Review: Demon's Souls

Name: Demon's Souls

Developers: From Software

Publishers: Sony Computer Entertainment, Atlus, Namco Bandai Games

Genre: RPG

Release Dates: Out now

Platforms: Playstation 3


Ok, so I know this isn't really a new game, it does have almost two years on it, but I feel that after spending so many hours in it, it deserves to be reviewed once more.

About half a year ago I invested money into a PS3, whereas my first purchase was Heavy Rain, and Demon's Souls. I had read up a bit about it, and when people describe Demon's Souls, they usually use two words: "Hard", and "Hardcore." Both of these are true to the game. This game is hard. Well, actually, I wouldn't really say that "hard" is a justified word. "Ruthless" is more the term I want here. Demon's Souls will punish you, if you are inattentive, and if you don't pay attention I guarantee you will find yourself on the end of a sword/spear/burly fist. This will happen a lot. Because in the world of Demon's Souls, death is only the beginning.




Story:
The game takes place in the kingdom of Boletaria, a huge kingdom ruled by King Allant XII. The King, being a greedy bugger, used dark magic to channel the energy of souls, which somehow, for some reason, made the kingdom thrive and prosper. That is, until the so-called "Deep Fog" happens to come along and ruin everyone's day. Turns out that all this meddling with dark magic and other bad things had awoken The Old One, an ancient god of sorts who's not very keen on it all. The Deep Fog, bringing justice to its name, covers Boletaria, and basically cuts it off almost entirely to the world.
Not before long, word reaches the other parts of the world of the state of Boletaria, and brave (or dumb) warriors of all kinds go there to try and become heroes. Well, they did try. You are one of these heroes. On your way to Boletaria, you die. That's it. When you wake up, you find yourself in the Nexus, a place you'll frequently visit. It turns out that even if you die, you won't escape this world, oh no.

Gameplay:
In essance, it's an RPG. You have your stats, your items, loot, lifebars, mana, and so on. But where in other famous RPG's like Diablo and whatnot, this game does not make it so easy for you to just go out and collect money like any old sod, oh no, Demon's Souls makes you work for it! Beginning play, you are dead, or at least half-dead, which means you're only entitled to half your lifebar. Tough shit. That not being all, the lowliest enemy can probably bend you over and make sweet, sweet love to any improvised orifices it makes in you if you don't stay on your toes.

The system circles around stamina, and as long as you keep track of that, and the enemy's attack pattern and behaviors, you should be fine. When you swing your sword, your stamina drains. When you run, or roll, your stamina drains. If you block with your shield, guess what? Your stamina drains. And if you should find yourself down on your luck and your stamina runs out, well, in most cases that's that. You're often knocked over, or just killed with that one last swing in the enemy's attack-routine, and you will die. Again. Get used to this, it will happen a lot, particularly in the start.



Luckily, if you do manage to defeat your enemy, you get the souls they have collected, where is where the game's title kicks in. Souls are your all-around resource serving as both Experience Points and money, where the levelling is not quite the usual conventional method of "kill X many goblins to level up". Once you're available, you increase your stats by choosing one of eight different, then you spend your hard-earned souls in them. Each time you buy an increase in stat, your overall "Soul Level" increases, and with it, the price for the next stat-increase, so basically, the more stats you increase, the more costly it gets. Luckily though, the levels of the game have replayability, and the monsters and whatnot will respawn each time you re-enter the area, in the same spot, so it becomes quickly easy to determine a strategy on how to go about farming for souls. At least, theoretically; you will still have to wrestle those souls from rather unwilling participants.

There is also a mechanic called "World Tendancy", that basically determines the stats of the enemies in a certain area. The more good deeds you do and the more you stay alive, you go towards White World Tendancy, where the enemies are easier to deal with, but the loot decrease in value. The mirror to this is called, shockingly enough, Black World Tendancy, and this happens when you die a lot, and kill certain NPC's ingame. This results in your enemies becoming stronger, but they drop better loot. You also get to encounter so-called Black Phantom versions of NPC's found in levels, which is basically a horrible, lethal version of their living counterparts.

The game supports online functionality, which is a big integral part of the game. When you die, you have a few choices to get back to life: you either kill a boss, use special items, or use the online functions to invade another player's realm and kill them. Killing other players revives you, but nothing really stops other players from coming into your realm and brutally murder you either. The online parts also gives some feedback from other players, such as scribbled messages on floors, as well as bloodstains, which when used lets you see the last few seconds of a person's life, before they fall into the clutches of whatever killed them, which may or may not be hilarious.


Conclusion:
Like suggested above, several times, you will die a lot in this game, but instead of throwing your controller into the wall or rage-quitting the console, dying in this game is something you should embrace, and learn from, and start thinking "why did I die to this guy, what was I doing wrong?", overcome, and persevere. At least until the next baddie comes up and kills you. But I still wouldn't say this game is hard, but indeed, ruthless. You will need every ounce of cunning, skill, and strategy to win, but I assure you, when you take down a colossus of a knight with a shield larger than your house and claim his soul, you will feed good. And it's that sparkling emotion that will sink its fangs and claws into you and keep you there, and it will not let you go without a fight. But then again, why would you want to fight it?