RPGFan: Demon's Souls Import Review

RPGFan writes: "Demon's Souls may well be 2009's Valkyria Chronicles; an impressive, original, fresh new PS3 RPG that ultimately has little impact. While belonging to less a niche genre than VC, the frustrating difficulty is sure to turn off many. Sound and graphics considered, the game is aesthetically a few notches below VC."

[wanderofys]

"Get good, or die"

Yes. Very yes.

[rockleex]

Or has every Western website been reviewing Demon's Souls lately? O_o

[ThanatosDMC]

"Journalists" use N4G to figure out what is news worthy for hits.

[- Ghost of Sparta -]

Demon's Souls has really awesome creature designs. I imported it earlier, since I've been hearing a lot of good things about it lately.

[LiquifiedArt]

hmmm... Friend invites into games would be a key feature.

[raztad]

It's pretty sad this guy is calling VC "little impact". VC was pretty bad advertised. After Japan re-release and some price drop here and there, VC has been doing pretty well even better than a flagship RPG franchise like SO4. I hope many people jump into VC bandwagon, its such an AMAZING game.

On topic: To me is quite possible that From Software tone down Daemon Souls difficulty for the western market, ala Devil May Cry.

[darx]

keep the difficulty as is.

[SaiyanFury]

I seriously doubt From would tone down the difficulty. That would greatly reduce the appeal of the game. The game has been selling out online since it was released just because people want to be able to claim they beat it. It would be a real achievement considering the game is out to kill you, and WILL kill you. The point is, keep going against it and eventually prove victorious. In an era where too many games hold your hand and praise your every little triumph, a game like Demon's Souls is a real diamond in the rough.

[KidMakeshift]

I hate how all these late reviewers make it sound like the game is difficult because it is challenging. It is not challenging. It is frustrating because of cheap deaths. Either you die from a enemy hitting you off screen, or you fall off a ledge, or you didn't lock onto the enemy and end up attacking air while it's getting free hits, or for some reason you will die from one hit. Now this wouldn't be such a problem if there were actually checkpoints or a way to save your progress. Nope, you start all the way over from the beginning of the level with all enemies respawned. The only way to get the progress you lost is by reclaiming your soul where you died last.

I enjoyed the game but I hate its illogical mechanics

[Dir_en_grey]

Young people today are too spoiled w/ easy ass games, I wish more games are like this.

Beating a level means you gotta be good at every part of the level and know it's tricks. Once you know it it's pretty easy and you should get through it with no problem. Level design is good because there are always short cut doors or whatnot unlocked a while ways into the level so you can go straight to the end of the level/check point in case you die anyway. Every level is divided into sections, and that's pretty much the check points. Once you know the enemy and the area, it's reasonably fast to go from check point to check point anyway since you will probably go back to the area multiple times to unlock hidden areas depending on the color of your soul/area.

Dying is a part of the game structure, it wants you to die a lot, it wants you to not get careless, it wants people to get stuck so they will summon other souls (multi-player) to help them out. It's all part of the fun.

This is only the 2nd Demon's Souls review I've read, but if people are complaining about difficulty, it's really not that hard; it's only hard in the beginning when you are trying to get used to the game/figuring out enemies/trying to level up. Like I said that's part of the fun of this game anyway.

If you play action games normally and like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden series, this game wouldn't be any harder than those. Personally I like this game better than DMC and Ninja Gaiden because of the fun factor, replay value and many options of ways of playing.

Graphically, ok I agree it's around 84, but the fun factor and replay value I give it 100.

@KidMakeshift's comment on cheap deaths in the game:
That just means you are not being careful and looking at where you are going. There are traps and surprise attacks from the level/enemy and they are all the great parts of the game. People will leave warnings on the ground in front of the traps (online game you will see blood stains to see how other players died, or glowing messages left by other players) and u gotta read them, some will leave fake comments also and that's all the great parts about this game. Later on in the game black phantoms (other players) will come into your game and act as enemies trying to kill you, there is a spell that cloaks the player so they can sneak up on you and kill you (also not a cheap death because you know they've joined your game and there are counter items or spells against that, they are not totally invisible anyway). And Enemy lock on is not even needed, just judge the distance and aim your direction, different weapons have different hit areas, knowing your weapons is also important. If you suck then just enemy lock, it's just one button, push it before you attack, it's that simple.
Learn from dying and mistakes, coming up w/ new play style and strategy, it's totally a part of the game and what makes if fun.

There are just so many things in this game that make it great and set it apart from any other. A must have!!

