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Demon's Souls was never about winning, but learning how to fail. I'd spent most of the latter half of the noughties clocking up more game completions than the previous 25 years put together, and few of them really lingered in the memory that long. By 2009, it seemed like most games were almost designed to play themselves. Most of them were all mouth and no trousers, and it was making me lose interest. I do love my trousers.My introduction to Demon's Souls came, rather appropriately, in a darkened Japanese hotel room a few weeks after the game came out. On a dutiful excursion to visit my girlfriend, I spent a fraught evening observing her pitiful progress, watching flying Manta Rays ejaculating giant crystal spears into her frail warrior, and enduring terrified yelps as something utterly horrendous emerged from the blackness to eviscerate her once again. It was painful to endure so much relentless failure - and yet my interest was piqued.
Lumping it with the JRPG scene was doing it a disservice; Demon Souls was a completely different beast. I'd been an editor on one publication or another for nearly ten years at that point, reviewed hundreds of games and had never seen anything like it. Spiritually it was in line with From Software's long-abandoned King's Field series, but to my mind, the stark miserabilism and relentless cloying tension placed it closer to survival horror. Albeit one with a fearsomely skilful combat engine and a feast of statistical elements to wrap your head around; things I would normally hurl myself under the nearest train to avoid.
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