With 2009 coming to a close, there's no doubt that Demon's Souls is the Playstation 3 rpg game of the year. This is a combination of Demon's Souls being a great game and the lack of rpgs for the Playstation 3. Demon's Souls is one of those sleeper hit rpg game where word of mouth help boosts its popularity within the rpg community. It's definitely a niche rpg that is aim strictly for the hardcore rpgers and not the average gamers out there. Demon's Souls is a very unique and innovative game that offers an experience that can't be found anywhere else. But it also has a lot of frustrating flaws within its gameplay that makes the game appealing only to certain type of players. Let's look at why this rpg game is consider by many to be the best rpg game for 2009.
STORY
Welcome to the Nexus
To challenge a King
In the kingdom of Boletaria, a mysterious fog has engulfed the nation unleashing terrible demons that hunted men for their souls. Those that lost their souls have also lost their mind, leaving the mad attacking the sane. Chaos now reigns in Boletaria. It is said that the King of Boletaria had awaken the Old One in the Nexus, a place of its slumber which resulted in the fog covering Boletaria. This legend quickly spread throughout the lands of other nations drawing forth mighty warriors in hopes of being the great hero that will restore Boletaria and defeat the Old One. But as time past, mighty warriors that enter Boletaria have also been consumed by the fog and have never been heard of again. But now one lone warrior, you, are about to take on the task of entering Boletaria. Has the time come for a true hero to save Boletaria. The true Demon's Souls begins here.
Story? Well the entire plot of the game is the story. LOL. It maybe funny but it's true. There really is no story in this game. To prove the point, the game doesn't have any story scenes at all. There are some CG movies that introduce the stage bosses into the game but that's it. You can randomly talk to some of the NPCs that you encounter during your exploration in various stages but they are just random chatter that doesn't add anything to the storyline. The only so called story scene that you will get in the game is at the very beginning when you talk to the Monumental NPC. The Monumental will summarize the world that you are playing in and its past history. This summary from the Monumental also lays out the plot of the story and the objective of the game. So in a sense, outside of knowing what your role and purpose in this storyline and game is, there's really nothing else to the entire story. There are no developments in any characters in the game or even the so called Old One that you have to face off at the end of the game. The story provides 2 possible endings in a good and bad ending but both endings are weak and pretty much pointless. In a way the story was just simply created as a plot device for the objective and purpose of your gameplay in this game. It's like saying you are playing the game to save the world and that's it. You don't need to know anything else about the story at all. Just know you are playing to save the world or in this case to save Boletaria. Very disappointing but I guess it's not a real surprise at all since this game is all about gameplay. Giving a 5 to be kind here.
Score 5/10
CHARACTERS
"You trapped in the Nexus too?"
Well with a weak story, you aren't going to get anything much from the characters too. Or should I say lack of characters in this game. The main hero is pretty much you and your character doesn't really get involve in the story or talk at all. The game itself doesn't even go into any details about you other than you are one of the many heroes that have taken on the mantle to save Boletaria. Supporting characters are nothing more than npc characters that serve as shopkeepers, blacksmith, magic shopkeepers, and random past heroes that have tried to take it upon themselves to save Boletaria. In other words it's basically just you and the npc shopkeepers that act as supporting characters and characters in this game story. You really can't expect any major characters and character developments when there isn't much of a story in this game to begin with. Giving a score of 5 is just being kind.
