There are not many titles that have an amazing late game stage, Demon bosses are slain, levels unlocked, areas that are even too dangerous to trek have been explored, looted, and conquered. The gameplay should get old, but things to trade for is where it got really intriguing.
Many soulslike bosses gives you souls to collect and some unique items. Demon's Souls bosses give you souls twice, and in different packages. I've been collecting the souls items in my collection, rescuing NPCs for later, eventually finding them in the Nexus available to trade said souls for crazy spells, and weapon upgrades. That in and of itself, from a game world standpoint, very awesome.
I guess it was right after shooting down and killing Mindflayers across the tricky prison levels, I've come across Lord Rydell. Unfortunately couldn't save him, and this is because I have to pass through 3-2, 3-3, and finally kill the possessed old monk.
Now, there wasn't much of a possible way to get above after beating Fool's Idol, it's super tricky, enemies are beefier, the levels are design to evoke serious acrophobia. Also, flying Gargoyles. So I had to work around places I could. If you don't know I'm talking about, basically the 5 worlds have several mini-bosses before the final ones. Where the real demon souls items at.
The game mechanics, and loop design, rewards players who overcome all kinds of struggles. But it's also a power fantasy title where you find insanely powerful weapons or useful items like Pine Resins to light up right weapon on fire, and take out mini-bosses that are a gazillion parasites. In this area in particular, there's the Black version, more expensive, but far more effective.
No particular written information, unless a player message from the online, suggests weaknesses or good defense to survive them. I know bosses are crap once my character gets powered up, but each one's identity is unique, it takes outlasting them a little longer to know.
These mini-bosses start stepping up right after the 3rd stage or 4th. The entire game kept stepping it up. Each of the world levels in a lot of unique ways represented the bosses that came before me. Exuding auras of excess, chaos, corruption, decadence, the power and sheer terror they impose on anyone who dares to come. This is why farming was tedious, despite coming to 4-2, and finding an insanely good farming spot, earning over 4K souls every minute.
Now, I had to upgrade my weapons by respawning in areas with creep rewards, turns out world tendency is another factor where it goes black, the rewards increases in quantity and chance. I couldn't for the life of me upgrade my axe earlier, until I got enough Greystone chunks.
Oh, NPCs can be black phantoms too. Did you know that? Yeah, killing them, and I mean if you can kill them, you collect crazy gear. I had to restore my human form, and then suicide before getting it to pure black. Dear god, getting this guy to die was super hard. He had large damage from attacks, both range and melee. Even at close, the fire push spell easily kills me.
You're trying to ask how on earth did I get that thing? Well, this sword wasn't easy to obtain, because I had to go up against a giant Dragon God. He was literally a set piece boss, where I have to survive him till I make across like a giant cannonball and shoot him with.
But I had to plow through the debris with my axe, one I've farmed for, and upgraded to +3. Which by that point has high strength damage scaling. With my strength at 34, I finally managed to beat the boss. But realized I missed the achievement when I needed a Hand of God melee gloves to land the final blow on that giant spawn of hell.
Later came to why these bosses were easy, despite this anxiety inducing battle because his punch was hard to avoid. These bosses were to represent along with its world building, and atmosphere the strong demon slayer narrative that Fromsoft is very good at creating. All that hard work, but none of it was as difficult as going back to Boletaria and finally going to the castle.
The main story revolves around a fallen king, and the demons that have subsumed him. So you decide about how to access power through the advantage of messing around with world tendencies, going online invading and saving other players. Killing even demon spawns and phantoms.
I exchanged a lot of the boss soul items, and upgrade my bone smasher, converted any normal bow to the Lava Bow. Heck, there's a spell taking 3 magic slots which, by a curse, enhance my right-hand weapon by 50% damage. At 3+ upgrade, two hits, and this guy went down. He was the final boss for world 3. Then the phantom I killed much earlier dropped this talisman.
One that let me choose between both miracles and magic spells. Despite not meeting minimum skill requirements. The game isn't over for me, either. It's gotten easier to explore, world 3 was also filled with creepy crawlies that would even make H.R. Geiger shudder.
NPCs would lie about who they are, before you mistakenly free them, and they kill almost anyone in my Nexus. I even disguised myself as one of the enemies before they lowered a bridge, letting me save a witch that gave me the weapon's curse spell. While I'm running out of boss souls to try, and unlock powerful spells or upgrade heavens to crazier states, NG+ is like trying it out all over again.
I'm not a big fan of souls games. They take so much time figuring out what, where, and how. But now I'm almost unstoppable. Over 30hrs in, and I finally have enough power to take on, and finish world 4 and 5 bosses. But I want to stick around for longer. Maybe I will subscribe to that stupid PS Plus subscription, and see about messing around with the PvP.
