It really bugs me that Demon’s Souls isn’t a video game in people’s eyes, it’s something that gets served to the worst possible people in the worst possible parts in hell. I played it, and I can confirm that Demon’s Souls is in fact a video game.

What I feel like happened with Demon’s Souls was that a few people played it and said “Oh my god this is hard”, then other people tried it, died, and went “Oh my god this really is hard”. Getting killed in a video game is nothing new, but since people started playing this with the expectation that it’s the most horribly unfair thing ever, every death felt 100 times worse.

So here’s a few points I’d like to talk about.

FAG…(Frequently Articulated Groans)

#1
..........
Demon’s Souls only let’s you use half of your life bar after you die, and since it’s a difficult game, that means you only get to use 50% of your life bar all the time! This makes the game very difficult!
...........

This literally never bothered me. Since I only had half of it the whole time, it wasn’t “half” of my lifebar, that half of it was my life bar.
Your first time through you very, very rarely have the whole bar, so how does suddenly not-having something you never had in the first place make the game more difficult?

Don’t think of it as losing half of your life bar when you die, think of it as gaining bonus health after you defeat the boss.

#2
.......
Demon’s Souls is bullshit because you spend a lot of time gathering up a lot of souls and then you die and all of it is gone and the entire playtime was worthless
.......

I played through the entire game and I never ran into a situation where I lost a huge amount of souls. Do you want to know how I achieved that?

I simply spent the souls I had and never ran around with a fortune. Whenever you buy an upgrade for your dude, the next upgrade is more expensive, so if you’re worried that you’re losing too much upgrade money if you die, go ahead, run back to the start of the level and teleport to the hub world and use those souls.

Sure, you’ll have to play through the level you were in again, but if you had an unbelievable amount of souls with you, the upgrades you bought should have made you into Superman.

They didn’t? Of course they didn’t, you didn’t have that many souls.
.........

#3 It’s full of a bunch of weird systems and features that aren’t explained at all, how can one reasonably expect people to play this, when half of the mechanics are just sort of there without any sort of explanation?
.........

I’ll be honest here, I played through the game and I still have no idea how the world and character tendency system works. When Vinny said on the Bombcast how he tried to make some specific stuff happen by influencing the tendency, I was like “No wonder he’s not having fun”.

Vinny also said something about trying to make a specific sword by killing geckos and getting the specific materials for it.

That sounds pretty boring if you ask me. The way I played the game was by just playing the goddamn game. If I picked up a new sword I looked at the numbers on it, and if the numbers were bigger than what my current weapon had I switched to that.

You know, just like you do in every RPG ever?

The weird systems are all there, but that’s high-level shit. Getting too hung up on them and completely discarding Demon’s Souls because those systems are there is just like watching the GSL final and deciding to not buy Starcraft 2 because your fingers can’t do that. All the while people who played Starcraft 2′s excellent campaign listen to you and go “What. Garrrrgh”

High-level play exists for every game ever, heck, go and youtube “Tetris master”. Why don’t I hear anyone saying how Tetris is for crazy people who feel like they have something to prove?

I still don’t 100% understand some parts of the game, but I still had fun playing it

#4
........
You had fun? How can you have fun in this game where death lurks around every corner, there are hordes of enemies who just straight up murder your ass, and when you die you have to start all over?
.........

The most overblown thing I hear about this game is it’s difficulty. The game has an above average difficulty level, sure, but I feel like the reason most people find it so hard is due to the fact that they tried to play it as a hack&slash, because it looks like one.

There’s nothing complicated about the controls. There’s a sword button and a shield button. Unlike most videogames though, getting hit in the face with a sword kind of hurts, which means you can’t mash buttons and need to play defensively. 73.4182% (Calculated by pure science) of the enemies in this game can be defeated by running up to them with your shield up and letting them attack, or running up to them and then quickly away and making them swing at the air.

After they have swung their weapon they are open, which is where you should run up and cut them.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know to be at least mildly successful at this game. You shouldn’t try to cut enemies first, like in other games, you need to be more defensive.

You’ve probably heard this point from many Demon’s Souls fanatics, and I’m here to repeat it because it’s 100% true. Whenever I died, I never felt like the game was cheating. I never had anything to blame besides me just being sloppy with my playing.

