Demon's Souls
| Demon's Souls | |||
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| Studio |
 From software
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| Publisher |
Sony Computer Entertainment Atlus Bandai Namco Games 
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
January 5, 2009 October 6, 2009 June 25, 2010 |
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| platform | PlayStation 3 | ||
| genre | Action RPG | ||
| Game mode | Single player , online multiplayer | ||
| control | Sixaxis , DualShock 3 | ||
| medium | 1 Blu-ray disc | ||
| language | Audio: English Subtitles: German |
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| Age rating |
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Demon's Souls is an action role-playing game developedby From Software for the PlayStation 3 . It marks the beginning of the Souls series and is considered the founder of the “Souls-like” genre. In 2011 the spiritual successor Dark Souls appeared , which however has nothing to do with the plot of the predecessor and was no longer published exclusively for the PlayStation.
On June 11, 2020, Demon's Souls was announced as a remake for the PlayStation 5 at the PS5 event .
action
The game is about King Allant XII and his attempt to wipe out the world and humanity. With the help of the soul arts, he brought unprecedented prosperity to his kingdom of Boletaria. The soul arts, however, were not of human, but of demonic origin. They were therefore banned for centuries. The nature of the arts of the soul was forgotten over the many generations and the king reintroduced the arts of the soul. Boletaria thus developed into a paradise under his reign. Despite his performance, the king was dissatisfied because in his eyes the world was full of pain and suffering. He could not change the entire world through the arts of the soul alone. Old and disaffected, the embittered king fell into a crazy idea. To end the misery, he wanted to destroy humanity. To do this, he traveled to the Nexus in order to wake the trapped ancient one (" The Old One "), a powerful being and the source of the arts of the soul, from his sleep. The ancient was a disembodied beast with an infinite appetite for souls and, according to the king's plan, should feed on the souls of all men. However, it could not leave its prison. At the borders of Boletaria, after the supposed return of the king, who was a demon in his form, people observed a thick, colorless mist. The mist began to encircle the kingdom and separate it from the outside world. In addition to the mist, the ancient sent its soul-eating demons into the land. If all inhabitants of a place were robbed of their soul, then the whole place and everyone there would be completely swallowed up by the fog and banished into the infinite darkness, the actual essence of the ancient. Those who lost their souls lost their minds at the same time and fought for the demons against all who still had their souls. The demons and their servants were very successful and the kingdom fell into chaos. The few survivors who were sane stayed in hiding as confrontation with the army of demons usually resulted in capture, death, or worse. Only the knight Vallarfax was able to penetrate the fog and reach the outside world to report on Boletaria's plight. He also spoke of the seductive power of the demon souls. When a demon stole a soul, the demon soul was strengthened. The power inherent in such a demon soul is beyond the human imagination. This legend spread from man to man all over the world and since then brave warriors have entered the colorless mist to search for the souls of demons, but so far not a single one has returned.
The player also learns about Boletaria's situation and decides to enter the fog. The land has already disappeared in the fog and so the protagonist wanders through a dark place until a voice speaks to him. She leads him into a light and teleports him to another place. The hero is defeated by the demons and dies. In the Nexus, a virgin dressed in black prevents the player from losing his soul to the demons after death. She summons his soul and binds it to the Nexus. Then the woman disappears and the hero is left to himself. This procedure is experienced by all who enter the mist, because the voice is looking for a person who is able to kill the demons. All those who are bound to the nexus are protected from ultimate death with simultaneous loss of their soul, but the soul is unstable and disintegrates if the body is not restored. The bound players can only leave the Nexus through portals that lead them to the demons. After defeating a demon, the player is revived and has proven himself to be a demon slayer. He returns to the Nexus and the voice that called him makes itself known. A child with the title of the mighty explains that the ancient must be put back to sleep in order to end the plague of demons. It has access to its prison, which lies under the nexus, sealed to protect itself. Only when all its demons have been destroyed will it break the seal and call the demon slayer to itself. When the seal is broken, the nexus bond is broken so the player can leave the nexus and go to the Ancient One.
The mighty man was not originally alone. The task of the mighty is to protect the world from disappearing into the fog. The mental effort to hold the world together is so great that everyone else has already died.
The virgin clad in black helps the player by uniting the souls that the hero collects in the fight against the demons with his own. The hero becomes stronger and can face more powerful demons. She herself was turned into a demon in the first demon plague. She has the ability to manipulate souls and is therefore needed to put the ancient back to sleep. She herself is also bound to the nexus and is therefore immortal.
After all demons are destroyed, the seal is opened and the virgin leads the player to the ancient one. King Allant, who stayed with the Ancient all along, has been turned into a demon, but the transformation is not complete. He faces the player to explain his motives, because he cannot defeat the hero. Then the player has a choice. The ancient called him for good reason, because the player has taken in strange souls and that is what the demons do. The hero can let the virgin clad in black do her job, thereby saving the world. He himself then takes the place of a mighty man. But he can also kill the virgin because she is no longer bound to the nexus. The way to absorb the souls that have been absorbed by the ancient, to achieve limitless power and to rise to the true demon is then free. The ancient can no longer be stopped and at some point the entire world will be shrouded in fog.
Gameplay
Players can create a character according to their own ideas. Settings such as name, gender, hairstyle and other personal and character traits are available for this purpose. The main fight is against beasts, monsters and demons. A wide range of weapons is available for this. It is also possible to use various magical abilities to gain advantages in combat. After a player is killed, they become a soul and can continue their life with fewer hit points . In order to be revived, the player must defeat one of the bosses , use a certain item or kill another living player. In addition, souls can be collected from defeated opponents, which in turn can be exchanged for equipment or upgrades.
The world in which the player spends time and again between missions is the Nexus, a small area in which the player can interact with NPCs and vendors and store his equipment. The actual game world is divided into five areas that can be visited using portals.
The game also includes some online features. For example, players can find messages on the floor that other players have left there containing hints and advice. Traces of blood from other players are also visible, which show the player's death at this point. Other players' ghosts appear randomly, but cannot interact with them. The cooperation mode allows up to three players to fight their way through the different levels as a team. However, the servers were shut down on February 28, 2018, which means that playing with other players is no longer possible.
publication
The game was released in January 2009, initially only in Japan . Publisher Sony was not convinced of the game's success and therefore left Atlus to publish it in the US and Namco Bandai for the European market. In early October 2009 it was released on the North American market. In Europe, the game was released on June 25, 2010.
reception
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The game received positive reviews on average ( Metacritic : 89 out of 100).
Web links
- Official website
- Demon's Souls at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Demon's Souls: Remake Coming, How likely is a PC version? June 12, 2020, accessed June 12, 2020 .
- ↑ Sony Talks The Last Guardian, Demon's Souls, And The Vita Launch In: gameinformer.com, February 10, 2012, accessed March 23, 2012.
- ↑ Report on gameswelt.at
- ↑ a b metacritic.com (metacritic)
- ↑ Review of Demon's Souls (4Players.de)
- ↑ Test on Demon's Souls ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (2Play)
- ↑ Test on Demon's Souls ( Memento of the original from July 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Eurogamer.de)
