Oh man, this was so worth the wait. Demon's Souls is so good. It's a lose-track-of-time game. The remainder of this post is a summary of how the game is played and why it is so awesome and why I want to play it more right now.

The game is infamous for its difficulty level, which I have so far been able to deal with. Last night before quitting I had killed the first boss and cleared the first level. There are traps and enemies that will kill you very quickly. In combat, you have to be on your toes at all times. If you button mash or expect to get lots of easy monster kills, you will get you stuff kicked in. If you go blindly running into a room or around a corner without some defense or some looking around, you stand a good chance of getting clobbered. The game forces you to constantly be worrying about what is next. You can't veg out and just press onward.

The fact that you never know what is coming up is balanced by the fact that the game is always played online. You don't play with the other players so much as you are just all playing at the same time. While playing you will see ghostly figures running around the level, moving, attacking, dodging, going through basically the same actions as you--because that's the image of another player playing his game. You're watching him deal with the same dangers you are, and perhaps by watching him you'll learn something about the environment you didn't know. Additionally, if a player dies, a stain of blood appears on the ground in your game. If you approach the bloodstain and press a button, his image appears and pantomimes the last few seconds of his life, showing his final actions and the exact spot at which he met his untimely fate. Some of them are hilarious--such as people trying to somersault out of danger and ending up falling off a cliff--and some of them are ominous--a person running around the corner you are approaching, then coming back in a full sprint before dying instantly from what looks like a powerful blow to the back. Although he had died, everyone else who would go through that area of the level learned something from his loss.

Dying is not the only way to help (or amuse) other players, though. You can also write messages and leave them on the ground. Future players to walk through that space will be able to read your message. You can leave hints such as, "Beware the strong enemy ahead," hinting that future players might want to slow down a bit if they are rushing or, "Watch out for a trap," indicating that things are not quite what they seem. My skin was saved at least twice last night thanks to some especially helpful messages, and I left several of my own based on things that I saw. It's a brilliant and fun system.

You begin the game in typical video game fashion, as a lone warrior setting out to drive back the evil that has gripped the world and threatens to conquer it. You begin your quest in a tutorial level where you learn how to move, attack, and play the game. At the end of the tutorial, the game rewards you by killing you. Upon dying, your body is gone and you resume play in "soul form" in which you can perform all of the actions you could while alive, but your maximum health level is cut in half. That's right, if you die, the game rewards you by making your maximum health lower. There are a few ways in which you can regain your body and leave "soul form" for the realm of the living again. First, you can clear a level and defeat the boss demon--with only half health available, remember. Second, you can find and use a rare item. Thirdly, you can assist or take advantage of other players.

You can more directly intervene in other players' games than leaving messages or bloody reminders of your own fate. Using one of two special items, you can either join another player's game as an ally and help him clear a tough area or invade his game and hunt him down for a fight to the death. If you are victorious, your body is restored and you return to your own parallel game refreshed. So far, the only method I have successfully applied is the first, by killing a boss demon.

By killing monsters, you collect souls, which act as the currency in the game. You need large numbers of souls in order to buy or upgrade weapons or magic spells. While in soul form, dying will send you back to the beginning of the area in which you were playing. It will also strip you of all of your souls, leaving you broken and broke. There is no bank or place to store souls--if you have alot or are saving, you have to risk losing them to advance. Also, all enemies that you had slain in the level will come back to life and be ready to attack you again. You practically have to start the whole level over again, this time with empty pockets. Your one hope at this point is to go back to the place that you died--which was likely a dangerous spot in the first place--and find the characteristic bloodstain which you created. If you can reach it and not die again in the process, you will be rewarded by reacquiring the souls you had lost. There's one sticky bit though: if you die at the hands of a player that has invaded your game, all of your souls are stolen by the other player. So you're broke. And you're dead. And now you're a soul. Tough break, champ.

Some of the rules and mechanics seem convoluted, but if you experience the game in person, things start to work really well. The difficulty is not for everyone but as a fan of hard games (HARD GAME CLUB) I really like this game so far.