Ok

Elden Ring, is the nice boy in class, he has all the good grades, he's not particularly ugly, he's cultivated, he'll likely gonna get into a good university once he's gonna graduate, he seems to have no flaws, except one, he's painfully boring in its flawlessness

Demon's Souls on the other hand, he's the bad boy , he's dark, sinister, a bit cringe , he has black hair, he makes barely passable poetry , he smokes marijuana and is involved with several case of high school crime, he always brings a guitar and listen to 21 pilot on his airpods, not the kinda guy you should get interrested in, he looks silly , he looks like a fucking looser, he thinks he's goat, but he's not goat, he's just a piece of shit edgy kids and oh my god I hate this guy, but one day you go to a party

Who did you end up in bed with ? That's right , not fucking ER, he's too good for this, It's DeS, you woke up next morning, and he fucked you and you look past the bed border and your mom is lying on the floor , fucked like she never has been before. Then he wokes up with pancackes, kiss you goodbye and leaves you with a teen pregnancy he's never gonna act upon. But the memory of such an experience will last with you for the rest of your goddamn life

What a fucking game. I went through so many emotions with this game, and even through all the frustration and confusion it was such a good experience. It has to be said that the checkpoint system in this game is brutal and sucks ass (namely the very last one), everything else is patience and memory. For the love of god, be patient. Pushing through an area after taking your time feels so good. If you like the Souls games, you gotta play this, at least try it, and if you get stuck, just go to another area you might blast through it and it'll help you get souls/items in the meantime.

Finally. One of the hardest games I've ever beaten, and though it has it's flaws, I did enjoy Demon Souls. Some flaws are more major than others, but the good definitley outways the bad.

First off something good, the Level Design. I thought it was pretty fantastic. Memorable layouts and lots of places to go and secrets to find in the levels, and everywhere seems to be leading you in the right direction. You're definitely rewarded for looking around, I thought they did a great job with the Levels Designs and their memorability.

Some parts in the Levels, though designed well, either had enemies that just screw you in the way, or the players movement didn't really work well with it. The Players Movement can feel pretty Janky, and I fell so many times to my death, often by the jank in the game. I know it sounds like and excuse but I promise that shit isn't on me. 4-2 is the bane of my existence. So many enemies mixed with Ledges, it was such a long trek back to the already hard as fuck Boss, it was easily the worst area in the game for me. 4-2 shows where the Level Design at times comes up short, though besides that I felt it was usually great.

Speaking of Bosses, they were pretty damn easy. Old Hero was definitely the Hardest for me, not only could he see me even though he was Blind, the trek back to him was so long, which is something I already touched on. I heard people saying Flame Lurker was the hardest, but I didn't find him to bad. Old King Allant was a little tough, but I beat him on my 2nd try. Kinda disappointing but also a relief at the same time, since getting to them without any checkpoints is hard enough. The Arch Demons should have been much harder, but oddly enough they were the easiest ones. The Final Boss, was just terrible. I'm not sure if you can even call that a Final Boss, since he literally didn't even hit me, and was weak as hell.

The Checkpoints. Where are the damn Checkpoints? I know you get them after you beat a Boss, but the game would've benefited so much if they just gave me some like they did in the other games. You eventually get stronger but it's still hard and annoying as hell, especially if the Boss is far from the checkpoint.

The Gameplay, though at times very janky, was fun and satisfying. Spells were so OP, I have no Idea how anyone could beat this game without them. I played as a Knight for like an hour and a half, and I deleted that and restarted as Royalty. I'm so glad I did that, since without the magic I was really struggling. Sword fighting still felt really good, it's just that magic was so much more affective. The amount of Spells were cool as well. I used some sort of Fire spell of which I forgot the name, and Warding. Warding is an absolute must, it makes the game so much less complete horse shit.

