A lot of people attribute the popularity explosion of “Souls-like” games to the original Dark Souls, but it is not actually FromSoftware’s first experience with the genre. That honor belongs to Demon’s Souls, originally sort of a cult classic that was exclusive to the PS3, released more than a decade ago back in 2009. It did not achieve the same mainstream success as Dark Souls did when it first released, which is probably due to its console exclusivity (whereas all FromSoftware’s major titles since have been cross-platform releases). Choosing to remake this game as one of the PS5’s launch titles was an interesting choice, but ultimately a choice I was fine with because I am always excited to play a new(?) FromSoftware title (technically developed by Bluepoint Games as they are the studio in charge of the remake), having never played the original due to not owning any Sony console until the PS5. After playing through the entire game once then dabbling a bit with NG+, I will say that the new Demon’s Souls is an excellent game; after all it ultimately started the FromSoftware dynasty of making phenomenal games that were notoriously challenging but immensely rewarding to experience. That being said, as a remake I am not particularly impressed, and frankly charging $70 for what is ultimately a game made back in 2009 is a rip-off.
The remake of Demon’s Souls differs from the original in a few different ways, with a focus on improved graphics, haptic feedback support, and a few quality-of-life changes including an update to its online system and omni-directional rolling (a change that one will also find in the remastered Dark Souls). Easily the best part of the remake is the visual upgrade; the game looks fantastic, so I will give credit where credit is due. The changes to the online also make a lot of sense, and it uses a very similar system to Dark Souls 3’s online multiplayer. The player needs to be in “human” form to summon other players for cooperation, and can either summon their friends through a password system or complete randoms. Invasions and duels work in a similar system, and use Soul Level matching to ensure fair (or as close as it gets to fair) match-making. Those aside, the core gameplay is essentially the same; you’re basically playing the same game from 2009 albeit with a nice coat of paint, and this is frankly my biggest disappointment with the remake, and why I ultimately do not believe its $70 price tag is justified. I frankly do not care about haptic feedback and think it is essentially a fancy gimmick that just drains my controller’s battery life unnecessarily, and while I do think visuals are important, I ultimately prioritize gameplay way more, especially for a Souls-like game. Perhaps my expectations of a remake are too high (I was envisioning something more among the lines of the Resident Evil and Final Fantasy remakes), and perhaps it was Bluepoint Games’ vision to try and keep the game as close to the original as possible. That is a completely fair take, but that begs the question of the $70 price tag of a PS5 exclusive.
Gameplay:
With all that in mind, how does the gameplay of a game made from 2009 hold up? With omni-directional rolling it is honestly still very good, albeit I can clearly feel the age in some aspects, especially when I have the newer Souls-like games to compare to. The combat feels very similar to the remastered Dark Souls, so it is definitely still solid, albeit pretty slow compared to newer FromSoftware releases like Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne (or even Sekiro, but Sekiro is honestly a very different beast). What is pretty cool is that while playing through the game, I could tell how this game would inspire the Souls franchise through spotting the similarities in level and even enemy designs. On the flip side, it can be viewed as a regression as a lot of the enemy/level designs in the later Souls titles are definitely a lot better than in Demon’s Souls. A lot of the bosses have simplistic move-sets and are not very difficult (at least until NG+, where the difficulty spikes and suddenly bosses turn into meat-shields) and can usually be trivialized by just staying behind them, and the most popular way of making the levels themselves difficult is to just funnel the player into a narrow corridor or walkway. The worst part of the game is going through tunnels or narrow chambers, because every time I would swing my weapon it would clank off the walls (honestly this is an extremely stupid mechanic and for some reason it has persisted in all the future Souls games). Going through the levels themselves is generally more difficult than most of the bosses, as archstones are only available after a boss, so dying feels a lot more punishing as that means more progress is lost.
One of the more interesting mechanics about Demon’s Souls that is not present in the future Souls games is the tendency mechanic. There is World Tendency and Character Tendency, and those basically represent the game’s morality system. Doing “good” things like slaying demons and defeating Black Phantoms will shift tendency towards white, and doing “bad” things like dying in human form or killing non-aggressive NPC’s will shift tendency towards black. Depending on how black or white the tendency is, players will experience different effects as they go through the game, and there are some areas that will only become available to explore if the world is either pure black or white. The same goes for the player; a player with white tendency will be stronger in soul form (the form the player takes after dying as a human) while players with black soul tendency will be weaker, but will be stronger as a phantom when invading other players’ worlds. I think it is a somewhat interesting mechanic, but due to how easy it is to unintentionally manipulate it can be a headache to maintain for players who wish to keep their character/world at a certain tendency.
Core gameplay aside, my biggest gripe with Demon’s Souls is its inventory management system, or mainly the fact that I actually need to actively manage it in the first place. The reason behind it is due to the fact that Demon’s Souls does not use the Estus Flask healing mechanic that all the later FromSoftware games would utilize; the player heals via “grasses” which are consumable pick-ups that are found either in the world or dropped by enemies as opposed to a set number of heals that refreshes with every “reset” of the world via death/bonfire. Thus the inventory capacity, which prevents players from cheesing the game by farming an insane amount of healing consumables. However, this makes picking up other items a pain, especially armor sets and weapons as those usually weigh the most, and worn equipment still counts towards the limit. Fortunately, FromSoftware learned how dumb that was for a game that focuses so much on exploration, and got rid of the inventory limit in future titles.
Ending Thoughts:
I am not going to bother adding a section dedicated to Demon’s Souls writing because honestly it’s like the other Souls games: the world has gone to shit and to save it the player has go around and kill everything, as if that makes things better somehow, though this game in particular focuses on demons. I never played any of the FromSoftware titles because of their compelling narratives, and the same applies to Demon’s Souls.
All in all, Demon’s Souls still offers the core “Dark Souls” experience of satisfying combat and difficult encounters that have drawn so many fans to the series/genre, but playing this game as a Souls veteran made me appreciate some of the changes that the newer games would bring along. It is a game I wholeheartedly recommend to both Souls veterans and people new to the genre, but not at retail value for the various reasons mentioned earlier. If it was a remake on the tier of the Final Fantasy VII Remake, it would easily be worth $70, but at the end of the day it is a decade-old game with a new coat of paint on it.
Rating: Kind of a rip-off at the PS5 exclusive retail value, but definitely worth it with a good sale.
