The character classes suck, it costs too much to get the good stuff, enemies have better attacks/blocks, the controls seriously lag, you can’t sell shit in this game to get souls, replaying levels to get souls sucks, no checkpoints, no proper storyline, who is what no one knows and finally you’ll probably die more than you;ll ever get souls. And this really is a special RPG: Reptitively Painful Game.

I finally sold it and bought Dragon Age Origins, much better than DS.

I read your review and find many of the comments “apply” to the North American release. This game is not for the casual gamer. It is very frustrating early-on and requires a lot of time to become competent. There is nobody that can deny that; except some fan that can’t stand criticism of their game.

Demon’s Souls is a highly repetitive game that will bore most gamers after they have played through it once. I believe most will move on to other titles rather than advance to the next playthrough. Why? Because nothing ever changes. Nothing. It’s the same enemies and bosses over and over and over. The only thing that does change is difficulty which is easily overcome by leveling up your character.

One of my main problems is the character stats system. Each stat may be raised to a maximum of 99. Yet, these stats start to have diminishing returns for investment way before 99. For example, I raised magic from 65 to 66 and only gained one damage point to my main right-hand weapon. It’s insane. You expect decent gains for raising a stat. I blame it on poor design and bad math. I think there is algorithm that is failing somewhere.

Anyway, I think you are spot on with the elements you discussed.

Basically, these issues make the game feel very out-of-date. We were used to dealing with similar limitations, perhaps 20 years ago (e.g. with NES games, as one commenter pointed out). The thing is, those limitations were in place mostly because of the technical limitations of the systems/consoles of that era. Now, in the age of gigabytes of memory and teraflops of computing power, they are simply not acceptable.

If you have lots (and I mean lots) of free time on your hands, and if you do not mind spending all that on boring, repetitive gameplay through all same environments over and over again, Demon’s Souls is the game for you.

Being a niche game isn’t a fault save for appeal factor. Most of the games I absolutely adore are niche games that only appeal to a small cross-section of gamers. It’s more a warning for the average casual RPG’ers who think this might be like a Final Fantasy or the like. It’s not. It was also written as an import review. Because the game is so niche I wanted people to realize what they were getting into before spending 80 or so bucks and getting a game they weren’t prepared for.

When it was written in April maybe but since then the game have been patched several times. It was patched thoroughly in June and are since then practically the same as the later NA release. I have both, play both and I note no real differences other than some naming.

It is true that the original release was screwed and glitchy though. I guess you can say the game was “deeply flawed” as Alex put it or just released prematurely. But that has changed.
You are entitled to your opinion but it IS based on the product at release not the final product we have today.

Secondly you repeat that the game have limited appeal to a broader audience and state this as a fault. I find this quite odd as that was quite clear from the very beginning.
It is a niche game, it was intended as such. The original Japanese reviews made this very clear. Even the developers have said so. So NO, this can not be said to be a fault of the game. Its just was the game was intended to be. Not for everyone.

We had another guy on staff review the US version, and he agreed it was a better game than the Asian (which I lent him to compare) but he also wasn’t slobbering over it either. You can take a look at take on the NA version here: http://diehardgamefan.com/2009/10/05/demons-souls-ps3/

I personally enjoyed the game greatly, but still appreciate this review. I agree with most of your comments on less than desirable factors in the game, though for me this is not at all a deal breaker for playing it.

Great review of a great game. Even if your review doesn’t portray how great I personally felt the game to be.

A) Atlus didn’t make Demon’s Souls. From Software did. Atlus just published it.

B) Atlus made the request that over 100 glitches and bugs needed to be removed from the game for the US release. So the game that you are “protecting” is a different version from the one I reviewed. The Asian edition was indeed a bug filled glitchfest. If it wasn’t Atlus wouldn’t have had From fix quite a few niggling and annoying issues. They weren’t game ending bugs by any means or things that could crash your game, but From is notorious for these sorts of issues and this is coming from a guy who generally loves their stuff, especially the Echo Night trilogy.

C) There is no overlooking grindstones. It’s a mention that the average gamer will not notice them or be able to afford them until they are several hours in the game and that new players will end up with broken weapons and not be able to buy new ones simply because the won’t be ready for that possibility.

