Demon's Souls

"Demon's Souls" definitely requires patience, cold blood, and hours of internet research, but it was much more enjoyable than I expected. The first few hours were a little traumatic, but once I got familiar with the dynamics and found the right build for my playing style, I finally started to genuinely enjoy the challenges the game was putting me through. I even thought about going for platinum, but New Game+ was just too much for me to handle. The bosses are actually not too hard for a Soulslike, but the way to them can be a nightmare. I still get the feeling that the game rewards you more for creating the right build rather than for improving your skills, but that's the case for most action RPGs. The battle system is as clunky and outdated as you would expect from a PS3 remake, but at least Bluepoint managed to maintain a remarkably steady 60fps throughout.

Things might feel relatively simple at first, but a lot of depth is given by how the character's death influences the gameplay. Every time you get killed, you get stuck into your "soul form" and have to beat the next boss to get your body and maximum health back. Killing or being killed also influences "tendencies", variables that affect difficulty, rare item drop rate, and even appearance of certain enemies and NPC's.

Online interaction with randomly selected players also has a considerable impact on the gameplay: you can invade other characters' worlds to mess around, summon people to your world for help, or make yourself available for other players. During your single-player session you can also find lots of hints and messages left by other players, as well as bloodstains that show you the ways they died. While these aspects made the original "Demon's Souls" innovative back in the days, I still have mixed feelings about the co-op mode. The game is definitely too hard for you alone, but gets way too easy once someone joins you. Sure, you may risk losing your body form and affect your world tendency, but most of the players I summoned were on a much higher level and even able to take down enemies alone with me just watching.

Heads up to Bluepoint for the work on the graphics, which really do justice to the Berserk-reminiscent, dark fantasy atmosphere of the original. Human characters could have looked a little better, but the work on the environments and fantastic creatures is flawless.