Critically Analyzing Demon's Souls 13 Years Later...

In this video, Reborn analyzes a classic game, Demon's Souls, in extreme detail.

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:23 - Background
00:02:37 - Development
00:04:37 - Character Creation
00:05:59 - Tutorial
00:11:37 - The Nexus
00:15:45 - Difficulty
00:18:20 - Gates of Boletaria
00:19:34 - Health Restrictions
00:23:09 - The Lord's Path
00:26:29 - Healing Mechanics
00:28:27 - Smithing Grounds
00:32:01 - The Tunnel City
00:35:50 - The Underground Temple
00:37:28 - Prison of Hope
00:40:17 - Upper Latria
00:43:10 - The Ivory Tower
00:45:19 - Level Design
00:47:31 - Island's Edge
00:50:13 - The Ritual Path
00:52:50 - Altar of Storms
00:54:44 - Depraved Chasm
00:56:39 - Swamp of Sorrow
00:59:12 - The Rotting Haven
01:01:14 - Inner Ward
01:03:11 - The King's Tower
01:06:45 - Conclusion

Demon's Souls[b] is an action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware for the PlayStation 3 under the supervision of Japan Studio. It was published in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment in February 2009, in North America by Atlus USA in October 2009, and in PAL territories by Namco Bandai Partners in June 2010. The game is referred to as a spiritual successor to FromSoftware's King's Field series.

Demon's Souls is set in Boletaria, a kingdom consumed by a dark being called the Old One, following its release through the use of forbidden Soul Arts. Players take on the role of a hero brought to Boletaria to kill its fallen king Allant and pacify the Old One. Gameplay has players navigating five different worlds from a hub called the Nexus, with a heavy emphasis on challenging combat and mechanics surrounding player death and respawning. Online multiplayer allows both player cooperation and world invasions featuring player versus player combat.

The game's early development was troubled due to a lack of coherent vision. Despite such issues, FromSoftware designer Hidetaka Miyazaki was able to take over the project and helped to turn the game into what it eventually became. The game's difficulty was intended to both evoke classic video games and provide a sense of challenge and accomplishment for players. This aspect proved demanding for Miyazaki, partly because of his fear that Sony would ask the team to lower the difficulty in order to make the game more accessible.

Announced in 2008, early reactions to the Demon's Souls demo were seen as negative, and the game's high difficulty prompted Sony to pass on publishing the game outside of Japan. While the game met with middling reception and sales in Japan, it became a commercial and critical success in the West. The game was praised for its difficult combat and addictive gameplay, subsequently winning several awards. Due to introducing many of the core elements that would define the Soulslike genre, it has been recognized as one of the greatest and most influential games of all time. Its success sparked a spiritual successor, Dark Souls, in 2011. A remake by Bluepoint Games was released as a launch title for the PlayStation 5 in November 2020.