Playing Demon's Souls is like dating someone you know isn't good for you – you often feel like crap while spending time with them and they do nothing but frustrate you. Of course, then something will happen, a spark will be lit, and the next thing you know you're deeply in love…till they start treating you poorly soon after yet again. Demon's Souls is a lot like that – a lot of frustrations that are ultimately punctuated by moments of extreme unadulterated love. It's a rocky relationship, but one that can end well if persistent and patient enough.

You play as a lone soldier, running about and killing stuff, when you take one wrong turn, find yourself up against a monster that is about three times your size, and with one hit you're dead. You wakeup to find yourself in the Nexus, revived as a ghostly warrior spirit. At the insistence of a Black Maiden, you head out towards the palace of the kingdom, in hopes of being able to make a difference in this war against a strange dark fog. Will you be able to drive the fog away and lull the old one back into its slumber? Perhaps, but not before a lot of curse words have been flung and you've died numerous times.

You're Doomed

I hate the fact that there is almost no story when it comes to Demon's Souls. There is some narration to setup the game and a few sprinklings of fairly static cutscenes here and there to add a little more depth to the proceeding, but for the most part there just isn't a lot there. What's a RPG without its story? Whereas a lot of RPGs are all about the story, Demon's Souls is all about the combat and challenge. If the idea of overcoming that next insurmountable obstacle doesn't appeal to you, there won't be a whole lot to keep you happy.

Players start the game by loosely designing their character, which comes down to a few hair choices mostly. It's a strange choice for a character customization option when almost every character I played has some type of covering on their head. You then pick your character class, which ranges from soldiers and knights to magicians and priests. The character classes are more starting guides than anything, but they go a long way towards establishing how you want to play the game. Soldiers are focused more on hand-to-hand combat, while magicians do better with ranged attacks. Each class is also better with a certain starting weapon, so weapon preference matters when starting out. I love the temple knight, but his giant axe – though cool looking – didn't help me much when it came to enclosed areas; weapons bounce off walls when struck.

I can't stress how important trying the classes out is and how beneficial it is to find a class you like in order to enjoy the game. I loathed Demon's Souls early on as I tried my hand at various classes. While I liked the offense of one class, its defense wasn't the best. When I liked the stats of one class, their weapon left a lot to be desired. I finally found a class I was able to excel at and advance forward with by way of the priest, which suddenly opened up my eyes and finally let me enjoy the game. I definitely recommend trying various classes for a little each time until you find that one that just clicks for you.

Another early frustration comes by way of world 1-1, which is the only place you can adventure to for the time being when first starting. It's like the early tutorial level, but with a 2.0 attached to the end. You'll be stuck playing it for a while, and the strange thing throughout all that time is you aren't actually playing the full game. Like most RPGs, level advancement is the only way to succeed in this game, which means you have to collect experience points (souls in this game's case) and then use those to level-up your character so challenges become slightly less daunting. The problem is that the Black Maiden, who you use to level yourself up, is only available once the boss of world 1-1 is destroyed. Ultimately, the game forces you to die over and over again, trying everything, until you just finally get good enough to advance and win. While this secondary tutorial area does a good job at "making" you learn to get better in terms of gameplay mechanics instead of just leveling up to god status, it's not accessible or beginner friendly enough; in fact I could see many people not even completing this portion of the game and quitting there.

Screwed

After you complete this opening area, the rest of the game opens up to you bit by bit. You're suddenly able to level yourself up, you can freely go between areas (though trying to go to the higher worlds before you're ready is plain suicide), and more people start appearing in the Nexus to help grant you spells and miracles. As the game so eloquently puts it, the real Demon's Souls doesn't start until right at this moment.

Gameplay is the huge breaking point for this game, which will either have fans loving it or hating it. Combat happens in real-time as you navigate the areas – there are no random encounters or secondary battle screens. When you see an enemy you battle them right then and there, making the game feel more like an action adventure game than true RPG. Whereas some RPGs – mostly JRPGs – let you succeed by mostly hammering on one button till everything is dead, a similar mindset in this game will lead to failure. In order to be a good Demon's Souls player you absolutely need to master the combat mechanics. You can't run right up to an enemy and start swinging a sword wildly and expect to always win. Instead, you'll have to time attacks in order to take advantage of enemy weaknesses, parry blows with your shield, and ultimately manage your stamina so you don't find yourself stunned and open for a blow. Combat in Demon's Souls is very visceral and yet thought provoking at the same time. Do you risk going for the parry/one-hit kill when they could get a few blows in if you time it wrong? Do you choose to wield a weapon with both hands and forsake your shield all for the benefit of some extra attack power? You'll have to ask yourself these questions and more for you to come out on top.

