the game IS VERY HARD, because you have to play the same areas over and over until you proceed

but in this case, i think the difficulty of Demon's Souls adds to it's epicness and makes the game less boring and more challenging

easy games are way too boring : P

Because people fail to recognize and memorize patterns. That's all that game is. The difficulty really disappointed me.

Also, the Blessed Mirdan Hammer plus 5 should be banned. That weapon is cheating, hahaha.

Imo, (i've platinumed the game) and i think the game was very hard. and thats mainly because of the lack of checkpoints. i mean you have to restart again from the beginning of the level and it takes ages.

imo, its a good game, just too time consuming - the ammount of times i died on the Valley of Defilement or the Land of the Storm Kings (whatever its called). i love the dark atmosphere of the game -

but the difficultly is doing everything perfectly again and again.

i really hope they rectify this with Dark Souls for a more enjoyable experience imo. but i found the Maneater boss fight and the Valley of Defilement ridiculously hard!! i didnt know how to change soul tendancy etc, until late in my playthrough sadly!

I guess it's not so much that you die a lot, but that dying actually matters. You die once, you have to go to the very beggining of the level, and levels can be pretty long. You die twice, you lose your souls, which is the only way to get stronger and have better equipment.

I agree it's not that hard, but compared to today's games that basically want you to keep advancing and prevent you from being stuck too long, then yes, it is hard.

Demon's souls is indeed hard, but not the average kind of toughness, I think the game just has a big learning curb, considering the fact that around 3rd or 4th playthrough you feel like a boss yourself and pummel everything with your awesomeness.

The real challenge is learning where every enemy lies around and learning how to take care of every enemy and boss.

It's hard because it requires a bit of patience and mistakes can easily kill you. If you are too used to running and gunning or twich based games, this game will quite possible be one of the most difficult things you encounter. The first time you clear a level can be difficult, but once you clear it it becomes easier since all enemies spawn in the exact same location and repeat the exact same pattern. Once you know what to expect, you can sprint through the level with some care; even if you know what to expect, any enemy can still kill you if you're not careful.

Well people say its a hard game because its a disgustingly hard game...and it is disgustingly hard.

Because it's the kind of difficulty that is smart unlike a lot of other "hard" games. Most of the games considered hard are cheap.

I'll be honest, I expected the game to be way harder based on what people were always saying all the time.

I think the truth is that the difficulty of the game was pretty much the standard many years back, but games have been getting easier as each gen passes by. Nowadays, we're getting spoiled with easy games, lots of checkpoints, in some cases easy saving of games (Fallout 3), and being able to rewind(Grid, Forza 3). Had DS been released on somethin like SNES, I don't think it'd be as infamous for it's difficulty like it is this gen.

There definitely are some pretty damn hard parts in DS but for the most part, I think the game takes more patience than it does skill. Definitely not saying it doesn't take that much skill though - it takes both lots of skill and patience to get through, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd say more deaths will happen due of a lack of patience. In many situations, it'll also force you to consistently play good.

Of course this is all assuming it's your first playthrough though....

As soon as you hit NG , shit gets real :z

I dunno. It's not easy.  there's a learning curve it was a weird game so it took me 5-6 hours to figure out wtf was going on. Then it clicked. I mean, it's completely fair while being not a cakewalk. I prefer this difficulty versus like um broken.

 I didn't find it harder than Dead Space or Dead Space 2 (in Hard or whatever the mode's called). (Those 3 games being in my top 10 games this gen)

I think Ninja Gaiden, and Devil May Cry 3, and Wipeout HD... and probably others are harder for me.
 I kinda agree. This game is not that hard. It's really creative with how deaths are handled. You can't just romp through it (initially) like God of War or Call of Duty, or you'll get your ass kicked. And if you screw up you have to live with the consequences you can't quit and load your save.