The RPG leveling up mechanics were well done, and expensive as hell near the end of the game. Collecting the souls and making sure you don't lose them all was satisfying and challenging. Increasing the power of my weapons was a little grindy since I had so collect the Shards, but it wasn't to bad.

Characters and Enemies were well designed and pretty cool. The characters didn't talk much but they were still well done. Enemies, though often annoying, gave the game some more challenge and they were well though out.

The Story and Lore were pretty cool. I'm not gonna pretend that I can say that I know what exactly is going one, but It kept me invested and was well told. One of the games biggest strengths was it's world building and story telling in the world. Without any dialogue, the game could give you an image and you could understand exactly what happened. From Software, from what I've seen, is fantastic at in Game Story telling. They did a great job with it in this game.

I thought the Music was great. It didn't come up often, which did help set the unnerving atmosphere, but when It came on it sounded great. The Boss Fights especially had great Themes. Nothing I'd listen to in my free time, but that makes no difference on how good it is.

To touch back on the atmosphere, it's probably the best part about the game. Its this unwavering feeling of just utter despair and oppression, that It makes you believe that nothing will get better in this world. But it also keeps you going, trying to get rid of that atmosphere, kill the Demons, and restore the land.

I gotta admit something, I kinda cheated. I duped some items, like heals and Spices, and I honestly think it was the best decision I made. Grinding in this game is so tedious and just complete horseshit. For me to continue having fun I had to do something like that, or I would have just given up. I didn't dupe any souls or Stones, I thought that would've just ruined the whole experience.

If you want to get into the Souls games, I'm not sure if I'd start If with this one. I think I'm just gonna retire this game for ever, a great experience that I never want to have again. I definitely have my complaints with this game, No checkpoints, Levels at times very frustrating, Bosses a little to easy, some janky controls, but all in all, I liked it. Great Music, Great and Memorable Level Design, Enemies designs were cool, Great Characters, Great RPG Elements, Story and lore were good, and the Gameplay was fun. If you want something very challenging, Like the Souls games, and/or want a Dark Fantasy adventure game, I'd recommend Demon's Souls.

Score: 3.8/5
Letter Grade: B+

In 2009, after a complicated and tortuous game development process, internally considered a failure, a small Japanese video game company made waves.

And thus, a revolution in video games was born.

Demon's Souls tends to be the forgotten link since Dark Souls is what truly became popular, with all the memes about its difficulty, its infamous invasions, its complex lore, memorable bosses, dark fantasy visuals, and minimalist soundtrack.

But Demon's had already done all of that in 2009. And better. Demon's is my favorite because besides doing everything the FromSoftware games did later, it did it with a unique candor, with that energy of novelty, with a trial-and-error attempt at things that didn't work as a whole, like the World Tendency mechanic, completely removed after it but impressive for simply daring to try something different.

And for daring in so many ways, I think that's why I love this game as much as I do. Of course, it is one of the most thematically consistent games that exist, its contextual consistency is impressive, its areas are structurally divided in a quite elegant way, each giving you resources that make sense for that specific area, for example. Even the shortcuts in the game make sense for the map's theme, as in a mine, the shortcuts are elevators that carry the ores, in a castle, the shortcut is the gate that opens from the inside out, in a prison, the shortcut is the cell divider.

Furthermore, in certain aspects, FromSoftware was never more brilliant and inventive than in Demon's Souls, with each boss requiring specific strategies and not just the hit and roll at the right time that the series became known for, although not every boss gimmick worked well here, it's fair to say that each of them left an impact and became memorable. Some even had their gimmicks repeated many times in subsequent games.

When you look at its development, it's funny to think that it was supposed to be a sort of Sony's TES Oblivion and that after the project was going wrong, it ended up becoming the dream of a dreamer like Miyazaki by accident. And what a beautiful accident. Demon's Souls rekindled my connection with video games during a period that, for me, is the dark age of video games (the HD generation). I only played it in 2015, but I really wished I had played it sooner. It was the game that reignited my love for video games, and for that, I will always be grateful.