There are two forms of actual multi-player available that offer the unlikely possibility of returning to life and restoring your health bar. As a phantom, you can offer your assistance to a living player in hopes of slaying a demon-boss and restoring your mortality. Given the unforgiving nature of Demon’s Souls, your benefactor probably won’t last long enough. The second, more devious option is to force your way into another world and murder the player. It’s a dangerous proposition though. Any death by inhuman hands strips away some of your stats.
The game offers 10 classes to choose from, with unique assortments of beginning stats, equipment, and abilities. Classes like the Magician and Thief are self-explanatory in the genre, while others, like Royalty and Wanderer are a little more esoteric. The presets are more like guides than concrete paths. Costs for upgrading your character are based on levels, not stat-numbers. For example: when hitting level 4, raising Luck from 5 to 6 is the same as raising Dexterity from 19 to 20. It’s fully possible to make a mana-slinging bodybuilder, as long as you’re willing to work for it.
Souls are the currency of Boletaria, used to purchase healing supplies, weapons, and stat-improvements. Every being drops souls upon death, including you. On your next life, with every enemy and trap reset, you get one chance to reach your bloodstain and collect your accumulated souls. Here lies the quandary. When you’re halfway through a level and have an impressive stockpile of souls, do you risk everything and press deeper, or return to the Nexus for a shopping spree and reset the level in the process? Then again, there’s always a third, MMO-inspired option – farm the beginnings of levels, reset, farm, and repeat until upgraded to the desired level.
Boletaria is such a hostile environment that I hardly consider farming an underhanded practice. A single moment of impatience, an ill-timed parry, or a misleading message can have dreadful results. Within a few hours, your reserves of expletives runs dry, replaced by an incomprehensible language of obscenities born of infuriation. But, a lesson arises from every shameful death. You siphon the tactics of survival until they become instinctual and the demon guarding the end of the level has been defeated. With immense pride, you leave the message that may save the ears of impressionable youth across the country, or lead the useless dirtbags astray.
Combat is a utilitarian affair. What it lacks in visual grace it replaces with tactical depth. It’s not enough to look at the damage of a weapon. You have to test its weight, because burdens will slow you down, and consider its length, lest you find yourself stuck in a narrow corridor and hitting walls. Auto-targeting has the effect of raising the camera-angle and limiting your view, which can be disastrous in rooms with low ceilings, but that is my one and only complaint.
