Difficulty:

Very Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Overrated"

Let me just start out by saying that I do love difficult games. I have been playing games since the Atari days & have had my fair share of games that have put my patience to the test. But 'Demon's Souls' is a different animal. Much has been made about how hard this game is. That would be an accurate assessment. The game is punishingly difficult......for all the wrong reasons.

The game isn't that difficult because of the enemies being smart or cunning. Generally, they run right at you or shoot you from afar. The game is difficult because of moronic game design that punishes the players at every turn in many unneccesary ways.

Why do I play through a level for an hour only to die in 3 sec. from a random mob of lackeys & lose every soul (the game's only currency) I earned &, essentially, waste all of that time? Because, apparently, 'FROM SOFTWARE' wants me to. Then why I am shipped all the way back to the beginning of the level (there are no checkpoints), only to be forced to backtrack through the whole damn thing, fighting the same enemies (they all respawn), to grab the stuff the game forced me to drop.......only to get killed again because of the broken lock-on feature decided not to work properly? Oh and you can't even pause the game. Yes, you read that correctly. YOU CAN'T EVEN PAUSE THE GAME.

That is just one example of the masochistic game design that is 'Demon's Souls'. The game is extremely difficult just for the sake of being extremely difficult. It's frustrating to the point where I was screaming at my TV. Like I said earlier, I don't mind a challenge. But when the game is just senslessly hard for no reason, it's pure crap.

Because of these problems I mentioned earlier, the game becomes a repetitive slog. You start a level, you die, get sent back to the beginning, slog through the same level again trying to get back to where you died to get your souls back. Then you venture on, only to die and repeat this same horrible process. You take on the same enemies over and over. Finally, you get to a gigantic boss character that usually kills you within a couple hits. Oh and then you get to do this AGAIN. See where I am going with this?

On top of that, the presentation is average at best. The graphics are ok, but the sound and voice acting are terrible. And with this being an RPG, you would think you would get a good story to follow. Well, you would be wrong there because there isn't much story here & what is here isn't that interesting.

Like the rest of the game, the leveling of your character becomes boring after awhile. And if you are used to any in-game help of any kind (as most people are these days), I have a surprise for you......there is VERY little. Most of the time, you are just thrown to the wolves without any explanation at all.

So why is this game getting all of these great reviews? It's because this is the type of game that critics love and it will appeal to a certain kind of gamer. I kinda figured that going in & I also kinda figured I was that kind of gamer. Apparently, I was wrong. I guess I just expect a videogame to be several things, but one of them is......FUN. This game is not fun.

In my opinion, Japenese companies have taken a real step back in this generation of consoles with one disappointing game after another. Unfortunately, 'Demon's Souls' falls right into that category. It's Japanese gaming with all of the bad traits & very little of the good. Unless you are willing to put hours & hours into grinding your character through boring levels over & over while dealing with bad controls, lame story, & average presentation.....then stay away from this game.