EoFF's Top Games of the Generation: Revelations

[Shauna]

Demons Souls
2009 – PS3
7 Nominations

The first few years of the PS3's lifespan were rough. Despite exclusives like the first Uncharted game, A Crack in Time, or Metal Gear Solid 4, it was still struggling to gain a foothold against the constantly growing library and userbase of the Xbox 360. While things eventually ended up more or less even between the two systems in the end in terms of worldwide sales, the PS3 needed as many exclusives as it could get early on if it hoped to compete. One such exclusive that it could forever hold over the competition was Demon's Souls, FROM SOFTWARE's spiritual successor to its long-running King's Field series.

This hardcore and brutally unforgiving action RPG stood in stark contrast to many of the trends that occurred throughout the generation, namely the streamlining of games and reducing their difficulty in order to broaden their audience. Demon's Souls is incredibly unapologetic in its design; it is an action RPG for those who enjoy challenging action RPGs, and, if you don't take the time to get over its learning curve and learn its rules, it makes no effort to accommodate you. It is these aspects that most stood out about the game upon its initial release, though challenge alone is not what makes Demon's Souls a good game. The online multiplayer aspects were revolutionary in many aspects, with players able to summon or be invaded by phantoms "coming into their world" to help or harm them. While many critics of this generation praised games like Journey for their innovation by including seamless multiplayer without lobbies, it was Demon's Souls that first offered this type of multiplayer, and it is part of what makes Demon's Souls so memorable.

Multiplayer aside, the game is incredibly tightly designed. The game features five worlds, each broken up into smaller segments that are focused on specific challenges, such as climbing a giant tower with demonic gargoyles perched upon its ledges, or the infamous poison swamp. Just like an old school NES game, enemy placement is deliberate and methodical, and each enemy is meticulously placed to add to that level's specific challenge. Levels are filled with secrets and shortcuts, harkening back to the depth the best older games had to offer.

In the interest of avoiding too much wordiness, it would be easy to sum Demon's Souls up as this; it is an unapologetically challenging game that isn't afraid to punish players who don't take the time to learn it; it has a beautiful, dreary, and haunting atmosphere; the flexibility in its levelling system and weapon types enable a high amount of replayability and variety of ways to tackle the game; its level-based structure provides for very focused and tightly designed challenges; and its multiplayer offered something truly unique and as yet unseen in the era. With all these things in mind, it is easy to see why Demon's Souls made it on the Top Games of the Generation list.

Dead Space (3)
Lost Odyssey (2)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2)
Civilization V (1)
Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland (1)
Bit Trip Runner (1)
Hearts of Iron II (1)
Monaco (1)
Vanquish (1)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (1)


S'all for tonight! I look forward to your endless discussion about Mirror's Edge again!

[Slothy]

Anyone unfamiliar with the brilliance of Vanquish has a pitiable life.

Glad to see Demon's Souls on the list of course.

[Ayen]

Not sure if the guy in the image is dead or just sleeping.

Or both...

[Hollycat]

To me hard doesn't mean fun. I know I'm in the minority here, but I disliked Demon's souls.

[Del Murder]

Dark Souls is the later one, isn't it? I'm assuming that's on the list too.

I've never played these games and I probably never will, though I can appreciate the effort to make a challenging game in this era of hand-holding. So it's pretty cool that this game exists. For me, I don't want to play a punishingly difficult game. Maybe that would be fun in my youth, but these days I prefer a mild challenge that keeps me busy for a little while until it's time to move on to the next thing. Life is already challenge enough. I don't need it in my games.

[Ayen]

Agreed with HC and Del on this one. Spelunky is the perfect example of a game that is hard and challenging but is also fun and addicting to play. I didn't get that with Dark Souls, and since everybody who played both games has told me Demons Soul is actually harder I'm even less interested in it.

[Dr Unne]

There are many reasons to play games: to relax, to enjoy a nice story or nice artwork, to socialize, to pass the time or take your mind off of things, whatever. That's totally fine. Demon's Souls fills a niche for people who see gaming as a skill they want to improve, or as a challenge that needs to be overcome. It's not relaxing, but it is rewarding and fulfilling. The harder the challenge, the greater the reward.

