Demon's Souls (Remake) Review: A gloriously punishing showcase for the PlayStation 5

“Soul of the lost, withdrawn from its vessel.”

FromSoftware’s Souls franchise took off after the debut of Dark Souls, thanks to its brutally challenging gameplay and set piece boss fights that hit mainstream players like a sledgehammer. Dark Souls wasn’t the first installment of this franchise, however. No, everything began with a little game called Demon’s Souls on the PlayStation 3. A cult classic that eventually fought its way into the hearts of masochists everywhere. 

Now, developer Bluepoint Games have given the 2009 title a jaw-droppingly gorgeous makeover, the same as they had previously done for Shadow of the Colossus on the PlayStation 4. Demon’s Souls is a PlayStation 5 launch exclusive, and while its high difficulty might turn players away, it serves as the best technical showpiece for the console’s capabilities that currently exists. Some aspects of the game, such as its level design and build variety, have aged superbly well. Others…? Not so much. 

You have died (however, the Nexus traps you) 

I came into Demon’s Souls from a strange angle. My first real foray into the Souls franchise was with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice a couple months ago, which is a game I have yet to complete but am thoroughly loving. In the middle of my playthrough, I received this game to review - and going all the way back to the first Souls game right after Sekiro felt like I was flipping through FromSoftware’s old baby pictures. “Aww… this is before you really figured it all out, huh? Cute!”

I’ll get back to why it feels that way in a bit. Demon’s Souls places players in the grim, medieval world of Boletaria. This once-great fantastical kingdom has been chewed up and spat back out by the Old One, a malicious entity released by (the very dumb) King Allant. The Old One has brought with it an endless army of demons that have engulfed Boletaria and it’s up to you, a restless seeker of adventure, to slay King Allant and return the Old One to its slumber. 

Don’t expect the narrative of Demon’s Souls to do anything for you - at least, not at first. It’s largely forgotten about for tens of hours at a time as you traverse worlds and slay demons. Instead, the game relies on a heavy atmosphere to keep you engaged, laying it on so thick that it often borders on oppressive. Bluepoint Games have done incredible work in bringing Boletaria to life, etching beautiful layers of detail into these winding environments and their crumbling monuments. While I understand that some visual changes for certain enemies have irked old fans, I found myself constantly blown away by their work.

The particle effects on bosses like the Flamelurker and the little animations on enemies and their attacks (such as the Mind Flayers’ writhing tentacles) make this one of the best-looking games I have ever played. The lighting is also gorgeous, especially in areas like the Boletarian Palace where cracks in the ceiling illuminate otherwise dingy-looking corridors - and the enemies residing within them. Bluepoint has provided two visual options: a 4K/30fps Cinematic Mode and a 1440p (upscaled to 4K)/60fps Performance Mode. I vastly preferred Performance Mode, as it is very, very hard to go back from playing a Souls game at a buttery smooth 60fps, but your mileage may vary. In both modes, the game looks incredible. 

The sound design deserves equal praise. Weapons sound fantastic, with in-game audio adding a satisfyingly meaty level of impact to each hit. Backstabs for example, sound like a grotesque blend of crunching bones and parting flesh. Magic users like me will cast the Soul Arrow spell a thousand times before the game is over and never get tired of it, because of how damn good it sounds and feels. The DualSense controller is well integrated into gameplay as well, with immersive rumbles and haptic feedback that feel accurate to whatever’s happening on screen. Brutal executions, massive area-of-effect spells and melee attacks all have so much weight due to the perfect combination of audio design and (literal) game feel. 

The controller’s rumblings can feel a little out of place when you walk into a wooden crate and it acts like a gas canister just exploded, but that’s just dumb destruction physics for you. 

You have a heart of gold, don’t let them take it from you

When we’re talking about Demon’s Souls’ moment-to-moment gameplay, things can get a little bit complicated. You see, while Bluepoint Games put an impressive amount of work into updating how the game looks and sounds, they mostly left its gameplay intact. This means that underneath this game’s very pretty skin lie the crusty bones of a 12-year-old videogame. And you can feel that. 

We’ll talk about the good bits first. After probably spending an egregious amount of time in the game’s character creator (which is wonderfully extensive), you get the option of selecting different classes to start playing as. This introduces you to one of the game’s most fundamental rules: pick a role, and stick with it. You gather ‘souls’ from killing demons, and can trade those souls to level up in the game’s hub world, the Nexus. When you level up, you get the option of upgrading a single character stat, ranging from ‘Strength’ to ‘Magic’. 

It’s important that you don’t try to equally distribute your levels across all these stats, because in this game especially, being a jack of all trades makes you a master of none. Instead, you really have to figure what kind of combat you prefer to engage in - close quarters with a massive sword, or far-off with ranged spells. Levelling up gets exponentially more expensive the more you do it, but if you strategise in advance, you can really maximise your strength in a specific role. Building a character up from scratch like this feels incredibly satisfying, especially when you start to one-shot enemies that gave you lots of trouble just a while ago.

