What's great about a game like this is that when you are able to master it, you can literally dominate most other games.
It's like mastering counterstrike and then playing single player fps games on hard and going globetrotters on it's ass.
I remember my friend showing me Doom 3 for the first time. I put it on hard and then went through clocking literally everyone in the first three levels with the flashlight in a time frame that was so short, my friend's head was spinning. He was literally getting dizzy watching me whirl around/jumping and braining imps left and right. I remember him laughing so hard when I first encountered a group. The screen went from a calm and steady exploration to an explosion of screen jitter and enemies popping up under the glow of the flashlight for just a split second before the got murked, caveman style. It resembled charlie brown fight scenes of flying fists and impish "Ug"s.

This is a pretty great feeling but I don't know that I have any experience comparable to Demon's Souls. What woul be a good game to play to prepare for it?

(of course I will end up getting it)

??? Not sure I'm getting your point there, sorry.

I believe DS delivers exactly what the developers intended, and as such is a well made game with respect to itself.  However it's chosen design simply doesn't work for me, personally.  I just can't bother with games that require that level of effort and re-play to complete.  This is mostly a time based decision.  I have a family and kids plus lots of real life activity that limits my gaming time - therefore while I'm happy to invest a fair bit of time into the right game, it won't be one where I replay sections a lot to get a desirable result.  That just doesn't work for me right now.

So I was basically saying you can't call a game 'bad' because it's chosen mechanics or approach don't appeal if they are actually well done and as intended, that just means they don't appeal to you.

An analog would be some friends reaction to watching the film Revolutionary Road.  They said it was bad.  I asked why and they said because it was depressing.  I asked about script, acting, direction, etc. and they said all of that was great.  I then pointed out that clearly the film wasn't bad as everything that you can fairly critique was in fact excellent according to them, the problem was that it told a story they didn't want to experience, namely a very depressing one.  The issue was one of taste, not failure to execute.  I believe the same applies to the OP regarding Demon's Souls.

I'm not making a point, I was asking if you thought it possible to judge a design decision as inherently bad.

It seems you don't, so that is answer enough.

@ Khuutra )

you don't need to "prepare" for Demon's Souls

DS is just a very logical and consequent game ..
your enemies are strong, powerful, often quick and mostly can take quite a beating, but they are stupid, so you have to use your brain to kill the enemies

observe them and analyze their attack patterns, try to pull them one by one and don't lose head while fighting one .. that way the game is actually pretty easy (maybe too easy)

ah yea.. enemies that look strong probably are strong and if you don't feel confident whether or not you should face one (after having progressed deeply into a lvl) then don't and come back later

tldr;
It's all about taste you can't argue with that ;)
Too bad it's not in PAL :( (no inport no!)

you gotta look at past games that have been bashed because they're repetitive. then all of a sudden, you have a game here that gets you to repeat entire sections of a level, again and again, yet it gets high praise. i simply don't understand that. the design of the game revolves around having to re-play levels, and that is treated as a good thing?

isn't variety supposed to be far better than repetition? where's the fun in doing the same thing over and over again?

and don't say "you suck at the game". that's not the point. everyone dies in the game. even the best bloody player (i looked at the pantheon and looked at the best players there, most of them have died over 100 times) dies a whole lot of times. so in the end, it's not a game of skill to avoid death because death will come no matter what you do. it's a game of patience where you have to fight the urge to stop playing. it's just a grind, plain and simple, with no variety.

and i don't suck at the game. actually i only had to die twice in 2 hours (i'm in the section after beating phalanx) and i'm already sick of repetition.

Like I said on my previous post, you have your opinion of the game and that's fine.

But, seeing that your main gripe is the grinding part of the game, I must ask you, do you consider games like Diablo also bad, when they revolve around the same premise? 

The story was non existent IMO.

I dont mind going back the way i came but when they respawn the same enemies in the same location  then that is just lame development.

Again over complicates things, Just make it so i can only use the sword with two hands, why would they even give you the option to use it with one hand? If your using the sword with both hands then you can block with it, if your using it with one hand you cant... that makes sense.

I would rather be babied through a game and have fun than have a game  that is boring, tedious and repetitive. Maybe thats why FF games are so well liked?