Forums > Submission Feedback > fleinn's Demon's Souls (Import) review

Fleinn, hi. Zipp here.

You do a decent job in this review of introducing the world and the combat system and then... what happened? You sort've drift off into "in the know" talk about half way through, by which I mean you seem to be addressing people who have already played the game. I'm left knowing nothing about what kind of game it is. Is it open world? Is it linear story? Are there bosses at the end of dungeons? Is it non linear? What challenges await those who master the combat system? Is there skills and bartering? Are there towns?

The main problem is that you detail a small piece of a larger painting without ever dipping the brush in the ink.

Okay... that sounded ridiculous. I have an unhealthy love of metaphor. Suffice it to say, your review could use some grounding. But don't be discouraged. Your problems are not hard to overcome. Otherwise, you have a nice style and voice that I'd like to see you develop. Keep on writing.

Note to gamers: when someone shoots you in the face, they aren't "gay." They are "psychopathic."

"I mean you seem to be addressing people who have already played the game."

..Yeah, I worried a bit about that. I think I thought in a very inspired moment :p that it wouldn't really describe anything useful with the game if I added that it has four worlds with four stages and a boss at the end. Like.. reviewing a book, and mentioning how many chapters it has..? None of the worlds have the same setup either, and I really wanted to avoid switching to meta- description in between everything else.

But there should probably be something. I'm just not sure what.. Do you think it would look better if I said somewhere that there are four arch- stones left, and four locations with four separate stories tied together by the nexus, and so on.. Or will that just make the review.. even more hopelessly pretentious than it already is.. hmm.

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Actually, I thought this:

"It has four worlds with four stages and a boss at the end."

Was pretty spot on. It's short, it's descriptive, and it tells me what I need to know. You could probably stand to elaborate a bit. Telling us the differences between the worlds isn't a bad thing. I've never played the game, but I would probably set it up something like this...

"The game has four worlds, with four stages in each world. At the end of each stage is a boss. You can do these worlds in any order. When I looked at my choices of a Fire planet, an Ice planet, a world filled with ancient ruins, and a Utopia made up of waterfalls and naked women, you can guess which interested me the most.

That's right. I couldn't resist. I had to go to the Ice Planet.

After selecting the planet, my soul was whisked away into the dark tide of the ether, coming to rest at last inside a small icy cavern. I had barely moments to look around before I was attacked by something that looked like George Lucas' cousin."

And so on and so forth.

Note to gamers: when someone shoots you in the face, they aren't "gay." They are "psychopathic."

I've not played the game, although I did read the review!

Knowing that there are four worlds with four stages and a boss at the end would not have been useful to me at all. I would actually see that as trite filler that adds words without adding meaning. It's common for 3rd person action games to have a series (or hub) of worlds, each with a boss. That's not what makes the game stand out, unless there's something peculiar about how the worlds interact with each other.

The review starts off specific and becomes broader, indicating that what initially feels simple turns into something grand. I think it's a strong structure. However, the review cuts itself short before really tapping into that grand-ness. I think a couple more paragraphs near the end, building up the scope of the adventure, would help.

//Zig

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:) Thanks both of you. That the world opens up - very happy that came out right. Maybe I'll try replacing the "why it works" thing later. Like you say, there had to be something there, and I couldn't think of anything useful to write down..

..but the thing is that the game doesn't actually try to hide the game- mechanics from you. It just makes them irrelevant. ..and that makes no sense.

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