Demon's Souls (PS3) > Reviews (2)

FromSoftware... We haven't heard much from them since the notoriously difficult "kings Field" series and my word their back with some real style and passion with this little gem of a title.

Get ready to enter the world of Boletaria... King Allant the 12th, by channeling the power of souls has awakened a primevil demon "the old one", a colourless fog covers the land, bringing with it demons who feast on the souls of mortals, many heroes have passed through the fog to slay the demons, none have returned...

As far as the beginning of the game goes that's all you get story wise and there's a beauty in that, it leaves you with a craving to get to the bottom of this mystery and enter the dark fantasy world of Boletaria, in fact as soon as you get your first taste of the world around you in Demons Souls you get a real sense of isolation and loneliness and builds you up to the magnitude of the task at hand, and as you progress through the game and the demons get bigger and bigger those feelings become more and more prominent.

The environments are very good looking and considering it's mostly castles and dimly lit dungeons FromSoftware manage to keep it interesting and each area has a great sense of individuality. The game world is broken down into five areas which you can enter via the hub like "Nexus" via huge Archstones, the Nexus is where you can repair your weapons, buy new ones and level up using the games currency which (shocker) is demons souls, which you collect by (shocker) killing demons, you also use this currency to level up, so they fast become your best friend but you also learn very quickly to use them wisely!

Just a quick rundown of the games five areas to get you in the mood. Beware though, most enemies can take you down in one or two well placed blows, the health bar doesnt mean a lot here, in fact you spend most of the game dead, thats right, Dead, in soul form your health bar is reduced by a whopping 70%, but fear not, you can regain "Body Form" with full health... If you chance to defeat one of the huge bosses you'll be encountering...... ouch.

Boletarian Palace.
A standard fantasy castle affair populated by knights, crazed "dreglings" and a dragon or two!

Stonefang Tunnel
A dimly lit network of tunnels populated by deranged miners and there slave driving masters, and a dragon temple deep below the earths surface.

Tower of Latria
A prison/church with a really eerie feel and horrifying sephalopod gaurds who weild deadly magic spells and giant man centipedes.

Shrine of Storms
A shrine to dead heroes, perched on a mountian top with legions of death themed monsters, "Here Be Skellingtons!" dual katana weilding skeletons at that!

Valley of Defilement.
Home to the damned inhabitants of a poison swamp. Full of crazed denziens who are all out to give you the plague.

You can choose what order you traverse the game world and each one has a handful of memorable and excellent bosses, some are colossal, requiring a good hiding place and buckets and buckets of arrows to take down, some are truly raging demons who will push your fighting skill to the very limits, and i really mean limits, the game doesn't teach you to learn how to fights properly it forces you to learn to fight skillfully and survive because...

deep breath.. there are no save points, none.
Dying sends you hurtling back to the beginning of the level with all demons reset and all souls you've earned taken from you, but, should you make it back to the place you died, you can touch your bloodstain and regain all the souls you lost, phew! Die on the way to your bloodstain and your souls are gone forever!

So as far as game play goes your first little baby steps into the world will instill a fear in you, but it's that good kind of fear that teaches you to be attentive to the world around you, none of that however, will stop you from dying... a lot, get used to the "you died" screen because this game is relentless. I think it all adds to the satisfaction you'll get from getting things right and you'll really start to appreciate being able to level up.
Speaking of leveling up, the system is quite complex, with a huge number of alterable stats (some of us love that kind of thing), but I think it's fairly safe to say you'll learn to love it and it really lets you create any kind of character you want, the starting class doesn't mean an awful lot in Demons Souls because once you've leveled up a bit you can soon start to taylor your character to suit your playstyle which becomes very, very satisfying.
However don't expect an easy ride with it! As you now know, souls are your in game currency and you can level up your attributes, strength, dexterity, magic and the like, by one point at a time, and each point costs successively more demons souls and the limit is 99 for each attribute, literally millions of demons souls!
You can also upgrade your weapons, you'll need souls of course, but also upgrade stones, found as treasure, bought from merchants, or by hunting the "crystal lizards" found in each area. There are many different upgrades can do, from basic upgrade paths adding extra base damage right up to adding magic damage and damage bonuses that rise with your stat level. The possibilities are endless and adds a nice dimension to your character.

Lets talk multiplayer, demons souls manages to have multiplayer, while still retaining it's feeling of isolation and loneliness, even adding another element of danger to the world with so called "black phantoms" entering the world to hunt you down and take your precious demons souls from you! Alternatively they can enter as blue souls with your invitation, and help you out with any particular area or a tough boss your having trouble with. Also, players can leave messages for each other using a caption select menu e.g "beware of trap ahead" which can be helpful, but they can also hinder you with messages like "take a step forward" near a big hole, making you think there's treasure down there when in fact there's just a swift death, helpful messages however can be rated by other players for a nice in game health bonus.
One last thing you can do is touch the bloodstains of other players to witness their final moments, potentially helping you avoid the big whole with the "take a step forward" message near it!

Along your way you'll meet a number of NPC's who all have their own story about how they wound up in the Nexus, and some NPC's are trapped in the game world and require rescuing, and because the games limited drip feed of story, you'll really enjoy hearing what they have to say and uncovering more about the horrifying world around you and how it came to be the way it is. It almost adds a detective style element to the game, and it's a little rare to find games where you actually look forward to hearing what NPC's of all people have to say and if your nice, some may even help you out as an ally.

Another thing that i should mention is world and character "tendency" which ranges from white to black, you control this by killing demons, killing NPC's in certain cases and performing actions in the game world, being purely one way or the other and prompts certain things to happen in the game world, and it's always a nice to surprise to see what happens and i wont spoil it for you, you'll have to find out for yourself!

I didn't have many foibles with demons souls but if i had to mention something it would be the character face editor, you'll need to see this one to believe it, but my word you'd have to spend hours fiddling with the "nose bridge depth" and "forehead size" editor to avoid making a character with a face like Sloth from the Goonies, But you can always find a nice helmet for that mug only a mother could love.

So, there's a lot to be said about Demons Souls, but i'll try and round up nicely by saying it's brutal, there's no question there and it's relentlessness only adds to the game, it's charming, tense, lonely and you'll squeeze many hours of enjoyment obsessing over your equipment upgrades level ups and strategising your way through each level, and when your character has finally leveled up to be the superhero you wanted it to be, you'll feel like you've been on a long and arduous quest and that you've really achieved something great and I think that's what role playing games are all about.

©peckinpigeon