This review contains spoilers
I've seen a lot of takes that the ps5 remake has "ruined" the atmosphere of this gem, but while i do believe it goes for a different approach, where it significantly improves over the original is the actual gameplay. This isn't in the sense that they fixed the ai of broken bosses (maneaters are still ass) or that the combat has been changed to fit the more modern approach, but in the sense that actually playing this game in its original state, let alone achieving 100% completion, is one of the most miserable experiences i've ever had in gaming.
The original ps3 version's trophy list was something that i can only define as pure evil, whether that be killing stupidly annoying or boring enemies such as the blue dragon (not the red one, the blue one) in boletaria and Old King Doran, or through mindlessly grinding away and balancing out world and character tendencies to fulfill specific character questlines. While after playing and completing the remake the origial had me meet 1-4 at around 13 hours of playtime, i decided that then and there would be the point that i would grind out every trophy i reasonably could, This ranged from beforehand killing myself in the nexus continuously to make sure every world was in PWWT, to then experience all of the world tendency events, due to some of the rewarded items or areas needing to be done to fulfil achievements, to then painstakingly killing myself in each world, farming stones of ephemeral eyes from the black phantom outside the dirty collosus bossroom in 5-2, which i needed to do to increase all of the droprates of the rare materials i needed. pure bladestone took me 5-6 hours alone, not helped by me accidently levelling my luck stat to 20. Then, after all the material grinding, i had to kill all primeval demons and black phantoms to get my CT into pure white and obtain the friend ring from the monumental, and also obtain colourless demon souls to buy a miracle and level up my weapon of choice, the DBS. long story short, i didn't reach NG+ until 44 hours, and had to then experience the most poorly balanced NG+ ive ever seen in a video game. I finally clocked in with the plat trophy at 55 hours on the dot, and would personally put it just behind DS3 as the worst game to 100% in the fromsoftware souls like franchise.
While i will say that the atmosphere was nice, the amount of prep work and factors that go into 100%ing this game, and also just having a reasonably good experience with said game, leads me to rank the original and the ps5 remake around the same ballpark, with myself probably going back to the ps5 more often.
The original ps3 version's trophy list was something that i can only define as pure evil, whether that be killing stupidly annoying or boring enemies such as the blue dragon (not the red one, the blue one) in boletaria and Old King Doran, or through mindlessly grinding away and balancing out world and character tendencies to fulfill specific character questlines. While after playing and completing the remake the origial had me meet 1-4 at around 13 hours of playtime, i decided that then and there would be the point that i would grind out every trophy i reasonably could, This ranged from beforehand killing myself in the nexus continuously to make sure every world was in PWWT, to then experience all of the world tendency events, due to some of the rewarded items or areas needing to be done to fulfil achievements, to then painstakingly killing myself in each world, farming stones of ephemeral eyes from the black phantom outside the dirty collosus bossroom in 5-2, which i needed to do to increase all of the droprates of the rare materials i needed. pure bladestone took me 5-6 hours alone, not helped by me accidently levelling my luck stat to 20. Then, after all the material grinding, i had to kill all primeval demons and black phantoms to get my CT into pure white and obtain the friend ring from the monumental, and also obtain colourless demon souls to buy a miracle and level up my weapon of choice, the DBS. long story short, i didn't reach NG+ until 44 hours, and had to then experience the most poorly balanced NG+ ive ever seen in a video game. I finally clocked in with the plat trophy at 55 hours on the dot, and would personally put it just behind DS3 as the worst game to 100% in the fromsoftware souls like franchise.
While i will say that the atmosphere was nice, the amount of prep work and factors that go into 100%ing this game, and also just having a reasonably good experience with said game, leads me to rank the original and the ps5 remake around the same ballpark, with myself probably going back to the ps5 more often.