Well that sounds much better then.
LOL and NGB had a tough learning curve, but it was manageable and I became pretty good at it through dedication, so if Demon Souls is like that, you just might have convinced me to give this a game a second look.
I think what needs to be conveyed is that I'm not afraid of "difficulty" as much as I have an aversion to "cheap". There is a difference between a game being difficult to master but fun to play, and difficult because the game cheapshots you at every convenience. A good example was SPartan: Total Warrior. Where the enemies were ridiculously cheap, breaking your combos with EASE and then unleashing their own devastating 'counters' while your "block" button seemed to have a constant 2 second delay where you can hit the button and by the time the screen registers and your character starts through the animations, you were already getting pwned. Or like Street FIghter II back in the day on the SNES... where Bison could bring shame-filled tears to my eyes like a wuss because it wasn't FAIR how fast and easily he could pull off his moves which seemed unavoidable, unblockable, and always incinerated half your health with the slightest flutter of his cape in your general direction... in fact that seems to be a consistency in Capcom games.... easy game play, compensated for by ridiculously over-powered or just plain CHEAP bosses with moves that borderline more on game GLITCHES than God-like.
Anyway, it sounds like this game is less "frenetic" hack and slash, twitch reflexes, like in NGB where your main strategy was to hold down the block button ALWAYS and wait for that .2 microsecond opening to take a quick strike at the enemy, and if your finger slipped for even a second, the A.I. registered that the "block" button was 'released' and commenced to handing you your ass with all the trimmings.
I'm not quite sure I like the PK aspect of a game that is already raising eyebrows with it's difficulty level, but you also mentioned something about it being a "Slow paced" game and that made me curious.
Do you mean it's slow as in not as many enemies because you are exploring an environment trying to solve puzzles and figure out how to survive traps? Or is it that the combat is slow and methodical, like the combat in Conan could sometimes be where you and the enemy circled each other feinting and striking, hoping to gain an advantage in some sort of deadly duel?
Also, (sorry I know i'm being a pain lol), could someone explain how the online portion works a bit better? Are you always online, like in Little Big Planet? Do you NEED to be connected to PSonline to play? If so, is there a way to restrict who can enter your world (removing black phantoms basically), and also, on the coop team-ups, I see alot of people talk about strangers helping out, but is there a method that friends on your friend's list can also jump in to help (assuming they also have the game?) I think it would suck if complete strangers could jump into my game at any time, but a friend who lives down the road on my friend's list can't.
Thanks in Advance!