The remake of Demon's Souls is seriously gorgeous, easily one of the best looking games on the market as of right now and its not all glitter and godrays, artistically its genuinely a huge achievement, reinvigorating a classic and bringing to life its damp, dark and depressing world - from the massive architecture of a decaying empire to frightening marshlands and twisting caverns. On top of this the animations are punchy and satisfying and the games' particle effects are insanely detailed and realistic, serving this games' visuals beyond just pointless polish.
Despite this, however, Demon's Souls can feel like a pretty style over substance game at times and from what I understand, it is very true to the original game for better or worse. Demon's Souls was the start of something more and its really cool to see where many of the ideas later expanded upon in future souls titles began with its familiar environments and bosses. This doesn't mean Demon's Souls is redundant, not at all - at best its not only a fascinating glimpse into where it all began, but its absolutely still filled with its own unique charm, spectacles and encounters. At worst, however, it has some pretty frustrating and questionable game mechanics, disappointing boss fights that now feel a little lacking in presence / impact and a couple of annoying areas. Dark Souls made changes in a lot of the right places, such as replacing grass consumables for healing with estus, eliminating the need for farming healing items (a dull chore) and providing more convenient checkpoints among many other things, but there's still merit and intrigue to Demon's Souls approach at times. Needing to overcome an area and boss to earn your next checkpoint and having death be so much more punishing made traversing its environments and taking out enemies feel just a bit more impactful, but I doubt i'd feel this way if i'd not played several souls titles before this one (this one can feel like a brutal challenge in a pretty different sense).
Demon's Souls is also a much more linear game, occurring before Dark Souls really changed everything with its sprawling interconnected world-building. Again this has its own merit but it can make the experience feel quite a bit different. While this might tone down those personal feelings of wonder and discovery later established in Dark Souls, the visual set-pieces and unique flavour of each of demon's souls environments still really shines. I particularly loved upper latria with its astonishing sense of verticality where you're just towering over the world and the entirety of world 1 as you move through the gorgeous yet brutally hostile kingdom of Boletaria. Saying this there's also some right stinkers like the swamp of sorrow, possibly one of my least favourite areas of all the fromsoft games i've played, just a long, tedious and incredibly difficult area to get through. It also doesn't even make up for it with how its presented, this area has nothing going for it really and served as clear inspiration for another shitty area in Dark Souls (Blighttown), which makes me dislike it even more haha.
Despite some of its amazing visuals and massive merit as 'the game that started it all', I do kind of wish Demon's Souls was more 'fun' as an actual game. With how extraordinarily punishing it can feel and not always in ways that feel fair or earned, I found getting satisfaction and enjoyment in its gameplay pretty rare when compared to what followed. As previously mentioned, the boss fights in this game are pretty lame, almost all of them can be beaten by walking or rolling behind them and swinging a few times, or from the looks of it, spamming spells in a corner. Bosses in later Souls titles kinda fixed this for the most part. Saying this there are some pretty cool gimmick bosses, such as the old hero who is blind and you can take advantage of this and the storm king, a giant flying manta ray fight in which you need to find a special sky rending weapon in order to fight back.
While still feeling like a product of its time and a real testament to how far the series has come, this remake makes changes in a lot of the right places from what i've read, with its stunning graphical and technological enhancements and welcome quality of life changes. This is one for more hardened fans of the series and this style of gameplay though, since I think some of its core design decisions will alienate players in ways even later souls titles might not. It didn't take me too long at all to finish but like all souls games it has real replay value so who knows, I might come back to it one day.
7/10
Despite this, however, Demon's Souls can feel like a pretty style over substance game at times and from what I understand, it is very true to the original game for better or worse. Demon's Souls was the start of something more and its really cool to see where many of the ideas later expanded upon in future souls titles began with its familiar environments and bosses. This doesn't mean Demon's Souls is redundant, not at all - at best its not only a fascinating glimpse into where it all began, but its absolutely still filled with its own unique charm, spectacles and encounters. At worst, however, it has some pretty frustrating and questionable game mechanics, disappointing boss fights that now feel a little lacking in presence / impact and a couple of annoying areas. Dark Souls made changes in a lot of the right places, such as replacing grass consumables for healing with estus, eliminating the need for farming healing items (a dull chore) and providing more convenient checkpoints among many other things, but there's still merit and intrigue to Demon's Souls approach at times. Needing to overcome an area and boss to earn your next checkpoint and having death be so much more punishing made traversing its environments and taking out enemies feel just a bit more impactful, but I doubt i'd feel this way if i'd not played several souls titles before this one (this one can feel like a brutal challenge in a pretty different sense).
Demon's Souls is also a much more linear game, occurring before Dark Souls really changed everything with its sprawling interconnected world-building. Again this has its own merit but it can make the experience feel quite a bit different. While this might tone down those personal feelings of wonder and discovery later established in Dark Souls, the visual set-pieces and unique flavour of each of demon's souls environments still really shines. I particularly loved upper latria with its astonishing sense of verticality where you're just towering over the world and the entirety of world 1 as you move through the gorgeous yet brutally hostile kingdom of Boletaria. Saying this there's also some right stinkers like the swamp of sorrow, possibly one of my least favourite areas of all the fromsoft games i've played, just a long, tedious and incredibly difficult area to get through. It also doesn't even make up for it with how its presented, this area has nothing going for it really and served as clear inspiration for another shitty area in Dark Souls (Blighttown), which makes me dislike it even more haha.
Despite some of its amazing visuals and massive merit as 'the game that started it all', I do kind of wish Demon's Souls was more 'fun' as an actual game. With how extraordinarily punishing it can feel and not always in ways that feel fair or earned, I found getting satisfaction and enjoyment in its gameplay pretty rare when compared to what followed. As previously mentioned, the boss fights in this game are pretty lame, almost all of them can be beaten by walking or rolling behind them and swinging a few times, or from the looks of it, spamming spells in a corner. Bosses in later Souls titles kinda fixed this for the most part. Saying this there are some pretty cool gimmick bosses, such as the old hero who is blind and you can take advantage of this and the storm king, a giant flying manta ray fight in which you need to find a special sky rending weapon in order to fight back.
While still feeling like a product of its time and a real testament to how far the series has come, this remake makes changes in a lot of the right places from what i've read, with its stunning graphical and technological enhancements and welcome quality of life changes. This is one for more hardened fans of the series and this style of gameplay though, since I think some of its core design decisions will alienate players in ways even later souls titles might not. It didn't take me too long at all to finish but like all souls games it has real replay value so who knows, I might come back to it one day.
7/10
Reviewed on Aug 05, 2022