Review for Demon's Souls. Game for PlayStation 5, the video game was released on 12/11/2020
Version for PlayStation 5 from 19/11/2020
This is NOT a review. I reiterate this if someone has read the title in passing expecting to find an analysis and evaluation of the remake of Demon's Souls developed by Bluepoint Games exclusively on PlayStation 5. Being for now the only person in the editorial office in possession of the new Sony console and with a code of Demon's Souls dedicated to coverage on our pages of Epictrick.com, we have opted for a sort of tale of the game from the eyes of a neophyte, someone Demon's Souls knows only by name and fame, as well as through some national Sabaku videos.
The actual review will come later when our Savior, super competent in the matter, will also be equipped with PS5. In the meantime, enjoy my very personal impressions of this highly anticipated remake.
Aware of what Demon's Souls represents in the videogame panorama, I approached the game with great curiosity, enthusiasm and also (above all!) A lot of fear. The promotional videos that preceded the arrival of the game have always fascinated me a lot, as have all the games from FromSoftware. Yes, I played the various Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but I always abandoned them after a few hours and the reason is that I have never been able to approach them with the right mentality ... it will be because I have little patience or, more likely because I can't stand not seeing progress after several hours of play.
In the face of all this, I started Demon's Souls with the maximum concentration and attention possible, because I wanted to understand it, I wanted to learn it and I wanted to finish it. After creating my avatar through an excellent character editor, I decided to start my adventure with a Knight, aware of the fact that classes are only a starting point and never an arrival point. Do you want it because it is the iconic class of the game, either because it has armor as classic as it is beautiful to look at or you simply want to feel safe with a sword and shield, I took my first steps in the kingdom of Boletaria. Yes, I know that a noble or magical class was recommended for newbies, but I can't be a wizard in RPGs, he's stronger than me.
I am sincere, I did not follow the narrative prologue much, nor did I pay attention to the dialogues of the NPCs, I know that Demon's Souls does not have a silent narrative, but effective like that of the Dark Souls, and above all I am one of those that history prefers to suffer it. rather than seeking it through cryptic descriptions of objects. Specific: mine is taste and not a criticism which, on the contrary, I even find a virtue, since I appreciate these alternative methods to tell a story. In any case, the only things I understand is that there is a kingdom (Boletaria) invaded by the Mist due to the awakening of an evil entity (the Ancient) and that demons have come out to make massacres. We, as the knight-errant, will have to fix the situation. This was enough for me to know to spur me to eliminate everything that moved.
The first impressions left me considerably stunned, beyond all my predictions: on the one hand because the technical and artistic sector is simply unassailable: we see that we are talking about a next-gen title, especially for what it can do with the lighting system . On the other hand there is this pleasant feedback that leaves you the game every time you kill an enemy and overcome a difficult area. It will be the mix of sounds and animations, the number of souls that accumulate, the feeling of having cleaned the area and having taken all the objects on the map ... it is probably a mix of all these elements to return that satisfaction.
For those wondering, I played the title with the "performance" mode to guarantee me the granite 60 FPS and enjoy it at maximum fluidity. Although in other contexts I would have definitely opted for 4k and graphic detail to the maximum, I know that the frame rate in a Souls has the same very high value within a racing title or a fighting game. Furthermore, it is Bluepoint herself who declares that the game was developed primarily to run in that mode. Well, I have not regretted it. The only thing is that, after playing Astro's Playroom on PS5, I would have preferred a more engaging Dualsense implementation, but alas here we are limited to the homework on the feel of the shots and the casting of the spells. Instead I know that there has been a good job on the audio sector, which should give its best with Sony headphones that take advantage of the new console's Tempest technology. I became an audio fetishist after trying Hellblade headphones, but unfortunately, since the aforementioned headphones have not yet arrived, I opted to listen to Demon's Souls through a "mere" Dolby 5.1 system, which proved to be a great way to enjoy the improvements. inserted in this version.
