Demon’s Souls can be enjoyable – for the right type of player.
After completing Mass Effect 2 last week, I decided to change gears a bit and fire up Demon’s Souls on the PS3. This was one of the games that I bought a PS3 for: a Japanese developed dungeon crawler that is said to be among the most hardcore games out there. After spending a couple hours with it this past weekend, I am inclined to agree that it is quite hardcore – but perhaps it’s either too hardcore for me or I’m just too leveled down to handle it. Read on for my thoughts and experience based on my first couple of hours with it.
Is this a Japanese version of Diablo?
As a gamer who loves loot-based games such as Diablo, World of Warcraft, etc. I’m always up for playing dungeon running games that allow for some combination of leveling up, learning skills, and finding more powerful gear. That addictive quality kept me playing games like Diablo II and World of Warcraft for years! Unfortunately for me, while Demon’s Souls is a dungeon crawler, it’s nowhere near as streamlined as Blizzard’s games or more typical Japanese action-RPG games. The best way I can share my impressions on this game are to just dive right into what makes it so hardcore.
Hardcore Aspects I Can Handle
The general consensus that I heard from gamers with regards to Demon’s Souls is that it is unflinchingly hardcore yet still quite addicting. The most notable hardcore aspect that I wasn’t surprised to encounter when I first started this game was that there were no checkpoints. When you die, you start at the beginning of the dungeon again, and you lose all of the souls you collected. In this game, souls are like currency, and you get them from killing enemies or finding them on fallen corpses. Souls are basically everything in this game.
Let me be more accurate about the losing of souls – when you die, your corpse actually still remains in the spot you died, along with all of the souls you had accumulated up to that point. If you can make your way back to the corpse, you can regain all of your souls. These two aspects make the game already pretty hardcore, and while it can be frustrating, these are features that are fair because you know them going in.
Of course, I stopped playing the game this weekend because I got pretty far into the first dungeon, got killed and could never get back to that corpse. It was basically in an area where a dragon flies across the only path you can walk and burns you while you’re getting attacked by all sorts of arrows from archers in the area. I fought my way back several times to try to get back to my corpse, but every time I would die and could not retrieve my corpse. My corpse with all the souls I had accumulated over the past 2 hours was in a ridiculous death spot that I don’t think I could retrieve. I grew frustrated and turned the game off, and figured I’d try to go get my corpse the next time I played.
When I fired up the game again later, I tried to make my way back to the corpse, but after a few tries, a new snag presented itself: my primary weapon had lost so much durability that I couldn’t even kill enemies any more with it. And what’s worse, I couldn’t repair my weapon because all of my souls were basically on my corpse. Now what? Well, I ended up using a different weapon that my character was not so skilled in, and by some stroke of luck was able to fight my way through the dozens of enemies to where my corpse was – except that it was no longer there. Turning off the game and coming back to the game wiped out my corpse and all of its souls! I was totally screwed at that point with no money, my main weapon broken, and no way to get home. At that point, I thought to myself, maybe I should just start a new character. Except then I started thinking about the other more hardcore things that made me end up putting this game back on the shelf.
Hardcore Aspects That I Can’t Handle
By now those of you that have been reading about my gaming know what type of gamer I am, and what type of RPGs I like. So even if I’m stating that I can’t handle these aspects of the game, this doesn’t necessarily mean that others can’t either. I know some people love this game, as I’ve seen some really complicated guides out there. In any case, here are some of the things that just made me feel the game was perhaps a bit too inaccessible to me.
The first is that there’s not a traditional “leveling up” that I’m used to in standard RPGs/dungeon crawlers. In Demon’s Souls – no matter how many enemies you kill, there’s no experience bar that makes you more powerful. The souls you collect from each enemy ultimately give you the opportunity to grow stronger, since it’s these currency orbs that you must use to buy stat points for your character. So here I am sitting in what would be considered the game’s “town” and trying to decide which stat point I should buy. There are some people that love stats and what to build – I am not one of them. Just level me up so I can get back to playing the game!
I mentioned earlier that the souls are the currency of the game – you earn souls from everything you kill and you use these souls to buy stat points to augment your character, items and weapons from the shopkeepers, upgrades and repairs to your current equipment, but sadly, you cannot sell any items. No one gives you souls for any item you pick up in the game – you have to toss it if you don’t like it. Oh and there’s a weight limit on the amount of stuff you can carry, so get used to tossing stuff you find that you can’t use. A minor issue, but an RPG game where you can’t sell items is just a bit too hardcore for me.