Outside of the combat, a lot of the game should still feel familiar to fans of RPGs. You get experience/souls from killing enemies, you can collect items and loot from fallen enemies, you can use items, wield spells if it's in your character's nature, level-up, equip new weapons and armor, etc.

Despite sticking to the formula in some instances, Demon's Souls is ultimately hindered by its own design choices. Grinding in an RPG is a given, but while I find it somewhat tolerable in JRPGs (stroll, get in a random encounter, quickly kill them, repeat as necessary), it's infuriating in Demon's Souls. When you jump into a world there is only one way it's ever presented, so every time you go into world 1-1, for example, every enemy you kill will be right where they were the first time you met them. The level of excitement leaves the game when you're battling the same enemy, in the same spot, in the exact same way, for the twentieth time. This try and try mechanic decision ends up making the game feel like an old school platformer instead of an RPG. If you thought jumping between cliffs while dodging hawks was a challenge in Ninja Gaiden, wait until you have to fight through the same wave of enemy soldiers over and over again. It also doesn't help that the souls needed for leveling up increase each time you level up, which means you have to keep playing the same areas even more, going through the same routine over and over, until finally getting enough. I forgot to mention that if you want to buy items or repair/upgrade equipment, it costs souls too, so now you can't farm for souls just to level up, but to merely buy some stuff too. A single all-encompassing resource was a bad design decision for Demon's Souls.

There's another number of things I absolutely despise about Demon's Souls: I hate the fact that the slightest fall can damage you. I hate that you don't get new weapons or armor often enough. I hate that you're punished for dying, as the game increases the odds against you by taking away half your life whenever you're reborn and then lose your soul. I hate you can't sell picked up items you can't use for a few extra souls. I hate that the game doesn't tell you to hold on to boss souls in order to retrieve better items later on. I hate the accidental killing of an NPC can hurt you for good.

I do applaud the game for its multiplayer components, which are often used in clever ways, almost like a MMORPG in some cases. For starters, whenever a character connected to the Internet dies, they leave a bloodstain to show where they died, which players stumbling upon can then click to watch their final seconds, hopefully allowing you to learn from their mistakes. I love that you can leave messages for other players, based on what you've learned and experienced, so that they won't die where you did before. When I login to play and see that people have done nothing but praise and rate highly the messages I left to save their lives, it's a rewarding feeling to know you're taking away some of the frustrations from them that you suffered through yourself. Of course, some people are jerks, and will leave messages to make people do stupid things like walk off a cliff and kill themselves.

Flame On

Players can get more hands-on by using special colored eyes to play with real people. If you're alive and need help, you can use a special stone that allows soulless players to join you and help you in a tough situation, such as enemy filled areas or boss fights. You can also use another stone to enter into the game as a black phantom, allowing you to go around and engage in PVP with other players. It's fun to be a phantom and screw someone over, but yet you also hate being the person that gets killed too.

Graphically speaking, Demon's Souls is a pretty good looking game. I like the dark medieval vibe, but at times the game is too dark and being unable to see anything very far away is a drag; it's used for suspense and to up the challenge, but it's annoying at the same time. The regular enemies look decent, but it's the boss battles where the game really shines: spear wielding goo, giant armored knights, huge armored spiders, etc. The game doesn't sound too bad either, but it doesn't impress either. The vocal work is okay for what little there is, the background music is subtly moody, and the sound of combat works too despite the same sounds being used over and over.

Demon's Souls is a game that's as tough to review as it is to play. I can see people absolutely loving this game and becoming diehard players despite the difficulty, as that challenge will be the thrill that keeps them pushing forwards. Others will feel the game is too daunting and quit playing not long after they started the game, wishing they hadn't spent the money. Personally speaking, I think Demon's Souls falls somewhere in the middle of those two extremes for me. I enjoyed the game when it was challenging though fair, but sometimes the odds are just too stacked against you for there to be any enjoyment. It's a game that will please as many people as it pisses off.

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