Demon's Souls Remake

[KIss My Ass]

Been playing the shit out of it these past few days. It's rad. Don't mind most of the design changes save for Old Hero. He looks like a crappy anime character that doesn't fit into the game.The game is fuckload easier than I remember it but I'm assuming that comes with over a decade of Soulsborne experience. The most difficult bosses, Flamelurker and Maneaters, only took me 2 and 3 tries. I breezed right through. Now all I have left is Valley of Defilement and King Allant.

It looks and sounds absolutely incredible. I booted up Elden Ring after playing this for hours and the difference was staggering.

 

[Dadd]

 

[Nathir]

 

[Ravielsk]

This seems to be a huge problem with american teams in general. They in general lack respect for whatever came before them whether its prior games or architecture they almost always fall into the pitfall of thinking they know better than everyone ever before them which inevitably ends with them proving they know jackshit instead.

Something very similar happened with DMC where the creators tried to modernize Dante by making him a unlikable punk whose catchphrase is "fuck" because that is cool when rappers do it. Or how Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun(cancelled) was headed by a guy who disliked the original games and was trying to "fix" them by making the game as edgy and "mature"(lots of swearing) as possible because he did not like all the talking. Somehow he missed the fact that Lok was mainly about the story and the characters that were all at least a millennium old so of course they would not talk like your average california dude bro.

Spoiler

This complete and blatant lack of respect is why I stopped taking any of them seriously. Especially when they begin to whine about harassment on the internet since they clearly do not give a shit about the work of other people but somehow expect the rest of the world to give a shit about theirs. Hypocrites of the highest degree.

 

[D_X]

Having had the "pleasure" of playing this for a bit recently I noticed a few things. Besides the art and sound fuckups which are well documented, there are also some gameplay changes. Now, if you haven't played DeS for a while, they might fly under the radar, but I had finished it just a couple of days before on the emulator so they stood out.

In the tutorial, I had a harder time parrying the knights compared to the original in which I don't have any issues doing it. The timing of their attacks seems to be slightly different than the original and all the added details on them makes their move much less clear than in the og. Vanguard also has somewhat different hitboxes. The standard tactic of staying behind him still works, but I died a couple of times which, again, is not something I have an issue with the original game.

In 1-1, the little blobs on the Phalanx fall off much faster and in 1-2, it seemed to me that the Tower Knight is much more precise with his long range attack that he does when you're on the walls.

In 4-1, it's easier to dodge the roll of the skellies since they don't smash straight into you as they used to do all the time and would stop just slightly short of impact. They can still hit you with the roll, it just takes a lot less effort to avoid it.

In 2-2, something seemed off about Flamelurker, but I can't put my finger on what exactly was changed. It might be just that the new model and graphic effects are not as clean and crispy as in the original making it harder to understand what is going on. And in 2-3, the Dragon God got fucked up. Every time I replayed DeS all I did in this fight was just run, smash the pillars, maybe eat a punch on the way, shoot the ballista, repeat for the 2nd one, win. In the remake, this seems impossible to do as the thief ring has very little effect and the Dragon God is much more aggressive with his punches.

And they also removed the dupe trick without adjusting the upgrade mats required. One of the things DeS did poorly was the upgrade system and the insane amount of mats needed to get the weapon to max level to the point I consider duping them a legitimate mechanic. This is one thing they really could and should have rebalanced, but they didn't so have fun farming. Wonder if Pure Bladestone still drops only once every 2000 thousand years on a full moon and if Mercury is aligned with Uranus.

 

[Dadd]

That's interesting. When the remake was first released, there were people testing whether old exploits (related to movement and combat) were still possible, and they were. This supported the view that the remake was a reskin and not much more, other than a few minor changes.

I read Bluepoint saying they were trying to respect the original creators' decisions. If you're mostly changing the visuals, and you completely replace the original crators' thoughtful visual decisions with your generic garbage, you are completely disrespecting the original creators' decisions.

 

[Ravielsk]

That's interesting. When the remake was first released, there were people testing whether old exploits (related to movement and combat) were still possible, and they were. This supported the view that the remake was a reskin and not much more, other than a few minor changes.

