Enjoyment - 8/10
Difficulty - 6/10

While I am a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to the Souls games, Demon's Souls tells me that it is perfectly normal for a boy my age to feel like this.

I can respect what Demon's Souls was going for. Without a doubt a more linear experience, but that doesn't deter me from recommending it in the slightest. Cool level locales, interesting enemy designs and a weighty combat system kept me hooked. The only slight I can muster against the game is the World Tendency feature. Intriguing concept, but practically it makes fully completing the game cumbersome.

A fitting game to start my PS5 gaming experience. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at the Demon's Souls Inn.
🏆

Originally i was just gonna say "Demon's souls but bad" and that's it but it honestly is a bit too harsh. first of all its built on the bones of a decade and half old game and somehow managing to be worst than it's predecessor
a 1:1 copy but still called a remake and also feels way worse in most areas. enemy placement, feel & vibe, just not faithful to the og whatsoever it feels completely different and not a souls game. Bluepoint did a great with the graphics and incredible sound design to be fair
some amazing attention to detail and hidden additions and QOL stuff made me appreciate it it wasn't done lazily (for the most part) it just wasn't done right imo, it is more practical to play this rather than og because its more accessible but if you can go for the og all the way

first real souls game, and i really really enjoyed it. didn't always love the lack of checkpoints and grind to upgrade gear, but i think because i haven't experienced otherwise it made it a lot more bearable.

really beginner-unfriendly, a guide is pretty much required. but once you get the hang of things it becomes extremely addictive to try and make your way through each level. the bosses were never absurdly hard (other than the tower knight, my inexperience got me), especially after settling into my build. first-trying the final 3-4 bosses really was a nice power-trip, especially with the boss soul weapons i had.

really curious and excited to try more of these, and will definitely revisit this at some point to try a different build and round up the trophies.

9/10

I'm going to go against the grain and say I like the 2020 Remake/remaster by Bluepoint. Not from a stylistic perspective but from a functionality one.
The online of the original no longer functioned, when it did it was so happenstance you'd be lucky to encounter anyone while connected.
There's so many interwoven systems that demons souls has that make up the foundations of what dark souls is lauded for. The durability meter on the side of the weapons is a nice visual cue compared to Dark souls' out of view UI and I'd even argue that the grass healing is better than estus flasks with how free you are to stockpile em and not have to return to a rest spot.

I loved the original demons souls for the PS3, it's quite a muddy and visually low game by todays standards at 720p but even then the artistic direction is amazing. For those looking for the original vision from soft had I recommend emulating the game on RPCS3 and with the upscaled textures mod if your pc can handle it.
Don't wait for the remake/remaster to come to PC. You've already got the means to play either.
My advice for those struggling with the game is one word. Persistence.
This game is so rewarding once you persevere.
Not my favourite souls game but a damn good one.
Will have to go through this version to completion before updating my rating.
3/5 for now

Demon Souls is in no way inferior to its successors.
Of course, it lacks some quality of life changes and has some janky mechanics, but overall this entry is a milestone.
I played the original on PS3 back in the day and one thing the remake has really improved on is the storytelling.

The only negative thing is the difficulty... for a souls game the bosses are a joke. Somehow the last fight of an area is always the easiest, which takes away all the tension.

Okay, so I have been thinking about it a bit and.....Yeah, this game just keeps looking worse the more I look back on it, especially when compared to what came after.
As I said before, the bosses are way too easy, I don't know whether that's because I have experience with the Souls franchise or not, but apart from Maneater, I didn't really find any of these bosses hard.
Sure, I died to some of them, but those were all faults on my part with dodge timing and not knowing how the fuck Dragon God worked.
The bosses are well designed, apart from Maneater, and I did like fighting False King Allant, it felt really good dodging his attacks and knocking him out of his explosion attack, but man, I wish they were a bit more challenging.
And this remake is 100% faithful to the original, that's a good thing and a bad thing, a good thing because it shows how much they respect the original game, a bad thing, because they really could've improved upon some of the game's shortcomings, like again, the bosses.
And item capacity, I'm glad this never came back in the other games, because having to deposit all of your smithing materials just so you can hold more healing items is really annoying, and not being able to carry a shitton of healing items on you at all times because you need room for other shit, too is really annoying.
Another thing, not having a poison meter to let you know how close you are to being poisoned and how long you have before your poison meter runs out in case you don't have anything to cure it, like imagine that you didn't know that that swamp was poisonous, so you thought it was safe to walk through it, but then, you're hit with !POISONED!, wouldn't you think that's kinda bullshit? If you say "no", you're lying.
Speaking of, people say that Blighttown is bad? I'd like to introduce you to the Swamp of Sorrows! Where the enemies can move normally through the swamp, but you are stuck walking and not being able to roll, needless to say it's the worst poison swamp area in my eyes.
I also didn't find a lot of the NPCs that interesting, apart from maybe Patches, but you can never do him wrong, unless you make him a spider, seriously, why did Bloodborne do that?
And I still love the Maiden In Black, definitely one of my favorite level up girls.
And I still like the atmosphere and the graphics of this game, but that's not enough to save it for me.
Sad thing is, this might be the only Souls game that I won't ever play again as sad as that sounds, I just can't find it in me to return to it.

