Publisher: Atlus
Developer: FromSoftware
Genre: RPG
Release date: Available now

Game makers put a lot of effort into getting an emotional reaction out of players. Devices such as a trusted animal companion biting the dust or your in-game girlfriend getting impaled are all there in an effort to make you “feel” something, to establish a direct connection to your heartstrings and play an adagio until tears are pooling at your feet. That’s the kind of immersion tool that seems to be popular these days; if they can get you to cry, they can get you to do anything. What about anger, though? Not anger at a virtual thing, but old-school 8- and 16-bit anger. The kind of anger you get from playing Ghosts n’ Goblins. The kind you get from the Quickman stage in Mega Man 2. Or the kind you get from Demon’s Souls, the most painfully rewarding game I’ve played this generation.

You can throw the story out the window for all I care, because even 30-plus hours in, I’m still not 100% sure what’s going on. The best I can make out is that there’s a soul-devouring demon called “the Old One,” lots and lots of death, and one very pale reviewer gripping his Dualshock like a divining rod, desperately looking for water in a desert of brutality. Demon’s Souls‘ M.O. is that it’s a modern role-playing experience with the trappings of some of the greatest (and toughest) games ever made. Something as simple as walking around the wrong corner can result in instant death, not to mention underestimating the red-eyed gentlemen gazing at you silently from across a bridge. Mark my words: you’re going to die, and on top of that, you’re going to lose all of your experience and have to play whole levels over again with respawned monsters. Sounds fun, no?

Yet Demon’s Souls never once makes you feel like it was a product of bad design that helped you meet your end; it’s just a genuinely challenging game. Traveling from a central hub-world called “The Nexus” to various locales around the embattled land of Boletaria, you’ll see castles crawling with knights and zombie-like Dredgelings, as well as mines squirming with Bear Bugs and alluring lights that explode when approached. Then there’s always the chance that, at any moment, another player might invade your game and kick the living crap out of you in the name of altering their character’s tendencies. This is because of a unique multiplayer system in DS that allows you to not only visit or invade other people’s games as friend or foe, but also utilize or disbelieve hints they leave behind. Through this, players learn to trust nothing or no one completely, make each step a careful one and learn to celebrate the small victories when they come.

And that might be a concept fit to turn a lot of people off before they’ve passed Area 1 of the Boletarian Palace. Demon’s Souls doesn’t want you to succeed like other games out there. Here you have to fight for it, even though the rewards aren’t equal in return and must instead be gathered in the form of self-accomplishment. The return for slogging through all of this brutality is a firm addiction to overcoming it, just to see what could possibly be thrown at you next. Sure, there are weapons, armor and spells to collect, but even after you’ve hit a new level of power, the next area is there specifically to knock you down a peg or two and remind you who’s boss. There’s even an additional layer of item management and stock upkeep. Certain pickups can only be found in certain levels…unless you’ve got souls for the overpriced merchants.

Don’t expect a color ’splosion, either. You walk in bleakness; the land of Boletaria is relatively colorless, perhaps to signify the “soullessness” of it all. It’s a beautiful bleak, however, and aside from the dead-eyed mannequin look your avatar is guaranteed to have, the rest of the visuals sing. The environments are varied, the lighting effects are stellar and the enemy design is both disturbing and attractive at the same time. There’s just something about the Fat Minister enemy type that chills my spine for some reason. Perhaps it’s the face, frozen in an “I’m being electrocuted!” expression, or perhaps it’s the overall “rotten” look the enemies carry. Either way, I can’t sleep. Oh, and I mustn’t forget the squid-faced guys in wizard robes who ring a bell and charge at you in a jerky fast-forward walk. I’ll never forget that, actually.

And that’s probably my favorite part of Demon’s Souls; a lot of stuff just doesn’t have an explanation, and carries that arcane, old-school vibe like the first time you saw an Eggplant Wizard in Kid Icarus. It’s those “What the hell is that?” moments that made it for me, beyond everything else From Software did to artfully capture my heart on Blu-Ray. You don’t have to understand it, and you don’t have to understand why you keep going back to it, because the sense of satisfaction you get offers all the explanation you’ll ever need. I might have already put in my 2009 Game of the Year nomination, but I have to take it back. Demon’s Souls is one of my all-time favorite games. Period.

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