Death... Death is only the beginning

As a foreword: I apologize for the lack of posts this week I'm going to go ahead and say it was my fault.

Over three years ago I heard about a game that was so hard that it was actually a game mechanic that you die... over and over again. So I headed to my local Gamestop and asked about it but instead was told that Dragon's Age Origins was more for me. I waited the day until it was released and I bought that instead of Demon's Souls and although I have enjoyed and played through DAO a fair number of times now that I have beaten the other far superior game I feel that DAO was a waste of my time.

Finally after months of waiting I bought Demon's Souls still fairly apprehensive but a little reassured by the plethora of positive reviews. 'So how was it toodlekittens?' you may ask. First you need to know that the levels are broken down into different worlds in a primary area and then those are broken down further by checkpoints at bosses. Think Super Mario 64 in terms of world and level progression. The controls are fairly simple too the top shoulder buttons control you left and right hands the triggers allow for special attacks, the d-pad is all about item management, then the buttons control sprinting, rolling, and use functions. They are fluid and responsive which is almost a downside since when you die you really can't blame it on clunky or difficult controls. Got that? Okay now I will tell you what happened. I died, I died a lot and you are supposed to. The first level has to be beaten in order to tackle the others and I spent a good 20 hours trolling around trying to get strong enough to be the first goddamn boss. After all that the basic enemies could and would still fuck my day up. Damn it if I wasn't addicted to this game, it was a thrilling masochistic experience. This game does not lead you by the hand either if you die and continue to do so it will make the enemies harder just to salt your wounds.

I fought hard for everyone of my victories and every time a foe would fall by my hand it felt like a true accomplishment, few games do that these days. Eventually I got to the second to last boss of the first world and he was aptly named 'The Penetrator' since he did exactly that. The whole premise of this boss was that he was small, agile and could breach your defenses. His sword was closer to a spear and would ignore most if not all the protection from armor and shields. Took me at least fifteen attempts to take him down but like all my other kills so far it was completely satisfactory. Eventually I beat the game, I beat every boss even the optional ones and I started a new game that allowed me to carry over my equipment and level progression.

That's when I realized that I hadn't even scratched the surface of how difficult Demon's Souls really is. When you start a new game the enemies get 50 percent harder then what they were in the first playthrough. That means that starting a new game puts you about 15% better equipped then you were the very first time you played. I couldn't believe that this game that took me 80 hours to beat was going to suck me in for at least another 60 hours of torture. That was worth the 30 bucks I shelled out for it. Basically what I am saying is if you are looking for a rewarding, brutally difficult gaming experience you should play Demon's Souls for the PS3. And even if you don't have a PS3 you can always play the highly successful and slightly easier Dark Souls on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Umbasa
toodlekittens