My Demon’s Souls

After 50 some-odd hours, spread over the course of a month, I’ve done it – I’ve accepted the challenge of one of the hardest games on the market, and beaten it.  But at what cost?

The infamous Demon’s Souls, spiritual sibling of the recent Dark Souls, has been the trial faced by many adventurous gamers’ patience.  When seeking to free the country of Boletaria from the soul-sucking, vile demons that plague the nation, prepare to die a lot.  There were times when I ran through an area, being smashed, blasted, pounded, and ripped-apart, for hours before any progress was made.  For a player, Demon’s Souls develops a sense of careful analysis of any situation, and is brutally punishing of hotheadedness.

However, as I was playing the late-game, I began to doubt the “holy” exorcism that I was enacting upon Boletaria.  Though I was seeing DS in a different light after the down-right amazing presentation from Matt Weise (notes on the showing to come), I could still see the stricken ghouls I slayed as nothing more than play-things for truly monstrous demons, until I met Maiden Astraea.  She was supposed to be a twisted, dark thing that subsisted on the plagued wretches of a leprous chasm, souls that she had once been there to help.  But, once I found her, she was normal, and spoke to me like any person; she told me to go, to leave her and her bodyguard-lover alone in their humble existence, easing the pain of the sick.  Once I massacred the bodyguard, this “demon” didn’t even fight!  She gave up, committing suicide so I could have my “precious demon soul.”  I cannot recall a game that made me feel like such an out-right dick before.

My second revelation that I may not be on the side of Good was when I fought the Old King Allant.  Clad in white, alone atop his dragon-ruined keep, this lord was not the freakish nightmare my guides had promised he would be.  I received no joy in slaying him.

I want to explode right now with all the information Matt Weise conveyed during his talk, but that info is for your reading pleasure later.  I will however say this: I am very uneasy about the means used to bring about worldly salvation, if it can be called that.  If the ghouls I hacked to pieces were soulless automatons, then how-the-hell was I receiving souls from their corpses!?  If I am to save a land from oblivion, why would I possibly damn all those needing saving?  If you play this game, this Demon’s Souls, question what you do.  Question what others tell you.  Like a fog, the truth that the game is conveying is shrouded, hidden, and grey.

Though I told myself I would not go through New Game + (a harder mode of the game), I may just have to, reasoning the true why of what I do, not just because someone told me to.  I highly recommend Demon’s Souls to any lover a deeper meaning behind an already entertaining experience.