I read Bluepoint saying they were trying to respect the original creators' decisions. If you're mostly changing the visuals, and you completely replace the original crators' thoughtful visual decisions with your generic garbage, you are completely disrespecting the original creators' decisions.

It was marketing speak nothing more. The last decade taught them to at least pretend they are trying to stay true to the original even if internally they are everything but that.

 

[KIss My Ass]

Y'all are so full of shit. It's fundamentally the exact same game. It just looks and sounds infinitely better. Nobody in their right mind would choose to play the original over this version. If it came to PC you would be all over it's dick.

 

[JDR13]

This seems to be a huge problem with american teams in general. They in general lack respect for whatever came before them whether its prior games or architecture they almost always fall into the pitfall of thinking they know better than everyone ever before them which inevitably ends with them proving they know jackshit instead.

You would have to be incredibly retarded to believe that's unique to Americans.

 

[Ravielsk]

You would have to be incredibly retarded to believe that's unique to Americans.

You are right. Canadians are also quite good at it. The things they did to Dead Rising 4 are the sort of nightmare I would not wish upon any franchise.

But on a more serious note. The uniquely american quality of their ignorance is that not only is it far more common than with other nationalities but also in the fact that once exposed they rarely back down and admit their mistake. If anything the trend is to double down and accuse every critic of some sort of -ism or of lacking in telepathic ability to read head honchos genius plan ahead of schedule to adjust expectations. Its never their fault, its always the audience or some grand conspiracy to make their actually genius work look bad.

The only non-american cases of this sort of behavior I ever saw was with Uwe Boll who rather than own up to his shitty movies rather challenged his critics to a boxing match and even he at least had the excuse that he was actually just defrauding the German government through tax write-offs.

 

[JDR13]

You would have to be incredibly retarded to believe that's unique to Americans.

You are right. Canadians are also quite good at it. The things they did to Dead Rising 4 are the sort of nightmare I would not wish upon any franchise.

But on a more serious note. The uniquely american quality of their ignorance is that not only is it far more common than with other nationalities but also in the fact that once exposed they rarely back down and admit their mistake. If anything the trend is to double down and accuse every critic of some sort of -ism or of lacking in telepathic ability to read head honchos genius plan ahead of schedule to adjust expectations. Its never their fault, its always the audience or some grand conspiracy to make their actually genius work look bad.

The only non-american cases of this sort of behavior I ever saw was with Uwe Boll who rather than own up to his shitty movies rather challenged his critics to a boxing match and even he at least had the excuse that he was actually just defrauding the German government through tax write-offs.

I doubt you could actually be naive enough to believe that. That kind of behavior comes down to an individual. Nationality has nothing to do with it.

It might be that American are simply doing more remakes.

 

[Ravielsk]

I doubt you could actually be naive enough to believe that. That kind of behavior comes down to an individual. Nationality has nothing to do with it.

It might be that American are simply doing more remakes.

Oh, its not just remakes its their general attitude towards making anything be it movies, books or videogames.

 

[Dadd]

Y'all are so full of shit. It's fundamentally the exact same game. It just looks and sounds infinitely better. Nobody in their right mind would choose to play the original over this version. If it came to PC you would be all over it's dick.

Wrong

 

[KIss My Ass]

And the game is finished! 'Twas a nice trip down memory lane however the years have not been kind to it in some regards (finite healing items which leads to farming, the world tendency bullshit, tedious inventory managment, and an overabundance of forgettable boss fights). It's still a great game but now that the nostalgia glasses are off I think it moves down a couple spots on my ranking of Soulsborne titles.

Dark Souls 2>Bloodborne>Dark Souls>Elden Ring>Demon's Souls>Dark Souls 3>Sekiro

 

[Dadd]

It's not that your "nostalgia glasses" are off; you played an inferior version of the game, and you are conflating it with the superior version.

 

[KIss My Ass]

It's not that your "nostalgia glasses" are off; you played an inferior version of the game, and you are conflating it with the superior version.

The problems I have with it exist in the original game as well. You guys are whining about trivial aesthetic shit that has no affect on the gameplay experience.

