This review was originally published 09/14/2010 on Game Observer (now defunct as of 05/13/2014). It has been republished here for archival purposes.

Defines a new genre: the "On Rails RPG." I hope it’s a short-lived genre.

The "Final Fantasy" name is synonymous with "quality." The idea that any FF game could ever be bad is tantamount to gaming blasphemy. The reputation is well-deserved, as the franchise has consistently provided incredibly compelling characters and story with rich, interesting worlds, and deep customization and character development options. The franchise has completely reshaped the fantasy role playing world. With Final Fantasy XIII, the developers took some radical new directions in every aspect of the game. Unfortunately, these changes severely hurt the game, since they practically take away the need for the player to do much of anything. It reminded me of the girl, Yorda, from the game Ico, being grabbed by the hand and dragged around by Ico all over the castle. In fact, the game could be considered a whole new genre: the "On Rails RPG."

As part of my review for this game's DLC (Artorias of the Abyss), I have decided to re-evaluate the score (using the new scoring system). My opinions about this game have changed a bit over the past couple years (in a positive way), and so I am including an updated score and several pieces of hindsight commentary to explain where my original criticisms may have been flawed or unjustified. Locations that include hindsight commentary have been notated in the Table of Contents.

If you had asked me in the middle of 2011 what my favorite games on the PS3 were, three of the games that I would have named would have been: Uncharted 2, Demon’s Souls, and Batman: Arkham Asylum. All three of these games received sequels or follow-ups in the fall of 2011, so it was a pretty exciting holiday season for me in terms of gaming. Batman: Arkham City and Uncharted 3 were both very good games, but didn’t quite live up to my (possibly unjustifiably) high expectations. Sadly, Dark Souls ended up suffering a similar fate Dark Souls disappointed me with its initial impressions, but in the years since, has proven itself to be almost every bit as good (although not as elegant in its gameplay) as Demon's Souls.

This review of Dark Souls is (like many of my reviews) considerably late. This is due to several factors:

1. I wanted to try to finish the game’s story and play through large chunks with several different character classes before coming to a final verdict.
2. I wanted to see what kind of post-release support the game received.
3. I wanted to have several opportunities to engage in PvP encounters.

I still haven’t beaten the game (as of the time of original publication) with any characters (hey, it’s a hard game and pretty long!), but I did play with multiple characters and get my ass kicked in enough PvP encounters that I finally feel that I can give an honest and complete appraisal of the game. Even if it is six months after release…

But hey! A PC port is likely due out soon, so maybe people considering the PC version will still find this review useful!

Table of Contents:

• More of the same, and then some
  • New Moves
  • More varied equipment, and armor that's actually useful
• An expansive, but surprisingly compact world
  • [The world in hindsight]
• Rediscovering your "Humanity"
  • [Story In hindsight]
• The multiple dimensions of online functionality
  • Online segregation and other stumbling blocks
  • The hoops a PvPer must jump through in order to be a douche and break the game
  • Even messaging was made inconvenient
  • [Online in hindsight]
• Engine Trouble
  • Some problems are mostly superficial
  • Other problems are a major hinderance to combat
  • The AI has been improved, but actually causes performance issues
  • Controls and interface also have performance issues
• Does it live up to Demon's Souls' brutal difficulty?
  • [Difficulty in hindsight]

Last week, on October 6th, PlayStation 3 owners may have been too busy playing the newly-released game Dark Souls to remember that the day marked the second anniversary of the release of (quite possibly) the best PlayStation 3 game to have been released so far: Demon's Souls. In fact, I almost forgot about too, until I logged in today to see this message on the game's boot-up screen:

In celebration of the event, Atlus and FROM Software have set all players' world tendencies to pure white from October 6th up through October 17th. Pure White world tendency (if you don't know already) gives the player slightly more hit points, decreases the difficulty of some enemies, and opens up new paths containing valuable loot and access to NPCs and side-quests.

But this reward doesn't come without a price,...