Demon's Souls

[Ludendorkk]

A thread for From Software's first, and to this gamers's eyes still best, entry in their series of seminal action RPGs.

With an upcoming remake from Bluepoint Games as flagship software for the Playstation 5, more eyes than ever will be on Hidetaka Miyazaki's first masterpiece.

Let strength be granted so that the world might be mended. Umbasa.

 

[pudik]

Im looking forward to the remake but truth be told part of why i love demons souls so much is how subdued and “standard fantasy world” it presents itself at its base and a lot of that is that its not pretty and polished. I dont want to get this thread focused on that though this is definitely a good thing and having a way to even play the game again is exciting (and with online). Have they said anything about balance changes or anything different with world tendency?

 

[Regulus]

To be honest, while I'm sure I'll enjoy the remake when it comes out, the changes in style and vision almost make me wish we were just getting a direct port with better performance. The sentiment I keep seeing is "stop whining, the original will still exist" and, like, yeah, but the original is also stuck on a console that I've had to replace twice because of hardware failure and the online features are long gone.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I never played the original, beyond one time at someone else's place I got to play from the start through the tower knight. I only got into the Soulsborne games later, and having just played Bloodborne, DeS is the only one I haven't played through now. I could find a used copy and play on the PS3 since I have access to one now - actually, maybe I should in fact do that - but the remake will let me play with all the online features (and hopefully a lot of the QoL updates that have been added to the series in the last 11 years).

 

[estragon]

FYI the community is very small but you can still play Demon's Souls online on PS3 through a fan server. It doesn't take any complicated hacking or homebrew, you just go into the menu and set the Primary DNS to 142.93.245.186.

You won't be getting a lot of random online play but it's a way to play with a friend or just to make the game feel lived-in again.

They also implemented user selectable world tendency, so if you wanted to see/do some of those events but found the system inscrutable or just too tedious/difficult to manipulate or didn't play close attention to the official world tendency holidays, you can do that more easily now.

I like Demon's a lot more than Dark Souls but I hate the look of the remake from the trailer, personally. It will be very sad when my PS3 inevitably dies.

 

[Oathbreaker]

My biggest hope for changes is that they've taken note of how Dark Souls onward abandoned the shitshow that was the upgrading system in Demon's. I still do hope it has all the upgrading options, maybe with some balance changes so a bunch of them are more worthwhile, but that absolute mess figuring out exactly where to stop upgrading to switch material types to get a different upgrade path really should not be carried forward.

But yeah, I haven't seen any actual word on changes other than the obvious visual differences. Having more convenient control over World Tendency would be super welcome. Not quite the same but an actual boss fight against the Dragon God would also be just fantastic. At least something closer to living up to that opening sequence, to maybe break the curse of horribly unfinished late game boss concepts.

I'm not sure it's my favorite of these games overall, Bloodborne hit me in a lot of the right ways. But it definitely has my favorite moments. And yeah, also somewhat disappointed with some of the style changes. The clearest example is the stone archway in the trailer that just looks old and deteriorated, whereas in the original it was straight up melted.

 

[Peklo]

This is my favourite in the series too and I'm invested enough in the specifics that every visual change shown off so far rubs me the wrong way, and the mechanical tweaks aren't even on the table yet. It's cool that it's "coming back", but it's really an entirely different thing aesthetically, so it's not really the homecoming I would've delighted in.

Not quite the same but an actual boss fight against the Dragon God would also be just fantastic. At least something closer to living up to that opening sequence, to maybe break the curse of horribly unfinished late game boss concepts.

I don't like the rhetoric that that particular approach to boss design is "unfinished" just because it doesn't follow (later) established conventions and expectations. Even if there is literal dev talk somewhere admitting to such, it doesn't remove the effect these encounters have on the character and personality of the games in how they exist in them, whatever compromises or not lead to their existence. Demon's in particular stands in stark contrast to what this series and entire popular genre it spawned eventually became, as these twitch-action flat-arena animation-tell faux-rhythm game battle gauntlets against mostly humanoid foes--the environments for the bosses are much more of an active component, many of them are more concerned with atmospheric functions over mechanical tests, and they are simple and "abusable" in ways that allow any playstyle at all to approach them on their terms. A puzzle boss like Dragon God where traversing the environment is the primary challenge is a veritable highlight for the entire game under that ethos. Precedent has shown that Bluepoint don't really alter much about the games they remake and remaster on a mechanical level, but the widespread opinion about what makes these games good runs so contrary to Demon's' nascent idiosyncracies that it's easy to be a little worried about the same revisionist treatment being reserved for those parts as the visuals already display.

 

[SpoonyGundam]

The WIP cover art for the remake is so bad that I don't really have any confidence that it isn't going to completely screw up everything that made the original interesting and unique.

