When the PS3 launched, I wanted one bad. But my wife and I were still young and broke. So instead, I doubled down on the PS2's library as Gamestop started phasing out their collections on the cheap. While I was fantasizing about games like 3D Dot Game Heroes, my wife and I were still rocking out to Guitar Hero on PS2. We even played dumb games like those Eyetoy things. And I remember buying new PS2 games as late as NBA 2K9.
And then one day in 2009, I finally managed to snag a used PS3 console off of eBay. It was insanely exciting and I ran to Gamestop to buy my first next gen game. The point of this story is that I have a vivid memory of holding two games in my hand. I really wanted a JRPG and I wanted it to be a show piece for the new hardware I was about to acquire. Those two games were Final Fantasy XIII and Demon's Souls. For the record, I went with Final Fantasy XIII that day. Mostly because I'm a lifelong Final Fantasy fan. And you probably think I made the wrong decision, because Demon's Souls is a cult classic and Final Fantasy XIII is generally regarded as one of the worst in the series. But I stand by that decision. Final Fantasy XIII was a show-stopper graphically. And frankly, I don't think the me in 2009 would have understood the appeal of Demon's Souls when I look back. As I write this in 2024, From Software has totally made a name for themselves. Demon's Souls begat Dark Souls, which has become a more-than cult classic series. And Dark Souls begat Elden Ring which was earth-shattering and everyone loved it. Myself included. In full disclosure, I played and bounced off of Dark Souls I and III pretty quickly. But I loved Elden Ring and because of that fact gained a new appreciation for From Soft. A few years ago Demon's Souls was remade for the PS5. I think it was a launch title. That's what my memory says and I'm too lazy to confirm that. But I seem to remember that when the new consoles were announced, the PS5 remake of Demon's Souls was one of the titles that attracted me to Sony's new hardware. And yet, I waited until 2024 to finally get around to giving this game a go. This is the same game that I held in my hand in 2009 and contemplated buying to test the PS3. My, how time flies. The opening intro of the game acts a sort of tutorial. Or at least as much as a tutorial as From Soft is wont to give you. You'll be introduced to the basics of the controls and not much else. What do stats mean? Play and figure it out! And eventually you'll face a boss that is insurmountable. You'll die the first of many deaths, which is the way of From Soft. You'll find yourself in the Nexus, which is Demon's Souls' hub world. And you'll have no real guidance. The whole layout of Demon's Souls is simple in a way. You just choose a dungeon to go into from the hub world and attempt to make your way further into it before confronting a boss battle. It's really rather elegant. And yet the simple description betrays everything that From put into developing this game. Because it is so much more. Perhaps most importantly, it is the entire blueprint for Dark Souls and Elden Ring. It's just distilled to such an extreme. Dark Souls opens up the world so that dungeons are connected, while Elden Ring is an entire open world available to you almost immediately. But let's pretend you're not me for a second. And let's pretend you're not one of that masses who have been converted to From's basic brilliance. What is Demon's Souls even? Although dungeons are premade, in a lot of ways it resembles old school Roguelike design. Which is to say that you enter a dungeon, you kill stuff, you get souls which are both XP and points used to level up stats at bonfires. If you die in the middle of a run (and you will!) you lose it all. You have one attempt to make it back to where you died and reclaim your souls. If you die before doing so, those souls are gone for good. It's a beautiful mechanic. It's both fair and punishing. The deeper you go, the more likely you are to die, and die again. It's a mechanic that's been aped many times now in 2024. Back when I passed up Demon's Souls for Final Fantasy XIII, I was 28 years old. Wow. Time really flies. As I write this, I'm heading into my 43rd year. I don't know where the time goes. But I do know that I was way less patient when I was 28. And my knowledge of gaming history just wasn't what it is today. Sure I liked weird games. But weird to me back then was just low budget jank. Demon's Souls was something else altogether. It was a whole manifesto. It was an aesthetic that we westerners mostly missed out on, but was modeled after From Soft's earlier King's Field series. Basically, brutally difficult but fair. You had to be patient. You had to want to get good. You had to care enough to learn the systems by trial and error (and a little bit of googling). Like many From Soft late-bloomers, my point of reference will be Elden Ring. It's the game I've spent the most time with. I gave Dark Souls a couple of hours. I probably gave Dark Souls III less than an hour if I'm being honest. But I played a good thirty or forty hours of Elden Ring. And yet you can't really compare the two. Elden Ring is like taking the combat and design choices of Demon's Souls and then letting loose in an open world akin to Horizon. Demon's Souls is laid out in tiny blood-thirsty chunks. Each dungeon is small and linear and yet filled to the brim with things that want you dead. It's a claustrophobic experience. It's gruelling. It makes you feel on edge the entire time. Demon's Souls is haunting and atmospheric and deserves every accolade thrown at it. Yes, King's Field came first. But let's be honest, Demon's Souls pretty much perfected and defined an entire sub-genre. When people say "soulslike," they mean stuff that is patterned after this game. And for that, it demands to be remembered and played. For me now, yes I'm far more patient than I was in 2009. And yes I appreciate game design on a much deeper level. But I'm also playing with way less free time than I've ever had in my entire life. Once my daughter goes to bed and the chores are done and I finally have free time, I'm also mostly burnt out by the day of work and fatherhood that would have preceded such free time. I have more patience, but less energy. But I admire and respect Demon's Souls hard. It's just a really well made game that acquiesces to no publisher's will. This is a gamer's game. It's made by a visionary who refuses to make a game for the masses but instead one for the audience. The irony is that in doing so, he's also built a whole new audience who's become attracted to such an outlier. Demon's Souls is a bit of a masterpiece that I have no delusions I'll ever be good at. It's a game that destroys me and then makes me glad that I spent the time being destroyed. Maybe soulslikes are made with masochists in mind. You have to be willing to put some time in, lose all your souls and then just shake your head and laugh at the loss. And while I don't really have the time nor motivation to commit to mastering such a game, every now and then I'm okay with just trying to progress just a little more. Taking the slight victories I can get, and being amused at my own downfalls. This is a truly impressive game, no matter how you approach it.
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