Despite the nice graphical and performance facelift, I still believe that Demon's Souls is one of the weaker Souls games. While still better than the dumpster fire that is Dark Souls II, Demon's Souls helms several weird issues that are typical of the predecessor of any revolutionary game genre; the game still feels clunky in some places, the level design can oftentimes be a drag, and this game most certainly has 3 of the 5 worst corpse runs in the entire series.
Nevertheless, Demon's Souls is still a total dream to play, as well as being a very impressive looker, even when running on the grown-up performance mode. The gameplay is still mostly solid (though melee players will find the game is very imbalanced against them), there are many great bosses and iconic level moments, and it's super fun to play around with the "Fashion Souls" of the very first game. This is all without mentioning that there are many great graphical/performance settings available to help tune the experience to however players prefer. Those who want that more """cinematic""" gameplay experience can run the game with all the fancy graphics, and others can switch to a lesser graphical experience but with a far more substantial framerate (how I played).
Along with performance modes, it's also nice that there's plenty of brightness, HDR, and filter settings to greater tune the visual experience more to your liking.
There's no real doubt that this PlayStation 5 remake of Demon's Souls is the "definitive" experience on nearly every level. Certain diehards might be able to spot major differences in how the remake feels to the original, but this remake has made me want to revisit Demon's Souls more often. Technically, this is my second time playing through Demon's Souls since I played the original PS3 version, yet was hesitant to ever revisit that game. The sheer number of quality of life features as well as having online services once again makes the Demon's Souls remake the defacto Demon's Souls experience.
Nevertheless, Demon's Souls is still a total dream to play, as well as being a very impressive looker, even when running on the grown-up performance mode. The gameplay is still mostly solid (though melee players will find the game is very imbalanced against them), there are many great bosses and iconic level moments, and it's super fun to play around with the "Fashion Souls" of the very first game. This is all without mentioning that there are many great graphical/performance settings available to help tune the experience to however players prefer. Those who want that more """cinematic""" gameplay experience can run the game with all the fancy graphics, and others can switch to a lesser graphical experience but with a far more substantial framerate (how I played).
Along with performance modes, it's also nice that there's plenty of brightness, HDR, and filter settings to greater tune the visual experience more to your liking.
There's no real doubt that this PlayStation 5 remake of Demon's Souls is the "definitive" experience on nearly every level. Certain diehards might be able to spot major differences in how the remake feels to the original, but this remake has made me want to revisit Demon's Souls more often. Technically, this is my second time playing through Demon's Souls since I played the original PS3 version, yet was hesitant to ever revisit that game. The sheer number of quality of life features as well as having online services once again makes the Demon's Souls remake the defacto Demon's Souls experience.