I was able to talk to the Producer of Atlus’ Demon Soul’s PS3 RPG for a bit today as the E3 show was coming to a close. Demon Soul’s was originally being produced by SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) in Japan, but was at some point transferred to Atlus. Due out later this year, this ambitious project has PS3 players playing a ‘hardcore’ RPG complete with swords, shields, magic, and tons of monsters.
The basic premise to Demon Soul’s is that the lead character’s world is consumed by demons and you are the only persona that can stop it. Players begin the game by creating their own character, which looks to be either a male or female human. After choosing a gender, options are plentiful, with the ability to change all of your facial features and assign several points to various skills, typical of a traditional hack and slash RPG.
Visually, Dem0on Soul’s looks good, I wouldn’t quite say outstanding at this point, but then again the game isn’t done and I only saw a tiny portion of the overall experience. The campaign can run for an almost endless amount of time according to the Producer, who added that once the main campaign is over (20-30 hours), it can be replayed over and over again, and players can continue to level up and face tougher and tougher enemies.
Perhaps the most unique aspect to Demon Soul’s is its interesting connection with the PSN. However, this game isn’t intended to be an online Oblivion or World of Warcraft; the primary experience is still intended to be player versus the CPU, but players can actually help each other out via PSN.
To accomplish this, players can team up, in groups of up to three, to defeat a tough boss. However, players can also solict their skills to other players and actually complete or defeat quests for other players. Doing this apparently does not increase your own experience, but that of the player you did the work for. I didn’t quite understand this system — and I am willing to submit that I might have misunderstood it as it was being explained to me.
Another PSN tie-in involves pools of blood. As one player traverses and area where another player, also connected to PSN, has died, they can discover random pools of blood on the ground. Players can they interact with these pools of blood to view the death of another eal player who previously came through this same area but died. The idea is that if you can view the struggles of other players, you can avoid dying in the same way as they did.
The concept sounds interesting and ambitious; the title is due out late this year.
