Atlus has been known for its great share of incredibly difficult to play games. Catherine is no exception while players are put up to the test to deal with the camera issues that this game has with the opposite controls when Vince is hanging on a brick. But I?m not to talk about Catherine, I?m here to talk about another game that that Atlus made and that?s Demon?s Souls.
Unlike Yatzee I?ve actually played long enough- 39 hours and beating at least 5 bosses in the game- to think about this game. Anyways the game starts as this biblical entrance where ?the first day man was given a soul? and ?on the second day man was given a soul-eating demon?? something of the sort. Anyways the real story begins as the game tells the story about the demise of Boleteria which has been clouded by an evil fog. Countless of warriors enter the fog and never come back. Your created character thinks it?s the best idea to see what the cause of the fog is by simply going into it. One hour later- or less than that- your character meets a huge demon and you?re dead. GAME OVER. Well not entirely true- though I wish it were- as your character is summoned to the Nexus; a special hub where spirits meet and chat. After talking to the Woman in Black who looks like she had some weird surgery during the months before she died you realize your character, now in spirit form, looses half of it?s life and must beat a boss in order to get it back. You may start hitting your head on the table. Anyways the main point of the story is simple: don?t die- if you do you must beat a boss to recover the rest of the half back- and kill all of the Demon?s Souls to ward against the evil fog that surrounds Boleteria. This sounds easy right? Wrong.
Your character has four things that each player has to know: the life bar, the stamina bar, and the magic/miracle bar. To understand the life bar is simple: don?t be attacked and always shield yourself especially since your character has half his life here. The stamina bar is used when the character shields themselves (decreases when the shield is attacked at) and when your character runs. The magic/miracle bar is self explanatory so I won?t go there. On the bottom of the screen are the essential item and magic screens. In the top space will be where magic spells will be; in the bottom are for healing items and other important items. The two spaces from the right and left are the equipment areas and theirs two spots each for those spaces.
Character Creation
Anyways before I tell you the fun quirks about the game let me explain the creator creation. You can choose up to 9 or 8 different classes ranging from magician to barbarian. Each class has its own set of skills like Strength, Luck, Magic, and Stamina. Your character also is made by a predetermined set of styles that would seem fit in the era your character is going to be pitted in.
The game uses a main bar which goes from some screens. The first screen is the essential item screen which displays all of the items that your character collects in the game. In the game there?s a thing called Item Burden which you will have to drop a lot of items that your character collected in the game just to get others; so going to this screen is important in those cases. The second screen is the equipment screen which you can equip your character items and weapons and shields. The other screens aren?t really that important so we?ll move on the important part of the game.
The main gimmick of the game is to collect souls. The more the character collects, the more things he can have like items and stats which are important to the game. However if your character dies, those souls are now the land?s territory; and you must regain them again. However, if your character dies, those souls are lost forever. I wouldn?t mind this but say you started to collect a nice amount of 49,999 souls. Wouldn?t that be an annoyance if one of the strongest demons of the game took them from you, then you had to repeat the level just to get them back in order for you to die again? Of course. This can also be a problem since souls are important for increasing your stats. The more stats that are built, the more souls are needed to collect. This can range from needing 1,000 souls to needing 100,000 souls and getting that much can be a hassle.
Hoo-rah!
Dying is the real hassle of the game. It is important to not die in this game at all. This game throws this message at your face to tell you that. If your character dies, they loose their souls and half of their health and have to kill a boss for it. Luckily the game, after beating the first boss, gives you a magical blue stone to use so that you can help other players online. This is helpful since you are helping the ones that have more health than you and killing demons are easier to beat in this game if you have more people playing with you. After your character regains the health they can also summon players who also use the blue stone to be summoned. The only problem is that you have to be patient because, depending on the time of day, some players won?t be on the game to want to be summoned. The other tricky thing is that there will be Black Phantoms who will kill players just to get their health back. One last helpful thing about the game is that players can send messages to each other about further traps around the worlds. This is helpful in the sense that you are asking a fish to swim when it?s clearly out of any source of water. What I mean by this is that reading these messages leads either to reading non-reliable ones like ?HI!? or the ones that are so vague that your character has to do it anyways so that they could understand what the message meant after all. Like one was ?WATCH OUT FOR TRAP!?. See how vague that is? I know there?s going to be a trap but at least must know what trap it?ll be so that I can be more aware of it. But that?s really not my problem at all.
One of the things that will kill your character is the camera angles. I don?t know how many times my character died due to irresponsible angle controls. Try killing a boss that needs to use all of the degrees of the camera angle and tell me how frustrating that can get. Another thing is using the crossbow in this game. Why does it seem like I?m always hitting the floor? Why can?t I use it like the Bow which uses a first-person shooter style? Item Burden is also a pain in the butt. Anything else? I think I made my point in how bad the controls can be.
Music? music? You know what? Throw in some sad attempts of instruments playing and horrible singing to try to make this game scary. That?s what this game is trying to accomplish. Graphics are o.k.; sometimes there will be its ugly moments where it?s trying to scare you and- for the most part- it did. Some of the creatures in this game are really terrifying to look at; even the bosses will sometimes make you **** in your pants. There a couple of glitches and animation lags here and there because the game runs on PSN; and expect your character to die a lot more because of those lags.
The game is pretty good but has various technical issues that didn?t do the game justice. The story overall is kind of stupid if your character is the only one going at this fog when other characters made by different people across the world are also in this game. My advice is if you can be a bit patient, learn the techniques of each monster fast, and can accept the fact that your character will die a lot, you might like how much a curve ball this game can throw at your face. If you are really into fast action and don?t take your time into thinking, buy another game; this is not something you will enjoy. This game overall is a ?repeat it ?til you get it right? teacher that whips you in the face if you're a careless child that doesn?t learn from the lessons of life.