As for getting killed in a level and having to start over, this was also very rarely an issue. In most levels you can activate a shortcut which will stay there even if you die. If I died too much at a level, I just went ahead and tried another one. When I was back to the one I got stuck at before, I had gained levels and skills and fared way better.

And just to prove to you that I’m not the greatest videogame player that ever lived (With me having no problems with Demon’s Souls and all), here’s a list of games that are apparently way harder than Demon’s Souls as it turns out.

#1 HEAVENLY SWORD
...

I never beat the final boss because it quite frankly seemed impossible to me. I just stand there and get beaten to death, without even having a chance to do anything about it. I load it up, watch my lifebar fade away, and see a game over screen. I never plan to go back to this game.

#2 DARKSIDERS
...

Played on normal and got horribly stuck at the Tiamat fight, after several attempts and different strategies, I still got hit without understanding what the heck I was supposed to do to avoid it. I might go back to it after I forget all the rage that fight has caused me.

#3 SINGULARITY
...

Got stuck at the spot where you first meet the phase ticks. I open the valve, bugs flood in, and I get completely overwhelmed. I tried every single strategy I could think of and couldn’t pull it off. TMD tricks and otherwise. I kind of want to try it with a shotgun, but the checkpoint is after you’ve passed any weapons lockers in your path so there’s no way to do that.

#4 THE SHOOTING RANGE IN DEAD SPACE 1
...

There’s a trophy for getting a perfect score (Which means shooting every target that pops up) in the shooting range. I spent over an hour on it and either completely messed up, or missed 1 target.

#5 THE FIGHT AGAINST THE KROGAN BATTLEMASTER IN MASS EFFECT 1
...

I quite literally died more in this fight than in a fight against any single boss in Demon’s Souls.

I understand that everyone who already likes Demon’s Souls is going to scroll through this and comment “Yeah” and everyone who already hates Demon’s Souls is going to scroll through this and comment “F off”, but I still had to get this out of my system. Demon’s Souls is an excellent and unique game that has a way too horrible of a reputation.

If I write more of these, the next one is probably going to be about Alpha Protocol. That game is not great, but it gets hate for all the wrong reasons.

It really bugs me that Demon’s Souls isn’t a video game in people’s eyes, it’s something that gets served to the worst possible people in the worst possible parts in hell. I played it, and I can confirm that Demon’s Souls is in fact a video game.

What I feel like happened with Demon’s Souls was that a few people played it and said “Oh my god this is hard”, then other people tried it, died, and went “Oh my god this really is hard”. Getting killed in a video game is nothing new, but since people started playing this with the expectation that it’s the most horribly unfair thing ever, every death felt 100 times worse.

So here’s a few points I’d like to talk about.

FAG…(Frequently Articulated Groans)

#1
..........
Demon’s Souls only let’s you use half of your life bar after you die, and since it’s a difficult game, that means you only get to use 50% of your life bar all the time! This makes the game very difficult!
...........

This literally never bothered me. Since I only had half of it the whole time, it wasn’t “half” of my lifebar, that half of it was my life bar.
Your first time through you very, very rarely have the whole bar, so how does suddenly not-having something you never had in the first place make the game more difficult?

Don’t think of it as losing half of your life bar when you die, think of it as gaining bonus health after you defeat the boss.

#2
.......
Demon’s Souls is bullshit because you spend a lot of time gathering up a lot of souls and then you die and all of it is gone and the entire playtime was worthless
.......

I played through the entire game and I never ran into a situation where I lost a huge amount of souls. Do you want to know how I achieved that?

I simply spent the souls I had and never ran around with a fortune. Whenever you buy an upgrade for your dude, the next upgrade is more expensive, so if you’re worried that you’re losing too much upgrade money if you die, go ahead, run back to the start of the level and teleport to the hub world and use those souls.

Sure, you’ll have to play through the level you were in again, but if you had an unbelievable amount of souls with you, the upgrades you bought should have made you into Superman.

They didn’t? Of course they didn’t, you didn’t have that many souls.
.........

#3 It’s full of a bunch of weird systems and features that aren’t explained at all, how can one reasonably expect people to play this, when half of the mechanics are just sort of there without any sort of explanation?
.........

