So The World Might Be Mended...
Demon's Souls is an amazing game. An amazing, crushingly difficult, death-prone, seemingly unfair one, but an amazing game nonetheless. Go buy it.
Published: October 8, 2009
This is the base from which your unique Demon's Souls experience will spring. Given the number of different options, you'll often find that even similar characters tackle enemies in totally different ways. I was a ranged spellcaster for the majority of my first time through the game, and it served me well until I got into the later levels, necessitating that I either go online and get some help or bulk up my stats to the point where I could handle a melee weapon, some of which work better on some enemies than others, and finding out which is which is a matter of either trial and error or consulting what must be the most helpful and encouraging player base I've ever come across. Demon's Souls is a heartless, cruel, unforgiving game, but the people that play it (most of 'em, anyway) are some of the most selfless, warm-hearted and helpful folks you'll ever meet.
That's good, because the game's approach to online is utterly unique. Rather than a lobby or a pool of players that you can choose to link up with, there's little in the way of actual matchmaking to be found here. Upon defeating the Phalanx, you're given two stones, which allow you to either call other players into your game as a Blue Phantom or let you join theirs (also as a blue guy). You'll also eventually gain the ability to invade other players' games as a Black Phantom, turning the monsters in the level against them (they ignore or even help you) and wrecking their game. Of course, if you die while invading to anything other than the invaded player's blade, you'll lose a full soul level. No, it doesn't pay to be evil... well, not all the time.
It does, however, pay to help others. While you can't make any progress in your adventure if you join someone else's game, you can get others to help you past a particularly tough boss fight, at which point they'll head back to their world and you can grade their help to determine how much of the pool of souls earned for felling the boss they get.
Interestingly, despite never actually having a real, direct way of recruiting specific friends inside the game, you'll still get the sense that other people are in the world. Players on nearby "planes of reality" will appear as white ghosts that go about their activities in their world without actually doing anything in yours (it's fun to watch them fighting against an invisible enemy or running around the same area as you, showing that no, you're not entirely alone). Moreover, the game is constantly recording what you do, and when you die, your bloodstain seems into other players' games, allowing them to see the last 10 or so seconds of your life. Not only is this amusing, but it can serve as a warning of what's to come in new areas.
Explaining just how the whole game joining experience works requires a bit more explanation of your general state in the world and how it affects everything around you. When you first start the game, you're in Body form -- essentially corporeal and "whole" -- and as a result of your tutorial level, you'll end up eventually dying and being captured by the Nexus. When you die, you revert to Soul form -- effectively a ghost -- and your life is halved. You can get a ring very early on that will give you 75% of your total health, but get used to rarely having access to you total life. Now, when you're in Body form and you die, the world you're in (one of five) shifts its tendency from white to black. The darker the world, the harder the enemies are, which mean that, yes, the game gets harder when you die -- at least in Body form.
When you're in Soul form and you die, there's no effect on the world tendency, which means you'll likely be exploring with 75% of your total health most of the game your first time through. Killing a boss or a unique Black Phantom will shift things toward white (and, upon killing a boss, you get your body back). This is important because joining other games is dependent on your form. If you're corporeal, you can only recruit; if you're a ghost, you can only join. Those offering help leave a blue marking on the ground, and using it you can pull people into your game.
