With the release of Elden Ring earlier this year, FromSoftware really propelled its games into mainstream consciousness. The developer is known and adored by fans for its relentless and tough yet brilliantly satisfying gameplay. However, which of the many iconic titles is the best is an endless debate that has been going on since the success of Elden Ring. The recording of both Demon Souls and Bloodborne as part of a PlayStation Plus Extra subscription has further reinvigorated these fan-favorite experiences.
Although the PlayStation 5 remake of Demon Souls isn’t actually developed by FromSoftware, it’s faithful to the iconic developer’s original entry from 2009. The Bluepoint Games 2020 remake was ranked by critics as the best FromSoftware game to Elden Ring was released to incredible critical acclaim. However, Demon Souls has one major flaw that ultimately makes it fall short Elden Ring and Bloodbornebecause it doesn’t respect the player’s time in the same way.
Of course, FromSoftware games are notoriously difficult, so players often expect to die and try again. However, they also expect to be able to make reasonable progress and feel that they have accomplished something and are closer to their target on most runs, even if they die later. Unfortunately, Demon Souls doesn’t give fans that feeling enough, often leaving them overly frustrated and bored with the game’s replay. On the other hand, both Elden Ring and Bloodbornearguably the best games from FromSoftware, dodge this pitfall in two main ways.
First, they provide players with other places to explore when they get stuck, reducing the repetitive nature of the games. Elden RingThe incredibly enticing and rewarding open world naturally allows players to freely explore new areas and find a different challenge than the one they are stuck in. BloodborneAlthough more linear, it has several areas that players can access through the Hunter’s Dream hub. to his credit, Demon Souls similarly incorporates this element, opening up different worlds and levels for players to explore in the order they choose. Unfortunately, this element alone is not enough to prevent fans from feeling that their time has not been respected.
The key to Elden Ring and BloodborneThe success of compensating for the frustrations of fans is that both games also help the player within their worlds to feel rewarded for their time and effort with tangible progress. For example, players discover Elden Ring‘s campfires much more frequently, allowing them to manually save their progress and halfway through levels. Alternatively, but equally successful, Bloodborne makes good use of its world design to open frequent shortcuts that allow players to return to later parts of the level much more quickly after dying. As a result, players feel that their time has been respected as they can more easily save their progress and not be forced to play an entire level in the exact same way multiple times, leaving them increasingly frustrated and bored with the repetition of it.
Demon SoulsBiggest disappointment is the lack of comparable features. While the game does have a few shortcuts, they aren’t common or spread out well enough to really help players. The game also doesn’t feature checkpoints within each level, but forces players to complete an entire run and defeat the boss of the level before unlocking a new checkpoint to start from. As a result, a failed run can feel like a waste of time, requiring the player to replay everything as it was before. This lack of tangible progress can frustrate players and become boring.
Demon SoulsThe 2020 remake was the perfect opportunity to address this important issue. Of course, the game’s developer, Bluepoint Games, wanted to stay true to the FromSoftware original, but that didn’t mean he was averse to minor gameplay tweaks. For example, Bluepoint has improved the dodge mechanism to allow rolls in all directions, rather than just forward, backward, left and right, as before. Adding a few more shortcuts or checkpoints could be an equally minor change that would have vastly improved the player experience, bringing the otherwise great gameplay on par with FromSoftware’s best titles.
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