Last Living Souls

Demon's Souls
As anyone from the NES generation can attest, video games have become significantly less difficult. It is a natural consequence of the mainstreaming of gaming as well as the simple logistics of modern game architecture: loading screens and the sheer vastness of gaming worlds make losing less a challenge than an irritant.

Enter Demon's Souls, a Japanese import that has taken on a cult status due to its extraordinary degree of difficulty. When you die -- which happens quite a bit -- you not only lose all of your unspent experience, but also half of your maximum health. Clearly a game that does not mess around.

It is not so much that Demon's Souls is deliberately sadistic, it just requires a great deal of concentration and prudence. The first encounter in The Tower of Latria is a Mind Flayer who will probably kill most novice players instantly. In other games, a Mind Flayer would be a boss; in Demon's Souls it is a common encounter. Even though the worlds themselves are rather small, the game itself is rather lengthly because you have to approach each section with methodical precision. Almost every level is taut and immensely rewarding.

Perhaps Demon's Soul's [the localization team should have spent more money on punctuation] best element is its unique approach to online play. Not only can you see the apparitions of other gamers playing the same level as you, but other players (or souls if you want to borrow from the game's obtuse mythology) can leave you ephemeral messages to alert you to dangers ahead. Basically, crowd sourcing for the high gothic era. These warning help take the sting out of some of the game's more daunting challenges and instill a strange sense of camaraderie with the other masochistic gamers playing alongside you.

A brief admission: I did not beat Demon's Souls. I made it all the way to the second to last boss, The False King, before I had to quit. Unfortunately, The False King has a melee attack that steals an entire experience level -- permanently. On my single attempt to defeat him, he stole one of my levels, sapping me of the strength I needed to carry my equipment. Because the game does not pause in the menu screens, I did not have the time to unburden myself thus allowing him to steal four more levels before I eventually died. Levels are hard to come by in Demon's Souls and I didn't have the heart to spend another two hours regaining them only to have them stolen again.

That is not a challenge, that is simply a waste of my time.

I can already imagine the sequel: the final boss erases all of your saved games if you fail.

Grade: B