Demon's Souls isn't hard - a Japanese man can finish it in under an hour.

Known as "alternalw", this quasi-mythical being can go from beginning to end in 54 minutes and 54 seconds. That's how precise he is.

He skips a lot of the game's enemies by running or rolling past them. He can't do that with the bosses - not that that appears to slow him down.

The evidence is on his YouTube Channel (via Kotaku). Avoid watching if you don't want to spoil the Demon's Souls surprise.

Demon's Souls is renowned as a rock-hard action role-playing game. It was eventually released on PS3 in Europe in June.

Die part way through a level and all the souls (currency) you have collected stay with your corpse while your soul goes back to the start. If you can fight back, you can retrieve what you lost. But if you die again, all will be lost.

Complimenting that is an intriguing online mechanic that means other players can leave clues or play tricks on you as you cautiously progress. They can even invade your game world as helpful or harmful entities.

Demon's Souls is frustrating and merciless and because of that, we decided, it's one of the best RPGs of this generation - Eurogamer's Demon's Souls review elaborates.

Suitably impressed, Eurogamer tracked down game director Hidetaka Miyazakifor an illuminating chat.