Video Game Assessment: Demon's Souls (2009)

Demon's Souls, developed by From Software with some assistance from SCE Japan Studio, is an interesting action-adventure-RPG-hack-and-slash-very-hard-game that looks like it helped kick off the "hard games" genre that seems to be pushing itself into video game culture today. Some people (mostly jerks) say that this game is easy. Other people (the jerks would call them "noobs" which is literally the dumbest thing a human being can possibly say with a straight face) think that this is a difficult and punishing game, designed to be both psychotically frustrating when you get angry enough to throw your PlayStation 3 controller through the game disc and incredibly rewarding once you defeat anything that has given you problems (for me it was Flamelurker, that wobbling flaming monkey moron).

This game was my first real foray into this genre. Sure, I like difficult games at times, hard to grow up on the NES and the SNES and not get used to difficult games. But this one, it's very different. And it's difficult in a different way. It's fair, sure, and can be easy through repetition and memorization. Mostly though, it punishes through lack of knowledge, lack of skill, and pulling out surprise after surprise. You need amazing control for this game. You have to have a knowledge base of what's coming, and you have to get used to the controls, which are, at the very least, difficult to figure out at first. There are also a great deal of hidden mechanics in the game, like leveling up (which I didn't find when I should have found it), what the stats mean, and what the symbols that are required to use a weapon actually mean. To be bluntly honest, this game confused me for a good long time, and I left it alone much of the time I owned it. But that changed early this year. Because that was when I decided I had enough of the namby-pamby games. I was a real gamer-boy, and I was going to game.






(And then hate myself for a long time afterward...)

Prepare to Cry
(in anger)

I had gotten this game not long after it had come out, played a little bit, and found it too frustrating to continue. I hadn't even beaten or even gotten to the first real boss in the game, but I found it too tiresome to proceed, and put it off for another two years or more. I came back to it, tried to show off just how hard the game was, proceeded to get frustrated and then put it off again.

Finally though, I'd had enough. With work a mounting priority and no time for anything else, I decided to dip my toes into the fires of self-hatred and punish myself directly. I started by playing about an hour each night, more or less, just seeing what I could do. The controls (which I barely knew trying it before) seemed to feel a bit better in my fingers this time around. I somehow beat the first level, 1-1, and I never died to the first boss Phalanx, something I didn't know I had in me. And from that moment, I was hooked. Sure, there were frustrations, times when I knew I wouldn't be able to continue and times that I simply told myself I was done. But I did continue; I wasn't done. The Tower Knight gave me problems. Because the character I had created four or five years previous had already beaten the tutorial, I didn't have the tutorial to fall back on. I forgot that I could run and therefore never ran once in the entirety of Demon's Souls. How I got past the red dragon in the second level of the first world, I have no idea. I dodge rolled a lot. I like dodge rolling. Maybe that saved me. Or maybe some incredibly dumb luck (with an emphasis on the dumb) was on my side. I was still struggling even throughout the first part of the game. The first four bosses (with the exception of Phalanx) gave me trouble. But I beat them all one by one, remembering their names in turn: Tower Knight, Fool's Idol, Armored Spider... and Flamelurker. How I loathe thee, Flamelurker.

Flamelurker was the boss that got me in this game. It was the hardest and most frustrating one. I was playing a melee character with extremely limited magic and no range. I subsequently had to change my build because of this boss, become nearly a pure bows and magic character. It was frustrating. I keep using that word, but it describes the experience so well. It captures the experience perfectly. Frustration. Rewarding frustration. I won, and after that nothing stood in my way. I was on a roll. The Maneater(s) gave me some issues, but I beat them too. I beat everything. After Flamelurker, everything clicked. The combat clicked. The game mechanics clicked. The ambushes and the difficulty and everything else. I simply understood it all. I got it. Is it a good game? Yes, absolutely. But there is a lot that needs to be slogged through before it really shows its true colors.

