Demon’s Souls: Live Web Demonstration With Atlus

Friday night I sat down via Webex with Aram Jabbari of Atlus PR for a Q & A video demonstration of Demon’s Souls.  I was definitely impressed by the game after playing it at E3 and reading all the positive press about its Asian release.  Aram schooled me on the mechanics of the game a bit, while also telling me what to expect from the upcoming Atlus localization.

One of the first topics we covered was item and character customization.  A huge appeal the game holds in my eyes is that any character can excel in any aspect of the game with enough effort.  For example, a feeble Mage can increase his/her endurance to the point where clunky knight armor can be equipped.  The character that Aram had shown me was a knight customized to perform a basic healing spell for those long dungeon journeys.  I appreciate that Demon’s Souls does not limit a character based on some set of job-specific, innate abilities.  The only limit is how much work a player is willing to put into their character.

While Aram was showing me weapon customization on the Asian version of the game, he pointed out a number of reasons why an entirely new localization was a necessity.  A big problem with the Asian translation is that many stats or attributes in the game received confusing and in some instances incorrect abbreviations.  With a game like Demon’s Souls, that will have you intensely scrutinizing your character’s development, the last thing you need is any other mental obstacles to overcome.

The option for online play is one of the features of Demon’s Souls that really sets it apart from similar titles in the  genre.  Aram was able to bring his character online into the Asian server to give me an idea of what multi-player entailed.  Players can interact in a few different ways: they can team up to take down large enemies, leave hints for one another, or force their way into another player’s game for some player vs. player.

Since Demon’s Souls so stoically punishes you for your mistakes, it pays to have a few allies to buffer the abuse.  If you are searching for reliable allies, a rating system is in place which encourages a plays-well-with-others attitude.  Hopefully this system combined with the game’s difficulty will weed out the less serious players and maintain a more professional community.  At the very least, the amount of corpse-tea-bagging should be minimal.

I definitely look forward to spending some hands-on time with Demon’s Souls now that I have a better idea of what to expect both from the game and from Atlus’s localization.  Demon’s Souls goes on sale October 6th.  I recommend telling your friends and family that you have a terminal illness and only a month to live; they won’t be seeing much of you.

Related Entries:
Demon’s Souls Coming to U.S. This Fall: Bless Your Souls, Atlus

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