I knew about duping I just abused 4-2 to get all of the souls/empheral eyes I needed. With souls+ equipment and pure black I think I was getting like 25k a run? That might be a little high but I know it was a crazy amount.

But the moral of the story is anything you can do with duping you can do with enough farming. I only use full moon grass since I feel new/dark moon grass duping would be a little over the top.


I play Demon's and Dark pretty regularly. I'm crazy that way. I would have to say the levels are harder in Demon's but the bosses are harder in Dark. I HATE that you can just run past 99.99% of all enemies in Dark souls. In Demon's they are more in your way. I know they did it in Dark so you could run past enemies when back tracking but I still think it's lame.

...how does duping items so you can insta upgrade your weapons to max and your level not make the game easier? :roll:

Serious_Much wrote:...how does duping items so you can insta upgrade your weapons to max and your level not make the game easier? :roll:

Farming does the same thing. So suddenly the game is easy because farming souls in 4-2 is easy? Interesting....

Not to mention you can easily get dark moon upgrade items to make the crescent falcon +4 which craps on the entire ng in 4-2.

Duping doesn't change the game as much as you think. I beat the game multiple times before I learned about duping and the only change was I spent less time farming and more time having fun.

Duping makes DeS far easier IMO. I know because I've done it. And I still do it to quickly try out builds. I've won the game legit several times (the first time was actually blind in that wikis didn't even exist then) and don't see the need to spend hours of my life farming just ot try out a new build.

But it's not the duping of souls if you ask me, it's the duping of upgrade materials that make the game much easier. Like DkS, the difficulty of DeS is mitiagted far more by your equipment than by your stats.

You can have a hardstone/sharpstone weapon+9 and a heater shield+9 by 1-2 if you dupe. BY THE SECOND LEVEL!! That could be within 30 minutes or less. That and 99 sticky white stuff or black turpentine and the game suddenly becomes an entirely different experience to what was intended (and to what many of us here experienced the first few times around).

That's what the guys are doing who claim 'Flamelurker is easy' and I yeah he IS pretty easy if you've got gear you are NOT supposed to have at that stage of the game and infinte buffs.

And it's not so much that obtaining one example of a particular item is difficult, but obtaining enough of them to max out weapons is very hard. It's getting enough of the large shards and chunks that can be the problem. Catching some of those lizards is a pain in the ***. Partiuclarly with certain builds e.g. no bow make some much harder to catch consistently.

Yeah you can farm everything too (well almost everything and there's an element of luck involved too) but that doesn't mean duping does not make the game much easier.

And farming itself is 'hard' if you ask me: it's torturously tedious, infuriatingly random and certain rare drops are ridiculously hard to obtain.

Thanks DMC, that's exactly what I think. You shouldn't be able to have end game gear at the start as the difficulty will become nonexistant for a large part of the game. It doesn't just remove the grind, it removes the fun too