The good bits, continued

Being able to tackle this game a number of different ways adds a lot to replayability. The five explorable worlds also feel completely separate from one another thematically, introducing new enemies, environments and items into the mix. There is no specific level order, meaning that you can jump from one world to another at your leisure. It feels a lot like taking down shrines before you come at Ganon in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. That sort of open-ended exploration has aged very well. 

Demon’s Souls is where FromSoftware cut their teeth on adapting Metroidvania gameplay in their level design, and while imperfect in execution, their genius still shines through. Every level has just one checkpoint, and that’s where you spawn into. When you die, you lose all your hard-earned souls and return to the very start of the level. There are zero mid-area checkpoints. Certain levels might only take around 20 minutes to run through and complete, so that’s okay - but others might take closer to an hour. 

All of this can make levels feel like impossible gauntlets of pain, but don’t lose hope. Labyrinthian environments come together in such a satisfying way through exploration, as you slowly discover their many shortcuts and alternate routes. A level might take forty minutes to go through at first, but after just one death could take you two minutes. Basically: Demon’s Souls isn’t as hard as you might think. If it ever feels like you’re banging your head against a wall, there are usually ways around that wall if you take your time and explore. 

Just 2009 things

Bluepoint Games chose to stay as faithful as possible to the original Demon’s Souls, which means that it’s got some 12-year-old problems that haven’t been ironed out. For example, the lock-on camera here can actually work against you in combat rather than assist you. Locking onto certain enemies’ body parts is key to doing damage - but the camera can randomly decide to target something else and render your attack useless. Bosses like the Tower Knight are a pain to fight with this damn thing on because it’s so erratic, hurting visibility when you need it the most.

At this point, it’s going to feel like I’m criticising the 2009 game rather than the remake - but parts of the game have straight-up aged badly, especially by FromSoftware’s own standards. Take the World Tendency mechanic, for example. Each world has a World Tendency level that can shift to black or white depending on your actions. In either World Tendency level, parts of the world become uncovered to reveal otherwise unobtainable items. If you die too much in human form, the World’s Tendency shifts to black and stronger enemies spawn so you… die more. Game balance! What’s hilarious about this is that players often kill themselves in the Nexus to specifically avoid tainting any world’s Tendency level. Players are literally killing themselves to avoid a game mechanic, think about that for a minute. 

Demon’s Souls’ high difficulty sometimes falls on the player in very cheap ways. Death punishes your lack of skill in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which is something you then sharpen after repeated runs. It has a clear and defined purpose. In Demon’s Souls, death is often just the result of a game trying its best to screw with you. It’s almost comedic sometimes, like when you run out onto a bridge and a dragon suddenly lights you on fire. Cramped corridors and narrow cliff sides plague this game like a disease, causing more than one unfun enemy encounter. Melee characters will have trouble in corridor-ridden levels like Prison of Hope, where your swords bounce off walls and leave you vulnerable to powerful enemies. It’s frustrating, and not in the game’s usually fun way. 

Enemy AI is laughably bad, which almost always works in your favour, so this is barely a complaint really. They take ages to notice the player, which is probably why the game stuffs so many of them behind doors - just so they can take you by surprise for once. Pathing is also really weird, resulting in enemies that get stuck behind walls because they simply don’t know how to turn a corner. The worst part? All these AI issues are especially prevalent in the game’s bosses. A good 60% of them are just big dummies.

FromSoft bosses are usually a big deal. They’re setpieces by themselves, huge encounters that test skill and present glorious challenges for the player to overcome. Bluepoint brought all of these bosses to gorgeous, vivid life - but the bosses themselves are simple-minded pushovers. All of them, and I mean all of them are ridiculously easy to cheese - especially if you decide to pursue ranged or magic builds. Bosses like the Maneater(s) are shocking in their brokenness, often attacking the player from under the floor or getting stuck behind statues. Even if you take the finicky AI out of the equation, these bosses aren’t super difficult. The infamous Flamelurker is weirdly easy to slay once you learn to time dodges, and sometimes it just forgoes attacking for no reason. The problem is that these bosses cap off gruelling gauntlets full of challenging enemies, but they end up feeling like disappointing anticlimaxes rather than spectacular finales. 

From grinding for health items to fighting in cramped corridors, Demon’s Souls serves as a reminder that this was FromSoft’s imperfect first go at the Souls franchise. They went on to do much bigger and better things, learning from each game by covering up weaknesses and improving on their strengths. It still acts as the perfect gateway for newcomers to the Souls franchise though, I’ll give you that. It’s almost impossible to avoid binging on FromSoft games after finishing this one. 

Verdict

Demon’s Souls is a visual feast on the PlayStation 5, and a joyously addictive experience despite its decade-old issues. Bluepoint Games have done tremendous work in breathing new life into this game, leveraging the DualSense’s fancy new capabilities and the console’s quick loading to bring in even the most Souls-averse player like myself into the fray. It’s one of the most simultaneously beautiful and harrowing games I have ever played, and I honestly can’t keep myself away from it.

The white fog beckons, slayers of Demons. I’ll see you on the other side. 

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