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

By Tim Augustin - 5 Feb 2021

Just in case you forgot: this was once an old game

The good bits, continued

The Nexus acts as a safe haven, populated with NPCs that you can rescue throughout your journey. You'll want to seek them out, as they can really help out in bringing you new items, spells and miracles. All for a price, of course.

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

Please don't zap me, Mind Flayer.

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. 

If you're having difficulty with bosses, you could always summon other players to join the fight in multiplayer. I never ended up doing so, partly because I have no Demon's Souls-playing friends. At least now I can help THEM out, though.

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

The bosses are nothing much to shout about, but this game's atmosphere is gripping.

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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8.5
  • Playability 8
  • Graphics 10
  • Sound 9.5
  • Addictiveness 9
  • Value 9
The Good
Visually breathtaking
Fantastic audio design
Lots of build variety
Tons of environmental and enemy variety
The Bad
Enemies and bosses are very dumb
Lock-on camera can be frustrating
World Tendency is weirdly obtuse
Deaths can feel rather cheap
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