I've been busy this month, yet I don't really remember what I did other than work on my latest remix. Here's a small rant I wrote on Facebook on the servers of Demon's Souls getting shut down.
https://atlus.com/fond-farewell-demons-souls-servers/
Demon's Souls is one of my favorite games on the PS3. It was one of the first games I bought after graduating college and I heard lots of great things about it.
My initial reactions to the game were less than favorable: "The opening music sounds cheesy!" "It's not a fast-paced Hack 'n Slash?" "Enemy placement never changes!" "The graphics are only okay..." "It seems so boring without music playing." "That death just wasted all my efforts and time..." I walked around the first area quite a few times and just couldn't get into it. I took a break for a month and still kept seeing posts and articles about how exciting boss fights were and how engaging combat felt. I went back to it, beat the first boss, and then it clicked.
I went to the next area, and then the next, and then I continually played the game until I beat it. It was a strange and different formula that's partially familiar, but done in a meaningful way. Combat forced the player into creating strategies for each engagement by limiting the amount of actions they can take before tiring out. Exploration punished the reckless, but rewarded the meticulous and daring. All builds worked and allowed a variety of ways to play the game. The game wasn't about the triumphs and victories, but the mistakes and failures that led up to them.
Demon's Souls isn't the most polished or highest quality of games, but its design is solid and delivers a kind of satisfaction few games has done before it. I haven't revisit it in a while because of my ever-growing backlog, but it still remains one of my favorites on the PS3 and perhaps all time.
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