 

[Issun]

Getting a serious 1980s computer RPG vibe from that cover art. I like it.

For me, I can forgive any other aesthetic missteps as long as they nail the feel of Latria.

 

[estragon]

It's possible that it's just that the various PR teams are doing a bad job representing the game and the game itself is fine.

It's really hard to judge at this point because all the imagery is from a teaser trailer and this fairly generic box art. I don't like what I've seen so far, but I have no idea if it's representative of the project as a whole.

 

[Peklo]

The WIP box art is embellished staging, of course, but the basic environment represented is the Boletarian Palace exterior; the foreboding outer wall that defines anyone's first hours with the game, so it's something that can be contrasted with the original in how it appeared:

From just this the so far observable visual trends are discernable: Demon's Souls was a game of dominant dull greens and greys, with yellowish and red tones serving as highlighting. The remake, in how it's promoted at this stage, is very cold blue in most cases in its palette. Similarly, the utilitarian, plain architecture has given way to more ornate, embellished and exaggerated structures that call to mind the later games in the series/developer's resume like Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3, and similarly the overgrown foliage filling the landscapes is something that evokes those games as well as how Bluepoint remade Shadow of the Colossus. I don't know the designers' intent for these decisions, but for relatively older games like these their system limitations had a great hand in defining their presentational style in the worlds they depicted, and this studio's approach has always seemed to be to fill in those "gaps" by having more objects and things to look at in the environment, simply because the processing power now allows that. At the very least, I hope some of the other defining aesthetic touches come through--like the highly-contrasted bloom lighting and the adept use of darkness as part of level design that the earliest games in the series did best--but those too may be perceived as artifacts of their era that need reconsideration or "fixing." It's hard to say.

 

[pudik]

Yea i do think a lot of what theyre doing reads as “making demon’s souls more properly a dark souls game” which is most frustrating for me. Demon’s lack of embellishments isnt a detriment that was unfortunately cast by hardware and im not sure theres a way to convince me otherwise. The setting is dreary and “dull” but in a completely admirable way. The same way good hi-fi costume designs are appealing. If not directly by verisimilitude its just sublimely subdued.

and yes bloom.

 

[liquid]

 

[YangusKhan]

I'm having a real hard time caring about the differences between original and remake Demon's Souls, to be honest. Perhaps it's because I was never terribly attached to the aesthetics of the original game? Like, I can understand where the differences are, but it doesn't bother me. Do I just not get it?

 

[estragon]

framerate too high, imho

 

[Alixsar]

It looks...bad? None of the attacks have any weight to them and some of the animations look too fast and others too slow. It just looks "off". WE'LL SEE. We'll see. Worst case scenario is we have ourselves a Dark Souls II-2. No big deal, DSII is still a solid B+.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh also?!!?! "Coming to PC and other consoles?" lol bye PS5, get rekt

 

[liquid]

Please just give me a port to go with this, and I will not give a shit about any changes made.

 

[Issun]

I'm having a real hard time caring about the differences between original and remake Demon's Souls, to be honest. Perhaps it's because I was never terribly attached to the aesthetics of the original game? Like, I can understand where the differences are, but it doesn't bother me. Do I just not get it?

It's fine. It looks fine. But a lot of people on here came to Demon's Souls when it was brand new and it holds a special place in their heart, and I'm not going to tell them they're wrong for not liking the differences. And I think opinions on the remake among the OG Demon's Souls crowd might be different if the original experience wasn't being relegated to hardware that's going to disappear eventually.

 

[liquid]

It's fine. It looks fine. But a lot of people on here came to Demon's Souls when it was brand new and it holds a special place in their heart, and I'm not going to tell them they're wrong for not liking the differences. And I think opinions on the remake among the OG Demon's Souls crowd might be different if the original experience wasn't being relegated to hardware that's going to disappear eventually.

It's a mix of this and the endlessly infuriating "More art is better art."

 

[YangusKhan]

I mean... I played the game when it came out too. Still doesn't bother me. That gameplay trailer looked Fine to me. Some things to keep in mind is the player killed everything in 1 hit, was only shown using a Longsword, seemed to have infinite stamina or stability, and I think they only ever used R1 attacks.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I think the camera was too low and too close so it looked a little weird to me. The high framerate made it look a little different too, and will be something to get used to, too, but that seems more because it's a PS5 game and any new Soulsborne games/Elden Ring/whatever will probably be much the same?

Again, this is as someone who picked up Dark Souls after Bloodborne existed and before DS3, if I recall correctly, so I'm not comparing with the original DeS, but with my experience with the rest of the series.

 

[SpoonyGundam]

The PC port is getting pretty widely reported now.

A moment of silence for whoever put together that trailer if it ends up being a mistake.

