I've heard a lot about the game and have always been intrigued by it but for whatever reason have never gotten around to playing it. I was at gamespot yesterday reading a preview for the upcoming sequel Dark Souls and my interest in Demon's Souls has been piqued again. I read a couple reviews and they all say its one of the best ps3 games and should not be missed.

I'm interested in any feedback anyone can give me on the game. I've heard it is a very difficult but rewarding game. I've been gaming for over twenty years now and grew up with the NES and everything after it. I love challenging games BUT not cheaply frustrating. This is the only thing holding me back from getting the game. Smart and challenging is very different from cheap and frustrating so where does this game fall under?

My favorite kind of games are open world games and rpgs so I have one more question. Is Demon's Souls open world? Does it have one big map to explore or is it linear?

The game just wants you to learn and pay attention. That is all. It's not hard per se - no unfair reaction times asked as in Ninja Gaiden or similar. People these days just seem to have forgotten that to play, you might be asked to actually use your brains to understand mechanics.

No, it's not really open world. You have a central point, the Nexus of Souls, from which you teleport to five different worlds. Those can be revisited as often as you like, and finishing off the bosses at the end of the parts of those worlds unlocks checkpoints. You can go from the start of the first "stage" to the end of the last of a world without any load times.

In addition to what RedViv said:

Smart and challenging.

Topic already open - http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1163938-demons-souls-spiritual-successor-named-dark-souls/