3.5/5 ★ – grunglie's review of Demon's Souls.

Demon's Souls, miraculously, was my first ever "to the end" Souls game. I've touched both DSI and Bloodborne and Sekiro, but never got very far. And you want to know what honestly got me interested? Aside from the release of Elden Ring, which side note, looks amazing, it was Bluepoints complete mastery of visual design. Everything in this game is beautiful, the animations, the incredible high fidelity of the graphics, and the smoothness of everything that flows across the screen. Sure this may have been my first one, but I'd say it was a good place to start. The bosses don't pose a challenge, except for maybe False King Allant, and forgetting the fact that even on my second playthrough I somehow managed to die to False Idol repeatedly, SOME of the areas are memorable. All of Bolataria Castle, Islands Edge, and Prison of Hope (my absolute favorite area in the game) most notably. The game mechanics, mostly world tendency which was a cool idea, but really makes for a pain in the ass on your first playthrough, always felt a little shallow, especially when compared to the other games. At the end of the day, Demon's Souls is good, and I feel like playing a Souls game I can actually relax to, and not feel an immense amount of pressure or hesitation to play, it'd probably be this.