Score: 5/10
GRAPHICS
The Tower Knight
In terms of the graphics for Demon's Souls, it has one of the best 3D background environments to date. While the date and timeline of Demon's Souls is unclear, it looks like its base on the setting of medieval times with knights and dragons. Castle walls, crates, stairwells, dungeons, and dragons are all very realistic and exceptionally done in details for each framework and picture. Most of the game is rendered in a dark environment which is base on the story of a country being engulf in a dark age. The darkness in the game graphics really help put the realism to the entire theme of a survival horror type of rpg game. In some stages of the game, you can just feel the creepiness of the environment as you explore around in the dark not knowing what can attack you at any moment. At other times during daylight outside of castle walls, you can see some breathtaking views of the landscapes. So the 3D environmental settings are done to near perfect for each different stages that you need to explore in. The only thing that is not up to par is the 3D character models. Character models including monsters aren't as detailed and visually appealing as they can be. While you can customize the detailed look on how your character model will look at the beginning of the game, you really don't see any real result from it when you play the game. You hardly can see any facial difference in all the players playing the game. Equipment and gear all look the same and on the bland side of things. The game does offer some CG movies but they are minor at best due to the limited CG scenes which is a shame. Thumbs up on the environmental graphics but thumbs down on the character designs.
Score: 8/10
MUSIC
"What's that organ music?"
The musical scores and sound effects in this game are very well done that help strengthen the dark theme of the game. You are looking at over 20 different musical scores base on the different bosses and areas in the game. Each boss theme is played nicely as background battle music during boss fights that keep the pace and tempo of the game going. There's a sense of gloom and urgency in these musical scores that make it really good when playing the game. The only kinds of tracks that this game is missing are the story scene ones but that's due to a lack of an actual in-depth story in this game. Still even without story musical scores, the game overall soundtrack help keep the pace of the gaming going in a good way and help provides the right environment settings in this game. The sound effects and voice acting in this game are excellent though. I don't think you can complain about the voice acting at all. Even though this is a Japanese made rpg game, it sounds and feels like it's a western rpg game made by an American company. The sound effects are just impressive in this game. If you listen carefully to the game, you can pretty much hear everything in the environment your character is standing on or walking in. Whether its footsteps, sword clashing, arrows shooting off, crows, or cries of torture from demons all around you, you can just feel the realism that the sound effects bring to the game. The sound effects actually make this game come to life as much as possible. Try playing this game in the dark and visit the Tower of Latria and see what I mean when you get spook out while you are exploring the area hearing the cries of torture souls and demons, or play through the Valley of Defilement as you walk in the swamp hearing the sounds of the dead and deprave ones in the far distance. The sound effects put the demon in Demon's Souls. This is one of those game where you notice the sound effects more than the actual musical scores. The only things that you can't expect from this game soundtrack are musical scores from story scenes.
Score: 8/10
GAMEPLAY
"Getting hot in here."
Take him down together.
Game Information
Genre: Action RPG
Publisher: Atlus
Disc: 1 Blu Ray Disc
Memory: 54 MB
Players: 1-4 Player Mode
Online: Broadband required
Supported HD Output: 480p, 720p
Rating: Mature 17+
Release: October 2009
Demon's Souls gameplay is a bit of action rpg, survivor horror, and stealth mix together into one game. The action rpg element is its main principal gameplay though while the survivor horror comes from the environment that you are playing in with demons and walking dead monsters. And of course stealth comes into play because in essence you just can't simply go charging in with a hack and slash attacks like most typical action rpg gameplay and expect success. In fact in most cases, stealth mode is the best way to go when it comes to defeating enemies. Let's start at the beginning. As soon as you log into the game, the game will pretty much ask you to create a character and what job class you want it to be. There's a great amount of details in terms of customizing the look for your characters from skin color to eyebrows. There are 10 starting job classes that you can choose from as a starting base for your character stats. However as the game progresses, you can develop your character anyway you want. So in other words you may have a knight as a starting job class but it's possible for you to then rebuild your knight into another job class that you prefer instead. You will