I’m not trying to be mean, but the first two in particular are things that are pretty commonplace knowledge about the game.

Trust me, you are well within your rights to like the game, but the fact remains DS is unaccessible to the vast majority of gamers and just because I had fun with a game since it fit my niche tastes (although not as well as others) doesn’t mean the DS audience is a small fraction of not only RPG gamers in general but gamers across the board.

I do agree with you about Oblivion. Not a fan of that game either.

-Third, i would like to see you review the US version. Just to see how badly you can really piss me off.

-The Storyline for DS isnt supposed to be like any other RPG. It is probably the loosest storyline EVER. But i personally like that. I dont like having my hand held through a game like so many RPGs do, or having to stop gaming every two fricking minutes for a cutscene. If i wanted a movie, i wouldnt have bought a video game.

-You also said that the colors are horrible. Hello! you are crawling around in dungeons and caves..its not supposed to be bringht and colorful.

-Its not like Atlus made these on accident, the “problems” you found with DS is the very reason why DS players love the game so much. The souls for currency is one of the hardest things to accept, but this game makes you get better. If you dont, your dead.

@MayorHundred idk what you were thinking when you said it took you 5-6 hours to gather enough souls to fix all your armor. You must have been going against every weak character, because i go to the 4th world and only do the first area, right before you get to Vanguad, where the barrier used to be. Its about 8 skeletons..i believe. Anyway, i can go through that, and have been able to since like level 13 without getting hurt to the point of needing to use any heal items or magic. From those few enemies alone i get 2,000-3,000 and it takes me like a minute or two each time i do it. So there ya go. Also.. it was probably your own fault for not checking your armor and weapons before going against a boss.

Overall, i dont agree with what you have said, but we live in a world in which everyone has a voice. I question your reasons behind it and all the horiible things you said about DS. If you trully have beaten this game, you know there is much more to be said about it besides what was included in your review. A review should show both sides, the good and the bad.

I suppose I wasn’t hardcore enough to realize I had to read through three or four pages of dense menu stats to figure out my armor was going to break. That’ll teach me!

I’ve been thinking about returning to the game, starting from scratch, but quite frankly, I’d rather spend my time on better, more enjoyable games.

Good review. Bad game. Maybe I’d like it more if I was unemployed and had no social life to speak of.

Since your review was of the Asian version of the game(I can’t speak to whether or not it’s as mediocre as you say), I am quite curious as to what your opinion of the finished U.S version would be. I’ll say this however, it would seem that the graphical presentation has remained unchanged. The armor textures and models are usually pretty, but the environment textures and models are, like you said, reminiscent of a ps2 game….I refuse to speak of the facial models.

Also – yes, the story is god-awful – boring as all hell. I honestly don’t think this game was about the story though, it comes off as more of a Ghouls & Ghosts type of game. That is to say, it would appear to be purely about the challenge and the game-play. This is where we disagree, I love how the game plays.

I like the control-scheme, but that’s just a preferential difference.

I like how (seemingly)unfair the game can be, and if I may, it would appear that you’re warning n00bs more than you’re actually saying that you dislike the game mechanics. Either way, I love finally beating Man-eater on New-Game++ and verbalizing loudly,

“F@$K, YEAH”.

*Ahem* Anyways. Though I may not agree with everything you say, I would defend to the death, your right to say it(because I’m not insecure like kuran, stupid kuran).

Good day to you sir.

I do have ninja reflexes though. I’m primary an old school scrolling shooter/bullet hell gamer. Those are the games that set the benchmark for hand-eye coordination and generally make DS look like a pretty easy game. I can get through Ikaruga for example without dying once and back when the Game Cube version had online scoreboards I was in the top ten in the world and #1 in the US. As the rest of our DHGF staff can tell you, generally when a game is considered hard due to speed and precision being needed, I can pick up the controller and pretty much ease my way through it. Yet, I absolutely suck at platformers. God damn you, Super Mario!

