Demon’s Souls players are cheesing Scirvir like he’s no big deal, and I’m not afraid anymore

Headbutt spam, Soul Remains, and an Anti-Magic Field — what’s your pleasure?

I am no longer afraid of the magic-slinging Scirvir in Demon’s Souls (at least in a cautiously optimistic sense). He could absolutely take me out in the blink of an eye, but I’m going to put on a brave face the next time we cross paths in the Stonefang mines.

In lieu of committing to a fun but probably too time-consuming new run, I’ve been poking around the Demon’s Souls subreddit lately, , , and marveling at cheesy tactics that I’ll save for a rainy day.

Boss difficulty can really swing from one person to the next, particularly when New Game+ runs come into the conversation, and the same can definitely be said of black phantoms — some of them are no joke. In my original playthrough(s), which descended into Pure Black World Tendency-chasജing madness, I died𓆉 countless times to Scirvir.

Without the right know-how and prep, Scirvir — full name, “the Wanderer” — can be a particularly tricky threat in black phantom form. While he’s pleasant enough as a nonviolent human NPC, he’s one of two owners of the , and as such, he must be destroyed. Scirvir comes into play for Demon’s Souls plꦓayers who are going down the  and rabbit-hole in the name of trophies a⛦nd glory.

Instead of crowd-sourcing some pointers at the time, I went with a brute-force approach, eventually grinding out a stressful, lucky, messy af win. Little did I know there are reliable 🦋strategies that can make Scirvir look like a totꦬal chump. That brings us to this recent Reddit clip — and a couple of other older cheesy strat videos that just slayed me.

As demonstrated by , if you’re okay with a Soulcalibur-style “ring out,” there’s a convenient pit nearby, and Scirvir can be highly susceptible to headbutts. Lots of ’em.

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This bold move — up/forward + R1 while unarmed — is never something I’d naturally try on my own. That’s the beauty of Souls games and their tip-sharing communities.

Another strategy for Scirvir, as captured by , involves some cheeky Soul ﷽Remains 🥂(to distract him to a mystifying degree) and plenty of backstabs.

Things get even more disrespectful with this clip from , who uses the mi🦩racle to stop the fiend from casting hard-hittiღng spells.

So many potential ways to get revenge on challenging black phantoms, so little time. As a player who goes by succinctly put it: “This game is special.” I should replay it!

As more of you are able to get ahold of a PlayStation 5, I hope you’re (re?)discovering this game and can relate to the highs and lows of adventuring in such a brutal world.