4.5/5 ★ – RoseFNV's review of Demon's Souls.

Despite me starting this review around 20 to 30 minutes after beating the game, I'm still just kind of shocked that I even played 2009’s Demon’s Souls in the first place. Ever since I first finished DS3 and ended my first playthrough of the various from software Soulsborne games I've been having my eye on this one. It was the one that was completely inaccessible to me, only on the PS5 or PS3, and of course I have the PS4. I was planning on renting a PS5 just to be able to play the remake, but considering my often unreasonable and endless urge to replay even the most downright awful parts of the series (DS2 Crown of the Ivory King DLC), I figured that renting it would only hurt me down the line if I ever decided I wanted to replay it, so here I am, a fair bit poorer and with a PS3 and a copy of demon souls, having finally finished the game I've probably been the most desperate to play in my entire life outside of maybe Cyberpunk. Honestly, more than anything, I think I’m just impressed that Miyizaki and his team were able to create an entire subgenre of games that from the getgo just feels so, so good to play while also feeling polished and complete in its ideas. Its style of storytelling and especially its use of environments and world design in communication of said story is already such a fascinating way to deliver it, and the atmosphere delivered here is already some of the best of the series, with the mood of every setting doing so much to showcase how dour and bleak this world is. Even the gameplay is really damn good here, feeling a lot faster than the titles that would come afterwards (until Bloodborne that is), with overall solid enemy design and bosses. Not everything is perfect of course, with said designs for enemies and bosses definitely having a few substandard examples, alongside a couple levels that are some of the worst Fromsoft would ever make, but that’s just the case with every Fromsoft game, and like most of their other works it never even comes close to taking away from the accomplishments. One of the main reasons I was so interested in playing the original game over the remake outside of replayability is because as I've played Fromsoft games more and more I’ve become more in tune with their stories and become able to appreciate them more. At first I was definitely focusing on their gameplay more than anything but on my most recent two playthroughs of the original Dark Souls, I’ve found that game’s story and atmosphere to be a large part of why I like it over the other two, as its sense of place and personality in its tone create something so special. And from what I’ve seen of the original Demon’s Souls versus the remake, the remake gets a lot of things wrong in all that contributed to the original’s success in those areas. While I cannot say much about the remake outside of clips I've seen online, I can say that despite early souls titles definitely having similarity to this game the atmosphere here is so unique even today, having such an insane level of variety in Artistic Direction for the various Archstone areas. Each area feels completely different, from the sadness of seeing a former kingdom fallen to ruins in the Boletarian castle to the oppressive work and labor imposed on the citizens enslaved in the depths of the Stonefang tunnels, a mining facility half-hazardly built to supply the fat officials with as much money as they can exploit while the miners themselves slowly lose their humanity and even their skin from the lack of safety of working there. The most impressive and unique of these areas is undoubtedly the third Archstone, which leads to the Tower of Latria, an oppressive prison that turns the game from a fantasy adventure to something more akin to a horror game, with the only light sources being the lantern on your belt searing onto only the closest of surroundings, alongside the lanterns of the Mind Flayers, a group of prisoners who’re responsible for nearly every inmate there being completely mad. It’s without a doubt my favorite level of the game and probably one of the best Fromsoft has ever made, and there’s so much narrative being told just by the simple acts of exploration and immersing yourself within the world, and it’s these areas where learning about the events unfolding in Boletaria is at its best, which is great because honestly Things Fromsoft normally excel at like item placements telling stories and item descriptions helping acquiring new items feel rewarding from a gameplay standpoint and a story standpoint feel a lot more sub-par here, and while not entirely bad, it was unfortunate seeing so much exploration result in getting items I've already received from other areas with item descriptions that lack much detail about former purposes or pasts and instead just tell of their in game use. It’s definitely not completely absent, and I did enjoy reading about stuff like the adjudicator shield and the various Lotuses that are used to heal various status effects, but you can tell it’s one of the areas Fromsoft would only improve at in later titles, because this time around it only makes the story told here (which in itself is still good, but definitely a lesser Fromsoft story) a little less special than it could be. Of course, the atmospheric areas wouldn’t be nearly as memorable if they didn’t have engaging design from a gameplay standpoint the game wouldn’t be nearly as memorable, but Fromsoft delivers some of their most out there and punishing designs they’ve ever crafted here, and the game is (mostly) all the better for it. You can tell this game was made by a team given an insane amount of creative freedom that was allowed to experiment as much as they wanted, because basically everything here feels like Fromsoft trying out new things and making levels that work very different from another. Boletarian Castle is a very competent and expertly designed beginning of the type of dungeon we’d see Fromsoft work to perfect more and more in later entries, being a damn good starting point with a myriad of different quest lines to start and places to explore, with crowded spaces of enemies sprawling across most of the areas, with a decent variety of different types of foes that all require different approaches, and this type of varied game design makes each Archstone so fun to explore, even when they’re doing entirely new things like 4-2, which is a grave of unearthed souls being abused by reapers who cause the second death of said souls when they themselves fall. Outside of 5-2, which is a hellish and genuinely maddening poison swamp that restricts movement and makes enemy engagement a downright poor idea despite the overabundance of them, every area is really fun to explore and it’s always a pleasure to see what creative choices Fromsoft makes next with the levels, enemies and especially bosses. Bosses here function a lot differently than other souls titles, focusing mostly on specific ways to exploit weaknesses rather than the 1v1 or 1v2 battles of later games. Depending on the fight this can make some bosses more on the simple side, with bosses like