 

[Elttharion]

The worst part is that Sony fanboys are begging for Bluepoint to remake Bloodborne too (or develop a sequel). I dont think I could survive seeing they butcher another of my favorite games.

 

[Dadd]

It's not that your "nostalgia glasses" are off; you played an inferior version of the game, and you are conflating it with the superior version.

The problems I have with it exist in the original game as well. You guys are whining about trivial aesthetic shit that has no affect on the gameplay experience.

If it's just trivial aesthetic shit, why would "Nobody in their right mind ... choose to play the original" over the new version because of said trivial aesthetic shit?

 

[KIss My Ass]

It's not that your "nostalgia glasses" are off; you played an inferior version of the game, and you are conflating it with the superior version.

The problems I have with it exist in the original game as well. You guys are whining about trivial aesthetic shit that has no affect on the gameplay experience.

If it's just trivial aesthetic shit, why would "Nobody in their right mind ... choose to play the original" over the new version because of said trivial aesthetic shit?

I don't know, maybe because the original looks like a dog turd even by 2009 standards. I don't get hooked on old shit like some folks.

 

[S.torch]

Sony fanboys

The three of them left you mean?

 

[Morenatsu.]

It's not that your "nostalgia glasses" are off; you played an inferior version of the game, and you are conflating it with the superior version.

The problems I have with it exist in the original game as well. You guys are whining about trivial aesthetic shit that has no affect on the gameplay experience.

If it's just trivial aesthetic shit, why would "Nobody in their right mind ... choose to play the original" over the new version because of said trivial aesthetic shit?

I don't know, maybe because the original looks like a dog turd even by 2009 standards. I don't get hooked on old shit like some folks.

You are retarded
Opinion discarded
Bring me more
Demon's Souls (2009)

 

[KIss My Ass]

I'm just spittin facts, don't shoot the messenger. People are bitching about aesthetics in a remake of a game that was never aesthetically pleasing. I thought Demon's Souls was mindblowing back in the day. It was one of the coolest things I ever experienced, and never once in all that did I say "I like the way this game looks". Now it looks good and people are bitching about the way it looks. Retardred.

 

[Dadd]

Retardred

I know you are but what am I?

 

[ADL]

PC port when. I don't give a shit about most of the autistic complaints about art direction and I didn't in Bluepoint's Shadow of the Colossus either. Anyone who cares that much about it can download the inevitable texture replacement mod to fix the vast majority of 'issues' they have with the game. The positives of playing Demon's Souls on a new engine at 4K/240fps with better assets that we haven't seen a hundred times in every subsequent Fromsoft game along with better netcode outweighs minor grievances about a particular boss model or muh atmosphere because of volumetric fog being used instead of draw distance being nearly non-existent since the game ran like absolute shit on the original hardware.

Many of the aesthetic changes I actually prefer from Bluepoint's version of the game. Color grading especially. From Software hasn't done anything to warrant the idea that Demon's Souls or any of their other games for that matter are untouchable and anyone that attempts to make minor changes to reinterpret it to showcase new hardware is wrong for doing so. I would like to think that if From Software had Bluepoint's technical prowess and hardware budget they would have made many of the same decisions. Demon's Souls was a budget title from a studio no one believed in or gave a shit about at the time and I say that as a King's Field/Shadow Tower fan that pre-ordered Demon's Souls with a PS3 specifically for it.

I love these games but they're not sacred and I think Bluepoint should be applauded for doing as great of a job as they did. I hope From Software takes some cues from Bluepoint in the future as well. As many people as possible need to be exposed to Bluepoint's Demon's Souls remake to give From Software a much needed kick in the ass to get off that god awful engine, stop reusing assets from Demon's Souls 2009 and finally get their shit together on the subject of PC ports because going from DeS Remake to Elden Ring felt fucking awful and those were nearly a year and a half apart.

tl;dr - PC port please and I want Bluepoint to remake Bloodborne. Hell, I want them to make the Bloodborne sequel too if From Software insists on using their shitty engine.

 

[Dadd]

Apologize to Chris Roberts and become a Star Citizen today!