I’ll be honest here, I played through the game and I still have no idea how the world and character tendency system works. When Vinny said on the Bombcast how he tried to make some specific stuff happen by influencing the tendency, I was like “No wonder he’s not having fun”.

Vinny also said something about trying to make a specific sword by killing geckos and getting the specific materials for it.

That sounds pretty boring if you ask me. The way I played the game was by just playing the goddamn game. If I picked up a new sword I looked at the numbers on it, and if the numbers were bigger than what my current weapon had I switched to that.

You know, just like you do in every RPG ever?

The weird systems are all there, but that’s high-level shit. Getting too hung up on them and completely discarding Demon’s Souls because those systems are there is just like watching the GSL final and deciding to not buy Starcraft 2 because your fingers can’t do that. All the while people who played Starcraft 2′s excellent campaign listen to you and go “What. Garrrrgh”

High-level play exists for every game ever, heck, go and youtube “Tetris master”. Why don’t I hear anyone saying how Tetris is for crazy people who feel like they have something to prove?

I still don’t 100% understand some parts of the game, but I still had fun playing it

#4
........
You had fun? How can you have fun in this game where death lurks around every corner, there are hordes of enemies who just straight up murder your ass, and when you die you have to start all over?
.........

The most overblown thing I hear about this game is it’s difficulty. The game has an above average difficulty level, sure, but I feel like the reason most people find it so hard is due to the fact that they tried to play it as a hack&slash, because it looks like one.

There’s nothing complicated about the controls. There’s a sword button and a shield button. Unlike most videogames though, getting hit in the face with a sword kind of hurts, which means you can’t mash buttons and need to play defensively. 73.4182% (Calculated by pure science) of the enemies in this game can be defeated by running up to them with your shield up and letting them attack, or running up to them and then quickly away and making them swing at the air.

After they have swung their weapon they are open, which is where you should run up and cut them.

That’s it. That’s all you need to know to be at least mildly successful at this game. You shouldn’t try to cut enemies first, like in other games, you need to be more defensive.

You’ve probably heard this point from many Demon’s Souls fanatics, and I’m here to repeat it because it’s 100% true. Whenever I died, I never felt like the game was cheating. I never had anything to blame besides me just being sloppy with my playing.

As for getting killed in a level and having to start over, this was also very rarely an issue. In most levels you can activate a shortcut which will stay there even if you die. If I died too much at a level, I just went ahead and tried another one. When I was back to the one I got stuck at before, I had gained levels and skills and fared way better.

And just to prove to you that I’m not the greatest videogame player that ever lived (With me having no problems with Demon’s Souls and all), here’s a list of games that are apparently way harder than Demon’s Souls as it turns out.

#1 HEAVENLY SWORD
...

I never beat the final boss because it quite frankly seemed impossible to me. I just stand there and get beaten to death, without even having a chance to do anything about it. I load it up, watch my lifebar fade away, and see a game over screen. I never plan to go back to this game.

#2 DARKSIDERS
...

Played on normal and got horribly stuck at the Tiamat fight, after several attempts and different strategies, I still got hit without understanding what the heck I was supposed to do to avoid it. I might go back to it after I forget all the rage that fight has caused me.

#3 SINGULARITY
...

Got stuck at the spot where you first meet the phase ticks. I open the valve, bugs flood in, and I get completely overwhelmed. I tried every single strategy I could think of and couldn’t pull it off. TMD tricks and otherwise. I kind of want to try it with a shotgun, but the checkpoint is after you’ve passed any weapons lockers in your path so there’s no way to do that.

#4 THE SHOOTING RANGE IN DEAD SPACE 1
...

There’s a trophy for getting a perfect score (Which means shooting every target that pops up) in the shooting range. I spent over an hour on it and either completely messed up, or missed 1 target.

#5 THE FIGHT AGAINST THE KROGAN BATTLEMASTER IN MASS EFFECT 1
...

I quite literally died more in this fight than in a fight against any single boss in Demon’s Souls.

I understand that everyone who already likes Demon’s Souls is going to scroll through this and comment “Yeah” and everyone who already hates Demon’s Souls is going to scroll through this and comment “F off”, but I still had to get this out of my system. Demon’s Souls is an excellent and unique game that has a way too horrible of a reputation.

