Coming into this having played the Dark Souls trilogy but not the original, Demon's Souls is a very unique and refreshing experience. As someone who doesn't like the direction From's modern games are headed in, this is the opposite. It's Dark Souls but more out there, more experimental. In some ways, that feels rough around the edges, but it also makes for a much more worthwhile experience that isn't just rehashing old ideas while missing the point of them. The level and world design here isn't as ambitious as its successor, but it's not trying to be and what's here works fine. The remake is excellent, as far as I know the gameplay is untouched, but the graphical work here is some of the prettiest I've seen, and runs much smoother than From's own games do. If I have any complaints, it's mostly that the replayability here seems limited compared to Dark Souls. There's definitely some things I want to try out still, but the bosses are much easier in general and many of them are puzzles that seem like they wouldn't be as interesting a second time around, and there's less variety of weapons/builds to use in general. One of the later game areas (4-2) was also incredibly frustrating until I looked up a way to cheese it, not looking forward to revisiting that. Overall I had a really good time with it, it's nice to have a new (to me) Souls game that doesn't feel tainted in the way the newer ones do.