Demon's Souls (PS5) is quite possibly the worst example of a remake ever. Bluepoint have completely misunderstood the complex emotions, atmosphere and vibe that makes the original such an incredible piece of art.

To understand why Demon’s Souls (PS5) fails as a remake, we need to look at the contexts in which we view souls games. The prevailing discussion around the soulsborne series categorises their sole existence as games that gamers play to show how good they are at games. This culture pushes away the capacity of discussion around the artistic merits of each individual game and instead pushes people to view the games on an entirely mechanical level. Because of this, the original Demon’s Souls is viewed entirely as a proto-souls, where its merits as a work of art are discarded because the only significance it has as a game is that it created the mechanical basis for “better” games.

While I plan to write another essay on why Demon’s Souls (PS3) is one of my favourite artistic statements in gaming later on, I'll summarise here what makes the original so special. Demon's Souls at its core is a game about human greed and power. We arrive into Boletaria after the main events of its downfall have already occurred and are effectively set to roam around the wastes, picking up clues of what happened along the way. To many Souls fans, the lorebuilding may feel comparatively tame in Demon’s Souls but I personally feel it works to its benefit, as the game expects the player to come to their own terms on what led to Boletaria's destruction. Demon's Souls (PS3) uses full advantage of the graphical standards and techniques of the seventh generation to create a dense atmosphere that feels in line with the circumstances of its world. Boletaria is shrouded by deep fog because the demons are killing the inhabitants of Boletaria to harvest their souls to be consumed by an entity named the old one. The old one was awoken by king allant while his kingdom was in prosperity because he felt that the outer kingdoms in the world needed to be put out of their misery, when they were simply impoverished and in need of support. This contextualises the game’s dense (and arguably limited) foggy graphical style as the direct outcome of the atrocities that happen at the expense of the king’s hubris.

Meanwhile, Demon's Souls (PS5) sheds the visual style of the original to create nothing more than a showcase of modern hardware. Where once was a very uniquely grim colour palette of muted oranges, greens and very occasionally blue is now grey with a bright blue filter over literally everything. The nexus in PS3 is gorgeous, the walls are very abundantly textured, the lighting is subdued and golden runes adorn the floors, which I feel excellently conveys the nature of this being a long forgotten temple existing as an ethereal plane. On the other hand, PS5’s nexus just blasts you with beams of blue light coming from the roof of the structure, with the golden runes now being a weird orange LED colour rather than the ornamented look of the original. Areas in the remake massively suffer from having the lights look like RGB gamer lights than actual lights, which makes any area that tries to contrast two colours with each other look much gaudier than it should. Another horrible example of this is the Dragon God fight, where the pure red hellish look completely annihilates the visual distinction that the fight was trying to make with its contemporaries in the original in exchange for a generic western fantasy volcano area aesthetic. I think the only area that looks visually appealing in the entire game is the outside of Stonefang Tunnel, where the dusty oranges work in the favour of the atmosphere of the level although this is extremely brief and is ruined by the game's lighting of bloodstains and messages.

The UI of Demon’s Souls (PS5) is maybe the most indicative of where Bluepoint have gone wrong artistically. PS3's UI and HUD are extremely unique as far as games go. The font is skeuomorphic to the writing that would actually exist in world. It comes off as incredibly charming and it’s something that only the original Dark Souls (bar remastered) has attempted in the series since. In addition, the textured grey bars of the menus fit extremely well with the overall artstyle of the game. even the muted red they picked for the selection bar fits the palette in a very dulcet manner. The hud itself also fits the game perfectly. it's adorned with these strange silver demon signs which feel like they represent the resurrective pact you have been inflicted with. Meanwhile, PS5’s UI and HUD goes for a modernised, minimalist approach. it’s hard for me to even say anything about it without becoming enraged, this design choice feels like it exists entirely to appeal to the crowd of Playstation fanboys that think completely uncritically about a game unless it has a woman or LGBT person in it. The font in PS5 looks genuinely disgusting, it’s like they tried to reach a middle point with choosing between a fully minimalist sans serif and something like the original but ended up going with one of those original Google Docs ones. The hud elements have flat outlines and colours that massively contrast with the game's visuals. it adds to the visually overwhelming nature of the remake which is kinda oxymoronic to the intent of the minimalist design.

One of the fundamental reasons why Demon’s Souls would need a remake is quite honestly the combat. I personally adore it, but it is very clunky and jank and thus doesn’t really allow the general souls audience to engage with the game. This is why I think Bluepoint’s decision to keep combat entirely the same is absolutely baffling. it causes the animations to look horrible with the modernised models and it leaves the game worse off in all aspects. The choice to limit moongrass storage is in theory a good change, but it doesn’t really do anything to alter the game’s flawed healing system and instead just adds more grinding to the game. Bluepoint had the opportunity to do so much more with the combat, to speed it up or to at least rework a few elements but they instead did absolutely nothing.

Finally, I'd like to talk about the audio of both games. Demon's Souls (PS3)’s ost is my absolute favourite of the series. Shunsuke Kida focuses on the ways melody can evoke certain emotions in boss fights to excellent effect, which is made much more potent by the smaller orchestra giving a feeling much more intimate than the other souls games’ soundtracks. As is tradition with this remake, Bill Hemstapat's rearrangements are such an insane downgrade that it’s hard to really understand the thought process behind the choices here. These arrangements feature a larger orchestra with an immense amount of reverb over them that dissociate any emotion or feeling from the tracks at all. For example, the character creation theme in PS3 is a polyphonic and smooth textured synth based composition (unique from the rest of the ost) that gives a very calming, ethereal vibe. On the other hand, PS5 replaces the synths with piano, strings and vocals which just makes the composition lack the solitary and ethereal vibe that made it special. The voice acting of demon’s souls (PS5), while not always as egregious as the other elements of the game, does ruin the ending of the remake entirely. In PS3, when you beat King Allant he says his line in a very solemn tone that feels incredibly impactful knowing his circumstance. Meanwhile in ps5, he sounds like he’s pushing his throat up in order to sound like a muppet. It is maybe the worst attempt at a line read I have ever heard, the fact they put it in the game is absolutely baffling and indicative of how little they care for the emotional clarity of the game.

Demon’s Souls PS5 has ruined a game I hold dear to my heart and the fact it will probably be viewed and used as the main archival for the game (even probably coming to PC at some point) is a tragedy.