I don't have much to say about the other bosses. Most of them fell easily to my magic/bow combination. While some were designed exquisitely, very few actually stuck out to me. The Old Hero was a cool, albeit easy, concept. The Storm King was a cool boss fight once you get that awesome sword that's only really awesome in his arena. And the Old Monk was an interesting conceptual design that never worked for me.

The setting and level design in probably the high point of the game as well as the most memorable piece of it. The Tower of Latria's design in particular sticks out to me, being a prison and a collection of towers in this backdrop of a broken world. The settings almost feel like entirely different games put inside of one. None of them really look alike (besides the all-encompassing darkness present in one form or another in each every level. Other than that they do feel and play incredibly differently. The castle was neat with incredibly well-designed shortcuts and corridors. The tunnel felt far beneath the world and incredibly claustrophobic at times. The tower was both creepy and otherworldly, like something out of Lovecraft. The shrine was neat, a cliffside area that made me think of pictures of cool rocky coastlines. And the valley/swamp area was just terrible in every single way. The stories behind the areas were also interesting, although on a first playthrough I would be shocked if you even knew there was a story. I certainly didn't. I was just killing bosses and leveling up. Only after the endgame played out and I started new game+ did I finally stop and look some of the story and characters up, realizing that the game was much deeper than I had given it credit for.0

I talk about this game mostly as a game of visuals and fights because when I played it, that's exactly what I got out of it. While the lore is pretty solid, it's also fairly hidden unless you're willing to read literally everything, every description, every introduction, and, of course, reading into a lot of things too. I didn't do that when I played, opting to focus on the environments and getting better with the gameplay. Maybe it was my loss, although I enjoyed it as a game, and now I enjoy the lore as well.

As for everything else, let's see. I liked the Maiden in Black. Her design and character are incredibly interesting, verging on seriously awesome. I wish more characters would look and act like her. She's such an incredibly well-designed and thought-out central NPC. I can't really complain about her or the major merchants in the Nexus, (the central hub of the game). Oh, and I didn't even talk about how awesome the Nexus is, with its strange clockwork floor, changing music once you get late enough into the game and vertical levels.

The complaints I have are pretty small in general. The Valley of Defilement sucks to play. Some of the bosses are very easy. The early game really feels like it discourages new players. The lack of telling the player anything can be both incredibly rewarding and incredibly confusing. The world and character tendency things are literally incomprehensible for me. I have no idea what to do with any of that stuff and basically avoided it through lack of knowledge or understanding.

I will say that the dodge roll is my favorite feature in games though, and I wish it were in every game, because mastering a dodge roll is the only true way to play Demon's Souls.


Now, I do know that this game is not as played or as beloved as Dark Souls or other more well-known "hard games" out there, but it's also very good if it's given a chance. This game got me to try (and eventually fall in love with) the Dark Souls games, and its horrific atmosphere, gameplay that has to be mastered, and designs are something I will remember for many years to come. Compared to Dark Souls, I find Demon's Souls nearly its equal, with the only issues coming from lack of a "real/coherent" story and the ease of some of the boss fights if your character is built a certain way. But that's about it. When I get to reviewing Dark Souls, I'll talk more about comparisons and probably change my mind over which one I like more ten times over in the course of that review.

So, in summary, if you have a PS3 and like hard games, you should try this one out. I liked it a lot after the initial four years of annoyance and frustration. So... I think that's a recommendation? I give it a 'Salem's Lot out of Dracula.



Yeah.

Anyway, as some housekeeping for the blog, I'm back writing, as I mentioned last week. I'm probably going to be very inconsistent, really basing my writing and posting of reviews around when work and the fiancee aren't desperately seeking my time or attention. I'd love to say one review a week, but I doubt that pretty seriously. So, I won't say anything at all, and hopefully we'll all be surprised and shocked by whatever happens. I think I'm going to review a bunch of video games for a while, then some movies, and finally some books leading up to October, but anything could happen. And the October Nights 31 reviews will happen even if I have to never sleep. So no worries there.