begin at the Nexus, your main base of operations if you can call it that. From the Nexus you can access the 5 different areas and stages, deposit items, buy, and repair equipments. The objective of the game is to explore each of the 5 different areas and complete all the stages in them to clear it. The game ends when all of the 5 areas are cleared out. Each area is broken down into 3 stages with mini boss fights for the first 2 stages while the final big boss fight is done in the third stage of an area. The 5 areas of exploration are Boletarian Palace, Stonefang Tunnel, Tower of Latria, Shrine of Storms, and Valley of Defilement. This is pretty much a dungeon exploration action rpg game so you are playing in dark campy environments where monsters can jump out of anywhere to attack you. Now what you'll notice first is that the game can be played in Body Form or Soul Form. Body Form will give you more HP but you will have weaker attack power and can't sneak around as good. Soul Form has lower HP but provides a better boost in attack power and the ability to sneak around better. The gameplay will transition you between Body and Soul Form a lot. Each time you die, you will be in Soul Form until you clear a stage boss. Once a stage boss is defeated, you will be revive back to Body Form and will stay that way until you die again. For the most part of the game, you will be spending a lot of time in Soul Form because dying a lot is very common in this game. The second thing you will notice is that this game doesn't provide a save file for you to save. There's no save point at all in this game. The game uses an Auto Save feature where everything is automatically save into one file base on your initial entry point on a stage map. What this mean is that without a save point for you to save the game in, there's no back up save file for you to load up base on your progress if you make a mistake. No save file or no save point means you can't reload a save to try and redo something again. There's no redoing anything again in this game. If you miss out on anything than you have to wait till a new game+ to try again later on. The Auto Save feature will take some getting use to as most gamers are use to having an option to back up a save file incase they did something wrong in the game and need a retry. The third thing that gamers will notice is that this game is very hard. Enemies hit very hard and they are very smart to an extent that their aggressiveness is almost equal to that of human players. You can't just charge in and hack and slash at them and expect results like typical action rpg games. Charging in will just get yourself kill in a few seconds. Gamers will have to learn and adapt to different fighting style that suit them in this game base on their job class that they chose at the beginning of the game. You have to decide if you want to be the player that is base on dodge & attack or guard & attack or just keep your distance & attack from far away. Learning the different type of fighting style mixed in with stealth & sneak is the only way to play this game successfully. The enemies are that smart and aggressive in this game. In some stages there are regular enemies that even you are afraid to tackle head on regardless of your level. Learning how to fight properly is a must for this game period. Now when you are prepare to take on an area, the game isn't linear in what area needs to be done first. All 5 areas will be available for you to clear out and you can do them in any order at any time. Once you enter a stage of an area, you'll need to do some exploring to figure out where you need to go and what you need to do. Where to go and what needs to be done isn't as clear as you like it to be for new players but you can find hints left behind by other online players to help you toward your goal. Each stage is separated into sections base on a fog breaking each section down. You know you are heading in the right direction when you see a fog which is indicating a new section of the stage ahead. In other words keep exploring until you see a fog that you can go through to enter a new section of a stage. By doing this, eventually you will reach the boss stage. So for single player mode, it's not too hard in terms of needing to know what needs to be done and where to go. You just need to master your fighting technique and figure out a proper strategy of each boss fight. It's a bit daunting at first because you're just shock at how aggressive and strong the monsters are that you are unaccustomed to getting your butt kick by regular enemies so easily. Now the game can be played in offline mode or online mode. By default the online mode is where the game put you at as it's the best experience. You can get hints left behind by other players or even call other players to come into your game and help you out. Of course you can also be invaded by other players that are coming into your single player game looking to just kill you. So there's good and bad with playing online. Outside of that, Demon's Souls play pretty much like the typical western rpg game. Still when it comes to the gameplay, the difficulty and the online feature is what make this game so unique and addictive, so let's review these features at bit more closely.