If I write more of these, the next one is probably going to be about Alpha Protocol. That game is not great, but it gets hate for all the wrong reasons.

Demon's souls is a fantastic game..

Also, I'd love to get more groans from people against this game. The ones I listed were the only ones that came to mind.

You bring up some good points, but with some of the games you did mention, I had no problem with (with the exception of Heavenly Sword, which I did not play). The thing about the Tiamat fight in Darksiders that I remember was that it was ridiculously long only because I was using the Shuriken to chip at her health until I had to do a QTE, I think. And I finished Singularity in one sitting and I don't remember what you are talking about with the phase ticks. They sound familiar but I'm not sure what they are.
 
 So while I don't think Demon's Souls is too difficult, those games you mentioned are fairly easy in comparison.

lol TIamat. 
 
You just completely sold me on Demon's Souls.

 Having played and finished Demon's Souls I would not call it a good game.
(or a hard game for that matter)
 
ISSUE 1: 
(my biggest problem with the game)
Underlying problem of the game is that it is highly unbalanced in terms of leveling/gear progression.
I have no problem with the actual gameplay design of the gameplay like the online system or bosses or levels, those are all ok.
Problem comes when you realise that certain things are super usefull whereas more then half of your progression possibilities are either completely useless or at least severely gimped compared to another routes.
Example: magic tears everything apart, period, with a few spells the toughest boss fights become easy, dodging attacks is of outmost importance, whereas heavy armor is next to useless in most encounters as is swinging a heavy 2h sword.
Please note I am not saying that you cannot finish the game one way or another. Just that the item/skill progression in the game is terribly scewed.
 
ISSUE 2:
Instant deaths + level resets
I don't mind when entire levels reset in some games.
I don't mind insta deaths in some games.
When you put the 2 together it becomes a recipie for frustration.
Didn't see that drop in the almost pitch darkness? oops restart level.
Didn't know that one of the Boss's attacks one shots you if it lands? oops restart level
Agroed one too many anemies and got stunlocked? oops restart level
Missed a trap? oops restart level
Dodged an enemy in a slightly wrong direction and fell into the hundreds of drops in the game? oops restaret level
etc...
This is not hard, this is cheap.
 
ISSUE 3:
Game looks bad.
Simple. Graphics are painfull to look at even for the time of it's release.
Everything is washed out and montone. The game is dark in all but the first zones.
Darkness darkness everywhere, just nice and hiding those bad looking textures.
 
ISSUE 4 :
Sorry but by the last zone the game got boooooring for me.
Once you figure out the strategies and gear up a bit, the last levels just become a boring slow slow slog.
And you are going slow because you know the game is ready to bend you over at any point.
 
Personal experience.
The end.

Is this really necessary?? The whole ''demon's souls is too hard, broken, controls like a scooter in sand WAAAAA'' schlick has ended for the most part. It's only been the GB crew who I've noticed recently who's complained about it. Oh, and also everyone on the Shadowy Cabal Podcast, because they're PUNY GIRLS WHO'S BACKBONES ARE MADE OF CHEEEEEEESE, YA! 
 
Plus you yourself done that terribly done ''demon's souls isn't hard, you're just an idiot'' blog... just let it go.

" The Tiamat fight in Darksiders was the hardest boss fight in Darksiders, but only cause you still havn't fully acclimated to the game yet. "

" @Tennmuerti: use more skill "

Agree with all your points. Also I want to point out Jeff calling the game broken mechanically (or something along those lines) as the reason why the game sucks. It's one of the few I've disagreed so fervently with him. The mechanics are fine and, as you said, as long as you take it easy, be patient and be defensive, you'll be fine.

" @kingzetta said:

" @Tennmuerti: use more skill "

Why? I beat it and it was not that hard. Use more reading skill. "

I always killed myself as soon as I was back in human-form, does that make me a bad person?

" I always killed myself as soon as I was back in human-form, does that make me a bad person? "

" I always killed myself as soon as I was back in human-form, does that make me a bad person? "

if i had a ps3 i would play demon souls so fast, i love the idea of that kind of game

This thread - or at least the OP - makes me happy. I fucking loved every minute of my 90+ hours with Demon's Souls, and while I won't say it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it really irks me to see so many people shitting on it when most of their complaints can be summed up as "I don't know how it works therefore its a bad game".
 
