Demon's Souls (PS5) review: Beauty constrained by the archaic

I must admit, I relished the opportunity to test myself against the challenges of Demon’s Souls as one of my first games on the PlayStation 5. I’ve long been a fan of these types of games and have prided myself on being able to beat them with ocassionally unintentional self-inflicted challenges. I have the patience to overcome these games, and though I didn’t play Demon’s Souls when it first came out, I had wonderful resources to go to in the likes of my colleagues, David Craddock and Sam Chandler. With their help, I took some crash courses in what to expect, and we talked about it for a while leading up to this experience. And while I can safely say that the Demon’s Souls remake on PS5 scratched my itch for a challenge and offered that challenge in one of the most gorgeous presentations of visuals and action I’ve ever seen, I can’t help but notice just how far the Soulsborne series has come from the systems present in this very early offering.

A land wreathed in corruption

For the uninitiated, Demon’s Souls’ setting takes us to the fictional kingdom of Boletaria. Utilizing the power of souls, Boleteria’s leader, King Allant woke a terrifyingly powerful being known as the Old One. With its awakening came a colorless fog to the land that brought with it horrifying demons who began to kill and devour human souls to add to their power. Humans that managed to avoid being destroyed mostly went mad and, themselves, turned into soul-crazed monsters.

Much like any Soulsborne game, Demon’s Souls picks up well after the broad strokes have played out and everything is in ruin. Players take on the role of a protagonist who pushes through the fog into Boleteria to destroy the demons and take their soul power. For good or bad is unknown, and your path is quickly shaken when a massive demon kills you and sends your broken body to a place called the Nexus. It’s there that your soul is trapped alongside the spirits of many other adventurers and it acts as your home base for pretty much the whole game. From that place to which you are now bound, you must venture forth to fight the demons, become stronger through their soul power, and confront the Old One if you wish to escape your otherwise eternal fate.

With the stage set, Demon’s Souls plays out much like most of the other Soulsborne games with the exception that this one features a sort of level selector. There are actually numerous regions you can venture into to explore and progress through in your quest, and there is no particular order in which you have to pursue them. Whether you go back to Boleteria where you kicked things off or head for the prisons in the Tower of Latria or even decide for some reason to start right in the difficult Valley of Defilement is fully up to you and I delight that we’re given such choice in the matter right away.

Moreover, these areas are all just beautifully recrafted from the original. I had to go back and have a look at gameplay videos of the original Demon’s Souls and, boy howdy, Bluepoint made each area look absolutely gorgeous from top to bottom. Even the heinously filthy Valley of Defilement at least looks like a masterfully repainted and polished turd. The even better part is that, thanks to the PS5’s hardware, it runs at a constant 60 frames-per-second without fail and there’s nary a loading screen to be found. Moving between areas takes a couple seconds of a fog wipe and - boom - you're there. And with these fantastically recrafted locations all available to explore from the start, being able to pursue challenges that cater to your class to find equipment that will help make you your strongest is excellent.

Who are you, adventurer?

Speaking of classes, we should take a deep dive into gameplay. When you begin, you make an adventurer with a specialty of your choice. Knights, Barbarians, and Soldiers have good strength, vitality, and endurance for upfront combat. Wanderers, Thieves, and Hunters pack on dexterity for fast and ranged weapons. Royalty and Magicians are built for offensive magic while Priests and Temple Knights are good for healing and buff magic. I must have spent hours in this game’s character creator as well before I ever even started Demon’s Souls because, folks, it is very good. Bluepoint did an incredible job of offering the tools to make your character as cool, freakish, or anywhere in between as you want.

Once you’ve got all that settled, the game plays like you’d expect out of a Soulsborne in progression. You cut and chisel your way through the areas, killing foes, discovering new items, gear, and NPCs to aid you on your way, unlocking shortcuts. Go far enough, of course, and eventually you'll run into bosses of varying intensity who would love to beat your brains out. As nearly always, the difficulty is intense in Demon’s Souls, and while the bosses are the star of the show, there’s no lack of traps and horrible minions on the way that will attempt to make you cry with a cheap death when you learn about them the first time(s). Then it’s on you to go from the respawn checkpoint back to that spot to reacquire your Souls (currency for leveling up and buying items from NPCs) without dying again and losing them forever. Those who have typically shied away from the difficulty of Dark Souls games are not going to find any peace in Demon’s Souls. All of that said, combat feels mostly impactful and good throughout.

I can't say all good things here. Even Dark Souls players and especially newer ones might find themselves annoyed with a few of the now-archaic systems that Bluepoint chose to preserve in this Demon’s Souls remake. First and foremost are the curatives. It is my firm regret to inform all returning players of Demon’s Souls that Grass curatives are back. That is to say, there is no persistent healing item like Dark Souls’ Estus Flask or Sekiro’s Healing Gourd here. Just expendable Grass curatives that you must keep well stocked in your inventory at all times. And oh, how spoiled we have been in recent FromSoftware games! Here? Well, did you hit a hard area and expend your healing items? Awesome. Pause your progress for long stretches of time and spend it in an area where you can grind for more Grass curatives and Souls… to buy more Grass curatives. It’s annoying to say the least and with all of the better options for healing systems that have been explored in Soulsborne games, it’s annoying that this is one of the things Bluepoint kept fully intact.

Another intact point of contention is the complete lack of any kind of selling system for your items. You can find all of the Mail Breaker daggers you want in the game. It won’t make a lick of difference because all you can do with them is drop them or store them. There’s no selling items in this game, so collecting multiple instances of spare equipment is unnecessary - especially armor because you can’t upgrade it. Rid yourself of the anxiety of leaving massive amounts of extra gear sitting around. Bluepoint made sure you’d continue to do that a lot.

And you can’t even tell me that Bluepoint needed to keep these things intact because, to their credit, they have made improvements to Demon’s Souls beyong the visual and performance upgrade. For those who have played before, you may remember the limited inventory system. It’s still here, but the pain point has been smoothed. If an item will put you over your weight limit, you can teleport various gear back to your storage guy in the Nexus without going back. In this way, you can pick and choose what you currently need to carry or send away and go sort it out later instead of making multiple trips, which is just fantastic. Also, Demon’s Souls is bristling with secrets, and some of them are quite new. One new secret makes a particularly tough area all the easier, and another was an outright mystery where the community banded together to figure it out. These are awesome and fun additions Bluepoint made. And it makes the crummy things they left intact stand out all the more.

Plenty of Soul, just a few unnecessary Demons

As far as an action-RPG goes, Demon’s Souls is as tough, but rewarding as I’d expect a Soulborne game would be. Bluepoint did an incredible job of pulling this 2009 title into 2020 and giving all the gloss and polish the PlayStation 5 can wring out of it while still playing perfectly smooth and mostly free of loading. The combat feels tight and impactful, the area selection is delightful, and the character customization looks better than ever even by current Soulsborne standards. Smoothing out inventory systems and adding some more secrets is also a delightful plus.  Even so, I just wish Bluepoint had gone all the way in inviting some improvements into the game’s archaic systems. Grinding items in a Soulsborne is just annoying and not being able to sell anything kills me inside. But if you can get past those things, Demon’s Souls is mostly on point as a high-quality upgrade to one of the foundations of this genre’s legacy.

This review is based upon a purchased digital copy of the game. The Demon's Souls remake is avilable on the PlayStation 5 now.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.