The worst aspect of the “hardcore-ness” of this game is simply the lack of any handholding whatsoever when you play this game. I got lost everywhere I went – even in the main town I couldn’t figure out how to even get to the first dungeon – and even after entering it I didn’t even know if it was considered the first dungeon. There’s no quest log book, breadcrumb trail, or anything. As I played the game, I didn’t even know if I was going the right way – except I discovered I was going the wrong way when I got killed by some crazy enemy. The lack of any sort of real way to understand where I was supposed to go probably led me to get myself killed in an area that I couldn’t even get back to so I could recover all of my souls and realize that my character was done for.
You’re Not Going Alone
While there are certainly hardcore aspects that I found frustrating, there were several innovative gameplay elements that Demon’s Souls introduced that were pretty neat. All of these cool features revolve around working with other Demon’s Souls players – even if you’re playing the game solo.
The first thing that’s pretty neat that Fable II introduced is the ability to see other players playing the game in the same area you are. You may walk forward and see ghosts of other players running around – I think these are other players actually playing the game as well and that’s their game! You don’t get to see everything – just short clips of them doing things so as to know that you have some company but not so much as to ruin what you are supposed to do next.
What’s more useful is the whole note leaving feature in the game. In any dungeon any player can leave a note anywhere. This note is readable by any other player in their own games as long as everyone is connected to the Internet. So for example, if you know that an enemy is waiting around a corner. you can leave a note that says “Beware of ambush ahead”. When other players come to the section for the first time, they can learn from that note! It’s very neat because as the game is so hardcore, these hints and tips that players leave for each other can really make a difference. Players can also rate notes as well, so if someone leaves a note that is actually useful, another player can give it a rating so then the score for that note goes up 1. When you come across notes that have very large player ratings, you know that it’s a valid note. Very cool stuff – I like the one that I read that simply said “Behind you!” so I had to turn around quickly to attack a hiding foe. I left a couple notes myself after I died at a couple places – hopefully others learn from my notes and give my notes some good ratings too!
Finally, in addition to notes, there are blood stains on the floor – these are a result of players dying in the dungeons. Every blood stain is a spot where a player died, and by touching a bloodstain, you can watch a “ghost replay” of that player dying in that area and how he/she died. In short, while you generally are playing this game alone, you can learn from other people as well. I really like these “community” aspects of the game.
Parting Impressions
If you’ve read through everything I’ve written, you’ve probably understood that in my two hours of playing this game, I got lost, went too far in some direction that I may not have been supposed to go yet, broke my weapon, and lost all my souls. I pretty much destroyed any chance of that character making it. The game has some truly hardcore features that frustrated me, but there was definitely fun to be had as well. The community aspects that I mention make the game more manageable, and I also got to take on my first boss which was pretty enjoyable too. I can’t help but feel that some aspects of what make the game hardcore are more about poor game design – is a hardcore game really supposed to have you lost for the entire game?
I’ll leave my impressions for this game as simply: “got off to a rough start, but maybe I’ll try again later.” Hopefully the next time I attempt to play this game in the future it turns out more favorable, because while I was put off by how hardcore it was, a part of me does want to go back to play it. Maybe that’s why it’s got such a fan following? I can’t say that I’m a fan just yet, but maybe in time…
This game sounds waaaaaayyyy too hardcore for me. I’ll stick with Little Big Planet instead! ha ha
I don’t think you have played this game long enough (at least at the time of writing this review) to be able to judge it entirely. In fact, there is quite a bit more to the online element, where you can eventually ‘summon’ other players to assist you. You can even invade other player’s worlds as what is called a’black phantom’. There are also some instances where the messaging system is used BRILLIANTLY, but its later in the game (and against one boss in particular).
Additionally, the game actually gets easier after the first few hours. I agree that there should have been a little bit more of a difficulty curve. And once you get accustomed to the combat system, you realize just how good you can get at this game. Some people have been able to pull of insane feats against difficult bosses very early in the game (like the boss at the end of the tutorial). So as you can see, the system IS incredibly streamlined, rivalling any other dungeon crawler imho.
for sure i have not played this game long enough to judge it entirely. this article was by no means a review – i had only played a few hours into it before writing up these initial impressions. i do know how much of a cult following this game has, and hopefully one day i do find some time to get in far enough so that i become converted as well. thanks for sharing your thoughts though GSG!