Demon’s Souls is one of those rare games that is built around decent (but not amazing) controls and offers up decent (but not amazing) graphics, on top of what can only be considered a generic story and suffers from a distinct lack of immersion but still manages to elicit an almost subconscious response from players, something modern games seem to have trouble accomplishing.
It’s almost like the title serves a double meaning to anybody who grew up through the past ages of consoles. The first is the most obvious and least important; the actual souls you collect as currency inside the game. The more obscure meaning seems like a reference to the legions of fans trying over and over to accomplish the near impossible — defeating one incredibly difficult challenge after another. When you fail in Demon’s Souls it isn’t because of bad controls or bad AI, but because of your own error.
Demon’s Souls manages to cause a reaction in its install base that draws them back in and keeps them repeating the same tasks over and over in an effort to finally best them — the fight on the treadmills in Double Dragon, passing every Rainbow Road stage in Super Mario World, even getting past the first twenty minutes of Mischief Makers.
The game manages to evoke an emotional response. It manages to dig its nails in because it can make you feel regret at having given up and a determination to push through to the end. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground. You are either somebody who loves the game and find that the above sentiment applies to you, or you put the game down and will never touch it again. Neither choice is right or wrong, but the fact that the choice exists outside of technical issues is something special to consider.
Demon’s Souls is on the Insert Credits Game of the Year list because despite almost being an average game, it has that special something that turns it into a fantastic choice for any gamer, especially the ones who feel their games lack a real driving force, not just a story driven one.
