Demon's Souls - PlayStation 3

Demon’s Souls Director Discusses Difficulty, Sequels, And More

2009-11-05T22:15:00Z

Though I went into Demon’s Souls slightly terrified by the stories I’d heard of its intense difficulty, I ended up loving it (just read my review to see how much). Impressed by how the game came together but a bit confused as to why I enjoyed it so much in spite (or perhaps because of) the challenge, I decided to get a behind-the-scenes perspective from the game’s creators.

Demon’s Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki turned out to be just the man to answer my questions about why they made the game so hard, how it's connected to King’s Field series, and even some tips on how to pass the most difficult levels. Check out the full interview below.

Game Informer: Demon's Souls has received a lot of hype for being one of the hardest games released this generation. I don't necessarily think that's the most notable aspect of the game, but it's what a lot of people seem to be talking about. When you started developing the game, did you set out to create something that focused on difficulty?

Hidetaka Miyazaki: Having the game be "difficult" was never the goal. What we set out to do was strictly to provide a sense of accomplishment. We understood that “difficulty” is just one way to offer an intense sense of accomplishment through forming strategies, overcoming obstacles, and discovering new things. Our goal of a sense of accomplishment was the basis of the game since the early stages of development, and we never strayed from that.

GI: What was the reasoning behind allowing players to lose souls if they die twice before reaching their blood stain? Personally, I never got hung up on this part of the game, but it seems to be the thing that pops up over and over again on forums. Everybody shares that same experience of frustration the first time they lose a large chunk of souls. If there's anything that would really scare people about the game, I think that might be it.

HM: The nature of the blood stain as you’ve described it was discussed a number of times during development. We do understand the frustration that players have experienced, but the main reason we settled on this system is that if the Souls could be recovered anytime, there would be no suspense or sense of accomplishment. [We want players to feel] like, “I can’t die until I get all those souls back,” or “I did it! I made it to my bloodstain!”

This ties back into my previous answer, but the element of failure, the fact that you can lose lots of souls when you die, was necessary to give players that sense of accomplishment.

GI: The rumor that I keep hearing is that Demon's Souls began as a next-gen King's Field project. Is this true? If so, how far along into development did you decide that Demon's Souls was its own thing and deserved a new title? Will you ever revisit the King's Field series?

HM: Demon’s Souls was not developed as a sequel to King’s Field. King’s Field definitely influenced the ideas behind Demon’s Souls, but we envisioned this as a completely original title, separate from King’s Field. As for a sequel to King’s Field, I’m sorry, but I can’t really give a clear answer whether there will be one in the future.

GI: What really impressed me about Demon's Souls was the brilliant level design. Every location felt very real and very alive...or very dead, rather. What was the process for coming up with each "world," and how long did it take to develop each one into separate zones and finally into something playable?

HM: Counting from the earliest stage of development, materializing the visions I had in my mind for each world, it took a little over two years to create. After I had firm visions of the settings inside my head, I’d say it took about a year to go from the detailed artwork and level design work to the final product.

GI: Not including the Nexus, there are a total of five worlds in the game. How many "leftover" or abandoned world ideas did you have at the end?

HM: I had a lot of ideas during the early design stage. The world ideas that came the closest to making it into the final product were the Library stage and the Outside area around the Nexus.

GI: There's a lot of variety in the bosses, with some battles like Old Hero or Flamelurker requiring serious, intense combat skills, while others like Dragon God are more like big puzzles that you need to figure out. How did you decide the balance for that?

HM: When designing the bosses, I made sure that they would be varied and exciting. I prepared different gameplay and strategies for each one so that players didn’t get tired of the same fight every time. We wanted to surprise players and encourage them to figure out different tactics, to think on their feet.

Each boss has a concept that can be described very simply. The Maneater, for instance, can be summed up by saying “there’s another enemy.”

From Software Gives RPG Players Tough Love

2009-10-20T21:47:00Z

On the second stage of Demon’s Souls, I conquered a dragon. I encountered the beast in the very first area during a tense set piece where I had to dodge blasts of fire while sprinting across a bridge. It was in the second stage that I realized I could actually hurt the gigantic creature. I climbed up a tower and proceeded to spend 15 minutes taking pot shots at the dragon with my weak “Soul Arrow” spell every time it took a pass at the bridge below. Slowly but surely I chipped away its health until it crashed to the ground.

