This review contains spoilers
With the replay done I wanted to split the final review into my thoughts with the replay and with the overall remake. Have a lot to say with this one but overall a solid experience to be had.
Replaying Demons Souls reveals a game that while flawed in some of its systems (grass is still not that good and some of the bosses are complete jokes) it also has some of the best level design in a FromSoft game. One of my favorite standouts would actually be the tutorial/1-1, which does a wonderful job of introducing the world of Demons as one that will punish those looking for a more casual dungeon crawler and not the unique beast that is Demons Souls (and capping it off with Phalanx teaches a wonderful lesson about elemental weakness). Another strength to the levels is how relatively straightforward they can be, with even the more complex ones like 3-1 eventually unwrapping itself to make the journey to the boss much more pleasant. On the topic of bosses I'd say the replay has made me look at many in a better light because of just how unique so many of them are despite the relative ease. I felt this time around that most felt like a way to cap off the difficulty that most of the levels brought to the table, with the finale of each being a sendoff in a unique way (Worlds 1,4,5 being my absolute favorites). While I still do like other Fromsouls experiences more I think I finally realize why so many people deeply cherish Demons and found an immense respect for it this time around.
Remake thoughts are a lot less positive but I want to start with the absolute best aspects this remake does. First off running at a smooth 60fps is wonderful alongside the genuinely solid QOL updates (my favorite still being the ability to pop souls without some shitty animation). Another important would be many of the cheese strats for fights being fixed alongside a general improvement to many of the fights, with Flamelurker and Maneater feeling like much more smooth experiences due to better overall cues in combat. Finally the core of Demons Souls still exists as a whole, with Bluepoint managing to keep the experience relatively the same throughout on a game play scale (mostly). With all that being said I can't reccomend this remake to those that loved the original aesthetic because so much of it gets lost in Bluepoint/Sonys bad idea to make Demons Souls into a ps5 tech demo for a full 70 to 100 DOLLARS. While some changes are minor such as realively smoother animations and the addition of emotes/photo mode (which I do like as photo modes are awesome), many exist to just make things more "epic" with very clear inspirations from things such as God Of War and Bloodborne. While I mentioned Storm Ruler being completely ruined because of this, an even more egregious example would be one of the more iconic fights in the game, with Maiden Astraea getting a much more lively theme filled with bombastic tunes and a choir for some reason. This would be fine if it didnt absolutely go against the whole point of the fight being much more of an execution against someone trying to do good but making things much worse for everything, creating one of the best moral dilemmas in the franchise that no other Souls game has even attempted to replicate. Audio issues like this are vast in the remake, with so much sounding like a modern movie and ruining the intent from several more encounters. The entire thing just regularly clashes with itself and feels like Bluepoint had no idea what they wanted to do with the games on a technical level except make things PRETTY AND LOUD. As I've said before the QOL stuff makes for a smoother experience but it's a hard pill to swallow considering how much was taken away from the experience as a whole.
Some final misc stuff to add for both sections is stuff like world tendency/character tendency being unexplained (managed to get Dark Character tendency which didnt really do much) and grass being substantially nerfed in weird ways (which doesnt effect much because you can still carry a surplus in the late game).
Overall as I game I can't recommend it enough but can only really consider the remake if you can't emulate the original via RPCS3 (has the much better art direction and runs damn well with the 60 patch) and/or don't mind the overall gutting of the art direction.
Replaying Demons Souls reveals a game that while flawed in some of its systems (grass is still not that good and some of the bosses are complete jokes) it also has some of the best level design in a FromSoft game. One of my favorite standouts would actually be the tutorial/1-1, which does a wonderful job of introducing the world of Demons as one that will punish those looking for a more casual dungeon crawler and not the unique beast that is Demons Souls (and capping it off with Phalanx teaches a wonderful lesson about elemental weakness). Another strength to the levels is how relatively straightforward they can be, with even the more complex ones like 3-1 eventually unwrapping itself to make the journey to the boss much more pleasant. On the topic of bosses I'd say the replay has made me look at many in a better light because of just how unique so many of them are despite the relative ease. I felt this time around that most felt like a way to cap off the difficulty that most of the levels brought to the table, with the finale of each being a sendoff in a unique way (Worlds 1,4,5 being my absolute favorites). While I still do like other Fromsouls experiences more I think I finally realize why so many people deeply cherish Demons and found an immense respect for it this time around.
Remake thoughts are a lot less positive but I want to start with the absolute best aspects this remake does. First off running at a smooth 60fps is wonderful alongside the genuinely solid QOL updates (my favorite still being the ability to pop souls without some shitty animation). Another important would be many of the cheese strats for fights being fixed alongside a general improvement to many of the fights, with Flamelurker and Maneater feeling like much more smooth experiences due to better overall cues in combat. Finally the core of Demons Souls still exists as a whole, with Bluepoint managing to keep the experience relatively the same throughout on a game play scale (mostly). With all that being said I can't reccomend this remake to those that loved the original aesthetic because so much of it gets lost in Bluepoint/Sonys bad idea to make Demons Souls into a ps5 tech demo for a full 70 to 100 DOLLARS. While some changes are minor such as realively smoother animations and the addition of emotes/photo mode (which I do like as photo modes are awesome), many exist to just make things more "epic" with very clear inspirations from things such as God Of War and Bloodborne. While I mentioned Storm Ruler being completely ruined because of this, an even more egregious example would be one of the more iconic fights in the game, with Maiden Astraea getting a much more lively theme filled with bombastic tunes and a choir for some reason. This would be fine if it didnt absolutely go against the whole point of the fight being much more of an execution against someone trying to do good but making things much worse for everything, creating one of the best moral dilemmas in the franchise that no other Souls game has even attempted to replicate. Audio issues like this are vast in the remake, with so much sounding like a modern movie and ruining the intent from several more encounters. The entire thing just regularly clashes with itself and feels like Bluepoint had no idea what they wanted to do with the games on a technical level except make things PRETTY AND LOUD. As I've said before the QOL stuff makes for a smoother experience but it's a hard pill to swallow considering how much was taken away from the experience as a whole.
Some final misc stuff to add for both sections is stuff like world tendency/character tendency being unexplained (managed to get Dark Character tendency which didnt really do much) and grass being substantially nerfed in weird ways (which doesnt effect much because you can still carry a surplus in the late game).
Overall as I game I can't recommend it enough but can only really consider the remake if you can't emulate the original via RPCS3 (has the much better art direction and runs damn well with the 60 patch) and/or don't mind the overall gutting of the art direction.