Bluepoint Games è una software house dall'enorme talento, che, nonostante un esordio nel settore non proprio esaltante, meriterebbe di ricevere tutto il budget possibile per creare un proprio gioco originale, senza passare per remasterizzazioni, porting o remake.
Ad oggi, tuttavia, solo di questi dobbiamo accontentarci (e goderci).

Demon's Souls rappresenta indubbiamente una delle produzioni, in esclusiva Playstation 5, più importanti della nona generazione, specialmente in relazione al comparto grafico. Già con Shadow of the Colossus, in uscita su PS4, si poteva notare tutto il talento degli sviluppatori americani nella cura della realizzazione di ogni dettaglio estetico e dalla rielaborazione artistica del materiale originale, tanto reimmaginata quanto fedele, regalandoci paesaggi maestosi a perdita d'occhio. Con la stessa qualità, anzi, con le dovute migliorie rese possibili grazie all'hardware di nuova generazione, è venuto alla luce il remake dello storico Demon's Souls, un diamante grezzo che avrebbe portato alla creazione di Dark Souls che, a sua volta, avrebbe rivoluzionato il mercato videoludico.
Nel mettere mano ad un'opera di così grande importanza ci sarà sicuramente stato un certo timore reverenziale tra i dev, che purtroppo si è manifestato in alcuni aspetti del gioco in questione; dal ritmo del combattimento alle meccaniche di peso, Demon's Souls Remake non coglie l'occasione di privarsi di elementi ludici che già ai tempi risultavano datati, la cui assenza tuttavia non avrebbe snaturato l'essenza dell'action jrpg di From Software. Il level design di alcune aree di gioco continua a risultare artificiosamente difficile e poco soddisfacente da esplorare, mentre in altri casi si ha la situazione opposta, in cui viene enormemente premiata l'esplorazione, sia ludicamente che visivamente.
All'interno di Demon's Souls, inoltre, sono presenti certe meccaniche che non vengono onestamente spiegate, magari tramite indizi segreti o tutorial, e questo un po' rovina, non tanto la prima, quanto l'esperienza del ng+.

Tuttavia, per quanto siano comprensibili queste ruvidità non eliminate dal gioco, giustificabili con il senso di continuità con l'originale, è inspiegabile come Bluepoint Games e From Software abbiano mancato l'enorme occasione di rimediare alla più grande mancanza di Demon Souls: la sesta arcipietra. Originariamente, tale livello, fu cancellato dalla produzione per una mancanza di tempo e budget, dunque sarebbe stato perfetto se fosse stato inserito in questo remake, rinato dai progetti e dagli appunti del team di From. Ciò, purtroppo, non è mai avvenuto, lasciando l'amaro in bocca non tanto a chi giocava a DS per la prima volta (me compreso), quanto ai fan di vecchia data, dai tempi PS3.

Un altro aspetto rimesso a nuovo in questo remake è la colonna sonora, sempre molto fedele all'originale ma con diverse tonalità, molto ben riuscite, che donano all'opera un'aura di maggior mistero e di una, per così dire, "epica rassegnazione", manifestata tramite le storie dei personaggi che incontreremo, la quale delineerà l'evanescente lore del mondo di Boletaria & Co.

Pertanto, a far da contraltare ad un gameplay vecchio e spigoloso, ci pensa l'eccellente direzione artistica e sonora, oltre ad una bellissima storia introspettiva ed esistenzialista, nata dalla penna di un allora inesperto (ma futuro maestro) Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Esperienza che ogni possessore di PS5 dovrebbe vivere.

"You fool... Don't you understand? No one wishes to go on..."