the adjudicator or the dragon god being lesser fights that become basically pushovers when you figure out the trick (which in itself isn’t hard either). Because of the gimmick/idea based design philosophy though there honestly might be the most variety of types of bosses, with bosses like the Armored Spider or Tower Knight being really fun or impactful despite being focused on gameplay doctrines that makes them quite unusual as actual bosses. Not all of the game's adversaries are like that though, and the bosses that do show up that are more akin to the typical showdowns of Fromsoft’s future stand out as some of the strongest in the game. Penetrator is an exciting contender for best boss in the entire game, while Old King Allant is an absolute thrill that could easily also take that spot, with an exciting and aggressive moveset pushing the player to their limit while a gothic, almost horror-like tone arises from the music playing during the confrontation . None of them are ever really too challenging, especially if you’ve already experienced the most brutal of bosses from the studio’s later works (or even in comparison to Demon’s souls’ areas themselves), but even without the extreme difficulty they’re nine times out of ten just a lot of fun, just really awesome clashes with Demons of “unimaginable power” that were great finales to the stages that came before, complete with detailed and engaging arena design and some of the most memorable music tracks in any souls title to accompany each battle. And of course, with each boss comes a reward of one boss soul, and more importantly a reward of normal souls to accompany them and help the player rank up, with an already fine tuned progression system that would lay the foundation for every single following title in this series. Pretty fun seeing this game after playing Dark Souls, because outside of the luck stat being replaced by Resistance (with both being completely useless) this is basically the same progression system, with the main difference being the amount of levels you’re likely to amass in a singular playthrough, which in my experience left me about seventy-ish in Demons’ souls’ compared to Dark Souls where I normally was around ninety to one hundred. I do wish the amount of souls you’d get was increased, as having a more restrictive leveling system does limit your creativity somewhat, but even still it’s a damn solid system that allows you to really craft your own build your way and between that and the amount of weapons in the game, which at a meaty (but not meaty enough to become overwhelming) 78 really allows you to experiment and find what best works for you. I chose the “boring” route and did a straight sword and shield, which was a lot of fun but even at that playthrough I saw a number of weapons, armors and spells that piqued my interest and made me curious about using them in another playthrough. I think the greatest strength with this system in comparison to the weapon systems of the later games is that there’s not many weapons here that will require you to wait till the end game to be able to acquire, as the ability to do the various Archstones in whatever order you want basically means you can just whatever Archstone you need to get your desired weapon as early as you want, as long as you have the patience to get through some higher level areas a bit earlier than you’re supposed to. No waiting till NG+ to get the most out of your perfected build, you can do whatever you want from almost the get-go and have a ball doing it since on average difficulty is balanced effectively no matter which Archstone order you choose and that amount of freedom with buildcraft and where to go means it’s an insanely replayable game, maybe even more so than some of the later entries in the series. Also, the magic system is without a doubt the most friendly towards anyone wanting to dip only your toes into it, with there being no stat requirement for any spell in the whole game; with the only restriction being some spells requiring two magic/miracle spots instead of one. This meant I actually felt comfortable trying out magic and finding spells that helped me in my build, which is the first time I’ve felt compelled to do so in the entire series. All of this is in service of a combat system that, while taking a bit to get used to, still holds up as an excellent feeling title with great animations and mostly solid hitboxes and balancing. Everything from the gameplay and RPG standpoint is just so close to perfect even from the beginning that it’s mind boggling, I've heard some people say that demon’s souls suffers from feeling more dated and clunky to be as good as it could be (even an idea spread by the director of the remake) but I just can’t agree with that at all, there’s too much to love here to stop a couple minor gripes from taking away from any part of the experience. Despite this basically being the game I’ve wanted to play most for close to a year I still had some concerns that the many problems I heard about would stop me from being able to truly love it, but despite everything I think I can honestly say this game surpassed my expectations. While definitely imperfect the amount of craftsmanship and talent bursting from every seam of the game’s construction is awe inspiring, and the quaintness of some systems and the overall length only add to the game’s charms. It’s an incredible experience overall, and one that I’m overjoyed to finally be able to say I've completed, and alongside everything else Fromsoft has made means so much to me. Maybe this is getting too personal for a GG review, but honestly these games have done so much to help me during one of the most stressful and confusing times of my life that has given me many days where I seem to feel the worst I’ve ever been and has had me plenty of times reconsidering whether I even want to have a future at all. These thoughts are still more present than they probably should be, but honestly, simply having the experience of going through Fromsoft games and allowing me to escape to these fantastic worlds where I can get enwrapped in the stories and feelings these games provide has definitely done wonders for making them less present than they could be. Dark Souls 1 especially really improved my outlook on the feeling of loneliness and has made me able to accept one of the most prevalent feelings in my entire life a little bit more than I was able to previously. It obviously hasn’t eradicated those feelings as a whole and I don’t know if I can go so far as to say Dark Souls has saved my life Like many people on YouTube have talked about being their experience, but I can definitely say this entire series has impacted my life, my outlook on life and will to live it and my views on what art can achieve and how it can achieve it. I’m so glad this series exists, and even if I didn’t always love it I definitely do now. It’s a series that has given me so much and this game only continues that trend. It’s just an amazing game, a work of art I plan to play many more times in the future and expect to adore and appreciate even more on those playthroughs.