Part of being a reviewer isn’t just playing the game and assigning some sort of score to it, but testing it to see how badly you can cheese through the game as well as how badly you can screw up. That’s what my review is about. I DID like the game for what it was. Enough that I imported it and was an active part of the DS international community for some time. But as a reviewer I can’t turn a blind eye to some pretty big issues with the game.

I love From Software. I import their games regularly, although I strongly prefer the Echo Night series over Demon’s Souls and King’s Field.

I like my games hard, but we’re talking about a company well known for making buggy glitchy games. That’s what the Asian Version of Demon’s Souls is. I gave Echo Night Beyond the same rating of merely being mediocre from a critical standpoint, but then when I did a countdown of my thirty favourite horror games, it made the list. That’s because that was based on emotional and personal enjoyment while reviews need to be critical and a reviewer needs to be able to seperate their peronal emotion when discussing a game lest they turn a blind eye to the flaws, or if they hated a game, forget to mention the good in it.

I have not played it very long yet but I have yet to se anything I would call a bug or glitch. The game works as they intended it to as far as I can tell. That does not mean I am happy with all aspects of the game. Not being able to trade unused equipment for souls is the only thing truly do not like.

As an action RPG, i find the combat in the game quite amazing. I loved Oblivion but found that how it scaled enemy skill to match your level annoying before i completed the game. Combat ended up the same for all encounters with the only difference being how i chose to kill the enemy.

Combat in DS is the real deal to me. I hate to use the word realistic for games but when a guy is swinging that pick axe down on my skull and i make a small error in timing, I know that i’m either dead or very close to it. Why? Because realistically, a pick axe will mess you up! I love the stamina system as it adds a lot of detail to combat system making it more immersive.

I think your review is fair on most accounts and with a few changes here I would like it even more but I wanted a hard game with lots of combat and this fits like a glove.

Final note. If you cake walked this game you have the reflexes of a true ninja :)

There are too many ways for a person new to action rpgs or rpgs in general to get permanently stuck and have to start from scratch ala the old’s point and click King’s Quest games. That wasn’t considered cool when we were kids and it shouldn’t be now.

-The graphics look fine, it is a dark game, a dungeon crawler, what do you expect?
-The sound is great, and alerts you to what comes ahead if you have a clue about anything.
-The mechanics of souls/buying things/leveling up are meant to be difficult. Play the game for 5 minutes and you will see it is easily one of the most difficult games on the PS3, if not THE most difficult game I have played in years.
-You are supposed to plan things, and have strategy in the game. It is not a “hack and slash”, it is an RPG.

It sounds to me like the reviewer was simply running into combat, swinging away and getting mobbed and killed instantly. This isn’t a hack and slasher. Sure, you hack and slash stuff up, but you have to do it strategically and with half a brain.

Use traps to your advantage, look at your surroundings and see what you can use to kill your enemies. Traps, exploding barrels, they can all help (and you still get souls from the kills).

This isn’t a game for whiners and kiddie players that have to just be able to win without putting forth any effort. The best part about this game is it is actually difficult, and not some joke like EVERY western developed game in the past 6-8 years. This is almost like a bounce back to the old NES/EQ days, with penalties and actually difficulty. Most people that don’t like this game give up too easily, and are simply not good gamers. I think it is great so far.

There is no shortage of RPGs coming out. I may opt to wait for a game like Dragon Age instead of diving into this one.

I find dying 50 times an extremely annoying and frustrating game mechanic…

Call me a casual gamer, but I still remember being a lazy bum college student who skipped class to play video games. Hardcore means plenty of free time to practice your skills…that just isn’t something I can afford to do and developers like Bioware, Bethesda, etc. already make games for the demographic I belong to.

I really appreciate this review and the forewarning it provides because I think a lot of people like me may buy this game thinking it is like another Oblivion, Gothic, or Diablo and really be disappointed.

And dude, it’s totally cool if you or even the vast majority of DS fans disagree with my review. It’s just one man’s opinion and neither right nor wrong. It’s just babbling about games.

I had the Ostrav disappearing glitch on me too!

Honestly I’m looking forward to the actual engine fixes in the game, as they would probably raise the game’s rating from “decent” to “Above Average” or “enjoyable” with me.