Demons's Souls, the tried on PS5
Yet the remake of Demon's Souls will still have that effect on many gamers that the works of From and alike have never had the opportunity to try, and it is also for them that today - after having already played the new baby from Bluepoint for a few hours - we decided to write one last trial. Because we believe it is good and right to explain our first impressions from people who have repeatedly faced the original, specifying what changes there have been, and how much at the moment the title seems to have tolerated the passing of the years in this new guise. And, in all honesty, if there are wrinkles, they are less visible than we thought.
Whoever wounds everything by the sword perishes
The original Demon's Souls was already a brilliant title, but certainly not without imbalances and gross miscalculations (we can say a little about all the Souls indeed, but here it is more evident). Aware of this, we started the game both with a purely hand-to-hand class and with the inevitable and highly effective noble, highly recommended for anyone who wants to smash it without too many cursing because of an excellent starting equipment and the immediate availability of magic. The latter, in fact, in Demon's is extraordinarily effective both against bosses and against the vast majority of normal enemies, and greatly facilitates the progression due to the generally very high damage of spells and the limitations of artificial intelligence.The verdict after several hours of play? The Bluepoints don't seem to have tweaked the spells in any way: outside of a couple of situations where we found them slightly less powerful than we remembered (but it may just be our memory that failed), they still turned out to be a extraordinary time to clean up entire rooms quickly or selectively approach certain opponents positioned in a very annoying way. In short, being a magician in Demon's still represents a sort of "easy mode" compared to the other Souls where the abilities of the masters of the arcane are more contained.
The other clear confirmation that comes from the previous discussion is that linked to artificial intelligence: absolutely identical to that of the original (it has been confirmed several times by the developers, but we still wanted to do some experiments). The aggressiveness and dangerousness of the enemies of the game make the behavioral oddities observed in the maps less serious, but here perhaps we would have appreciated some changes to the patterns of certain opponents (although in all honesty it is difficult to give up the hilarious tumbles of soldiers and various monstrosities down the ravines).
What is aged and what is not
Much better, however, the impacts and the basic mechanics. The system is mostly unchanged (even the limited activation area of the backstabs to the enemies is identical to the original), but the animations completely renewed and in general more "clean", and the possibility of rolling in all directions - the dodge it was more contained in the work From - modernizing Demon's more than we would have expected, while not bringing it to the levels of the most recent titles from the Miyazaki team. It will be the more staid pace, but traversing the game's worlds and reabsorbing once again its elaborate system of weapon and character enhancement still offers the same feeling of awe mixed with anguish, albeit muted for obvious reasons. However, it must be said that the stable 60 FPS on PS5 is a huge improvement, which would almost alone be enough to give new life to the experience. In a game where everything is structured around death and the need to recover one's progress, however, even the instant uploads of the new Sony flagship are a godsend, which practically eliminates downtime completely (pun not wanted, maybe ...).Overall, the skeleton of the original held up, and the technical innovations gave it that extra edge capable of making even beginners appreciate its quality. The weakest point, therefore, is represented by the bosses, who in Demon's were extremely memorable from an artistic point of view, but not always commendable from that of the playful experience. For heaven's sake, there are very few clashes with really low enemies of the genre (and usually they are fairly guided boss fights where you hardly fight in favor of some specific expedient), but you can clearly see (especially if you come from Bloodborne) how much this element evolved over the years and was still quite crude here.
Few changes, but good
It must be said if only that, although the Bluepoints didn't want to take risks, the changes they have brought to the game almost all seemed well calculated and respectful of From's work: for example, the cures now weigh more, but the excess objects are immediately sent to the chest, effectively canceling the problem of the weight limit of the objects (between i souls present only in Demon's); the limitation to healing herbs linked to weight is also perhaps linked to the desire to avoid an excess of online cures by the invaders (with the addition of a new object that limits the regenerating abilities in the game again for this reason). Not enough, the lizards, often very difficult to eliminate due to their speed (and very important for the materials offered), have been slowed down, those who do not want invaders can limit online attacks with an option that can be activated from the menu, and it is even possible to modify the appearance of your character - the new editor is very complete - by paying a fair amount of souls to a statue in the Nexus. Right here we then found the possibility of unlocking the "broken world": a new mode.There has been a lot of talk about this alternative, but from what we have seen it is only the possibility of "mirroring" the world game, without changes of any kind to other elements (it also maintains the same progression of the basic campaign and can be selected at any time). We will investigate, although there does not seem to be much else in this option.
Many stylistic goodies: Demon's offers various filters, including a "classic" that brings the color palette closer to the original one, various customizable filters, and finally the ability to play with enhanced graphics at 30 fps. Now, as far as the latter is concerned, we strongly advise against it. The particles improve significantly as well as the overall impact, but compared to the performance mode the woodiness of the controls increases with a rare nastiness. The photo mode, on the other hand, is very pleasant, despite the fact that it allows you to pause the game already makes purists tear their hair (if nothing else it deactivates during invasions, it seems).
Despite the age of its base , the remake of Demon's Souls for now seems to us a superfine work, technically flawless and with very few negative notes outside those of the most hardcore super purists. It is really nice to see how, even after having dealt with almost all the soulslike ones in circulation, their "ancestor" still maintains a good part of the atmosphere and magic that characterized it in the past, despite the obvious help of the many technical improvements. Now all that remains is to complete this fascinating epic once again, and re-evaluate it for the new generation. Not much is missing.
