Demon's Souls - 4 Years Later
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 On 10/24/2013 at 01:55 PM by Nick DiMola See More From This User » |
Shortly before starting PixlBit, Chessa and I had the opportunity to go to our very first E3. At the time, both of us were a part of Nintendo World Report, and between our many appointments and various write-ups, I had the opportunity to make a pit-stop at the Atlus booth to check out their goods. One game in particular caught my attention and had stirred up quite a bit of buzz in the media - it was called Demon's Souls. The demo started you right in the beginning of the game and you had an opportunity to test the combat, the messages, and you could even see the silhouettes of other warriors slaying the demons in their realm. Needless to say, I was fascinated.
Fast-forward to September. PixlBit had just opened shop and I couldn't be more excited to start playing and reviewing games on a non-Nintendo system. I remember that unique game I tried back at E3 in Atlus' booth and excitedly requested a copy. Without fail, a copy arrived on my doorstep right around the release date! I ripped open the plastic and jammed my copy into the PS3. Before I knew it I was traversing the dark and dreary, yet strangely beautiful grounds of Boletaria.
After going through the perfunctory opening segment where you're mandatorily killed, I finally had the opportunity to really try my hand at the game. Aggressively, I rushed towards the castle gate, taking enemies out left and right, though they managed to badly damage me along the way. No problem! I'll just chew down some of these herbs and heal on up. Sure enough, it doesn't take long before I'm overwhelmed and I die, losing all progress made thus far.
I quickly discovered after respawning that I didn't get back anything I had set out with - it was all permanently gone. Those herbs that I used as a convenient cushion to keep me afloat were ancient history now. I set back out with much less vigor than before and attempted to make progress once again. This time I would use my shield more and go slower, that should help, right? While my herb consumption rate definitely declined, it didn't stop me from idiotically walking into every single trap along the way.
Over and over I died, continuously losing any progress I had made. This was an exercise in frustration. Before long, I grew to loathe Demon's Souls. I sat on the review for a couple weeks, had some friends try their hand at it and none managed to best my own progress.
In the meantime, every other review managed to hit the internet, and they were all absolutely glowing. "But how?" I thought to myself. "I detest this game to its very core. Everything about it is the antithesis of what I like about games." On October 20, 2009, I released my review of the game, giving it a very middling score of 3 stars. It was the lowest score on the internet. Atlus wasn't happy.
As of four days ago, it's officially been four years since I released my review. If you can believe it, despite my intense hatred of the game, I'm actually making my way through it again, but this time with much greater success. As a matter of fact, I managed to surpass my previous progress in the game in about 1/6 of the time. Of course, I do have quite a bit of experience under my belt this time around thanks to completing its spiritual successor, Dark Souls.
Now with that horribly long introduction out of the way (sorry, totally taking advantage of the more relaxed blog style), on to the core point of this offering. Did I score Demon's Souls properly?
This is an odd situation to find myself in. At the time, I can honestly say that I detested Demon's Souls. I didn't get it. Not sure why - I'm usually fairly adept at picking up the nuances of a game, especially after reviewing so many. However, Demon's Souls never clicked. Dark Souls on the other hand made total sense. The bonfire system completely opened up the experience for me. I didn't feel like I needed to fear death because I could level up immediately and I could make progress via unlocking one bonfire at a time without being particularly great at the game.
Demon's Souls starts out brutal. Your life is immediately halved, leveling up is off limits until you beat the first boss, and there's no degree of explanation of how to tackle this daunting world in front of you. Essentially, you can't even chip away at success via brute force to get the ball rolling. If I hadn't become so accustomed to the nuance of the Souls mechanics via Dark Souls, I doubt I'd ever have moved forward with Demon's Souls without some considerable tutelage from more talented players on YouTube.
Does this make the game poorly designed? I'm not sure that's the case, but it certainly does make a case for how fantastic the design of Dark Souls is and why that game managed to gain the traction it did. In some strange way, Demon's Souls feels more apt as a secondary game than the introductory title, despite the mechanics being cleaned up in its successor.
Reading back through my review, it's clear to me now just how little I understood and how the magic of the experience was totally obscured from view because I couldn't get a hold on the progression tactics necessary for success. Now that I've gone through Dark Souls, I totally appreciate the lack of checkpoints, the brutal difficulty, and the amazing concept of shortcut unlocking. It makes the entire experience that much more fulfilling. You cannot progress in the game by charging headlong into battle without any sense of self-preservation.
Reality is, you are not a bad ass in the Souls games. If you're not careful, you can get horded by low level enemies and still suffer defeat. You must stay vigilant and never let your guard down. It flies completely in the face of most games released this generation and for that, I love it.
Part of me is angry at myself for not "getting" the game back in 2009, but part of me is happy for not caving to the pressure of providing a high score because everybody else was. I doubt I was the only one who didn't get it and I think that others who want a more leisurely experience are still going to detest the series.
So, was my score wrong? Yes - though I'm not done with the game yet, it's already up there with Dark Souls as one of my favorite experiences of the generation. But at the same time, no. It starts off in such an uncompromising way, it's completely uninviting and inaccessible - a problem that FromSoftware must've realized themselves, because they improved this facet of the game in Dark Souls.
I'm glad to be back in the world of Demon's Souls. The beauty that I once observed is no longer window dressing. I can now truly appreciate this creation and thoroughly enjoy the experience. There's no question that it's making for an incredible stopgap until Dark Souls II is released, and for that, I am thankful.
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