Got so pissed after watching a video on changes the Remake made so I went back and finished this one.
An amazing game that got so many things right for being the first in the series. Not only that, but it's still the most eccentric and experimental and unconventional one of them all, and oh how I wish more of that attitude carried over into later titles. I respect Dark Souls 1 for how it expanded and polished what was presented here but there's still some ethereal quality that I feel was lost in the process.

I now need to replay all souls games and reevaluate where they all stand for me.

There's definitly some first game syndrome here but it's insane just how much Demon's Souls got right on its first try.

This game is oozing with atmosphere, challenge and charm. This game is every bit as complete an experience as the latter games are.

I strongly reccomand this, especially the PS3 version.

I rarely ever drop games, but I wasn't having any form of fun with this one after a while. I've beaten Dark Souls about 8 or 9 times, and I adore it's slow deliberate pacing, bits of unique jank that create unique, memorable moments, and it's sometimes antagonistic world and level design that silently leads the player through it. I feel like Demon's Souls has a large handful of these ideas; the steady progression through the worlds was at first giving me the same sense of discovery and learning that I got from the first Dark Souls, but after a while, I felt that antagonistic design genuinely wearing on me, and beating me down to the point where I was wallowing in a really uncomfortable feeling of anger and unfairness. I don't want to be lead through every objective, and receive assistance in every fight, but the cold and mean game that Demon's Souls ended up becoming, is one that I'm fully aware would have sent me down a really bad path for my emotional well being.
I guess I've been beat, this time.

I foolishly bought this whilst at college to fill the time between classes and it was cheap. How hard could it be, right?

I think Demon's Souls is the most unfair a fromsoft game as ive ever played, and i cherish it so much for that.

In the year of our lord 2024 it hasnt aged too well, although shoutout to the remake that shit was fire. But demons souls has an air of stifling misery to it that none of the other games managed to harness for me.

Loses points for the weakest boss roster in their catalogue.
But the minute to minute gameplay is fantastic.

Playing the remake before this was a huge mistake of mine. Even with the remake being my first ever souls game I played something about it felt off and boring. And this game made me realize exactly why, it’s hard to put it into words but this game just has a special charm similar to dark souls 1 that the remake unfortunately stripped of it. I like this game much more now thankfully. Without it we would never have any future installments Miyazaki would make. So for that I will always think of it in a special way

I played this on RPCS3 back in 2019 when the Emulator was barely usable. I was frequently playing at like 15fps and yet it didn't stop me from enjoying my time experiencing this game for my very first time ever. This is a damn good first take on a very difficult dark fantasy-themed action-adventure game with RPG elements.
This also was my last missing Souls game i haven't played yet back then so i didn't really have a hard time with the game and its bosses. I do dig the more puzzle-y nature of the boss fights, makes them almost seem like they were meant to be in a Zelda game or something where you would expect puzzle integration into a boss fight.

I first played Demon’s Souls in 2021 right after the remake first came out. I think at the time I gave the game something like a 7/10, but in actuality I really just did not like that game and I was being nice. I lied! I'm sorry…

Demon’s Souls on PS3 was a really interesting experience for me. To be entirely honest, I'm not sure what made me want to replay the game. The game just has this weird pull to it unlike other fromsoftware games, save for BloodBorne. I knew i wanted to get the Platinum Trophy (we will fucking get to this i promise) but I really dont even know why i wanted that either. Well, whatever the reason, I'm glad I went and revisited the game. The PS3 version makes it a lot easier to meet the game on its level. The art direction is just simply more cohesive than in the remake, which does a whole more than you would think in terms of pulling you into its world. The game definitely devolves into a slideshow at points… but what PS3 game doesn't have an awful framerate? It's a part of the charm. The PS5 version has a lot more issues to it than just the art direction, being honest. Not only is the look of the game just really generic and very distinctly NOT fromsoftware, it also creates a really peculiar juxtaposition between cutting edge ultra extreme graphics and gameplay that is genuinely the exact same in both feel and function to the 2009 original. I’ve seen people complain about the gameplay in the remake and the art direction separately but not how they intersect to create a game that just feels wrong. This is not to say that the original is at all bad, but like i mentioned earlier, it's a lot easier to meet the game on its own level with the original rather than the remake. When i first played the remake i honestly just took it for a really mediocre souls game that didn't do much interesting and had terribly just insane design choices attached to it. There's still a few things I definitely still dislike about Demon’s Souls and I want to talk about what I appreciate about the game more now.

