Demon's Souls

The Souls series has seen a boom ever since the first Dark Souls released back in 2011. Of course, for people who play on PlayStation, they'll know that Dark Souls wasn't the first game in the series. In 2009 Sony helped FROM Software create the first in the now storied series; Demon's Souls. Demon's Souls was a then revolutionary game that pitted players against a harsh world where mistakes are punished not only by death, but also by loss of resources. Years later, does the original still hold up? Is the Soul still alive and well? Or has it faded and have the Demons left Boletaria with their hunger sated?

Demon Days

In the world of Demon's Souls, the land of Boletaria has been covered with a colorless fog. With this fog, comes Demons, who feast on the Souls of humans. Many courageous people have attempted to brave the fog and make it to Boletaria, but none have had any luck. The character you are playing as, decided to make the trek themselves and they are partially successful. Instead of properly and safely making it to Boletaria, you are killed and are then bound to the Nexus. Unable to fully die, and with easy access to 5 different areas of Boletaria through the five Archstones, your Demon hunt begins. There isn't a whole lot of story to be found in Demon's Souls, it's mostly just you hunting the Demons to make Boletaria normal again but you are given some extra details. In the end, however, it boils down to this; King Allant of Boletaria has brought the Demons back to the world, and you need to buckle up and stop them by killing them and taking their Souls. Hence the title, Demon's Souls.

No-Name; the Demon Slayer

While the story isn't anything to write home about, as that tends to be the case with Souls games, the gameplay for the time was. Demon's Souls is a linear, open-ended, action RPG. Now, putting the words linear and open-ended in one sentence can be confusing, but think of it as if it were Mega Man. After you complete the first two tutorial levels, if you can call the second one that anyway, you are free to choose the way you want to progress. Not only that, but you are able to choose the way your character develops, like you'd expect, and that changes the way you play. Speaking of playing, the basic gameplay is pretty simple. You walk around the world, pick up items, attack enemies and find your way to the end of the level in order to challenge the boss.

The controls are also pretty simple, if not a little clunky at first, the X button picks up items, talks to people and opens doors. The Circle button is arguably the most important button as it's your dodge and sprint button, press for a dodge and hold for sprinting. The Square button uses whatever item you have slotted and the Triangle button puts both hands on your weapon forgoing your shield but causing your weapon to do more damage. As for attacking and blocking, the R buttons handle your right hand and the L buttons handle your left. Typically you'd have a weapon in your right hand, making R1 a basic attack and R2 a heavy attack, and a shield in your left, making L1 block attacks and L2 either parry or shield bash. In the world of Demon's Souls, enemies attack aggressively so you'll need to get familiar with attacking and block quickly. Other than weapons, armor and shields you find Rings. Rings are just the standard RPG accessories that offer bonuses depending on the rings you have equipped, which you can have two.

You also find items in your travels, aside from weapons and armor, and they range from healing items to currency items, which are Souls. Souls double as money and experience, so as you play you'll need to decide whether you want or need to buy items such as healing items or to use those gathered Souls to level up, which is a more permanent option. To level up you return to the Nexus and talk to the Maiden in Black which lets you choose which stat you want to improve and as you defeat the bosses you are gifted with plenty of Souls but you better make sure you use them as when you die, and you are sure to die often, you lose all Souls you have on you and they can only be picked up where you were killed. If you die again before making it back to your Souls they are gone forever. A harsh lesson for an honest mistake and it can really harm your progress, but it's on you for journeying out without spending them. Not only do you lose Souls when dying, you lose your body as well. The first time you die in the game, which is in the tutorial, you enter Soul Form, which cuts your health in half. This is insanely brutal but you can restore yourself in multiple ways; by beating a boss, using an item or defeating another player, more on that later. This half-health is defeated early on thankfully by a ring called the Cling Ring, but the bad thing is that being dead takes up a ring slot.

Every time you go to an Archstone, you'll find yourself in danger as the enemies you fight come in all shapes in sizes. A lot of them are human sized, as would be the case, and that's for the better because when they are the same size as you they can be back-stabbed. If you position yourself behind the enemy and hit the R1 button you'll enter into a backstab animation. During said animation you are invincible and deal a great deal of damage to whatever enemy happens to be on the receiving end. If your timing is good enough, you can also parry human sized enemies with a press of the L2 button. This puts the enemies in a front facing backstab animation that tends to do even more damage, but you put yourself at risk doing so making it all balanced out. Other less man shaped enemies are immune to this, but they might be able to get you in special attacks as some enemies can do grabs or unique spells.