Returning to my experience, the thing that amazed me the most, knowing the fame of Demon's Souls, is that I faced the castle of Boletaria in a continuous state of tension, practically always with the shield raised and an eye on what hid around every corner. In doing so, the path to the first boss, Phalanx, was a success and, above all, it allowed me to come out almost unscathed. I had thought that if the game was all like this I could have done it and this is where I made my first mistake: I underestimated Demon's Souls.
After Phalanx, my progress through the 5 archstones that represent the levels of the game began to slow down significantly. I went from one area to another hoping to find the most suitable path for my characteristics and my way of playing, but I inevitably continued to die.
I don't deny it, the frustration had reached quite high levels and my biggest problem was not so much the level of the proposed challenge, but the excessive punishment for the mistakes that were made. Demon's Souls does not forgive anything: whether it is a bad dodge or an incorrect timing in the execution of the parry the outcome is death. And when you die you lose the accumulated souls, while when you don't die you have to heal, reducing the number of precious resources needed to face the new areas and, above all, the bosses. I understand that Bluepoint wanted to replicate 1: 1 the experience of the original title and I would never have dared to ask for a more lenient level of difficulty, but why not put Estus like in Demon's Souls? Why not make sure of healing at each resurrection, without forcing myself to farm herbs in Boletaria, since in other areas enemies drop everything but healing items? It seems paradoxical to me if I think instead of how much balance there is for obtaining the materials to upgrade weapons, aspect that among other things I liked a lot and that injects variety into the infinite builds, in combination with the increase in the characteristics of the character.
And since I've mentioned them, let me tell you one thing about the bosses: Do you believe I had more ulcers and problems reaching them than dealing with them? Net perhaps of the battle against the Tower Knight, which is the one that has tried me the most, all the others have gone away in a rather simple way. No, I haven't made it to the Flamelurker yet. In fact, you know what I loved most of all in this game? The shortcuts, more commonly known as shortcuts: nothing gave me more happiness than unlocking a path that facilitated and speeded up the arrival to the boss on duty.
I missed the online experience, also because it took a little while to deactivate it due to a server in which the fourth archstone had become Pure Black, invading the path to the Black Phantom boss. But do you want to know the fact? I didn't know that servers have a shared World Tendency, which is the game mechanics that simplify or complicate the game zones depending on how and how much you die, who you kill and who you don't and so on. Result? I had to use a non-canonical “shortcut” to skip a portion of the map and reach the boss to earn the coveted bonfire that serves as a checkpoint in each archstone. Thanks to Michele aka Sabaku No Maiku aka Mike of the Desert on the Web for the clarification.
Despite the problems, however, I slapped myself in the face and lent myself to continue and, I don't know how, somehow, I did it. No, not to finish the game, but at least to finish the first 3 levels of Boletaria and the first level of all the other archstones. Without realizing it, I had finally entered the right perspective with which to face the title. I stopped being afraid of my opponents and also started to vary equipment to adapt to different situations. Too bad that to reach this state of Zen I had to die continuously and start the same area again for at least 4 hours.
In the face of all this, I still can't extrapolate a definitive and, least of all, objective judgment on a game like Demon's Souls. The continuous alternation between satisfying phases and others of complete frustration leave me perennially in a limbo between the desire to continue it and to throw away the pad to devote myself to gardening. Take this tale for what it is: the experience of a neophyte facing the remake of Demon's Souls for the first time. I do not even know if you can find a moral or some interesting ideas, for my part I have only discovered that to enjoy a game like this you need to have the right mindset. Patience, perseverance and concentration are some essential characteristics that are needed to approach a title like this. I don't remember any other games of these last two generations that have required such mental commitment from me to discipline myself to achieve results. Don't take it for granted and don't assume Demon's Souls, like it or not, is a more unique than rare game. It is important that a game like this exists, especially if we look at what it originated. Thanks to FromSoftware for creating it and BluePoint for preserving it, for the foreseeable future.
► Demon's Souls is an RPG-Adventure game developed by Bluepoint Games Sony Interactive Entertainment and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 5, the video game was released on 12/11/2020
Version for PlayStation 5 from 19/11/2020
