Follow the suggested Demon's Souls world order and perfect gameplay tips to avoid missing key items and mechanics, especially World Tendency.
Suggested Play Order:
- 1-1: Boletarian Palace: Gates of Boletaria
- 1-2: Boletarian Palace: The Lord's Path
- 2-1: Stonefang Tunnel: Smithing Grounds
- 4-1: Shrine of Storms: Island's Edge
- 3-1: Tower of Latria: Prison of Hope
- 4-2: Shrine of Storms: The Ritual Path
- 4-3: Shrine of Storms: Altar of Storms
- 1-3: Boletarian Palace: Inner Ward
- 2-2: Stonefang Tunnel: The Tunnel City
- 2-3: Stonefang Tunnel: Underground Temple
- 3-2: Tower of Latria: Upper Latria
- 3-3: Tower of Latria: The Ivory Tower
- 5-1: Valley of Defilement: Depraved Chasm
- 5-2: Valley of Defilement: Swamp of Sorrow
- 5-3: Valley of Defilement: Rotting Haven
- 1-4: Boletarian Palace: The King's Tower
Reasoning for Order: 1-2 is short and leads to upgrades needed for 2-1. 2-1 offers early weapon upgrade materials. 4-1 and 4-2 provide greater soul rewards and helpful HP/MP recovery items. 4-3 is short and features an easier Archdemon with the Storm Ruler sword, enabling access to 1-3. 1-3 offers valuable Moon Grass drops and access to Yuria the Witch for advanced spells. World 5 (Valley of Defilement) is avoided early due to low soul drops, poisonous swamps, and difficult enemies like giant depraved ones.
Perfect Gameplay / First Playthrough Tips:
Reference the Perfect Game Checklist every step of the way
This way you're sure not to miss the important parts accidentally. Manipulating the World and Character Tendencies can be especially tricky. _Link → Checklist: Perfect Game / Platinum Trophy_
DO NOT CONSUME THE DEMON'S SOULS!
There are two types of Souls you can obtain in the game; the normal Consumable Souls that you find lying around throughout the dungeons, and Demon's Souls, which are dropped after defeating the big baddies themselves. DO NOT CONSUME THE DEMON'S SOULS UNLESS THEY HAVE NO OTHER USE! They are able to be traded or used elsewhere for a much better benefit than just increasing your Soul count. There are only 3 in the entire game that have no use except to consume, so unless you're told directly to consume them (or have already looked in the Demon's Souls section), then save them.
Start off better equipped
After clearing W1-1, you'll be able to go to any of the other worlds' first area. Each one has something that massively benefits you right from the get go, so before proceeding with your next level of choice, do some archstone hopping to get the following equipment:
- Blacksmith Boldwin: Heater Shield (unless you already have the Kite Shield from the Knight class)
- W2-1: Crushing Battleax +1
- W5-1: Morning Star, Talisman of God
- W4-1: Talisman of God, Kilij, Crescent Falchion +1, Regenerator's Ring (see Grabbing the Regenerator's Ring early), Fragrant Ring (trade the Brass Telescope with Sparkly the Crow)
- W3-1: Wizard's Shoes, Wizard's Gloves, Wizard's Clothes, Wooden Catalyst, Silver Coronet
World Tendency and Offline Mode
You'll be aiming to get a Pure White World Tendency (PWWT) for each world at the start. To do so, you need to make sure that you do NOT die while in human form in any of them. To avoid this, you need to explore each world while in soul form. While you're in human form, use the outermost stairs in the Nexus to climb up two flights, then hurtle yourself off of the ledge to kill yourself. Promptly pick up your lost souls, then return exploring.
To increase your World Tendency, the boss of each world needs to be defeated. The only other way (other than to go down to Pure Black World Tendency [PBWT] and complete those events) is to defeat invading players while in Online mode.
It's recommended to play in Offline Mode so that you cannot be killed by invading players (if you happen to be in human form), as well as having your worlds influenced by the ever-changing tendencies based on all online players' playing habits.
Once you finally obtain PWWT and complete the events in each world associated with it, you can then send them down to PBWT and complete those events associated with it; just repeatedly kill yourself in human form in each world to get there. PBWT will then spawn one black phantom from a previous NPC (non-player character — anyone the game controls, not you) and one primeval demon that can be killed to shoot your World Tendency back up to PWWT (if done within the same trip / not traveling via archstone).
If you're farming souls, you'll want to stay in PBWT, as you'll receive more souls per enemy kill. Just know that they'll be hitting harde
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