When I first went back to the progenitor of whatever genre this series created, it wasn't quite what I expected. While it is still clearly in the same family as Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and as is expected as an early ancestor there remains more of the genres it draws from in it's makeup, elements dropped in later entries for a more streamlined experience. But Demon's Souls surprised me with what it had that none of it's children did, gameplay experiments that didn't go anywhere, and a design philosophy that while familiar, was somehow much more... cruel.
(screenshots borrowed from the Demon's Souls English Wiki, the Wikidot one. Cheers.)
At it's core, Demon's Souls will be instantly familiar to Souls series fans that missed it first time. All the buttons do what you expect, everything on the HUD is as it should be, assuming you encountered the mana meter first in DS3. But there are slight differences, most notably in the animations, which are simultaneously flashier and more stiff than you may be used too. The stiffness may just be the framerate, I'm quite used to a solid 60 these days, but even the simplest weapons seem to have a flair to them unseen in later entries. The result is that even weapons you may be familiar with handle very differently, so skills learned in later entries may not serve you as well as you hope in the early game.
There are also more remnants of other genres to be found, more standard RPG tennets like an inventory weight limit in addition to equip burden, and a myriad of healing items found in the world without an estus equivalent, as well as unusual quirks like gender-restricted armour. While an interesting idea on paper, with a lot of interesting lore potential, this just left me confused as to why my character's lack of wang prevented me from wearing some gloves. Inventory weight limit does little more than put a roadblock to your enjoyment when you're juggling items round just so you can briefly puck up something new to read it's description, and offers little in the way of interesting gameplay decisions beyond giving Stockpile Thomas all your upgrade materials and unequipped weapons and armour whenever you return to the nexus.
So baseline, it plays like you'd expect, but not as good, though the animations are nice. What's really interesting about Demon's Souls design is in the underlying philosophies that define it's level design, NPC interactions and bosses. It's a lot more traditionally structured, with a series of themed stages with checkpoints at bosses, each with roughly the same structure apart from the castle (introductory area, first boss, much larger area ending with second boss, final boss immediately after), but with areas only accessible though the odd World Tendency system. In a familiar fashion, this is a system you will likely not understand even having played through he game many times if you haven't looked it up explicitly. You may have seen it mentioned in messages, but it's an odd thing and not something I' expect anyone to get on their own, myself included.
See, world tendency is a stat assigned to each of the different areas of the game, changed by the sorts of things happening to the players there. If lots of players are dying while human and killing NPCs, the world tendency shifts to black. If lots of players are killing bosses in a world, tendency shifts to white. There are a lot of other factors affecting tendency, but that's the simple version. Depending on the world tendency of an area, different doors and passageways are opened, enemies become harder or easier, NPCs or black phantoms appear, and so on and so forth. It's an odd system, and very indicative of the game's attitude towards the player. This isn't so much as a game that you play, as a game that plays you.
This is where Demon's Souls cruelty lies. In it's willingness to implement systems NPC interactions that aren't designed for your benefit, that don't just playfully push you about to give an illusion of danger or betrayal, but to actively work against you. When talking about traps in Dark Souls, it's the telegraphing that's pointed out most. The pressure plates visible on the ground, the sounds of enemies breathing around corners where they wait in ambush, and that's all very important, but just as important is that if you spring a trap, you can escape. You can roll away from or block the arrows, survive the boulder to the face and defeat the enemies in ambush. Demon's Souls has those traps, but it will also set bigger traps, ones with consequences. Later games in the series are comparatively tame compared to Demon's Souls and it's cruel treatment of the player.
And of course this extends to the story and world. The Garl Vinland and Maiden Astraea boss fight is one of the most painful experiences in videogames, and there's a recurring theme of fruitless pushing against the tide in the major story events. Dark Souls conveys a sense of majesty at times, even if all things majestic and beautiful in that game are not to be trusted, while Demon's Souls is quite content to leave you in terrible dead places where everything hates you, including it's own mechanics.
There's a lot of Demon's souls that doesn't hold up. It's core mechanics have been refined to a knife-edge in Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, leaving them frequently feel outdated here. But it's world remains another beautiful creation of Miyazaki, one more clear-cut on the surface but more sinister beneath, and it's ideology of cruelty is one I'd love to see explored more in the future. More games that aren't afraid to set traps you can't escape from, to incorporate gameplay elements the player has no control over, and to swap out a straight boss fight for a puzzle without telling the player. It's a difficult tightrope to balance on without leaning too hard into frustration, but with Demon's Souls as a basis, I feel there's something to be had in a game that ACTUALLY hates you.
So yeah, holds up well enough, but more of an interesting thing to examine than player yourself I feel.