Job Classes: There are 10 different starting job class that you can choose from. Each job class has its strength and weakness in stats. You can customize those stats to your desire once the game begins and as you start to level up in Soul Level. Each job class has it's advantages and disadvantages too in terms of fighting style so choosing a job class that you feel comfortable with is important. Living Body & Soul Form: You can play the game in 2 forms, Living Body and Phantom Soul Form. Living Body will allow you to have higher HP but weaker attacks while Soul Form gives you a boost in attack power but much lower HP. Each time you die in Living Body Form, you will be resurrected in Soul Form. Each time you clear a stage, you will be resurrected to Body Form. There are other methods to achieve these two different forms as well. Souls: The money currency in this game is call Souls that you get from defeating enemies and bosses. You can also get souls from defeating other players in PvP. If you die you will lose whatever Souls you had on you. Souls are use to purchase items, weapons, spells, miracles, and stats level up. By talking to the Lady In Black, you can purchase stats level up for a certain amount of souls. This is how the game level you up, by purchasing stat boost using Souls as a currency. Equipments: There are many different types of weapons and equipments that you can use and wear. What you can wear however is dependant on your gender and job class at times. The one thing to note here that is worth a mention is that all equipment from armors to weapons has a weight stat. The reason for this is that you are only able to carry a certain amount of weight toward your body due to a weight limit or else you will be burden and not be able to move. The more equipment you have on you, the heavier you are. This will affect your mobility as well as your speed for fights. You have to keep this in mind when you are trying to decide your fighting technique and style. Upgrading & Repairing Equipments: If your weapons and equipments are used too much they will wear down and will need to be repair. So making sure your gear is in top shape is important if you want to fully use their stats. You can also upgrade your weapons at the Blacksmith to higher class weapons for better damage output. World Tendency: A unique feature in this game is World Tendency where the areas and stages you play in has a spiritual standing base on pure white, white, neutral, black, and pure black. This is important because what World Tendency the area is in will have an effect on the monsters, environments, npcs, and you. For example if an area or stage is in Pure White World Tendency than enemies in those areas are much weaker than normal. But if that area is in Pure Black World Tendency than monsters in that area are much stronger. Add into the fact that certain npcs or characters will only appear or show up if the area is in a certain World Tendency. Defeating and clearing stages will raise the World Tendency toward white while dying or killing certain npcs will move the World Tendency toward black. You want to be able to control the World Tendency so you can do some events that are only available at the right World Tendency. Character Tendency: Character Tendency work in the same way as World Tendency from Pure White to Pure Black but the effect is on you the hero. What Character Tendency your character is in will effect his/her stats, HP, and attack power in Soul Form and Phantom Forms. Spells & Miracles: Magic comes in the form of spells and miracles. Miracles are light base magic while spells are dark base magic. Anyone can use spell and miracles as long as they have learned the spell or miracle by trading in souls or a particular demon soul. You can only equip a spell or miracle if you have the necessary memory slot for them. You can increase your memory slot by raising your INT or Faith stat. Hint Messages: When you play in online mode, you can leave messages with hint behind so other players playing the game can read them. Players can also rate someone's message if they feel the hint they leave behind is helpful. If someone rate or recommend your message, your HP will be restored immediately upon the rate up. It's a nice way for players to help each other during their game without actually interacting with one another. Of course some players can leave false message to mess you up too. Blue Signs: If you are playing as a Phantom in online mode you can leave behind a Blue Sign. This means that if someone out there is playing in Body Form and is close within your level range, they can see your Blue Sign and summon you into their game as a Blue Phantom to help them out. When summon into another gamer's world (Host), your job as a Blue Phantom is to help them kill enemies, Black Phantoms, and bosses. You will return back to your world if you die or if you manage to help the Host clear the stage boss. You will be revived into Body Form in your world if you manage to help clear the boss stage as a Blue Phantom helper. You will also gain whatever souls that the Host also get during your time in his/her world. Black Signs: Now instead of wanting to be a helpful Blue Phantom, you can also play the villain or jerk and be a Black Phantom and invade someone else's game to kill that player. You can only invade a player who is in your level range and who is playing in Body Form. By killing the Host, you will be revived in Body Form. It's one way of trying to get back to Body Form if you are stuck in Soul Form. Red Signs: If you are simply looking for a PvP (Player vs Player) fight than you can place a Red Sign or enter a Red Sign. This will bring a Host and a Black Phantom together for a one on one match up. Whoever loses will lose a soul level and whoever wins will gain a soul level.