 

[Wheels]

but will it be good this time

 

[Alixsar]

I thought I already told you to die in obscurity! Begone from this thread, foul demon!

The camera is 100% lower and closer, and it is w e i r d. Whatever, I'll pick it up in a Steam sale for 20 bucks in 18 months, no big deal. Honestly I feel like "losing" this as a PS5 exclusive really hurts my chances of even bothering to get a PS5.

 

[Wheels]

I thought I already told you to die in obscurity! Begone from this thread, foul demon!

The camera is 100% lower and closer, and it is w e i r d. Whatever, I'll pick it up in a Steam sale for 20 bucks in 18 months, no big deal. Honestly I feel like "losing" this as a PS5 exclusive really hurts my chances of even bothering to get a PS5.

I kid I kid (mostly). I'm going to play the heck out of this like most Soulsy stuff just have a long list of things I'd love to see improved, mainly like half the bosses.

 

[keurig]

The camera is 100% lower and closer, and it is w e i r d. Whatever, I'll pick it up in a Steam sale for 20 bucks in 18 months, no big deal. Honestly I feel like "losing" this as a PS5 exclusive really hurts my chances of even bothering to get a PS5.

yeah, this really bugs the hell out of me honestly.

 

[ASandoval]

Whatever, I'll pick it up in a Steam sale for 20 bucks in 18 months, no big deal. Honestly I feel like "losing" this as a PS5 exclusive really hurts my chances of even bothering to get a PS5.

Gonna have to rethink that plan, bud.

EDIT: Rereading this article, it's actually super unclear if they mean only the 'other consoles' part was a mistake, or if the PC part was also a mistake, so maybe don't listen to me.

 

[Regulus]

But was this a "this information is wrong" or a "this information wasn't supposed to be public yet" type of human error?

 

[Oathbreaker]

I don't like the rhetoric that that particular approach to boss design is "unfinished" just because it doesn't follow (later) established conventions and expectations. Even if there is literal dev talk somewhere admitting to such, it doesn't remove the effect these encounters have on the character and personality of the games in how they exist in them, whatever compromises or not lead to their existence. Demon's in particular stands in stark contrast to what this series and entire popular genre it spawned eventually became, as these twitch-action flat-arena animation-tell faux-rhythm game battle gauntlets against mostly humanoid foes--the environments for the bosses are much more of an active component, many of them are more concerned with atmospheric functions over mechanical tests, and they are simple and "abusable" in ways that allow any playstyle at all to approach them on their terms. A puzzle boss like Dragon God where traversing the environment is the primary challenge is a veritable highlight for the entire game under that ethos. Precedent has shown that Bluepoint don't really alter much about the games they remake and remaster on a mechanical level, but the widespread opinion about what makes these games good runs so contrary to Demon's' nascent idiosyncracies that it's easy to be a little worried about the same revisionist treatment being reserved for those parts as the visuals already display.

The convention Dragon God established is a sequence of little in the way of readable goals until you just happen to get it right, in this case by avoiding the ridiculously high incoming damage that to my memory is able to 1-shot in order to reach a button which then immediately solves the fight. Bed of Chaos is almost exactly the same in terms of objective layout but with far more opportunities to randomly die in the way of two objectives on either side of the arena, and the final objective in the middle. To its credit despite being the worse off of the two in terms of work left undone, Bed of Chaos at least allows you to see the initial objectives from the start, doesn't require you to actually reach them, doesn't instantly solve the fight just for reaching one, and has more direct interaction between the creature and the player. There are signs that they were at least intending to make improvements on their second shot on what is otherwise the exact same boss. I actually prefer Bed of Chaos as a result, especially because of the interaction. But being unfinished very clearly hurt both and the overall negative effect they create for the player far outweighs the intended design effect they were intended to add to the games.

When I said actual boss fight I guess I misspoke. I didn't mean just exchanging blows like any other boss; if you reach Dragon God in the tutorial the message is clear it isn't going to go down like that. Maybe it's just me. I don't feel like either boss has a puzzle. It's just pressing buttons to the sides and rushing down the middle. What did I have to think about or solve in either case other than avoiding instant death? Dragon God I guess has more mechanical nuance between the player and the buttons, and at least still follows what the game to that point taught about the faux-rhythm attacks on the enemy's end but that's kind of it. I don't want them to NOT be puzzle bosses, but I would prefer if I felt like there was a puzzle to justify calling them that instead of the struggle being defined by whether I died instantaneously or not.

Much like how I hope they changed the upgrading system to a more sensible one and make some of the upgrade options more worthwhile, I hope Bluepoint breaks slightly with precedent to improve something that has A LOT of room for improvement.

 

[conchobhar]

By far the weirdest and most off-putting choice in this remake is to have the player grunt and groan with every action they take.