Next week, likely New Doom, which I have been enjoying quite a lot. I also have the insanely titled Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, which is also pretty great, though it is a JRPG, so who knows when you'll hear about that.
(screenshots borrowed from the Demon's Souls English Wiki, the Wikidot one. Cheers.)
At it's core, Demon's Souls will be instantly familiar to Souls series fans that missed it first time. All the buttons do what you expect, everything on the HUD is as it should be, assuming you encountered the mana meter first in DS3. But there are slight differences, most notably in the animations, which are simultaneously flashier and more stiff than you may be used too. The stiffness may just be the framerate, I'm quite used to a solid 60 these days, but even the simplest weapons seem to have a flair to them unseen in later entries. The result is that even weapons you may be familiar with handle very differently, so skills learned in later entries may not serve you as well as you hope in the early game.
There are also more remnants of other genres to be found, more standard RPG tennets like an inventory weight limit in addition to equip burden, and a myriad of healing items found in the world without an estus equivalent, as well as unusual quirks like gender-restricted armour. While an interesting idea on paper, with a lot of interesting lore potential, this just left me confused as to why my character's lack of wang prevented me from wearing some gloves. Inventory weight limit does little more than put a roadblock to your enjoyment when you're juggling items round just so you can briefly puck up something new to read it's description, and offers little in the way of interesting gameplay decisions beyond giving Stockpile Thomas all your upgrade materials and unequipped weapons and armour whenever you return to the nexus.
So baseline, it plays like you'd expect, but not as good, though the animations are nice. What's really interesting about Demon's Souls design is in the underlying philosophies that define it's level design, NPC interactions and bosses. It's a lot more traditionally structured, with a series of themed stages with checkpoints at bosses, each with roughly the same structure apart from the castle (introductory area, first boss, much larger area ending with second boss, final boss immediately after), but with areas only accessible though the odd World Tendency system. In a familiar fashion, this is a system you will likely not understand even having played through he game many times if you haven't looked it up explicitly. You may have seen it mentioned in messages, but it's an odd thing and not something I' expect anyone to get on their own, myself included.
See, world tendency is a stat assigned to each of the different areas of the game, changed by the sorts of things happening to the players there. If lots of players are dying while human and killing NPCs, the world tendency shifts to black. If lots of players are killing bosses in a world, tendency shifts to white. There are a lot of other factors affecting tendency, but that's the simple version. Depending on the world tendency of an area, different doors and passageways are opened, enemies become harder or easier, NPCs or black phantoms appear, and so on and so forth. It's an odd system, and very indicative of the game's attitude towards the player. This isn't so much as a game that you play, as a game that plays you.
This is where Demon's Souls cruelty lies. In it's willingness to implement systems NPC interactions that aren't designed for your benefit, that don't just playfully push you about to give an illusion of danger or betrayal, but to actively work against you. When talking about traps in Dark Souls, it's the telegraphing that's pointed out most. The pressure plates visible on the ground, the sounds of enemies breathing around corners where they wait in ambush, and that's all very important, but just as important is that if you spring a trap, you can escape. You can roll away from or block the arrows, survive the boulder to the face and defeat the enemies in ambush. Demon's Souls has those traps, but it will also set bigger traps, ones with consequences. Later games in the series are comparatively tame compared to Demon's Souls and it's cruel treatment of the player.
And of course this extends to the story and world. The Garl Vinland and Maiden Astraea boss fight is one of the most painful experiences in videogames, and there's a recurring theme of fruitless pushing against the tide in the major story events. Dark Souls conveys a sense of majesty at times, even if all things majestic and beautiful in that game are not to be trusted, while Demon's Souls is quite content to leave you in terrible dead places where everything hates you, including it's own mechanics.
There's a lot of Demon's souls that doesn't hold up. It's core mechanics have been refined to a knife-edge in Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, leaving them frequently feel outdated here. But it's world remains another beautiful creation of Miyazaki, one more clear-cut on the surface but more sinister beneath, and it's ideology of cruelty is one I'd love to see explored more in the future. More games that aren't afraid to set traps you can't escape from, to incorporate gameplay elements the player has no control over, and to swap out a straight boss fight for a puzzle without telling the player. It's a difficult tightrope to balance on without leaning too hard into frustration, but with Demon's Souls as a basis, I feel there's something to be had in a game that ACTUALLY hates you.
So yeah, holds up well enough, but more of an interesting thing to examine than player yourself I feel.
Next week, likely New Doom, which I have been enjoying quite a lot. I also have the insanely titled Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, which is also pretty great, though it is a JRPG, so who knows when you'll hear about that.
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