In the old days a lot of games were hard probably because game designers had no clue how to balance a game properly. Some of us grew up in that era and grew to enjoy the pain. I'm glad someone decided that games like Demon's Souls should still exist today, this time deliberately and with full intent to make it as hard as possible while still being tolerable. It brings back fond(?) memories of endless NES game over screens.

[Madame Adequate]

Civilization V (1)

Well, it's not much, but there is some justice.

[Slothy]

In the old days a lot of games were hard probably because game designers had no clue how to balance a game properly.

I'd say it had a lot more to do with games growing out of the arcade scene where easy games wouldn't make money. Even when things moved to home consoles, technical limitations prevented them from making games with tons of content compared to what we're used to now, so it was either make your games really hard, or accept that people probably won't play them for very long, let alone replay them. Look at how long a lot of those games like the original Mega Man's take to beat if you've completely mastered them. I don't think most people would have found them to be an acceptable length if they could do that on the first try and there was no challenge to keep you coming back for more.

We live in such a different era now.

[Bolivar]

Finally games I nominated! Demon's Souls was also on my list in the thread where everybody listed their own top 10 games of the generation.

I hear people say Demon's Souls is more like a Western RPG (and attribute that to its success), most likely because of the macabre/medieval style. But in truth, the game is as Japanese as it gets. I always compare this game to Ghouls and Ghosts/Goblins/Gangsters with its haunting atmosphere and approach to enemy encounters, where the game expects you to do a bit of memorization but mostly to raise your skill.

And the multiplayer was no doubt revolutionary. Even going into the next generation there's tons of games ripping off the concept.

I also can't stress enough what Unne said. Too many games today, even in the overhyped Indie scene, strive on immediacy and accessibility. I'm glad we still have games like Demon's Souls where the fun doesn't trickle out in constant streams; it explodes in your face in epic moments of rewarding achievement.

[Jessweeee♪]

Now I want to play Mirror's Edge again, but I lent my copy to a guy and then forgot to ask for it back before I broke up with him and then I felt like it would just be awkward.

I think I'll just buy a new copy.

[Ayen]

I hear people say Demon's Souls is more like a Western RPG (and attribute that to its success), most likely because of the macabre/medieval style. But in truth, the game is as Japanese as it gets. I always compare this game to Ghouls and Ghosts/Goblins/Gangsters with its haunting atmosphere and approach to enemy encounters, where the game expects yiu to do a bit of memorization but mostly to raise your skill.

I think most Action RPGs gets lumped into the WRPG category these days.

[Dr Unne]

I'd say it had a lot more to do with games growing out of the arcade scene where easy games wouldn't make money. Even when things moved to home consoles, technical limitations prevented them from making games with tons of content compared to what we're used to now, so it was either make your games really hard, or accept that people probably won't play them for very long, let alone replay them. Look at how long a lot of those games like the original Mega Man's take to beat if you've completely mastered them. I don't think most people would have found them to be an acceptable length if they could do that on the first try and there was no challenge to keep you coming back for more.

That's all true. Mega Man can be speedrun in ~ 30 minutes. So can Dark Souls actually.

There was also accidental, artificial difficulty. I'm thinking about having to spend 10 minutes hitting A if you wanted to buy 99 heal potions in FF1. Or every other game that was fun enough that I wanted to play it, but had such bad controls that it was hard to function in the game. And then the random insane difficulty spikes out of nowhere, like one-hit kills from Sorcerers on the last floor of the last dungeon in FF1.

[Slothy]

There was also accidental, artificial difficulty. I'm thinking about having to spend 10 minutes hitting A if you wanted to buy 99 heal potions in FF1.

That's not artificial difficulty, that's just stupidity. Not saying difficulty never happened due to bad game design (it still does today in fact). It just wasn't only because of it.

[Pike]

I like whoever nominated Monaco because that was a great game.