Brave Soul, who fears not death

 

It was a few years ago that I heard about an RPG called Demon’s Souls.  As a lover of fantasy and all the swords and spell-slinging that go with it, I was immediately intrigued.  In the world of Demon’s Souls, you play as a lone traveler who’s pitted against hordes of enemies, from undead warriors and animated skeletons, to more powerful foes such as flying dragons and powerful Demons.

So it was that I approached the local GameStop, eager to try my hand at this new adventure.  I had looked for reviews and critique about the game and found that it was incredibly popular and highly rated.  As I picked up the box, the cover was decorated with numerous awards the game had received.  Even more excited now, I put the game and my money on the counter, wondering how many long hours I would spend slaying the minions of darkness, when suddenly the GameStop worker spoke.

“Hmm, are you sure you want to buy this game?  I’ve played it myself, and it’s awesome, but… let’s just say it’s not for everyone.”

I knew what he was talking about, as while I was reading up on the game I discovered its main feature:  It was bone-crushingly difficult.  Unlike many other modern RPGs, Demon’s Souls harkened back to a time where when you bought a game, you weren’t 100% sure that you would ever finish it.  The gaming industry was just getting started, and rather than filling their games with rich content and depth, it was far easier to merely make the game incredibly hard, thus the player spends more time with it and pumps more quarters into the machine.  Many modern games can, of course, still be hard, but it’s rare for them to use their difficulty as a selling point.  But it seemed that Demon’s Souls’ entire platform was that it was a long and hard adventure into a maw of madness, with death after death piling up as the player desperately tried to figure out how to progress.  Knowing all of this, I still brought the game home and eagerly slipped in the disc, almost daring it to give it its best shot. 

After a short intro to the game’s dark and depressing story, the player is thrown into the fray almost immediately.  However, the first enemies are pitifully weak, and there are tutorial messages along the way, allowing you get the hang of the controls and general feel of the gameplay.  While you may think to yourself “that’s nice of them to at least help you in the beginning,” I wasn’t fooled.  I knew that the tutorial was there so that later on, you can’t use “I didn’t know what button to press” as an excuse. 

 

One of the prominent things about the game is the overall tone and atmosphere.  Not only do the enemies fight you, it almost seems like the world itself is against you.  Dark, washed out colors drape across the land, and the buildings and castles are dark and foreboding.  There is no music most of the time, and ambient sound effects constantly play around you.  It’s almost as though the game itself is saying “Turn back.  You aren’t safe here.”  It’s a really cool and immersive experience.  As I fought my way through the tutorial, I at last came upon a thick wall of fog, a signature effect in Demon’s Souls.  It means that you have arrived at the boss room.  For those unaware, the term “boss” in any video game refers to an enemy much tougher than the others, and requires you to use all of your knowledge and experience to beat them.  A lot of the time, the bosses in a game are the most fun part of it.  A boss in a game that boasts about its difficulty?  Bring it on.  I charge through the fog, sword held high.

 

Up until now, all that I’d seen is undead soldiers with tiny daggers, drunkenly swinging at you as you dispatch them easily.  Through this fog door, however, the real game began.  Epic music begins playing, and the name of the boss as well as its health bar appears at the bottom the screen.  Vanguard, this thing was called.    A massive Demon with three eyes, curved horns, and a huge axe suddenly found itself in the room with me and decided that it didn’t like intruders.  Instantaneously, it cleaved my poor knight in half, and for the first of countless times throughout my journey, a giant red message appeared on the screen as my life faded away.

Well, awesome, I thought, this guy will be tough to beat.  But you don’t get another chance.  The tutorial ends, and you’re moved to the main part of the game.  The Maiden in Black, one of the major characters, brings your soul back from the land of death, so that you can continue your quest to slay the Demons. 

 

“Brave Soul, who fears not death, I shall guide you.  So that you may lull the Old One back to slumber.”  Basically, no matter how many times your character dies, the Maiden will revive you so that you can try again.  No matter what, the Old One, a Demon who would devour all the Souls of the world, must be lulled back to its eternal sleep.  It won’t be an easy journey, though, as the Vanguard demonstrates.

 The developers knew that no brand new player would be able to win, of course.  I thought to myself, “Ohh, so I was supposed to lose there, alright.”  In many other games, there are certain times where you are forced to lose in order to progress the story or move to a new area.  However, it is perfectly possible to defeat Vanguard, and since then I have done so many times.  For new players, though, that first boss represents the foreshadowing of what’s to come:  many failures, many deaths.  The Vanguard is only a minor Demon, after all.  Throughout the game you face much harder challenges; Flamelurker, a demon made of fire, Storm King, a gigantic flying stingray, and Maiden Astraea, an enemy that's easy to kill but stabs you with guilt for doing it.   So I’m sure you’re wondering:  How could a game that destroys you over and over, with both enemies and a depressing story, be any fun at all?  Well, in my opinion it’s one of the best games ever made.

How is this possible?  Well, although there were countless times where I threw down the controller in frustration, cursed loudly at whatever enemy was giving me a hard time, and even considered giving up entirely… it was so much fun.  Because when you finally did conquer the castle, escape the dragon, and strike the killing blow on Maneater (I still want to find the person who designed that boss and burn his house down.  It took me two months to beat them.), the satisfaction of finally winning is like nothing else in the world.  Unlike older arcade games, this game will never be unfair.  You always know exactly why you died, and deep down you know that with a certain amount of skill, you can pull it off.  And finally, when I beat the game after months and months of some of the most riveting content I’ve ever experienced, I laid down the controller, ejected the disc, and went out and bought the sequel; Dark Souls.  It boasted being even harder.  Good.

Truly, video games can be eye-opening things.  We all have our own Demons to slay here in the real world, and after playing Demon’s Souls, a lot of them seem like those drunken undead from the tutorial.  With persistence, the will to continue, and a fully upgraded magic axe of dragon slaying (It took me so long to get it, but holy crap it’s so strong!) we can accomplish anything.  Like the Maiden said, its not death that we should fear.  Its giving up.  That's when you've really lost.