Dark Souls Remastered Review
But doesn’t quite get the point of “remaster”
This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.
Dark Souls Remastered feels like such an oddity to me; it’s a game that isn’t even a decade old and is already getting a second release. That said, a re-release is understandable given fans’ reverence for the series. With the success of the Soulsborne franchise and general growth of “Souls-likes,” Dark Souls was the game that pushed the Demons’ Souls/King’s Field design into the spotlight.
While there is certainly a lot here for someone who hasn’t taken the plunge yet, it’s hard for this Dark Souls veteran to recommend signing up for yet another tour of duty — at least, for long-time fans of the series who have already played the original game.
A Soulful Introduction:
This review is going to be written both for people who haven’t played the series yet and for returning veterans. If you’ve played Dark Souls before, feel free to skip this part and jump to the spot where I discuss the changes (jump to Praise the [HD] Sun). And before anyone asks about my Dark Souls pedigree, I have played and beaten every Soulsborne; including getting platinum on Bloodborne.
Dark Souls is an action RPG that evolved the formula of From Software’s first breakout mega hit: Demons’ Souls. Taking place in mysterious, faraway land of Lordran, you assume the role of an unkindled — a being cursed with undeath who will eventually go insane, or “hollow.”
Cast out of your town and dropped within an asylum, your mission is to complete the prophecy of an unkindled that will light the fire and bring light back to the world.
Standing in your way is one of the most impressive world designs, challenging enemies, and amazing boss fights ever to grace a video game.
Prepare to Die:
Dark Souls, as with Demons’ Souls before it, allows players to fully create their character however they see fit. While you can choose starting classes, they simply determine your starting gear.
Combat is entirely real time, with a stamina bar dictating your ability to attack, dodge, or block. Weapons and spells are locked to leveling up your attributes in those respective areas; which in turn boost your stats.
You are free to build your character anyway you see fit; with fans over the years coming up with some insane builds. As long as you are upgrading your gear and levels to keep pace, there is no wrong way to play through Dark Souls.
The variety of weapons and builds play into the combat system. While it may look simple, advanced elements like using poise to attack through incoming damage can be essential. Every weapon has its own unique swing and hurtbox; forcing you to re-adapt with each weapon swap.
Dark Souls features a death mechanic similar to rogue-likes in terms of its cost. If you die, all the enemies respawn and you get sent back to the last bonfire, or checkpoint, you visited. Any souls (which are the game’s currency and experience) you picked up are left at where you died. Die a second time before you get back there, and you lose all those souls.
As you play through each area, you’ll unlock shortcuts and additional bonfires to speed up exploration. The fact that the majority of the world is fully connected is still one of the most amazing examples of world design seen in a game. While you do have a goal to achieve, you are free to go in different directions to get there. From the starting point of Firelink Shrine, the gamespace wraps around to present a coherent world.
The only thing standing in the way on your path to glory is the vast number and types of enemies. Each enemy has different ways of attacking you, and as any veteran knows, getting surrounded equals death. The boss fights, outside of a few examples, are all great, distinctive, fights.
Multiplayer comes in the form of being able to summon other players to help you out, or be invaded by people looking to take your souls. You’ll be able to view messages from other players and interact with bloodstains to see the final moments before a character died.
And of course there is the game’s startling amount of lore and back-story. There have been many videos and essays deducing the lore of the Dark Souls universe. While there aren’t a lot of cutscenes, every item in the game contains story information that you can learn or ignore at your leisure.
For those returning to Lordran, Dark Souls Remastered features a few additions and improvements.
Praise the (HD) Sun:
Dark Souls Remastered’s biggest improvement comes with the engine upgrade. The game now runs at 60 frames per second; with the original game struggling in some areas to keep to a steady 30 fps. Going from the original to the remaster, the increased FPS offers a far smoother experience. Blightown — which became near unplayable due to frame drops — now handles much better.
Enhanced lighting (particularly with ambient lighting and magic effects), gives the various areas a better look to them, along with HD textures for many of the enemies. Lost Izalith is a lot easier on the eyes with the intense red glow of the lava toned down to a more reasonable level.
