Getting Annihilated In 4k

Of all the PS5 launch titles – which at the time of this video there are really not many – the one that really got me wanting one was Demons Souls. It’s always been my favorite out of the series, and it’s always felt a little more accessible than the rest. Also before this newest remake, it was fun going back to it to see where the series began. Which, yes, I know, for you purists out there going “it technically started with King’s Field on the PS1” – I know that too. But the proper Souls, Soulsborne, whatever you want to call all of them, it starts with Demons Souls.

Happy Cyber Monday everybody, this is another review from the Broken Controller Club, my name is Ed and I’m your host. Before we really begin, I’d like to ask you to check out any other reviews you may like on the channel and subscribe if you like what you see today – I’m nearing 200 subscribers and it would be a pretty swanky milestone to hit by Christmas and impress Santa and more specifically Mrs Claus.

So now that my shameless plug is out of the way – I’m going to wager that Demons Souls and this *type* of game is so well known at this point that I’m not going to spend a ton of time reviewing it in and of itself, but I did want to cover some changes between the original release and this one to show you just how far it’s come, what you can expect and some quick impressions from me just playing through it as a normal dude.

It’s a tale as old as time – or 11 years, give or take. The land of Boletaria is attacked by a being called The Old One after misusing magic called Soul Arts. After it’s lulled into slumber and stopping the attack, King Allant stupidly decides “hey, let’s try using them again, I bet the same thing won’t happen twice!” and restores the Soul Arts, and then surprise, surprise, The Old One wakes up and resumes using his demon army to consume everything with a soul and turning them into insane monsters. By the way why are they always insane? Can’t you be a mentally competent monster?

Anyway, you play an adventurer who gets killed and ends up in a place called The Nexus, where you meet The Maiden In Black and she explains that you need to travel to each region, get killed even more, and also kill the giant bosses there to gain enough power to face off against King Allant. Each region has a different theme to it, like you have your poisonous marshy swampy area with weird goblin looking things with torches that’ll stab you, your desert mine area where you’ll fall off cliffs, get blown up by mine carts, or get your head crushed in by giant rocks, stormy mountain tops with giant manta rays that shoot horrible green crystal things at you and these dual wielding sword skeletons that kill you with zero effort, and so on. If you like variety in how you die, this game has it in spades. You’ll invent new swear words that’ll upset your friends and family just like that scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie starts cussing at the bully while beating him senseless, except you’ll be the one getting beat.

You get to tackle them in any order you like and this is something that I liked more than the other Souls games because The Nexus works as a sort of hub where you get to choose where you want to go. Because my sense of direction has never been good – just ask Mrs Controller what our vacations are like – it was easy for me to get lost in the other Souls games and that doesn’t happen here. I know which region I need to go to if there’s a spot where I need to grind for specific items or where the easiest spot to currently farm souls is at. It’s like Mega Man’s stage select, but if it was designed by George R.R. Martin.

Before I get to what’s changed, please know that first and foremost this is the same game you’ll remember if you’ve played it before. You go through and kill enemies and collect souls to upgrade your stats or use as currency at vendors, you get killed and lose them, then if you’re like me you’ll die on the way back to collecting your souls you dropped, lose them permanently, and either swear at the tv or shrug your shoulders in defeat and say something like “well, I figured that wouldn’t happen” and then press on. You’ll pick equipment and items up off various corpses that will all contribute toward your quest, and in addition to the exploration and fighting you’ll want to upgrade your gear with the different blacksmiths sitting around.

There’s also a new mode called Fractured Mode that you can unlock by offering 25,000 souls to the alter in the Nexus. This flips the game horizontally and therefore makes it more challenging.

So what’s changed? Obviously the biggest one that you’re already aware of are the graphics. The game is straight-up gorgeous and they really went all out with all the particle and lighting effects, ray tracing, everything. The enemies and more importantly the bosses look amazing, and the sense of scale you get when not only fighting them but also just traveling through each area is really jaw-dropping. You can switch between performance mode and cinematic mode depending on the tv setup you’re playing with, so you can decide whether you want to have more frames of animation or if you’d rather sacrifice that and see an even prettier game. For those who really like to get into invincibility frames when dodging attacks and things like that, performance mode is for you. My tv is really basic but even with my set up I could see the differences and it’s gorgeous no matter how you play it.

Speaking of gorgeous, the character creation has also seen a huge upgrade and after deciding on their body type, you can basically make them look however you want now. You can’t change them once you’ve started though, so make sure you like what you see. I myself accidentally chose a woman’s body and then gave it a man’s head because I’m an idiot and wasn’t paying attention.

Enemies and bosses can now destroy the environment, which is a cool touch. While getting your ass kicked in you’ll love the haptic feedback of the DualSense because every hit you give or take, every sword swing, is going to be felt in that controller. You’ll feel the resistance in the triggers when you pull back your bow to cheese that Red Dragon, and it’s really satisfying. I do have to admit that it does take some getting used to just because when you’re trying to fire off arrows as quickly as possible at enemies, you do need to get a feel for how the controller registers those and that’ll take some practice.

Also something you need to get a feel for is that the moon grass – your main source of healing – now has weight to it. So if you’re like me and in the original you liked to stockpile a few hundred full moon grasses because you hate dying, you’ll be disappointed because the higher quality of health item, the more it weighs, so now you’ll take that into account with all your other crap you’re hauling around. I had a lot more instances of hitting my item burden limit and automatically sending stuff into storage this time around.

Other ease of life changes include the game loading at ludicrous-speed, you can now roll in all directions and not just 4, a photo mode, and a password system for multiplayer that’s also in Dark Souls: Remastered and Dark Souls 3. Otherwise you still get to see other players as they’re running around and fighting stuff, you can leave and read messages on the ground, or invade other players’ worlds to fight them and ruin their progress as they’re minding their own business. It’s delightful to get killed by another player while you’re also getting killed by the regular single player enemies. I promise it doesn’t raise your blood pressure or cause you to drink or yell at anybody nearby at all who didn’t deserve it.

There’s also a new mode called Fractured Mode that you can unlock by offering 25,000 souls to the alter in the Nexus. This flips the game horizontally and therefore makes it more challenging. I haven’t done that yet because a)whenever I get 25,000 souls I very carefully and cautiously try not to die so I can use them to level up, and b) I don’t need the game to be harder than it is because I’m already terrible.

Playing through the game felt comfortable and new all at the same time. To me, this one is still the easiest of all the Souls games, which everybody has different opinions on. The bosses fights are just as epic as always, and the high difficulty means each boss fight and each shortcut you find to get around is really rewarding. The exploration and need to not only collect souls but also to get the necessary items to upgrade your equipment or change it into something different with boss souls makes the game hard to put down, and it’s all of these things combined into one gorgeous package that makes me keep coming back to it. This game truly was the deciding factor in me getting a PS5 or Xbox Series X first, and I don’t regret my purchase.