I like to compare Demon's Souls gameplay to exercising. It's painful, it's not fun, and it's frustrating but in the end you keep doing it because it's good for you. Demon's Souls gameplay is like that, it's frustrating, hard, and annoying that at times it pisses you off so much that you wonder why you keep putting up with this kind of crap but in the end you just can't keep turning away from it. You hate it but you are addicted to it that you can't stop playing it. What makes the game so hard and frustrating is the lack of no save point and save file for you to save. The game literally punishes you if you make any mistake because there's no going back to redo something. You literally have to do a good run or else face starting over or having to redo something again that you miss out on in a new game+ file since there's no save file for you to reload and try again. It's bad enough that enemies in this game are extremely aggressive and hit very hard but imagine spending a couple of hours exploring and defeating enemies to finally get close to the boss stage to only die and then have to redo everything at the very start of the stage again. That's basically 2 hours of your game time being wasted away for nothing. That's not very fun having lost all the effort you put into the game in the last couple of hours going up in smoke. That's the problem in not having a save file to load up since the auto save feature always reload you at the very beginning of the stage at the Archstone after each death. And you will be dying a lot in this game, especially in the first play through. Not only that but imagine collecting all the souls (money) that you've been getting from killing all the enemies during your exploration being lost. Sure when you die, there's a chance that you can regain your lost souls by making it back to your death point and then recollecting the lost souls but if you happen to die again while trying to make it back to your first original death spot, those lost souls will be gone. It's like carrying 100 000 souls on you and you die. Then you have to try and make it back to your death spot to recollect those 100 000 souls but instead you happen to die again. Now those 100 000 souls are gone for good. Everyone who plays this game will experience this more than once in their game. It's just very frustrating and annoying seeing your efforts in the last few hours going to waste because there's no save file. To further the point, if you accidentally did something wrong or miss something in the game like an event or accidentally kill a NPC or anything there's no going back. You are pretty much screw until you play a new game+. No save file or redoing anything or retrying anything again unless it's in a new game. This makes it very hard for new beginners and gamers because it literally punishes you for making any mistakes so you need to be careful and take things slowly. Even boss fights are annoying and hard. And the reason for that is unlike most rpg game where you can save right before a boss fight incase if you lose, you can just reload and try again at the save point right where the boss is. Here in this game, if you die or lose in a boss fight, you have to restart at the very beginning again and make your way to the boss stage all over again. That can be very frustrating sometimes even with some of the short cuts provided to the boss stage. It's not the fact that the enemies are hard or the fact that you are dying a lot that makes this game very annoying and frustrating, it's more of the fact that you have to restart each time that you die. This will turn off a lot of the regular gamers out there. So if the gameplay is so hard and frustrating then why is the game so addictive? Well, you see that's the beauty of the whole thing. No pain, no game is the phase here. This is why this game is such a draw to hardcore rpg gamers out there. No matter how many times you die or how many times you get frustrated, you keep coming back for more because of the challenge of doing it perfect. The game punishes you for each mistake that you keep coming back to take on the challenge in doing it perfect next time. As a hardcore gamer, you refuse to let this game beat you down. You die on the way to boss and have to restart over, fine. You keep doing it until you get it right. You refuse to let this game difficulty beat you down. That's why it's so addictive. It challenges you as a hardcore gamer to do better and better each time until you get it right. That's why you keep coming back for more punishment. So in a strange way the difficulty of the gameplay is what drives people away but also make people want to play this game even more. It's weird but that's how it works.