Seriously, most of the shit I hear people say is a blatant lie.
 "What's world tendency/why is my roll so slow/etc., the game doesn't explain it" - yes it does. Did you not see that giant glowing hallway in the middle of the Nexus? That's not just there for shits and giggles, bro.
"I don't know what these symbols on my stats page mean" - yep clicking the "help" button on that very page is hard.

@Tennmuerti:
Huh? Having played through the game several times, I can say it is pretty damn good.  Your first point is only semi true as you can play the game any way and finish it fairly easily. It maybe best for magic users, but in multi-I've been rooked way harder by sword players who actually know what they are doing rather than magic users who just spam attacks. If you are constantly dying from the falls then you are being careless. The falls aren't cheap you are just messing around. The game looks fine, especially the monster design, and considering the game was actually about a year old when it came out, it stands to show that monster design still looks good. The people's faces are pretty bad (especially the player made ones) but the monsters look and animate awesomely.  ...What is the last zone? You mean the Old One? I thought that was pretty awesome, an giant living tree that seems to be based off of the Yggdrasil. Also it was fairly ironic how the last boss is ridiculously easy. "

So, your argument boils down too "everyone who played this but the fans are idiots who didn't play the game right". Sure buddy, SURE...

"  Having played and finished Demon's Souls I would not call it a good game. (or a hard game for that matter) ISSUE 1:  (my biggest problem with the game)Underlying problem of the game is that it is highly unbalanced in terms of leveling/gear progression. I have no problem with the actual gameplay design of the gameplay like the online system or bosses or levels, those are all ok. Problem comes when you realise that certain things are super usefull whereas more then half of your progression possibilities are either completely useless or at least severely gimped compared to another routes. Example: magic tears everything apart, period, with a few spells the toughest boss fights become easy, dodging attacks is of outmost importance, whereas heavy armor is next to useless in most encounters as is swinging a heavy 2h sword. Please note I am not saying that you cannot finish the game one way or another. Just that the item/skill progression in the game is terribly scewed.

Amen! 

Demon's Souls apologists are constantly using strawman arguments to address the only points they want to talk about. My main problem with the game, and I say this as someone who VERY much enjoys the game, is very similar to what Vinny said: You have literally NO idea what will benefit you and what won't. The game uses classes only in the most hilariously loose sense of the word as your class has almost no impact on the kind of game you play in the long run. Magic is incredibly useful, to the point of necessity, but the game never tells you this. It never indicates that cultivating a ranged attack will be necessary later on and there's no reason to assume this either. The game is overall just not terribly intuitive, and most of the criticism I've seen seems to be coming from people who used a walkthrough on their first playthrough, much like the people who used to screech the loudest during the P4 endurance run, which indicates, at the very least, that the game has an extremely poor UI.

" @Tennmuerti: If you're insta-dying, then you might want to use some of that armor you said was useless. "

I ran around with a Meat Cleaver and Heavy Brushwood Armour and use my bow and arrow to kill any Black Phantoms that'd join my game. I don't think that in this game Magic beats Might-and I faced some good magicians in that game. Against Black Phantoms, the best thing you could do anyway was to use your environment "

" You bring up some good points, but with some of the games you did mention, I had no problem with (with the exception of Heavenly Sword, which I did not play). The thing about the Tiamat fight in Darksiders that I remember was that it was ridiculously long only because I was using the Shuriken to chip at her health until I had to do a QTE, I think. And I finished Singularity in one sitting and I don't remember what you are talking about with the phase ticks. They sound familiar but I'm not sure what they are.   So while I don't think Demon's Souls is too difficult, those games you mentioned are fairly easy in comparison. "

" Is this really necessary?? The whole ''demon's souls is too hard, broken, controls like a scooter in sand WAAAAA'' schlick has ended for the most part. It's only been the GB crew who I've noticed recently who's complained about it. Oh, and also everyone on the Shadowy Cabal Podcast, because they're PUNY GIRLS WHO'S BACKBONES ARE MADE OF CHEEEEEEESE, YA!  Plus you yourself done that terribly done ''demon's souls isn't hard, you're just an idiot'' blog... just let it go. "

" I always killed myself as soon as I was back in human-form, does that make me a bad person? "

" @Abyssfull said:

