Demon's Souls Previews
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The first article is up at The Escapist:
You see, death in Demon's Souls isn't an end point, a cue to restart, try again. Instead, it's merely an extra burden to bear as you try to complete your quest to defeat the demons that are plaguing the world. If you die, your available health is cut in half (you'd think it would be cut entirely, what with you being dead and all, but roll with it) and you won't be able to fully heal until you resurrect yourself.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to do that. The most immediate is to simply kill a boss, but in your weakened state, that may be far easier said than done. You do have other options, thanks to the game's multiplayer. If you join another player's game and help them kill a boss, you get your body back, hooray! There's no friends lists or chat in Demon's Souls, though, so you won't be able to just pop into your buddy's game whenever you feel like it.
While the other is online at Critical Gamer:
The emphasis is most definitely on combat. Whereas many RPGs are happy for you to charge through waves of enemies bashing the controls like an alcohol fuelled game of whack-a-mole, Demon's Souls will punish such a tactic. You must carefully watch and exploit attack patterns if you wish to have any chance at all of seeing more than five minutes of gameplay. Why? Because mistakes are punished ruthlessly, especially when fighting a group of enemies; and there are no checkpoints.
That's right, no checkpoints. And the first level is a bloomin' castle. And every single enemy you've killed (boss excluded) respawns every time you die. Used items, including healing items, stay used. You always respawn right at the start of the level. And you lose every last 'soul' (the game's currency) you've collected from fallen enemies unless you can make it all the way to the spot you died without dying again. Which you won't, if your weapons and armour have degraded from use too much. Oh, and we haven't even mentioned the ambushes or the exploding barrels. Or, indeed, the fact that you can not pause the game. We must confess, we found this title to be none too easy.