Still this game does provide you with a lot of fun once you get use to the gameplay through online play with other players. To offset the difficulty of the game, you are allow to summon other players in the form of Blue Phantoms to help you defeat bosses and enemies. Up to 2 Blue Phantoms can be summoned to help you in your game. So the co-op and multi-player with other gamers is fun and nice. Another feature to spice things up is the introduction of Invasion which allows you to be a bad guy and invade another player's game in a PvP type of environment where you can seek out the Host and Blue Phantoms to kill them. For those that are into PvP, this is very fun and addictive. However invading another player's game is hard as you are most likely going to face a 2 on 1 or 3 on 1 situation against you as the Host will most likely have Blue Phantoms with them. If you prefer a more one on one PvP element, you can always put a Red Stone down and hopefully someone will join you in a one on one PvP match up. It's very clear that even after you finish this game in single mode, it's the multi-player mode of helping out other players in Blue Phantom form or invading another player's game as a Black Phantom that keep this game going and fun for a longer duration.
But even as I say that multi-player online play is fun and addictive, it still has many flaws in the game that keep things from being perfect. This mostly comes from the PvP side of things. The online multi-player co-op mode is fine from the Host and Blue Phantoms working together to help clear stages. There's no real problem here that is worth a mention. It's the PvP side of being a Black Phantom or the direct one on one PvP element through the red stone that has flaws. The most noticeable and under use element of the PvP is the Red Stone where you can enter a challenge play between the Host and a Black Phantom. Technically this is suppose to be a one on one match up but it doesn't always end this way which make it hard for anyone to use because finding legit players is rare. What you will find out is that as soon as someone start losing a match or get close to the point of losing a match, they will purposely do a disconnect and logout of the game right away to avoid losing a soul level. This happens a lot and very annoying which makes finding honest opponents hard because lots of players chicken out and disconnect right away because they are too scare to lose a soul level upon defeat. Another problem that pops up is that as soon as the Host starts losing, they will sometime run around looking for Blue Sign so they can summon Blue Phantoms to come and help them PvP. This then becomes a gang up and the so called supposedly one on one PvP gets thrown out the window as the Host now has Blue Phantom buddies to beat up on the Black Phantom. It is unclear as to why the game developers allow the Host to summon Blue Phantoms in a Red Sign one on one Player vs Player match up. This alone is why no one uses the Red Sign for PvP anymore. That leaves the Invasion aspect for PvP. You can still have fun with Invasion for PvP but it does have a lot of flaws or disadvantages for Black Phantoms that make it hard. Maybe in the beginning when all the Players are newbie that Invasion work like the way it's suppose to be with Host being surprise by having another player invade their game to seek them out and kill them. To offset Black Phantoms being able to use the environment as a surprise attack and nearby monsters as its allies at times, the game allows the Host to summon Blue Phantoms to help fight off the invading Black Phantoms. This concept on paper seem cool but in reality it's really lopsided with the Black Phantoms getting gang up on in 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 situation and facing a quick death. Sure there maybe rare instances where a Black Phantom might be able to fight off death and defeat the Host in a 2 vs 1 or 3 vs 1 situation but those instances are very rare in the Demon's Souls community. So having success in Invasion is very small for Black Phantoms unless they manage a 1 on 1 situation with the Host. The problem with 1 on 1 fight with the Host is that the Black Phantom really get nothing out of it other than pride of taking down the Host. Sure the Black Phantom can be revive into Body Form if he/she manage to defeat a Host but there are better ways of doing that instead of trying to find success in Invasion for a 1 on 1 fight. The Host or Blue Phantom can get a reward of Souls from killing a Black Phantom but the Black Phantom gets nothing from killing the Host. The Black Phantom only gets Souls from killing Blue Phantoms. This means that for a Black Phantom to fully use Invasion as PvP for reward, they have to fight the Host when he/she has Blue Phantoms with them in a gang up situation. This just totally add to the disadvantage of being a Black Phantom and invading making invasion very hard at times because you have to fight Blue Phantoms while at the same time trying to fend off backstabbing attacks from the Host. Since Hosts get Souls from