" Is this really necessary?? The whole ''demon's souls is too hard, broken, controls like a scooter in sand WAAAAA'' schlick has ended for the most part. It's only been the GB crew who I've noticed recently who's complained about it. Oh, and also everyone on the Shadowy Cabal Podcast, because they're PUNY GIRLS WHO'S BACKBONES ARE MADE OF CHEEEEEEESE, YA!  Plus you yourself done that terribly done ''demon's souls isn't hard, you're just an idiot'' blog... just let it go. "

That may haved ended, but it ended with the general consensus of anyone who likes Demon's Souls being a pretentious masochistic jerk or something.  "

" @Ventilaator said:

" @Abyssfull said:

" Is this really necessary?? The whole ''demon's souls is too hard, broken, controls like a scooter in sand WAAAAA'' schlick has ended for the most part. It's only been the GB crew who I've noticed recently who's complained about it. Oh, and also everyone on the Shadowy Cabal Podcast, because they're PUNY GIRLS WHO'S BACKBONES ARE MADE OF CHEEEEEEESE, YA!  Plus you yourself done that terribly done ''demon's souls isn't hard, you're just an idiot'' blog... just let it go. "

That may haved ended, but it ended with the general consensus of anyone who likes Demon's Souls being a pretentious masochistic jerk or something.  "

And just where exactly are you finding those assumptions? Demon's Souls is well recognised as a fantastic game from all sides thanks to its incredibly high recognition. Naturally there'll still be people who don't ''get it'' and will instead just blame the game rather than their own patience and stubbornness to work with its design, but it's like that with all games; much like how there's people proclaiming MvC3 to be unbalanced, and CoD to be generic, bladdy blah.  You're sticking up for a game that nowadays can easily stand up for itself. "

" @Ventilaator:  That's exactly were my point of how all games receive undeserved hate, not including Demon's Souls, comes from. Again, people dislike the game, some for silly reasons, but the people who appreciate and respect Demon's Souls greatly outnumbers the few who still ignorantly choose to ignore its everything great about it. The fact that you're doing this because Jeff trolled on the bombcast against it and ''some dude'' said it's for hardcore masochists makes this all look like you're trying to 'force' this game on everyone. Plus for Jeff to compare Demon's Souls to Deadly Premonition was hilarious, and, again. I think was him trolling because he knew how much uproar would rise from that comment alone, after all the disdain towards them for not liking the game. "

Jeff doesn't like it because Gamespot gave it game of the year.

#2 DARKSIDERS
...

Played on normal and got horribly stuck at the Tiamat fight, after several attempts and different strategies, I still got hit without understanding what the heck I was supposed to do to avoid it. I might go back to it after I forget all the rage that fight has caused me.

ok so let me say this
i think demon's souls is a game not for everyone. it wasnt for me. 
difficulty? yes. lack of checkpoints ? no 
 this is the reasons why i dont like it:

boss fights. Ive seen bosses die in that game really easily if you know how to beat them. The game would be better for me if the bosses were waaaaay stronger but had a checkpoint before them. In every difficult game you are bound to die 1-2 times to a boss till you recognise its patters. Ive played the god of war trilogy on hard. wasnt easy. but kept playing and playing and i made it through. the point in trying again and again is that you get better at the boss with each try. defeating the enemies BEFORE the boss doesnt make you better at the boss. So what do you do ?? check online.....  yea greaaat..

Permanent loss of body form. yea i know there are ways to get it back but the stones are limited and helping another player defeat a boss takes way too long to be worth it. its just there to fucking tease you. its against video game laws. Meaning: if you are good in the game you get a bonus to help you progress. if you arent that good you get nothing. Shouldnt it be the other way around??  a lot of people say that body form is a reward for being skilled. thats bullshit. there are other ways to reward skilled players without hintering the not so great ones. Give the skilled player a lot more souls so that the not so skilled one would go grinding instead. in that way they could also practise more.
 
the game experience depends on a shit load of variates. World tendancy is the prime example. Imagine trying to do a quest in an RPG only to find out that you cant for a number of reasons you cant alter most of the times.
 
enemies that one-shot kill you .thats just cheap. make a strong character with great AI? no make a dumbass that kills you in one hit. 
 
