I remember when it got announced. I was a Eurogamer forum poster at the time and I remember the early videos for Demons. We were all like "this ... looks ... shit". I remember one particular poster being quite vocal in his disdain for the title.
I remember being in the very same official thread a few years later. That user was, you know, on NG++++++, chatting world tendency and builds, giving advice to newbies and sharing fond stories.
How little we knew.
I remember the first streams coming out of Asia. We were all surprised that the title was already in English, and people were speaking of importing. People spending hours watching one guy run up a bridge, kill some guys, run back to a sword in a ground, go through a menu and do it all again. The strange lure of the game, the unknown, and then the word of mouth stories started pouring out of an idiosyncratic game that told no secrets and pulled no punches.
I remember I ended up buying an American import of the special edition. It had a lovely hard box and a guide with it. A truly limited edition that shortly was asking £200 on the second hand market.
What a game. And Dark Souls was even better.
I hope the Switch version will play nice. I'd sacrifice online play to whittle many hours away on the train or on lunch.