Video Game Assessment: Nier (2010)

So, I bought this game for all of eleven dollars. I want that... no, I need that to be known. Eleven dollars for a fairly new game (only two years old) is basically unheard of. Most games sell for twenty to thirty dollars or more even after five years. Why is this game so cheap? Why is it one of the games that has been forgotten by the masses? Forgotten by the public to sleep in its lonely version of hell for all eternity?

I'm not one for anime games. I like some Japanese games, sure, but they are decidedly not anime. I mean, I had a hard enough time actually playing these anime video games in the first place or watching those anime movies. (I'm going to use anime as an adjective here for a while as I rant.) I mean, sure I liked Final Fantasy IX well enough (although not well enough to finish that game. I hate grinding.). And... uh... I think that's about it for JRPGs and me. I mean, I don't even particularly love RPGs in general. Sure, I like some specific instances or series of RPGs (BioWare, Bethesda, and Obsidian RPGs come to mind), but for the mos part I'm not overly fond of the genre. I mean, sure, the Dragon Age games were fun, but repetitive. Skyrim and Oblivion were expansive, but felt so empty. Mass Effect is great, but is much more a shooting and action game at this point than a serious RPG. And Obsidian is just awesome, so let's leave it at that.

My point here is that although I may talk about RPGs, it's much more about the time required to play the game rather than the game itself. Because I take so much time to play the games I much more willing to rant and rave about an RPG than any other game. And this is why I find my eleven dollar copy of Nier so preposterous. It's absolutely ridiculous that this thing is selling for eleven dollars. It's like a slap in the face that this game has been hidden away while crap games are top on every gamer's radar. Hell, I barely knew about this game until now, two years later, when I happened to hear a little of the game's music and found myself intrigued enough to go spend the measly eleven dollars on the game.

Sure, I had heard things about the game, but I also keep my ears open for games like this, games that get mediocre to crappy scores on game review sites, but seem to have their own small fanbase behind them. Another intriguing thing about this game was the story and character heavy elements that it seemingly had within it. I love story in my video games. I was dubious, of course, because anime... but I found myself giving into the notion of the game.

Now, what can I say about this game? Is it perfect? No. There's a lot of issues here. The sidequests can be and are awful. Leveling up weapons is equally bad. Hell, anything that involves grinding for items is basically awful,but those are extras. I guess if you want to do those things (and you never have to do them) then it will be a slog, but... I think it would be a worthy slog. Look, I'm not here to praise a game up and down, not looking at flaws, but I am also certainly not here to give the review for this game that everybody else seems to give it. I mean, seriously guys? This is why critics are always wrong, be they gaming or otherwise. Don't listen to them. I mean, sure, they can be correct about the big games from time to time, but games like this, games that skirt under the radar, they are almost always wrong about.

It reminds me of the situation the gaming community had with Deadly Premonition. I loved Deadly Premonition. It was one of the best games I've ever played despite the dated visuals and not great gameplay. I loved the game because it had heart. It had something to it that most corporate games don't. It had a feeling that was more than just "go here and kill things." It was a game unto itself. One that could stand all by itself and not take all of the other games' crap. It was not a rehash of an existing game. Sure, it took from Twin Peaks, but why not? Twin Peaks is and was awesome and why not utilize that unique feeling into a video game? And they did. They made it amazing, putting so much more into that game than Twin Peaks ever did in two seasons (and I love Twin Peaks.).

My point in comparing these two games: Nier and Deadly Premonition, is that I didn't know what to expect from either of them. Deadly Premonition looked weird, but was certainly my type of game, a mixed horror genre type of game in a Twin Peaks style, while Nier... well, Nier is part of a genre of games I don't particularly love, relying on anime characters, published by Square Enix... It has many checks against it, is what I'm saying. And yet...

And yet, I don't know if there is a better game out there for story right now. I mean, sure, not everybody is going to be down with the story it tells. It reminds me of a mature version of Kingdom Hearts, and I loved those games. This one, though, is better. The story is gripping, the characters are utterly amazing, the feeling of playing this game is priceless.

