There has to be some kind of populace on AG that knows their Souls games =) if you don't know what the Souls franchise is all about, a quick summary:
The first game in the series (disregarding an incredibly underground PS2 precursor) is called Demon's Souls, a PS3 exclusive RPG based on hardcore gameplay. Although most people will remember it as the game they stomped into a jillion pieces in pure frustration, it's my current favorite video game. It's got hours and hours of gameplay (with the New Game Plus system and multiplayer co-op/competitive, the game can be considered essentially endless) the most addictive gameplay this side of Minecraft, gorgeous graphics and a sense of accomplishment I've honestly never experienced in a game before. The first few levels of the game can take days, weeks, of slogging and dungeon-crawling and grinding for levels and honestly, swearing and turning off the console faster than the speed of light, but I just recently carved through the entire campaign, and I feel like that's something I should be able to put on my resume and get kudos for =P

Demon's Souls is the 2011 sequel to Demon's Souls, this time opening up it's availability to PS3, XBox 360, and PC. A lot is the same, but a lot is different, making the playing field essentially level for both newcomers and Demon's Souls veterans.

They're both incredible games, and if you've never checked them out, Demon's Souls has a knack for haunting 20 dollar game bins the world over and Dark Souls is a sound investment (for a determined gamer) at 39.95$ MSRP.

Now that I've got that outta the way, for those of you who DO know what I've been talking about, what do you think about the changes made between Demon's and Dark? Maybe I'm just complaining, but a lot of my tactics have been totally uprooted, and this means a surprising amount of, well, starting from scratch unfortunately. Any other questions/comments/whatevers are definitely welcome. I have a feeling this post is going to die....but, we'll see!

Those are awesome. But they're too **** difficult! Can't help losing my patience from time to time. But that's the game about.

Prepare to die.

they're fun but difficult, you need no stess (not me) and time (not me). i recomend giving them both a try and god you need to be prepared for them.

(with the New Game Plus system and multiplayer co-op/competitive, the game can be considered essentially endless)

Multiplayer for Demon's Souls has been shutdown.

I've played a rather large chunk of Dark Souls, and I'm super excited for the sequel. I'm currently attempting Duke's Archives but my Lightning Spear is way under-powered. Anybody know where there's a bunch of pvp going on? I know Painted World is good for level 50-60 but that's it.

I've played a lot of Dark Souls. Unfortunately my computer decided to terminate the first two characters I've made before I finished the game, so with my third one I didn't bother killing the boss and going on to NG+ when I got to the last area again.

The best place for PVP is the Oolacile township, but that's in the additional content area. If you haven't bought it, you could try the Darkroot forest, if you go there as human while Sif is still alive you'll get a lot of invasions from the forest covenanters. Or you could join the covenant yourself: it gives you a ring that periodically summons you in the forest to fight a human intruder regardless of where you are at the moment.

Anor Londo was a fun place to invade at. Though you get a nice mixed bag of vets/noobs. Dark Souls 2 is coming though!

Man I loved Dark Souls it was such a hard game but I pushed through the game and I finally beat it, worth it btw. Although at some points I thought about just giving it up but in the end I would always go back to it cuase it was such an addicting game. I personally thought that the worst (hardest/annoying) part of the game was blightown because of finding my way around it and because of all the poisons I just hated it. Also the boss underneath where you fight the asylum demon that toke me forever and now I gotta re-beat it because I want to get the other ending and yes there is another ending :O But ya in summary good gamebut very challenging.

Also how I would play is if I would die a lot in the same area or got really far and then died I would just rage quit!