The whole of Demon’s Souls’ experience is easily compared to this battle of attrition. This isn’t a game where you perform amazing feats by tapping a few buttons in a quick time event. If you want to accomplish anything, you need to dig in your heels, roll up your sleeves, and stubbornly tell the game: “I will defeat you.” If that’s intimidating, let me assure you that I, too, was scared. But in this case, the sense of pure satisfaction from doing something like killing a dragon – a task that seems downright pedestrian in many games – is so great that time and time again it completely toppled any frustration I was experiencing.

The biggest reason that Demon’s Souls succeeds in the face of overwhelming difficulty is pure excellent design. Each of the levels – split into five “worlds” of three to four areas each – feel like real places. The ramparts and walkways of Boletaria Palace look like they were once bustling but were only recently abandoned for some sinister reason – especially once you begin meeting the few members of the kingdom left alive. The third world, Latria Tower, is a prison for the damned that completely creeped me out and stood out as one of the most disturbing locations ever realized in a video game.

Devil’s Advocate

The “Other” Perspective

For every great triumph you experience in Demon’s Souls, you should also be prepared for a devastating setback. The smallest mistakes or single bad encounters with the game’s touchy camera can end with your character cut to pieces. Even worse, if you die on the way back to your body, all the experience points you’d accumulated but not yet spent on leveling are gone. Warn your television to watch out for flying controllers before you risk trying to tackle this beast of a game.

The sense of difficulty and desperation that Demon’s Souls creates is aided greatly by the game’s unique use of the PlayStation Network. Rather than hooking up with other players through a menu or your PSN friends list, you can summon random “blue phantoms” (other characters who are currently dead) in any area where they’ve dropped a summoning stone. Though there’s no easy way to communicate with your ally, it works out because the goal is always the same: Kill the demon at the end of the level, which will allow you to progress and allow the blue phantoms to be resurrected in their own game.

The helpfulness of the blue phantoms is balanced out by the terror of black phantoms, online enemies randomly placed into the world of another player who they must hunt down and kill to be resurrected. The atmosphere of Demon’s Souls is already intense and moody, but when you receive a flashing message notifying you that “Black Phantom Noobkiller3000 has invaded,” it’s hard not to start sweating.

In the end, though, the game’s PvP works for the same reason that the regular demon-hunting does: You are always in full control. The action is much slower and more measured than most action games, but no matter how incredibly big or powerful your opponents seem, you have the tools to defeat them within your grasp. When you die in Demon’s Souls, nine times out of 10 it’s because you made an identifiable mistake, and one that you know to avoid next time around. The game only falls back on trial-and-error laziness in one or two regrettable levels, and even those can be overcome with perseverance.

Demon’s Souls has received a lot of hype for being monstrously difficult, and while it’s clearly not the kind of game you can pass in a weekend, its finer points shouldn’t be lost in all the fear. This game is tough, but also rewarding, interesting, evocative, and, in its own special way, brilliant. Add in extensive new game-plus options and the strangely compelling multiplayer, and Demon’s Souls is one of the first truly great Japanese RPGs of this generation, and certainly the most remarkable.

Possibly The Most Hardcore Game Ever

2009-09-29T21:45:00Z

This Japanese import has a bounty of treasures. Its deep brawler-like combat varies radically depending on what type of weapon you use, whom you’re fighting, and how you’ve built your character. The rich atmosphere created by its stunning visuals and outstanding audio is often creepy, sometimes breathtaking, and always engrossing. Its impressive breadth of content supports dozens of hours of play on a single run-through. Innovative use of the Internet to facilitate player interactions including, but not limited to, co-op and competitive play greatly improves the experience.

Almost none of it is accessible in the least. You’ll die in Demon’s Souls. A lot. Two or three hits from an enemy is often enough to kill you, and it’s not uncommon to be ganged up on. Every time you perish, you lose all of your souls (which function as both experience points and money) and are sent back to the beginning of the level -- which might be 45 minutes or more of fighting behind you. If you can make it back to where you died, you can retrieve what you lost. However, all of the enemies have respawned and your equipment has lost durability.

Beating the first level -- even with one of the easier character classes -- might take a dozen deaths for a reasonably skilled player. For someone having a hard time wrapping their head around the controls, or less experienced with 3D brawler melee combat, it might take more like 30.

The flip side of all this is the fantastic sense of accomplishment you get when you finally kill that boss (who, incidentally, is probably effectively immune to your weapons. Hope you brought some special items!). None of the superlative compliments to the game above are exaggeration. Demon’s Souls is one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences RPG fans will have this year -- if they’re up to the challenge.