My brother bought this game quit a while back and I watched him play, and I thought it looked cool so I made my own character and started playing it. Addicting. This game is addicting. Hardcore and addicting. Did I mention this game's addicting? Anyways...I got to about level 76 on my first character before I started websurfing and reading forums and learning about the colorless demon souls, the various white and black worlds, and realized: I messed up. I made my character on the basis of getting the Dragon Smasher Sword I saw my brother get and I appearantly didn't have pure white world tend. when I beat the guy u need to to get this sword so I'd have to finish the game and start a new one, which I did but wow it's so much harder on second play through. I rerolled a royal because I figured I'd level much faster and now that I know what stats I want etc. I'd do better. On my newbie I collected colorless demon souls, enhanced my items of choice, unleashed the spells of my choosing, and started Black Phantom raiding and using Emph. Eyes so I would get invaded. I love 1v1 fights so I'd never summon a blue spirit for assistance w/ a phantom. Awesome addicting game play that I wish would be on an epic mmorpg scale level. I'd gladly pay 20$ a month for a mmorpg with the battle system this game has, not to mention some amusing spells and weapons. I love Meat Cleaver and Flamestrike, Blind(weapon) is pretty funny too if u keep on a caster with it. Nothing like scaring someone off a ledge.

5 Stars for addiction and castle setting. That's one epic sized castle, like I imagined growing up. No other game has a castle on this level. Please please please make 'Demon's Souls Online' !!!

Pros:
level character up continuously,
new weapons, magic, armor, ect continuously throughout the game,
and continuous change of level design, world design,and monster/creature design,
had option to have a variety of weapon attacks
not easy to beat, but makes you earn your victories
a variety of strategy necessary to be successful which makes game play challenging and not boring
Get poison cloud (magic), it helped me beat many bosses!
Played for 53 hours, prob could be less if you're good at it, but I doubt you will be good at it.

Cons:
No check points, can play for hours on one level and die then have to start level all over and enemies re-spawn once you die or leave level.
Can have cheap ways to beat bosses (such as using poison to kill them) but trust me, you will not care as long as you win since it will take hours to get to the boss of each level without dying!
Game may make you curse if you don't curse due to invoke of enormous amounts of frustration since it is super hard, it is the lack of check points that make this game make you to almost want to break your tv!
Boring story, nothing really exciting except the same ole trying to save the world. But each character you meet that is your friend does have some kind of story about who they are, which is cool I guess.

Good Luck!

Like others, I was hesitant to buy this game based on its name(Demon's Souls...do I really wanna spend money on a title like this?) and the reviews describing how difficult the game is; however, the reviews were overwhelming positive so I had to see what the deal was with Demon's Souls.

Overall, this is one of the best games I've ever played and I hope they make a sequel very soon. Reviewers that don't like DS usually criticize the game for being a) too difficult, or b) too creepy. The gameplay of the game is indeed tough because the enemies' attacks do a lot of damage and if you die, you'll start from the beginning of the level. This reminds me of NES games like Megaman or Ninja Gaiden when recognizing patterns and avoiding strikes were priorities since dying meant starting over. In my opinion, DS is very fair and realistic in its gameplay--if you get hit by a swinging halberd or blasted by a fireball, it will naturally hurt a lot and you might die.

When this kind of gameplay is combined with the kind of surreal and grisly environment presented in DS, you will be very cautious in your approach, especially the first time. In my first go-round, there were levels that had the tension and dark feel of a Resident Evil game, where I had my shield ready at all times and manuevered very slowly around corners and ledges. It's really a testament to the superb graphics and sound of DS.

This game rewards having patience, understanding patterns, and reacting properly. I have died embarrassingly from rolling away from an enemy only to fall off a cliff or spazzing out and button-mashing in panic only to have my attacks blocked, my guard exposed, and my chest impaled in return. But you learn from your deaths, and that's the beauty of the game. The game only becomes frustrating because you made it that way; as you move forward you realize that DS isn't really that hard. When you clear a level though, you can breathe a sigh of relief and feel like you earned something. All those souls you managed to keep can be used to customize your character to any way you see fit.

Throw in a unique multiplayer dynamic, and DS is even more fun. It's cool to help people beat levels and bosses as well as recruit 1 or 2 others to assist you. There is some sort of unspoken camaraderie to it all. Likewise, you can invade another player's realm or be invaded by another player, which exhilirating in its own right. The replay value of DS is big. If there is ever a sequel for DS, I am sure the multiplayer system will be expanded on.

I'll give Uncharted 2 the credit it deserves as PS3 game of 2009, but DS is the dark horse runner-up that could have taken the title.