The only noticeable quality of life upgrade is that you can now use multiple copies of consumable items, instead of triggering them one by one. There was one interesting change with a few bonfires that remained accessible after an event, but discussing it would be a spoiler.
For fans of multiplayer, the remastered version comes with an increased player cap of now being able to have six players in co-op instead of four.
While all the good of the Dark Souls experience remains intact, it’s unfortunate that all the bad makes a return.
A Rough Beginning:
Dark Souls Remastered is an odd game to look at today given what we know about how the rest of the series has evolved the design. Comparing games from a game design perspective, Dark Souls would be the bottom of the tower in my opinion. The game doesn’t have the obvious polish and growth that would be seen with Dark Souls 2, 3, and Bloodborne.
Even though Dark Souls 2 is considered the black sheep of the franchise (and worthy of a podcast or post discussion), it still pushed things further with better enemy AI and a more varied combat system. With that said, trying to debate whether Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3 was the best game in the series is a topic far too large for this review.
The heights of Dark Souls are still present — a fully connected and memorable world, challenging combat, and great boss fights. The problem is that for all the buildup of getting another chance to play Dark Souls again, it could have used some work on smoothing out longstanding issues.
Outside of the minor quality of life improvements and enhanced game engine, all the warts and rough patches of Dark Souls have made a return. New players will still have to deal with invisible walls with no way to distinguish them, not understanding the upgrade and progression system, leading to greater difficulty spikes, or the ones that are overpowered, and the biggies that fans know about.
Areas like the Valley of the Giants and the Lost Izalith are still a massive pain to go through. For people playing online, there have already been reports of hackers causing trouble by invading games that has led to people being soft banned.
As a personal issue, I still feel that the ability to fast travel via bonfires unlocks way too late in a game like this, and good luck to any new player who gets stuck in Ash Lake or the Catacombs.
With the increased frame rate, I also had some issues with the camera frantically spazzing out of control with lock-ons, and several enemy animations seem artifically sped up; such as jumping hollows and rats.
While the engine enhancements are nice looking in spots, areas like Darkroot Basin had a washed out look to them, which had the effect of increasing the difficulty of seeing into the distance, or the ground at the hydra lake. The general idea is that if the area looked good before, it looks better now, and vice versa for the muddy areas.
But perhaps what hurts the most for returning fans is that there is nothing truly new about Dark Souls Remastered.
Deadly Déjà Vu:
Dark Souls Remastered is basically the Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition running on a new engine. You’ll still get the DLC chapter included at no additional price along with its arena-styled multiplayer. For PC fans who have played it, the fan-made patch DS Fix that made it playable added more functionality than what exists in Dark Souls Remastered.
And asking those fans to spend an additional $40 (or $20 if you own the first version on Steam) feels like a cash grab. With the price of an AA game, a lot of people were expecting something new to entice players. Even Dark Souls 2’s own remastered edition (Scholar of the First Sin) did a re-balance of the enemies, spells, and item placements.
Issues that hardcore fans have been complaining about for years in terms of balance and exploits remain; as evident by the hacking issues. Several areas in the back half of the game still feel light in terms of content from the original development supposedly being rushed.
This was From Software’s chance to give us the best and definitive version of Dark Souls for modern consoles, and they failed.
A One Way Trip:
Now comes the tough part: Is Dark Souls Remastered worth it to everyone? If you have completely missed out on the series, then yes, the positives are still as amazing as they were back in the day. If this is your first time playing it, you’ll be treated to one of the defining games of the last console generation. If you’ve done it all before, or have gotten used to the changes in future iterations, you can safely ignore this one unless you have to play everything souls-related.
At this point, I know that it’s a long shot, but I would love to see a remastered version of Demon’s Souls, so that the game that really brought Souls-likes to the forefront would not be forgotten. Nevertheless, this is a game (and series) that deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible. If you would like to watch me play through the game, I did a three night stream from start to finish on the Game-Wisdom YouTube channel.
