Bad Deluxe Edition: Demon's Souls

I have been meaning to write about this since I picked up the game because the "Deluxe" edition of the game Demon's Souls for the PlayStation 3 is a far more disturbing product than the dark, demonic game itself and not in a good way. Here's why: It comes with a strategy guide. That and a cool looking cardboard box. The regular edition already comes with the art book as well as the soundtrack CD and it was $20 cheaper - at least where I picked it up. So, for the extra money that you paid for the game, you actually get something that will 100% ruin the game for you. Demon's Souls is a hack and slash adventure game that focuses on experimentation and memorization. It's closest cousin difficulty-wise, oddly enough, is the Japanese shoot-'em-up in which through rigorous repeated play, you remember what works and what doesn't and you have to play the game with extreme precision all the time. It's supposed to be a game that's hard to get into and even more difficult to master but with the strategy guide, the rewarding sense of discovery that makes the game incredible is taken away from the gamers who decide to use the guide. Look, if you are using the strategy guide to play this game, then this game is not for you. Well, generally speaking, if you are using strategy guides to play your games, then you are just wasting your time and money. It's like wanting to play soccer but you only want to use your hands to move the ball around. The silent co-op where you cannot communicate directly with the other players and the cryptic messaging system where you can leave short text on the floor for other players to read are helpful enough and they make total sense in the overall scheme of the game. Of course, the most mind-numbing thing about this is that publisher Atlus, who must be thanked for bringing the game over officially to the North American market - it's import friendly by the way - when Sony failed us, has inadvertently found a way to rob players of the true Demon's Souls experience because they were too lazy to come up with a cooler "Deluxe" package. A figurine of one of the game's demons would have been nice... Stay away from this edition of the game.

Demon's Souls + Strategy Guide = Soul-LESS!