The game is slow, I'm not going to give any other impression of it. The beginning is a slow build-up to the main story, introducing characters and plots all over the place while exploring the setting. The sidequests give a good feel to the world even if they can be a slog. They paint an important picture of the entire story, something that not many games do.

I don't know if I've ever played a game that felt half as poignant as this. I mean, yes, Silent Hill 2 does it fantastically, and is one of the saddest games that I have ever played. But Nier does it almost as well, and certainly does it more often. Obviously quality count more than quantity about such things, but the feelings and emotions Nier evokes are outstandingly well done from beginning to end. A world is created and drawn together. These characters exist, no longer characters, but people... and then comes the deconstruction. This game, like some before it, deconstructs the video game media, making it almost into a criticism of video games as much as a hack-and-slash game about killing things.

The mixture of gameplay elements and the story blend together almost seamlessly. Every moment during play, you think, you wonder, you may even hate the random item drops for quest pickups, but there is constant and deliberate thought by the player throughout the game. The characters are ambiguous, the plot is ambiguous... hell, even the gameplay is ambiguous, and I've never been happier to say that. Everything blends together to create a game that is everything as well as nothing, ultimately telling the player that it was all for nothing... and yet, for everything still. It was like looking at real life, even for a moment and finally understanding that there is something bigger than any of us, and that even though one person can screw a lot of things up, there might not be anybody left to put those pieces back together again.

I'm being vague on purpose. The true story is something simple and yet so elusive, like water draining through fingers. It moves and breathes along with the characters, and eventually everything seems to be more complex than it had ever seemed, much like real life. There are no bad guys here, no ultimate evil that needs fixing like in so many RPGs and JRPGs. This "evil" is the evil of randomness, of a bad hand, of fate... of whatever you want to call it. All of these characters own a motivation. All of these little plots make sense despite it being in a freaking video game.

I don't think I've ever truly felt sad for a background NPC before this game came around. I don't think I'd ever felt like crying when a character died or was killed before this game. Hell, only Boromir's death in LotR was strong enough to evoke emotions like that, and this game does it for background characters! I mean, come on!

The story here, I believe it's translated into English, is fantastically done. the translation is easily one of the best from Japanese I have ever seen. The voice actors also shine with their lines, with almost every character in the game sounding real instead of awkward like some video games can sound. Nier himself (the dude on the cover) is just about as strange a JRPG or even regular RPG protagonist as one can get. He's a middle-aged muscle-bound man with a daughter. How strange is that? (Yes, I know the Japanese version has a younger "brother" version of Nier, but I didn't play that version, and therefore have no reason to talk about it.)

As for the other characters, I'll remain vague. They all have character arcs, some sad, some very sad, and one or two even happily poignant in the end. I don't think I've seen another game with quite the depth of character that this game seems to have. Every character is consistent and wonderfully done from beginning to end. I can't even fathom how that's even possible. I can't think of another game that does that. Even my favorite game KotOR II, suffers from some crappy characters (like Bao-Dur), so this seems almost unsettling to me, almost unreal.

As for other things, well, the gameplay is solid. I like it. There's nothing insane about it, nothing crazy. It's fairly standard, but has some changeups from time to time, becoming a top-down shooter at points, or looking like some old dungeon crawler at other points. Hell, there are also sidescrolling platformer elements to it as well as some absurdly awesome bullet hell gameplay. It's ridiculous, and I love it for being ridiculous.

The look of the game is fantastic even though at times the bloom can be a little distracting. I was playing it, and I found the landscape, although somewhat barren at times, to be fantastically done. I liked exploring it or simply looking at the sky. I can't think of looking at the sky to be a gameplay element in any other game (except maybe Skyrim) but here it looks so good that I can't complain.

