Solid graphics, responsive combat and challenging/rewarding game play help establish Demon’s Souls as one of the best role-playing games of this generation. Let’s dive deeper and explore why.

The story in Demon’s Souls is very basic and nothing to write home about. It’s merely there to progress the game play. To sum things up, a deep colorless fog is engulfing all in the world of Boletaria. The power hungry king is at the root of the kingdom’s blight, your job is to kill every single demon. Talking to NPC’s does result in gaining some additional knowledge of the story’s background. The voice acting is also surprisingly well done.

The graphics in Demon’s Souls can’t hold a candle to games, such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves however, Demon’s Souls doesn’t pride itself on good graphics but, rather on an interesting medieval art style that helps establish a unique atmosphere. To say that Demon’s Souls is a graphical underdog, frankly isn’t true. Demon’s Souls moves away from the terrible graphics you typically see from lower budget role-playing games and sports solid textures, lighting and character models. The graphics overall remain average but, the interesting art style helps make an average looking game more appealing.

Demon’s Souls resembles a 3-D Diablo. It gives you a set of interesting locations to explore, ranging from swamp lands to ominous castles. There are five worlds total,each with a few locations within the world to explore. Demon’s Souls isn’t a hack and slash. The combat requires strategy and sometimes a little bit of luck. Parrying is a valuable resource during the game especially in PVP. Demon’s Souls is also not your typical loot gathering game either. Instead, Demon’s Souls focuses on quality rather than quantity, meaning that it will give you fewer weapons but they will be much harder to obtain and look much cooler. From an equipment stand-point the only thing lacking was the armor selection. Although each armor set in the game is unique there just isn’t enough of them, this results in players having the same armor. In order to obtain better weapons, you must collect stones, each stone has a unique characteristic to it. Some stones deal fire damage, poison and so on. Some more powerful weapons can be obtained by killing bosses and using their soul to forge a weapon.

The bosses in Demon’s Souls are much bigger and stronger than you. Demon’s Souls features a very unique co-op system in which blue stones will appear around the world. The player that requires assistance walks up to the stone and summons them into their world. In order to place a blue stone you must be dead, or in other words in soul form. This won’t be a problem especially because most of the time you will be dead.

Demon’s Souls expects more from the player and that’s what makes it difficult. Most players including myself, ignore warnings and fall foolishly to their deaths or something more brutal. Demon’s Souls gives you the resources to be a smart player. For instance, players can leave messages that may point out a fall or an enemy that may be around a corner. Demon’s Souls difficultly results in the players lack of preparation and because of this I died a lot. One of the best features in Demon’s Souls is the ability to enter someones world at any time to kill them and take their souls. To many this seems like a terrible idea however, it lead to some of the best moments in Demon’s Souls. In one instance, I broke into someone’s world and waited patiently, moments later I stabbed him in the back and threw his body off the side of a cliff.

Demon’s Souls remains a fresh experience even through five additional new games, with only one class. Players will be unable to obtain all the spells and equipment in one play-through. The possiblities for even more replay value exist if you are intent on trying different classes, something I strongly suggest. My first new game ended at around 40 hours. If you haven’t bought this game yet and are on the fence, go to your nearest store.

9/10

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