Speaking of spells, you can cast spells yourself if you decide to develop your character that way. To use a spell you not only need to know the spell, but you also need to have the right amount of INT, the proper amount of MP and a staff, While that might seem like it's a lot, weapons are in a similar position as they require certain levels of STR and DEX to wield. Armor doesn't require stats to wear, but if your Equip Burden isn't high enough you won't be able to roll properly, wear armor that's TOO heavy and you might not even be able to walk properly. Of course, the mention of the Equip Burden brings us to a big problem; the Item Burden. Similar to the Equip Burden, Item Burden affects you when it's too high. Bad thing is that when it's too high you just can't pick anything else up, which is terrible because sometimes armor and weapon sets are quite heavy and everything has weight; healing grass, weapons, armor, upgrade materials and arrows, everything.

Between a Stone and a Hard Place

Other than the Item Burden, the biggest problem with the game is the weapon upgrading system. Instead of being simple and easy to understand, the way you upgrade is split into different trees. Bows, Swords, Curved Swords, Axes and so on all use different upgrade materials and you can use the Soul you get from bosses to turn upgraded weapons into different things, but the items that can get transformed aren't obvious and it's confusing to get it to where it needs to be as it's rarely at the max upgrade level but it's usually near the max making it hard to find the right level on your own. This is a problem exclusive to this Souls game and it's atrocious.

Another issue with the game is what's called the World Tendency. As you play, beat the bosses, die and interact with NPC characters you are affecting the World Tendency along with your own personal Character Tendency. Character Tendency just affects some conversations and stuff, making it unimportant overall, but the World Tendency affects difficulty, Soul gain and whether or not certain events play. In White World Tendency, the game is easier and you get less Souls while in Black World Tendency the game is harder and you gain more Souls while events can trigger in both just with some slight changes. This system is actually insanely interesting but it's executed in such a way that if you were to die too often in a stage while in body form you'll ruin any chance you had of getting it to Pure White stopping you from getting certain things. It's frustrating while being an interesting system overall.

The Demons Within

The two highlights of the game, however, are the bosses and the multiplayer. The bosses are pretty simple to explain why they are a highlight, they are some of the biggest challenges in the game. Not only are they tough, but their designs are cool, for the most part as there are some pretty crappy bosses in the game, and the way they fight is sometimes astounding the first time fighting them. As for the multiplayer, as you travel you might find red and blue messages on the floor. The red ones are player messages that are left to either help or harm players. Found a trap in the world? Put a sign down right before it to warn other players so they don't fall victim to the same trap. If people rate your message, you'll get your health refilled which could help at a crucial moment. Want to troll someone? Put a sign down in front of a cliff and put a message saying there is treasure they need to drop down to get. You might just get someone to kill themselves, you'll never know but it might happen.

The Blue signs you see, however, are far more interesting. These blue signs are summon signs, with them you can summon other players to fight along side you. This can make the game more bearable, but it can also make the game more enjoyable. There is no voice chat, but there is a pretty crappy gesture system you can use by holding the X button and then shaking the controller which sucks. Other than that, people communicate in the game by acting which can be more amusing and actually pretty effective. Also, as you are playing you might get invaded by another player appearing as a Black Phantom. These players are in your world to kill you. If they kill you, they get plenty of Souls and return to life. If you manage to defeat them you get plenty of Souls and if they happen to die by falling into a pit, they lose a level, which is a BIG deal in this game. The invaders can also help if they want to as they can kill every enemy in the stage and the enemies won't fight back which can be pretty amusing as well. Overall, the multiplayer makes the game more enjoyable, but that mostly depends on the quality of the players joining you. Trolls aren't fun. Not at all.

The Grime of the Soul

Demon's Souls is NOT a pretty looking game. The character models are basic, the armor is generic for the most part, a lot of the enemies are basic, the textures don't look great, it's a low level PS3 game visually. What saves it, however, is the level design and the overall enemy design. The demons look great, the bosses look great and the combat animations from both the enemies and players look good as well. What's better than the visuals will ever be is the voice acting and music in general. The music is dark and moody and the voice acting fits very excellently. There isn't a whole lot to talk about on this side of the gate and it's not great in it's entirety but the music and voice acting are good enough to mask the visuals when combined with the new gameplay.

A Soul of Valor

In the end, as a new experience Demon's Souls is incredible. In the present when the other Souls games exist, the game is just a curiosity for the most part. You play it to experience the beginning. It's clearly worse that what has come after, but it still remains a solid and fun experience, even if the upgrade system and the item burden get in the way often. The combat is still great, the level design is still excellent and the bosses are still a challenge. It doesn't shine as much as the later Souls games as this one is very poor looking and the art direction isn't the most stunning, but the things it does right, and different, are interesting enough to keep the game enjoyable. If you are a fan of the series, but have missed where the series has started, it's worth playing just for the level design and bosses on their own. Traverse the fog and take Boletaria back for humanity.