A Gorgeous Return to Boletaria – Demon’s Souls remake

Demon’s Souls remake is an action role-playing game developed by Bluepoint Games. It is a remake of the original Demon’s Souls, developed by FromSoftware and released for PlayStation 3 during 2009-2010. The player’s task as the Slayer of Demons is to save the world by putting the Old One, a mysterious being awoken by King Allant of the medieval kingdom of Boletaria back to sleep.

A major element of the Demon’s Souls is its difficulty. For example enemies and bosses hit hard, there are only a few checkpoints and the levels often are maze-like and contain traps. Still, the difficulty feels fair, as the death is often only the fault of the player, not the game.

The game offers many combat options. I used the melee combination with sword and shield, but the player can also for instance use a catalyst to cast magic from the distance, bow to shoot arrows, or combine melee and ranged weapons. Even the shield can be unequipped to dual wield melee weapons and deal more damage. The character equipment can also be freely changed. At the same time, the combat is simple. While using sword and shield combination, R1 and R2 are used to make a light attack and heavy attack, while L1 is used to block with a shield. The square button is used to dodge. Every dodge, block, and attack however consume a stamina meter.

The hub area of the game, the Nexus, contains various characters with different tasks. For example, Stockpile Thomas can storage the main character’s items. More characters, such as teachers for more powerful spells appear in the Nexus after rescuing them in levels. The Nexus also contains five Archstones, that are used to travel to five areas of Boletaria, the main levels of the game. These areas are unique and separated, ranging from plaque swamp to medieval castle. This variety of areas is something that I enjoy in Demon’s Souls.

Each area consists of three or four parts. Each part has one checkpoint at the start, and a boss fight at the end. Defeating a boss creates a checkpoint for the next part of the area. This cycle continues until the end of the area which contains Archdemon boss fight. The level between a checkpoint and the boss is often maze-like and contains items to pick up, enemies to defeat, and shortcuts to discover.

Bosses are the highlight of the game. They range from honorable knights to beast covered in leeches and most of them also have their own unique mechanics. For instance, the black blob Phalanx is covered by smaller enemies.

The remake could have however added more things. It adds photo mode and Fractured Mode, which mirrors everything, but I would have wanted to see a new boss fight.

The remake is nevertheless graphically gorgeous and a blast to play. Due to fact that the game is very challenging, I would recommend the Demon’s Souls remake for the fans of the other FromSoftware games and for any players looking for a challenge

 

Basic Information

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Bluepoint Games

Platforms: PlayStation 5

Release Date: North America and Oceania; 12.11.2020/ Worldwide; 19.11.2020 (Launch title for PlayStation 5)

Genres: Action role-playing

PEGI: 18

 

Header Image and first picture: Screenshots from the game, taken by the author

Second and Third Picture: Promotional pictures of the game from playstation.com https://www.playstation.com/fi-fi/games/demons-souls/

 

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