I didn't finish Demon's Souls when I played it on PS3, but I liked it a lot here despite the game's shortcomings. Wasn't a huge fan of a lot of the bosses being so gimmicky compared to the rest of the series, but there is a ton of creativity there, especially for the first entry of a series like this.

Of course, this game is also (apparently) an affront to god for a ton of fans of the game. From what I've seen, a lot of the enemy designs are fairly drastically re-designed here, and I can't really say a lot of them are improvements, notably the officials look more generic and lost a lot of their original flair from what I've seen. The OST is also something many have pointed out as being worse, but I'm not all too familiar with the original. I will say that the soundtrack here stuck out as being less notable than just about any entry in the series besides Dark Souls II. How much of that comes down to these re-orchestrations vs. The composition itself, I don't know.

Still, as a first-timer, I think it is kind of ridiculous to day that this game has no atmosphere, especially without, you know, actually playing the video game. The enemy encounters have basically went unchanged AFAIK, so the game still keeps the tension up in each encounter. What also stood out in this remake was the environmental design. Each archstone is still visually distinct and the lighting engine absolutely works to elicit fear in its darkest segments, while still allowing for moments of beauty.

I get that when a company is remaking one of your favorite games, you're bound to be more critical, but some of the hyperbole and nonsense I've heard people talk about this game without even giving Bluepoint a chance is incredibly disappointing. Even barring the influence from the original game, technically this is one of the most impressive games I have ever played, and it's remarkable that the game loads so quickly and maintains a steady 60 FPS regardless of what is on-screen. I'll probably end up playing through the original in the next few months to see all the changes, but I think what's hear is at the very least great for newcomers and a remarkabke technical achievement.

The most sheer joy I've had playing a game since... Super Mario Odyssey

It controls perfectly. Even in the moments where I feel its creativity may be a bit overstated, it feels top of the line because of the polish, because of how it feels like each enemy design was thought out, and how I feel like the power-ups and badges (for the most part) actually really do add a lot to the replayability.

I only briefly touched the multiplayer aspect, but as a certified NSMB multiplayer hater due to how chaotic it can get, I actually love the no collision. Still I do think something like the bubble power up could have hilarious multiplayer results and there's a part of me that is maybe a little sad that we missed out on some of that

Genuinely funny, great art direction, combat that forces you to be engaged just enough to not spam A, good location diversity, a unique cast, great music, fun secrets

It really has just about all you could ask for out of a SNES RPG. It’s such a unique collaboration that really shows so much love for the source material, but so many great aspects hold up on their own.

Honestly I think aside from some isometric jank, this has aged very well and it’s a shame it’s not on the Switch yet. And as someone who was not alive at the time of this game’s release, I can’t explain how impressed I was that this game released before Mario 64

I don't know whether to call this game flawed, or experimental or both. I haven't played anything particularly like it. Even compared to the first Xenoblade Chronicles, I feel like the tone, the combat and the mechanics are really distinct

I think there are a lot of interesting ideas here, and I think a lot of those ideas are going to be appreciated more as I get farther from the game. I do feel like, for me, there were a lot of little irritants here and there with this game like:
- Poppi upgrades rely on playing a generic minigame
- There is a ton of blades available, but the gacha system is annoying and often unfulfilling if you get bad draws
- Some of the character design, including blades is just awful
- The "Tora and Poppi chapter (Chapter 3 or 4 I think?)" is important thematically, but feels disjointed from the rest of the game
- Field skill checks are rewarding when you have the skills, but rely somewhat on gacha and blade management to breakdown a random wall is annoying

There are so many more. I also felt that combat tutorials weren't great, and even now knowing what to do in combat, I still felt like I was doing something wrong (I was. I wasn't using pouch items). In spite of ALL OF THAT, I think what's here is very unique and I think the pros of the game outweigh the cons

The story especially really grew on me as the game went on. Thematically, I feel it is much more interesting than the first game, which I often feel like I struggle to remember anything from other than the main story elements (I also love that game. It's a strange franchise). The game's world really is beautiful, the soundtrack is one of the best ever, and the game's mechanics feel so much deeper than a lot of comparable JRPGs. Even the characters, which I feel like get a lot of hate, have some highlights. Morag, Nia, and Jin were all great. Even Rex I think I prefer over Shulk. I think Rex is the perfect character type to fit the story they wanted to tell, and I enjoyed his interactions with the rest of the case

It's worth a playthrough. There were so many head-scratching design decisions, but the highs are really high. Between this game and the first game, I think Monolith Soft is so close to doing something REALLY special with the franchise, but at the same time, this is a franchise that doesn't play it safe, so who knows how things could go going forward

Mission quality is a bit up and down in this one, which is the case for pretty much the whole trilogy, but I noticed it especially here compared to 2

It’s still excellent. The levels clearly had a ton of thought and time put into them, and I feel like the story was a bit more engaging in this one, especially as it related to the missions themselves.

I am honestly just super happy they were able to get all the missions from the past games into one big package with this one because as a whole if you played them back to back you have one of the best games I’ve ever played. Tonally, it just works so well to have these goofy moments with the serious story and OST. The presentation is very clean. Everything just works, and I think the game is rewarding to come back to and experiment with, but even if you just okayed it through once, I think you’d probably have a great time because the paths are so well thought out that on your way through a mission, you will at least see SOMETHING cool

Banger game. The movement is top notch. I do think this one will be surpassed by whatever comes next in the series because I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned in terms of mission design and in terms of difficulty scaling here. Aside from one mission where I struggled with ammo management with my build, the only difficulty came from end of chapter bosses, which is fine, but the gap in difficulty was really steep between those and the rest of the game in a way that I thought was a little weird, especially for From Software