Monday, November 2, 2009

Demon's Souls: I'm a soul man

Since MA17 showed me up and put up two reviews since I said I would put one up for this game, I'll relent and throw another half assed review out here. Demon's Souls is a PS3 exclusive that doesn't disappoint.

Demon's Souls is hands down the best game that has been released this year. No other game I have played before has been as capable of getting my heart racing and adrenaline pumping with consistency. Demon's Souls is difficult but fair. It gives you your chance, but if you make a mistake, the game will punish you for it.

The environment is dark and lonely. There are a minimal number of NPCs in the town/hub known as the Nexus, where you can buy gear, interact with your bank, earn levels, and venture out into the world. As soon as you venture out into the world, you are alone and fighting for your life. The levels tend to be cramped quarters with little room to dodge around or perilous rises with dangerous footing, and the enemies tend to be simple but effective.

The combat is actually quite simple, mostly based around ranged sniping, blocking, dodging, and attacking. It forces you to be patient and wait for an opportunity to attack, or else it will punish you, unapologetically so.

The currency of the game is souls. You earn them for killing enemies. This currency is used for everything. You buy gear and consumables with souls, you repair and upgrade equipment with souls, and you pay souls to gain levels at a polynomial growth rate. The difficulty in the game is that if you ever die you lose all souls on you, and can only get them back by returning to your body after the level has reset. Those souls then vanish upon a subsequent death.

The beauty of the game, however, is the multiplayer functionality. You exist in 2 states: alive and spirit. Both states allow you to progress through your game, but the each state gives you a different interaction with other players. When you are dead, you can drop a signal that will persist in every other person's game on the given location. Other players may summon you to their game to aid them in defeating the level you have made yourself available for. As soon as the level is completed you must venture back to your own world. The twist being that you can only summon other players to your game when you are alive. Becoming a spirit is as simple as dying, but returning to life is a whole other task. There are a few ways to do it, the most common is to defeat a major demon, a boss of a given level. Alternatively, you can use a certain item to do so or more interestingly, you can use an item that will transport you to a random living person's game and assault them. If you defeat them, you return to life. Those moments can be the most stressful, when you are trying to continue your game and are assaulted by a Black Phantom, and by stressful, I mean awesome.

Let me stress again, this is my vote for game of the year, and if you have a PS3 get it and play it now. If you don't have a PS3 ponder getting one for this game.

8 comments:

Mike Lewis said...

cool - i am going to have to check it out.

MA17 said...

Huh. The pseudo-multi-player sounds...devious.

Also, if I can shame even one person into reviewing one game, I think I've done my job.

Unknown said...

Then be proud. The multiplayer is delicious.

The cool thing about it is that you can never really get to know who you are playing with in the context of the game. You can't choose your allies as you would in a Diablo, you take what you can get when alive because there may be no other help down the road, and as a spirit you get whoever happens to pick you up.

The creator mentioned that he came up with the idea when he was up in some mountains on a ski trip. While driving, he became stranded on the mountain roads due to a snow storm. There were other cars stranded, and he remembers that when pushing other cars out of the snowbanks, they needed to just drive off with out saying goodbye or being able to help others get out. He remembers when being freed himself, wondering about those that helped him, whether they were able to get out, and even who they were.

Strangers helping strangers only to go on their own ways after, likely never to see each other again, is what makes the game so interesting to me, and at the same time contributes to that overarching loneliness I described earlier.

_J_ said...

"No other game I have played before has been as capable of getting my heart racing and adrenaline pumping with consistency."

Apparently you never played Cooking Mama.

_J_ said...

Here's a thought: Will the replay value / longevity of the game be hampered by the multiplayer mechanic?

Right now I would guess that it is fairly easy to get other players to participate in one's game. But a year or so from now will there be the same availability?

Is that a worthwhile component of game design to consider? Need games only be designed for the atmosphere surrounding their release and a brief period surrounding that release? Or do games need to be designed to have considerable play value for years?

One can play Bubble Bobble on an NES today and the game mechanics function just as they did when it was first released. In 10 or so years will demon's souls have that same claim? Or will a lack of multiplayer hamper the game's enjoyability?

Unknown said...

I agree that is a fear of mine, that the game won't be as much fun a year from now, so I'm trying to get some playthroughs finished before the community quits playing. The single player playthrough of the game is still fun, just less so than when multiplayer is included.

There is some replay value inherent in the game in that new game+ is available, and it keeps track of the amount of times this is done as the enemies become stronger with each subsequent new game+, but you still exist in the same multiplayer world.

To the design question. I see exactly what you are saying and agree, but by the same standard, a decade from now WoW will no longer be playable as it is today, when the community leaves, should the same standard be applied to it? Hell, the game today is operates on a separate set of mechanics as it did on release.

I don't think it is absolutely necessary to design games to be relevant for all time. I think a game should first be fun now, and then perhaps fun later. I admit, I love games with replay value, but I also won't hold it against a game for a lack thereof.

Roscoe said...

Aren't both sides of that argument encapsulated in the Zelda 4-Swords &/or FF: Crystal Chronicles experiements?

I mean.. ostensaibly, they're going to remain the same play experience forever...

...but the hardware moves on, and the accessories become tedious. They are very much gaming artifacts of a particular moment, more so than just simply a console. And none of us can deny we enjoy those bastard games for the enviroment they created when they came out.

Unknown said...

The difference being, that one can easily recreate the play environment with the proper hardware and a few friends. Demon's Souls and other community based games, such as MMOs, are a totally different play experience without the community that plays them.