Enemy abilities. Wait am i playing an early ps2 game? normal enemies in the game have 1-2 moves. bosses have more, sometimes like 3. example : black skeletons. menacing enemies for sure but the have 2 moves. just 2. just fucking great. Octopus men have 2 aswell. a ranged and a melee ( the paralyzing bolt ). thats also fucking great.  Tower knight boss has 3. Imagine playing against a boss with 3 moves in any game, action or RPG. it would be pathetically easy. Well its not now because its attacks take 80% of your health in a hit so its balanced out.
 
 finally i dont like the health system in general. the fact that it goes down in 5 secs coupled with the fact that to get it back up to full you just press square once doesnt do it for me. It kinda makes me that im playing a really difficult game with regenerating health ( call of duty style )
 
those are my main arguments against the game.

As someone who recently finished it twice in a white heat: 
 
This is a very okay game. By that, I mean in a purely qualitative sense. There are bits that are so fantastic, fun, and well-done that I was on the edge of my seat, but at the same time there were pieces that crumbled in my fingers and mind on further inspection. 
 
The pros? Well, for one, the game is mind-bogglingly rewarding. As someone who plays roguelikes to a fair degree, this is a perfect median between bullshit like Rogue and fairy games like Prince of Persia '08. But still, when you're sitting there fighting off a silver skeleton and BP Satsuki, and you get that perfect roll that sets up an R2 with Bramd, and you watch that grassing moron fall, it's so satisfying. Another pro is a massive con for other people and that's World 5. I love the atmosphere of it all, combined with the actually competent Vinland subplot and the unique Archdemon, then all over again with the creepy boss music and excellent voice acting by Garl and Astraea. Yum. 
 
Cons? The controls are for the most part responsive, but the fucking D-Pad quickslots are so obnoxious. I can't even fathom how many times I switched from catalyst to my shield, only to have my face smashed in as I shake the catalyst. This happens on a variety of controllers I use. I can't help but feel that that may be due to my calloused ass hands, but it stands nonetheless. Another con for some people is that the game is only so enjoyable in PvE, and explodes into awesomeness with PvP. And my least favorite aspect of this game is World 3. Maneater can S mah D. So easy, but that stupidly narrow catwalk makes me want to eat children.
  
P.S. Anyone that thinks armor is more than cosmetic in this game is fooling themselves. Even in playthrough 1 armor is just there to look at. It's better to never get hit than block a hit. Roll, roll, roll. 
 
TL;DR: Good game with infuriating flaws and short PvE enjoyment. Don't use heavy armor. 

I've had this game on my shelf since right after it came out.  The first time I popped it in, I died probably 20 times trying to make it up the steps on the first touchstone world (or whatever you call them, I dunno).  The 2nd time I took my time and didn't die and played for about 2 hours, but never really got anywhere, eventually made my way back to the Nexus because I had to quit playing to go do IRL stuff.
 
I really, really want to give this game more time, so maybe I'll be like Vinny and put 10-15 hours into it this weekend.  The stuff I see online for it seems really cool, I just wish I had more patience in my old age.

 @Undeadpool said:

" Demon's Souls apologists are constantly using strawman arguments to address the only points they want to talk about. My main problem with the game, and I say this as someone who VERY much enjoys the game, is very similar to what Vinny said: You have literally NO idea what will benefit you and what won't. The game uses classes only in the most hilariously loose sense of the word as your class has almost no impact on the kind of game you play in the long run. Magic is incredibly useful, to the point of necessity, but the game never tells you this. It never indicates that cultivating a ranged attack will be necessary later on and there's no reason to assume this either. The game is overall just not terribly intuitive, and most of the criticism I've seen seems to be coming from people who used a walkthrough on their first playthrough, much like the people who used to screech the loudest during the P4 endurance run, which indicates, at the very least, that the game has an extremely poor UI. "

@Tennmuerti:

"lol TIamat.  You just completely sold me on Demon's Souls. "

You have some great points and I can see how so many people love this game. But one problem I have with the game is that its more often cheap than actually difficult, most deaths are because of some trap you could not possibly expect than through something you did wrong. Forcing you to grind through the hordes of mobs time after time. I still enjoy the game but it definitely has some flaws.

It also does a really bad job at explaining stuff and providing you with some actual goals.