killing Black Phantoms, this has now led to Hosts camping certain stages for Invasion from Black Phantoms in order to kill Black Phantoms for Souls. The problem with this or flaw with this is that the game always give a warning to the Host if a Black Phantom is invading and you will know the spot that the Black Phantom will be zoning into. Once you know the spot, the Host will just camp and wait till the Black Phantom to materialize in their world and just backstab them right away and kill them with cheesy attacks. Other times the Host may have his Blue Phantom friends camping invasion spot and just ganging up on the Black Phantom as soon as he zone into the world. This becomes discouraging and annoying being sucker like that in the game especially when the Host already has the odds in his/her favor with being able to summon Blue Phantom players to help in PvP. The last problem that also arises is the usual disconnect on purpose from the Host if they start to lose in an invasion. While Black Phantom just get sent back to their world if they get kill in an invasion, the Host will lose his/her body form and become a phantom. To combat this, many Hosts will cheat and just disconnect once they start losing a fight to a Black Phantom. This becomes really annoying at times. Invasion and the PvP elements in the game are very fun and addictive but it does have flaws in being flooded with bad players and dishonest players that sometimes the enjoyment is ruined. Still with all the up and downs and flaws of this game, Demon's Souls is pure gameplay that is very challenging, fun, and addictive. Sure the game make you scream your head off at times but you keep coming back for more and more no matter what. This innovative online gameplay really draws you in for good. If only they can fix some of the flaws on the online play to make it a perfect 10.
Score: 9/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
"Nice to have Blue Phantoms around."
Demon's Souls doesn't have any in-game extras which is a big disappointment. The game is all about replay ability through new game+ features. In fact the game doesn't just limit you to a new game+ as you can keep replaying the game again and again with new game++ and +++ and so on forth. You can't get all the spells and gear in one game so the game is design in a way that it's pretty much a requirement for you to try and replay the game again with at least one new game+. As stated earlier in the gameplay section, the game doesn't allow you to do a save file so any mistakes that you made or any retry attempt on the game need to be done in a new game+. New game+ is also much harder and challenging but in a strange way more rewarding because by this time you are more familiar with the game and on what to do. It's also recommended that most gamers should try to do a new game+ because by then you should look to experience the player vs player side of the game more when it comes to online play. New game+ allows you to get a more complete overall game experience in terms of collecting trophies and endings.
Score: 7/10
If you look at the average overall score of Demon's Souls, you probably think this game isn't that big of a deal. That's probably true since it's not the typical rpg game base on a strong story and characters as a main driving force. Demon's Souls is all about gameplay and online play. There's nothing else about Demon's Souls that will attract you to the game. For some the gameplay is just too frustrating and annoying while for others, the challenge and difficulty of the gameplay just add into the addictiveness of the game. You hate it but you just can't stop playing it is the best phase to use on this game. It really has one of the most challenging and addictive gameplay around. It's a game that you can spend hours and hours on even if there's not a good story or characters behind it. Hardcore rpg gamers will love the challenge of this game but for most gamers, this probably isn't for you. This is a niche game that is gear toward a niche group of gamers. You will either love it a lot or simply just hate it due to the difficulty of the game and the way some players act in online play. I would only recommend this game if you consider yourself a hardcore gamer that is willing to put up a lot of crap in order to play around with all the good stuff. But if you just want to relax and have a good time than this game isn't for you. Losing souls (money) each time you die, restarting your game at the beginning of the stage after each death, no save feature, and being invaded by another player that's looking to kill you while you just trying to play your own game are things that will turn most regular gamers that's looking to relax off. I have mix feelings on this game. On one hand I can't stop playing this game but on the other hand there are so many annoying features, bugs, glitches, and online players that make this game totally not very fun at times. So be warned beforehand. This is one of the most rewarding rpg game out there but at the same time one of the most frustrating game out there too.
