I can definitely see why this would become the highly regarded classic that it did for its time. Yes, the controls are dated, as are the visuals, but it still holds up! I love it when an old classic game I’ve never played before is still as much fun to play as a lot of modern games.

Exploration, level design and atmosphere are what make this game truly shine. I feel it’s redundant to criticise the tank controls as they where fully intended to work that way in conjunction with the way the environments are designed. The downside is the combat, which usually resorts to just standing/strafing whilst holding down the action button and then waiting until the enemies are dead. The mummies in particular are just brutal to fight.

In terms of the remastered version, I think they did a great job with the visuals, though that is more or less where the praise stops. This feels more like a port than a proper remaster. I was looking forward to using the camera mode, but there’s very little options for you to use. The modern controls are frankly terrible with no way to side/back flip and the camera goes off the rails in confined spaces.
Compared to other remasters like Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy/CTR Nitro Fuelled, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver etc, there’s just not a lot of newish content for you to play and unlock.

Still I had a lot of fun. My god is it difficult though! I kinda miss this era of PS1 games that weren’t watered down and fully embraced their own charm.

I haven’t played any of its successors yet so I can’t really make a grand comparison, but I can see why this would be a lot of people’s least favourite in the series. There are a few nagging flaws here and there that definitely make it imperfect, but overall it’s still a Soulsborne game at the end of the day, so I still had an absolute blast playing it.

My reservations with this game actually started right off the bat; the decision to not only remove a starting supply of Estus Flasks but to also make the healing time gradual rather than instantaneous really irked me during the first few hours of the game.
The map and level design, whilst still looking incredible and maintaining that foreboding atmosphere, didn’t feel as satisfying as the level design of the first game. Where in that game you often looped back around to a previous area after exploring a new one, usually finding a shortcut or two and experiencing that eureka moment, this game’s map has more linear and branching paths. I also often found myself feeling lost and wondering where to go next after reaching a dead end or beating a boss.
The bosses I also thought were mostly a joke and often forgettable. I’d say 80% of them (particularly in the first half) I managed to easily beat on the first try and then stood there afterwards thinking “That was it? That was the whole boss!?” I noticed a lot of them are of a similar design; often boasting the armoured knight with a shield and weapon look. Compare this to the first Dark Souls where each boss was vastly different from the last and I remember every single one of them and how I felt after I beat each of them.

But again, I still very much enjoyed my time playing it. The moment to moment combat and exploration is still what makes this such a superb game and the bosses definitely get more challenging as it goes on; Vendrick was a particular highlight.
It’s addictive and the best games usually are.