I wish they would talk more about character progression here. The character progression decisions in Demon's Souls were purely passive, which made pumping souls into my various stats a lot less interesting.
Change the looting procedure. I know the game is hard, but if you pick up some armor and find you can't lift it, putting it back and coming back later should be a viable response, and removing the ability to do that is just outright bullshit, especially if the player is not warned.
How about some non-hostile NPCs that are likeable? With the exception of that one guy who stored all your stuff for you and the knight from the first level, everyone you met was an utter prick, or just plain not interesting. Fighting demons would be far more interesting and entertaining if you felt an attachment to the people you were fighting for. Furthermore, make the world you're trying to restore an objective that the player has an emotional connection to. In Demon's Souls, I didn't actually give a damn about the places I was in; in fact, they didn't seem like they had ever housed people in the first place. Most of the worlds seemed as though they had always had demons in them, like it was simply natural.
Most importantly, put a proper tutorial in the game. Yes, the game is supposed to be challenging, but throwing the player to the wolves without spending the time to teach them proper techniques is a cheap shot. I didn't even know how to use magic until I was at least 15 hours into the game because no-one bothered to explain it to me.
Change the looting procedure. I know the game is hard, but if you pick up some armor and find you can't lift it, putting it back and coming back later should be a viable response, and removing the ability to do that is just outright bullshit, especially if the player is not warned.
How about some non-hostile NPCs that are likeable? With the exception of that one guy who stored all your stuff for you and the knight from the first level, everyone you met was an utter prick, or just plain not interesting. Fighting demons would be far more interesting and entertaining if you felt an attachment to the people you were fighting for. Furthermore, make the world you're trying to restore an objective that the player has an emotional connection to. In Demon's Souls, I didn't actually give a damn about the places I was in; in fact, they didn't seem like they had ever housed people in the first place. Most of the worlds seemed as though they had always had demons in them, like it was simply natural.
Most importantly, put a proper tutorial in the game. Yes, the game is supposed to be challenging, but throwing the player to the wolves without spending the time to teach them proper techniques is a cheap shot. I didn't even know how to use magic until I was at least 15 hours into the game because no-one bothered to explain it to me.