Soul of the host, withdrawn from its podcast.
Welcome back to Describing the Skybox! Today, and honestly, a bit on a whim, we’re going to be talking about Demon’s Souls! Demon’s Souls has been out for a very long time, and the impact it has made on modern games is obvious, but there is still something fascinating about a game that went from the lesser-talked about older brother of Dark Souls to the big budget remake system seller title. Demon’s Souls is an experimental game, and one that forces the player to be deliberate with their actions. Much less reflex intensive than later titles in the genre, many of the areas and bosses have specific, puzzle-like solutions that ask you to bring certain items or to vary your approach in one way or another, and while it strays from the larger Souls philosophy that says playing well enough can overcome any disadvantage, it has a different kind of charm that will still remind you of your first time through Dark Souls. My larger point here is that if you are someone who was introduced to the series through a later game, I would encourage you to give Demon’s Souls a chance, or another chance if you, like me, tried it (twice!) before and bounced off of it. The frustrating elements of the game, of which there are a few, still help put the whole series in context and further highlight the really innovative things this game did. We’re going to be talking about how impressive this design was in its original context, the perception (and reality) of the “gimmicky” design of the bosses, and how we really love Valley of Defilement.
Thank you for joining us this week! Having just played this game through for the first time, we decided to slot this in before Halloween while it was still fresh. Now is the game fresh for everyone? No, it came out in 2009, but that’s basically to be expected from us I guess. Still, this is one of those games that might require a few attempts before you really get into it, but once you do it has a way of making you really fall in love with it. Were you able to get into it on your first time through? Did you come back to it after playing other games in the series? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re going to be talking about Alisa to kick off Halloween, so we hope you’ll join us then!