Of course Demon's Souls walked so Dark Souls could run. Demon's Souls feels like a partially developed idea, hints of greatness on a shoe-string budget. The game looks like a late-gen PS2 game. The music has some comical MIDI horns in it. Everything just has a charming flavor of jank to it. Five linear paths with one cut area in lieu of a proper open/interconnected world.
None of these are bad things, but it definitely feels like a game that that From would develop a more cohesive vision for successors in the future. But there are flavors present in DeS and no others, like the downplayed and frankly weird musical score, or the fact that the game's challenge is evident by the jank and lack of predicated knowledge necessary for some of the puzzle-like boss encounters. Demon's Souls feels very game-y, a feeling better or worse lost in its successors.
It's all worth looking at through, frankly. It's interesting to look back and see where a beloved series/string of games originated from, and Demon's Souls is an odd one. It's just a very weird, clunky, janky game bleeding with a fascinating dark vibe to it all.
None of these are bad things, but it definitely feels like a game that that From would develop a more cohesive vision for successors in the future. But there are flavors present in DeS and no others, like the downplayed and frankly weird musical score, or the fact that the game's challenge is evident by the jank and lack of predicated knowledge necessary for some of the puzzle-like boss encounters. Demon's Souls feels very game-y, a feeling better or worse lost in its successors.
It's all worth looking at through, frankly. It's interesting to look back and see where a beloved series/string of games originated from, and Demon's Souls is an odd one. It's just a very weird, clunky, janky game bleeding with a fascinating dark vibe to it all.