I have a hard time rating demon's souls, a flawed but beautiful game that deserves more love. (This review is ramble btw). One if its most impressive aspects (or saddest revelations) to me is how even 14 years later it still manages to be fresh. The world in Demon's souls while lacking the graphics of Elden Ring or Dark Souls 3 is more alive, thoughtful, memorable and real than it ever where. Each level is a master in mood and tone creating a genuinely bleak, depressing and disgusting atmosphere. Even with this horrid atmosphere the level are still incredibly fun and engaging, having a perfect pace of new items, locations, enemies, or characters anytime the player starts getting tired of the status quo. The world feeling so real is also multiplied by the consequence of the gameplay. Demon Souls of any souls game makes an effort to make death feel impactful. Killing Characters or diying while human will decrease 'soul tendancy'. This will lock you off from getting cool weapons and make enemies harder. A very interesting mechanic when combined with the fact NPCs can often drop fantastic loot and being human doubles the health bar. And while execution of this not the best its certain a shame i think that this dropped instead of developed in the spiritual sequels.
So why is Demon Souls not seen with classic status and more as a 'stepping stone'. Well, it comes down to three flaws. (Oddly these flaws are not addressed in the remake apparently)
1. The bosses. While each one is very unique I do wish alot of them weren't so easy to cheese. Most bosses are more puzzles than tests of power. and while i dont really like the flailing arms fest we have now at least those ones have more going on once you find out their moves. In demon souls once the weakness is found its practically over. It makes alot these fights feel rather anti-climatic even with unique feel each one has.
2. is healing. Its broken. Not really much to say rather than while glad i never had to farm, always being able to heal whenever does rather cheapen each hit.
3. It big brother overshadows it. Almost everyone played Dark Souls first and while Demons is certainly more consistent in quality, Dark souls just has alot alot alot more going on in every way. So not as easy to be impressed by the game just by the fact they are about 4ish sequels that either do everything better or bigger.
Overall an 8/9 out of ten for me. If you hava half-decent modern PC install rpcs3 and boot it up. Great for beginners of the genre and for long-time veterans.
So why is Demon Souls not seen with classic status and more as a 'stepping stone'. Well, it comes down to three flaws. (Oddly these flaws are not addressed in the remake apparently)
1. The bosses. While each one is very unique I do wish alot of them weren't so easy to cheese. Most bosses are more puzzles than tests of power. and while i dont really like the flailing arms fest we have now at least those ones have more going on once you find out their moves. In demon souls once the weakness is found its practically over. It makes alot these fights feel rather anti-climatic even with unique feel each one has.
2. is healing. Its broken. Not really much to say rather than while glad i never had to farm, always being able to heal whenever does rather cheapen each hit.
3. It big brother overshadows it. Almost everyone played Dark Souls first and while Demons is certainly more consistent in quality, Dark souls just has alot alot alot more going on in every way. So not as easy to be impressed by the game just by the fact they are about 4ish sequels that either do everything better or bigger.
Overall an 8/9 out of ten for me. If you hava half-decent modern PC install rpcs3 and boot it up. Great for beginners of the genre and for long-time veterans.