Why do I keep playing Demon’s Souls?  That’s a question I’ve asked myself over and over all this week.  This game is brutal. There is no release with this game, no stop, no time to take a breather, no letting up. From the time you begin the tutorial to the first time you die, and the second and third and so on, the game is relentless in it’s difficulty. I literally spent five hours playing the first level…

Why do I keep playing Demon’s Souls? Find out, after the jump.

I picked this game up, based on some hype and good faith in Japanese publisher Atlus, who is famous for obscure Japanese role playing games (Persona series, Devil Summoner Series, Odin Sphere, Growlanser, etc…) that are hard to find in American game stores.

When I read about Demon’s Souls and saw some video of the gameplay, I was immediately impressed.  A third person RPG hack and slash style game with great graphics, and you fight Dragons? I’m in. Well, the game came out last Tuesday and after reading the stellar reviews, I almost decided against buying it.

Why? Because of the universal chorus of reviewers flat out stating that the game is punishingly difficult.  I think almost every review I read had those two words, “punishingly difficult” somewhere in their review. At first, part of me said, to hell with the reviewers, they’re a bunch of whiny babies anyway, how bad could it be. The other part of my brain said, do I have time to play a “punishingly difficult” RPG? All that said, I did buy it and it is “punishingly difficult.”

And yet it consumes me. Before we get to why it’s good,  lets get down to the basics of what makes the game so hard. How does a game that is described as “punishingly difficult” get universally high review scores?

There are a few very basic things that make this game difficult. First, the tutorial doesn’t tell you squat.  Sure, it will show you a few basic things like how to kill stuff and pick stuff up, but that’s such a small part of the whole game that it’s almost insulting that the tutorial is so shallow. Furthermore, the tutorial ends with you fighting a boss fight. That’s not so bad, but leading up to the boss fight, you were basically invulnerable as you fought the tutorial baddies.  The boss fight, on the other hand, comes out of nowhere, resulting in a tutorial that leaves you with more questions than answers.

For most players, the boss will likely kill you, sending you to the “Nexus” this is where you’ll learn more about the game while you’re in a spectral or ghost form. While in your ghost form you lose about half your hit points. Even worse, the only way to get your body back is to go forth and kill a Demon, which is hard enough with your body, let alone as a spirit with your HP cut in half.

The difficulty spike is enhanced because the game doesn’t frigging tell you anything.  Why can’t I go back and fight the tutorial boss?  Why do I need to go to Boletaria Castle and fight a Demon there? Are there other ways to get my body back? How do I level up? What level am I? Etcetera.

If you can get over these initial feelings of confusion and frustration, a pretty good game awaits you.  The fighting in the game is VERY well done. You can parry attacks, block attacks, dual wield almost any weapon in the game, use almost any weapon in the game and do whatever you want to do. Yes you will die a lot. Heck I died a lot.  Sure I got frustrated, but I never felt as if the computer cheated or that I was cheated. I almost always died because I either did something stupid, made a mistake or ran into an enemy that was way too powerful for me.

While the spike in difficulty is very high for a beginning part of the game, finally figuring out what to do and where to go is quite satisfying.  There is no other game like this on the Xbox 360 or PS3. Period.

Find out why on page 2.

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