To start, I think it's incredible just how much they got right with this game. This is genuinely their first try at creating an entire game sub-genre and despite its faults, they did a great job. What Demon’s Souls does right, it REALLY does right. The level design is intricate and meaningful, and while the game is very linear within its individual levels, it allows you to tackle them in any order you wish (for the most part), giving a sort of Link to the Past style of player freedom. The combat is very simple, but it allows them to design enemies that provide a meaningful obstacle for the player. I’m still fairly mixed on a lot of the bosses, but one thing I praise the most of them for is the way in which the bosses actually interact with the arena in which you fight them. The bosses aren't like the boss's you'd find in a game like Dark Souls III, and instead are more focused on some sort of central gimmick that the player must exploit. As an example, a lot of bosses have separate AI patterns depending on how the player chooses to approach the fight. The Tower Knight will take the player head on in a grounded fight but if the player chooses to get to the higher vantage points of the arena to use magic/a bow the tower knight will instead fire soul arrows continuously at the player. I think this is really cool and works in some cases, but unfortunately, 99% of these boss fights are solved by simply using magic. Being a spellcaster makes this game genuinely trivial. There are a few bosses that are more akin to those of the rest of the series, and they’re pretty underwhelming to be honest. I really like Penetrator, since he has a huge polearm he stabs you with in a horizontally challenged arena. It bridges the gap between more gimmicky yet interactive fights and more interesting fights that challenge player skill, but the rest of them are either copy pasted into its sequel, (man eater becomes the gargoyles in dark souls 1) super underwhelming (flame lurker), or really cool but can permanently lower your level (Allant). Relating to the bosses, I STILL think the boss runbacks in this game are absolutely fucking dreadful. Some of them require you to run an olympic marathon with dumb fucking idiot skeletons that fucking hate you only to fight a stupid boss that is either the easiest shit of your life if you use magic or one of the worst video game experiences if you have with a strength build (the correct way to play these games). I would really like to know what the fuck happened here. A fair few of the bosses have really nicely made shortcuts that make for simplified but still engaging runbacks, but some of them just dont have shortcuts and they fucking SUCK. I would really like to see boss runbacks return to the series because they're honestly a really interesting and underrated aspect to the game design of these games but if a game as popular as Elden Ring is willing to forgo them I doubt we will ever see them again. I think the last truly negative i have on this game is the healing items, but honestly who fucking cares. Use the dupe glitch like the rest of us. It's fine. Everyone has already talked about how much it sucks, but it's really not even that bad without the glitch.

This paragraph is reserved for talking about the platinum trophy experience. OH my GOD this platinum sucks. Honestly, at first it's not too bad. If you make sure to follow a guide and get unique weapons as you go through the levels and pay attention to world tendency, it's pretty fun. It only gets fucking awful once you get close to beating the game. Since it's a 100% run, you have to do all the crafting bullshit before you go and finish up with the final boss. The crafting system in this game is so insanely obtuse and fucking stupid i cannot possibly imagine that not a single person in this design room didnt think it was ridiculously contrived and a massive time waster at least a little bit. Honestly most of the materials aren't that bad to get as it's likely you can get most of them just by playing normally, but the real problem is with pure greystone. I spent 5 hours farming for this shit and that seems like a godsend compared to some of the horror stories you can find about it. The rest of the stuff you have to farm for took me 10 minutes so they get a pass. You also have to do specific weapon crafting and fusion that is hardly explained by the game and is really contrived for the unique weapons trophy. Once you get past all of that stupid crafting bullshit you have to make sure you can get pure white character tendency so you can get a ring for the ring achievement. Doing this in a game that has its servers forever shutdown is really stupid, because there's only 5 red phantoms per save file and it means that if you mess up even a little bit you need to go and replay the game all over again. World Tendency and character tendency are honestly fine mechanics but their biggest issue is that they refuse to actually tell you in clear wording what the tendency actually is. BEcause of this you’re entirely left up to comparing screenshots of pictures of peoples TVs from like 2012, since all the search results are flooded by the remake. I actually managed to take advantage of the private server fans have made and had some absolutely lovely people let me kill them like 5 times so I could get the ring I needed, but even though I did legitimately do it on a PS3, it kind of falls into an unofficial limbo that I can't expect everyone to be willing to try. Overall I think the platinum was really rewarding but for the love of god please do not fucking do this to yourself.

If you haven't played Demon’s Souls on PS3, I think you should really give it a shot. It’s definitely flawed but it's a great game and I think it's a whole lot better than the remake, which honestly is just a really confusing product. If it was on PC it would make a bit more sense, but as is it's a just as inaccessible version of the game that seems to fundamentally misunderstand what the game is and what it was trying to be back then. I think it’s a little silly to say this after a whole review of me pointing out what I appreciate about Demons Souls, but I still think the game is a 7/10, I just mean it a whole lot more now. If you're wondering, yes, i finished platinuming the game on 4/20, and I did get so high i forget what happened next after finishing the game. If there are any typos in this review i will cry. I didnt capitalize my Is, im so sorry