Souls games may have been popularized and iconized via Dark soulsbut there wouldn't be Dark souls without its predecessor – the humble and singular Demon's Souls. Demon's Souls' segmented warp structure and macrocosmic World Tendency system are certainly different, for better or worse, while its core tenets as an action RPG would adapt to the punishingly difficult Dark souls for FromSoftware to refine it into the classic and revered formula widely known and loved today.
Demon souls carved a long and hard-earned path to soul-like success
As the prototypical Souls game, it's impossible to overstate how confusingly influential it is Demon's Souls has been for the past decade and a half. For all intents and purposes, a 2009 PS3 exclusive Demon's Souls is the skeletal framework for Dark souls' tissue. Now, all subsequent FromSoftware action RPGs and Soulslikes have continued to add the anatomical structure with organs and a nervous system.
Almost all the favorable characteristics of FromSoftware's modern games can be traced back to Demon's Soulswhether players love gimmick bosses, PvP invasions, or quest-related NPCs. World Tendency is now a relic from Demon's Souls' previously, and its game-affecting conditions and consequences do not seem to be particularly missed.
It's neat that it allowed for unique events and difficulty changes, but reaching the Pure White Tendency in each world or worrying about how to properly manipulate Character and World Tendencies so that otherwise locked content can become available is an unnecessary headache that FromSoftware was undoubtedly right to pay homage thereafter. Demon's Souls itself is archaic and with each new IP FromSoftware produced pushes the original Soulslike game further into obscurity and obsolescence, which is ironic considering how without Demon's Souls there would probably be no Fire Ring nor its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC 15 years later.
What
Demon's Souls
suffers the most a decade and a half later is how dated its executives are in being rudimentary in design with relatively abysmal AI—
Demon's Souls
Maneaters alone are evidence of this atrocity.
FromSoftware's Demon's Souls is no longer the best way to play the original 'Soulslike'
2009 Demon's Souls was developed by FromSoftware while in 2020 Demon's Souls remake was developed by Bluepoint. So while obviously less impressive in terms of visuals or performance, the former maintains a level of authentic charm.
That said, the remake is basically the same game but with a fresh coat of paint and modern quality-of-life features, making it the undisputed choice of the two due to current-gen availability. Being able to send items to storage or warp between heirlooms without having to go back to Demon's Souls' The Nexus overworld hub – once an Archdemon has been felled – gives the remake an added efficiency that the original lacks. The remake was a launch title for the PS5 and is not only praised as a reinvention of the original but also in terms of current-gen fidelity.
In fact, the remake is one of the only cases where images were held in outstanding regard among them Souls game and is still considered the best looking despite not being a FromSoftware title. Each Souls the game has a loyal fan base, but the original Demon's Soulsburied on PS3, has aged the worst graphically.
FromSoftware's games have always had hugely beautiful art direction, to be clear, but their fidelity hasn't made a dramatic or significant leap since
Blood borne
shy of a decade ago.
Demon's Souls' remake is quite outstanding in its visual polish, especially its unique animation styles, and confidently dates FromSoftware's Demon's Souls as a result. The only reason to jump back on Demon's Souls for the PS3 would instead be a nostalgic element, since that's where the game was created, and the fact that in 2009 Demon's Souls was actually developed by FromSoftware. Even with the fine craquelure of his oil painting exposed, knowing that the original, unrefined Demon's Souls is a FromSoftware game while the remake isn't enough to sustain purists and loyalists alike.
