OriginalSin's Profile

One of the few titles that I just had to borrow a PS3 to play. Demon's Souls is an extremely solid 3rd person outing in a brutal medieval type world. I had great fun roaming around, many times on the verge of death. And with a simple mistake, as a shadow of my former self.

The range of starter classes ensures good replay value. With everything from fully armored knights to lightly clad mages. Each play through is basically as different as you want to make it. The game+ feature, (restarting the game after completion, with all your levels and gear/items intact), is good also. Upon each successful completion the difficulty gets harder, but your soft flesh doesn't. hehe.

The variety of weapons, armor, spells and items are a great blend, and easily adapted to your personal fighting style. Weapons are also upgradeable through the blacksmiths, and spells and miracles can be bought if you have the required skill / stats to allow use of them.

The 3rd person combat is well engineered. And it doesn't take long until you master some of the basics. Back stabs, parry / riposte, dive-roll, block, run away! While a heavily armored character takes less damage, they are also less maneuverable and moves such as dive-rolls can be fatal. A lightly armored character however, can roll further and faster but if they do get hit it hurts
so much more. Overall I found the balance is excellent.

Spells and miracles, (mage and cleric spells so to speak), can make life so much easier, and the variety of said spells is well balanced, and expands as you progress through the game. But having little strength to wear armor naturally means extreme pain if you do get smashed. A cautious approach is recommended, shoot first and ask the corpses questions if necessary.

The boss fights are some of the best I've come across for quite some time, and most are challenging to say the least. An under prepared foray into the wrong beasties lair can be embarrassingly / frustratingly fatal.

The online experience can be variable. I personally just played it in off line mode, but have seen enough online play to realize the potential, both for good and for bad. The multi-player options of aiding another player or invading another players game to kill them, and vice-verca, can make life interesting.

In summary. There is no one correct way to play it, there is no uber weapon, armor or spell to rule them all. It's all on you, and your choices and skill. Play to your strengths and exploit their weaknesses. And try not to destroy your controller, as it's not all sun and roses.

Game length. My first play through took 50 hours 47 minutes.