[KidMakeshift]

That's bull

I enjoy hard games but one's that are actually challenging. Demon's Souls is the opposite. I never died because a lack of strategy. I died from stupid cheap things like my character floating off the side of a narrow bridge, or my character stalling instead of attacking or defending even with full stamina, or being killed by a single attack even when the character isn't facing me and my shield is up with full stamina or I dodged, or being attacked by multiple enemies without anyway to dodge or get out of the situation (it's a rarity, but it's nearly impossible to take on multiple enemies at once). The gameplay isn't difficult. Very few enemies need to killed in a strategic way like the "celestial" beings roaming through the prison.

Now I actually beat the freakin game except for the last boss, which looks like something from Evangelion. I played a majority of it offline. The online is somewhat disjointed because you can't instantly play with someone you must summon or be summoned and wait. The black phantom thing can be absolutely cheap because usually the only people who play as black phantoms have devastating weapons that they can stealth kill you with and destroy all your armor and weaponry with one hit, then they can drop out whenever keeping what they took from you.

[Dir_en_grey]

All the reasons you give have such logical answers to them, and yet you are trying to blame it like it's some programming fault?
Here are the things you claim are cheap deaths when you are only giving people who hasn't play the game partial info, or else seems like you don't even understand the basics of each parts.

1. "floating" off a narrow bridge: You make it sound like that just happens, ABSOLUTELY NO, you will not just magically move off some edge if you are not moving. Narrow parts and hole are for people who just run and not look to fall in, either you run into it your self, or an educated guess is you were fighting on a narrow bridge which is designed to get people that don't think and try to fight on a thin road. You will get push back when your attack is blocked, enemies attacks will push you off, it is a strategy for black phantoms to lure you and push you off, or you simple just walked off path cuz you are not looking at where you are going. Or did you jump on a slope thinking you should be able to stand still and not slide?
Floating off land for no reason? I wouldn't be writing this if your complaint weren't such a BS just to back yourself up.

2. Stalling when attacking, are you talking about game slowing down? If that's the case then the enemy won't be magically faster than you either, if it's a game slow down the whole game should slowdown. Sounds more like you are using a weapon you don't have enough stats to use, or your attack bounced cuz the enemy was blocking, or you were in your recovery frames blocking their attack. This is obvious too but using a weapon that's too heavy for your strength, you will get delays on your animation too.
If you really want to blame it on slow down, seriously how often does the game slow down? Are you just running into a crowed of enemies all the time? There aren't even that many areas filled w/ enemies, and even at that just running into a pack of an enemy shows how little a player understands this game anyway.

3. Being killed by a single attack: part of the game but doesn't happen too often unless fighting higher grade enemies. In case you didn't know the shield you use has a number on it to see how much impact it can take, your weapons and armors will also wear and tear if you don't fix them (there are also spells that rot away your armor), enemies will do heavy attacks which it will be un-blockable/un-parryable but they do it at such a slow speed anybody should be able to know that they are doing an heavy attack and you should roll your ass outta there. All these factors affect how heavy of an attack you can block.
Just like you have auto lock, enemies have partial auto lock on you too, which means when you lock on them and circle around them, their attack will still track you to a certain extent. You have invincibility frames on your roll, if you are still getting hit, sorry can't tell you anything else but that u suck and miss timed the dodge. Or are you expecting full invincibility all the way throughout your dodge?

4. Getting attacked by multiple enemies: Heh, wow. Can't believe this is a complaint, but sorry this is not Dynasty Warriors. Like I said there aren't many enemy pack situations, you should know your enemy type and know how much you can take on depend on your skill anyway. Figuring out how to get through is a part of the game so I won't spoil anything, but it should be easy if you use your head. Rushing into a crowd of black phantoms, then you deserve to die.

Seems like all your complaints are just blaming your personal lack of skill and understanding of the basics on bad game design, which is quite just the opposite. And to me just seems like you got a Japanese version and don't understand the basic parameters and didn't read the manual or something.

[MathiasT-s]

Name of the game sucks tho' =/

[Baka-akaB]

Why is so many current reviewer assuming the game failed in sales ? Especially when they are reviewing it so long after it's release .

The game was and is a raving success ....
Obviously it's no longer in the top 10 , but it sold far more than everyone , the publisher included expected .
Hell it's asian/chinese version is for the most part sold out as well ..

[labwarrior]

Sp, hope this review is joking

[Etseix]

wow.. a really good review, and the guy is right. many people get hteyr feelings hurt because of the difficult :P
ill play this, i always wante d areal game where, u get killed with the normal things, not a super healthy boy or undestructible man lol.

[FantasyStar]

Great, first I enjoy playing Ninja Blade, and now it sounds like Demon's Souls is shaping up for a test run. For a company with a generic name "From Software" -I'm going to keep my eye on them some more.

[sarshelyam]

Certainly Demon's Souls isn't for everyone but I loved the adventure and am currently running through New Game + with my first character, and trekking through my second characters first adventure.

I have to say, it's nice to see such Western adoption of this title. Perhaps SCEA will take notice and provide a much more widely attainable localization for the fans clamoring for this title.