The music is what attracted me to the game, and I have to put in a special mention to the FANTASTIC music that's in the game. My God is the music good. I'm considering buying the soundtrack because it's just that good. Hell, I've had the music for the game just playing in the background because I like it so much. I can't think of many other games where I've found the music such a compelling part of the game. Maybe Skyrim again, but there it was two tracks of music in particular. With this game it's every track.

I'm not going to spoil elements of the game, but there are part of it, specifically towards the end, that are... simply put, fantastic and sad, and done the exact right way. I want to recommend the game to literally everybody who can spend eleven dollars on it. It's worth those eleven dollars and so much more. Even if you don't like it, I think you'd find it hard to say it isn't worth those eleven measly bucks.

The game, though, isn't for everyone, and that needs to be known. It's a story-based game that has some weaker gameplay elements to it (which I don't mind in the slightest because if I can play the game then the gameplay is absolutely fine, but a lot of people seem to mind quite a bit about that). This game is not mediocre, but really, really good. Don't go into it expecting a happy ending. And don't go into it if you don't want a gritty and somewhat sadly realistic version of the world. If you hate everything, this might be the game for you, but even moreso if you want something intelligently done that thrives off of a brilliantly done deconstruction of story, game, and characters... then this might very well be the game for you.

I wish I could go all in and ruin the plot, describing just how good the twists and turns of the story is: the King of Facade, Kaine, Emil, Yonah... the bosses (which are incredible and so great to fight), Nier's village, the temples, the way that the game has bookends, the way it all makes sense despite its heavy plot. I think it puts this game a cut above many others. It certainly puts it into my top echelon of games to stay.

Nier, a game that cost me eleven dollars, which I expected nothing from and got a world, you have surpassed not only my expectations, but the expectations of any video game. This is a game that should be played by everybody. I can't recommend it enough. Go and play it if you have that chance, and if you already have then I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Edit: One more thing before I call this review a complete wrap. The pacing of this game s very strange. The first act (before the clear demarcation of the acts), moves very slowly, especially if you are a completionist like myself. Not a ton happens, and most of it is there to introduce the plot, the characters, and the settings. Most of the first act is filler until the end of the act. The bosses are not well characterized, and, in general, it can get kind of boring if you don't know what comes next. But don't give up! All is not lost!

The second act moves at a very good pace, with no real screwing around when it comes to fighting or anything else. Nier, by the second  act, is very strong, able to kill most enemies in a few strikes. Even bosses aren't that much trouble. The game uses those introductions from the first act to build up on characters, plots, and settings. I think it succeeds in this admirably.

The pacing issue is one that I noticed myself, but I think it's actually a great decision by the game, showing a clear difference between the first and second acts in so many ways: in terms of color pallets, pacing, ease of the game, openness of the story, and ambiguity of basically all of the characters.

Video Game Assessment: Dungeon Siege III (2011)

Yet another Obsidian directed video game comes out, and yet again I became incredibly excited for it. In general I've loved all of Obsidian Entertainment's games. That's true. I've never played Neverwinter Nights 2, but I have played all the rest. Two of their games are among my favorites of all time in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Fallout: New Vegas, so Dungeon Siege III had quite some shoes to fill. Now, I'm not going to say that this is the best put together game in the world, and I'm not going to blindly like it without taking the time to really have an in depth look at it, so I played through the whole game. I completed it completely with one character. And this is my assessment of the game.

Altogether, this game is my least favorite of the Obsidian Entertainment name, but that by no means makes it bad. Two of the games are among my favorite ones of all time, which is quite a feat, one I've never played, and I liked Alpha Protocol quite a bit. To my Burn Notice addled mind, Alpha Protocol worked in so many ways despite the obvious cuts and unfinished ideas.

The first thing that I have to mention is that I played single player. I have the feeling the game would be better to play with someone else. So, I'm putting that out there. If it is more fun, or works better with someone else playing it with me, I'll put out another review saying it, but as of now, this is my impression of the game.

