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This page contains all of the posts and discussion on MemeStreams referencing the following web page: Demon's Souls (PS3). You can find discussions on MemeStreams as you surf the web, even if you aren't a MemeStreams member, using the Threads Bookmarklet.

Demon's Souls (PS3)
by Stefanie at 1:48 pm EDT, Jul 28, 2009

So far, Demon's Souls has to be the best game overall that I've played on the PS3, and that includes Grand Theft Auto 4, Dead Space, Resident Evil 5, Metal Gear Solid 4, and Bioshock, among several others. It's part adventure game, part action RPG (third person perspective), and it's all business. It's the most difficult game I've played since the PS3's launch, mainly because it's painfully unforgiving of mistakes. If you want a grownup version of Zelda, here it is.

If you die in a given level, you go all the way back to that level's beginning, and you continue playing as a disembodied soul (with only half of your hit points) until you earn back your physical body. If you accidentally (or intentionally) attack a friendly NPC to the point where you piss him off, he will continue to attack you until one of you dies. If that character happens to be someone useful, like a blacksmith, merchant, or magic teacher, you're screwed for the remainder of the game.

The game doesn't tell you very much in the beginning, and you have to learn many lessons the hard way. The game constantly autosaves, and you don't have multiple save slots per game; which means if you arrive at a proverbial fork in the road, you can't take one path, see how it works out, stop the game, and restart at the save point to try the other path. All of your decisions are permanent. It's so brutal, that there's not even a pause button. The motto here is "Get good, or die!" Oh, and the second playthrough is much harder, even though you get to keep all of your equipment and skills from the first game.

You get to choose your character's class and gender, and you can fully customize the character's physical and facial features, and later in the game, the armor/attire. The class determines only how you begin the game, but after the first level, you can customize your skill set any way you want. You can focus on spells (magic and miracles), melee skills, or a balance. There are several different types of ranged and melee weapons (bows, swords, axes, etc.). You collect souls from the enemies that you kill, and use those souls for both currency and increasing your skill levels.

The game has a lot of depth, and there are some side quests aside from the main quest (beating the bosses of five worlds, then the final boss). There's a good variety of enemies and bosses, the graphics are beautiful, the character motions are smooth, and in the Asian imports, the English dubs and subtitles are relatively well done, although some of the descriptive text suffered a bit in translation ... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]


 
RE: Demon's Souls (PS3)
by Stefanie at 4:15 pm EST, Feb 12, 2010

I'm still playing this game. I played the Chinese version all last Summer, and I've been playing the North American version since September 2009. After two Platinum trophies and doing everything there is to be done several times over, it's still addictive. It feels like I'm back in the early 1980s and playing Adventure (Atari 2600) over and over. I keep waiting for it to get old.

Stefanie wrote:
...the English dubs and subtitles are relatively well done, although some of the descriptive text suffered a bit in translation (such as item descriptions in your inventory). Hopefully, that will be tweaked for the North American release in October 2009 (currently available for pre-order).

I meant to get back to this sooner. Atlus did tweak some of the English subtitles and menus, although only about 10% are helpful tweaks that actually clarify things; the rest being a matter of style, such as renaming weapons ("Keel Smasher" is now "Dragon Bone Smasher"), spells ("Soul Light" is now "Soul Ray", etc. However, Atlus did offer a limited "Deluxe Edition" of the game, including a strategy guide, and pre-orders included an art book and a CD soundtrack.

I won't say that Atlus' release was perfect, but the company has done some cool things to promote the game (which Sony failed to do). Demon's Souls incorporates a tendency system, in which the tendencies of the five worlds, as well as the tendency of your character, can be anywhere from Pure White (enemies = weaker, you = stronger) to Pure Black (vice versa), depending on whether you're being good or evil. Normally, the servers for the online mode set the worlds to Neutral when you log in, with slight variations. Atlus turned the American servers Black during Halloween week, White during Christmas week, and there's currently a poll to vote for the world tendencies during St. Valentine's Day. Nice touch.

Anyway, if you have a PS3 and you still haven't played this game, you really are missing out on quite possibly the best game of the entire Seventh Generation. I now have four all-time favorite games: Adventure (2600), Zelda (NES), Tomb Raider (PS1), and Demon's Souls (PS3). It's that good.


 
 
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