The game altogether does seem well put together. It has a finished feeling that half of Obsidian's games that I've played don't really have. It doesn't feel rushed or pushed out the door, which both are always good things. The characters are decent, with one that outshines the rest, but I'll get to that. The music is good, reminiscent of the Fable games. Hell, most of the game is eerily reminiscent to the Fable series. And I like the Fable games too, although I do think that this one has much more to offer. The story is there, simple as it might be. The characters are strongly written, and the combat is mostly very fun.

There are negatives though. The gameplay never really became old for me...but it could have if the game were longer. Dungeon Siege III is not a very long game. It took me somewhere around twenty hours to finish the entire game. That's short for an RPG even if it is a dungeon crawling, hack-and-slash, action RPG. So, the shortness of the game certainly stood out to me. The RPG elements were decent though, and the decision were interesting and difficult at times, with Obsidian's quality writing apparent in almost every line.

The game starts off slowly, deliberately, and does eventually hit a good climax. The story is strong, despite everything, and I found it interesting all the way through despite its single-mindedness. The characters are mostly... well, I did not find all of the player characters (and companions) to be ridiculously interesting. I played as Lucas and he was neat, kind of the obvious lead character sort of person. The hero with a sword on the box cover, so yeah... But both of the female characters seemed a little less interesting. Maybe it was their voice acting, especially the Archon (kind of a fire elemental ancient thing) Anjali was particularly notable for, in my opinion, not having the best voice acting available. Then again, maybe that's what they meant to do, but to me it came off as not great. Katarina, the other female, was a little more interesting, but I never used her because she constantly died. Her AI seemed to be less intelligent than the other two companions. I didn't have any real complaints about her besides that. Well, besides that she's very obvious fanservice... Reinhart though, the last companion I acquired, was my main man throughout the time I had him in my party. I really liked him and his snarky intelligent nonsense rambling. If I play the game again, I'm playing as him.

The gameplay was surprisingly good, really visceral at times, and somewhat challenging at times as well. I would get frustrated with it at times because I just want to be good at video games, but it took me a while to master the gameplay, and I kind of like that. By the end of the game I could defeat anything, but there was a learning curve and it took about half of the game to maybe two-thirds of the game to really figure out what I had to do in terms of combat. I thought it worked well and I was really pleasantly surprised with it. Dungeon crawling games built on sidequests are not exactly my favorite style of game, but this one stood out to me as having only good sidequests, no filler, and moving along well despite no real fast travel system.

The thing I really need to praise this game on are the visuals. In this day of grand visual quality coming from video games, the visuals of this one really stood out. I loved, absolutely loved, the Causeways, the roads between the world that exist in a ruined world. They appealed to me so much and I thought they were awesome. But the different towns are also incredibly well put together, as are the automatons that are featured fairly heavily and some of the enemies. The game does have a style to it, and I really liked it. It made me smile at times besides the fact that I never smile, so that was cool.

Altogether, this was a good game with a ton of potential. I think most of that potential was realized, but admittedly other parts seemed to be a bit of a slap in the face. The game is short, but at the end of the game they show enemies that they could have put in the game for me to face, like dragons or other wars, and I just wanted to play more and fight dragons. Why show me dragons when I can't fight the dragons? It's teasing me needlessly. So, the game loses some points because I hate being teased.

Out of the last three games I've played in Uncharted 3, LotR: War in the North, and Dungeon Siege III, this is probably my least favorite of the three, but the one that I see with the most potential even in regards to the Uncharted series, which while a powerhouse of a series, quality all the way around, does not have that fantasy element that one can play with and tweak all over the place. I just think that there is room for improvements in this game and this series and I hope that Square Enix will be intelligent enough to put the next game in this franchise in the hands of Obsidian yet again.

Anyway, I did enjoy the game. It was fairly fun, kind of short, but not terrible certainly. So, I'm going to recommend it. Wow, I was not expecting to like this game, I'm not going to lie. And three games in a row, all games that I've given mostly positive reviews for. This is bad. I need to rip something apart soon. I think it's time to watch a bad movie next...