Demon's Souls remake does a good job of staying true to the source material, bringing a cult classic from 2009 to life like never before with the help of the new architecture of the PS5. Many fans were thrilled to see certain nuances of the original game manifest in the remake despite their outward appearance as outdated mechanics, but there are also some things that should have changed to create a better experience all around. Admittedly, changing too much would risk making it a completely different game, but there are a few places which deserved to be touched up.
This isn't to say anything negative about Bluepoint Games, as it has done an incredible job bringing Demon's Souls back to life after its 11-year slumber. Instead, these are mostly small changes that would benefit the game greatly without damaging the integrity of the original. There are already a ton of quality-of-life changes added in for the remake such as the ability to warp between Archstones and send items back to Stockpile Thomas automatically that fans have been absolutely loving, so these would only further serve to improve the experience.
In-Game Explanation of World Tendency
Demon's Souls features a morality system of sorts called World Tendency, but the game itself never takes the time to explain it. Manipulating World Tendency is vital to getting certain items, completing different questlines, and molding the game's difficulty to the player's preference, but they'll never know how to do it unless they look up a guide online. Essentially, as players defeat bosses, their World Tendency shifts towards white, while killing NPCs or dying in Body Form will cause the world Tendency to shift towards black. The color of a player's World Tendency affects difficulty, rewards, and even can trigger certain in -game events.
While long-winded tutorials run against the grain of what the Souls franchise is as a whole, it still would have been nice to explain at least the very basics of the system to players. This could either be done with a handful of messages in the tutorial area in the same way that players learn the basic controls or even with a short cutscene. The Monumental in the Nexus already has a good bit of exposition and could also teach players about how to check their World Tendency and the main ways to influence it.
The Ritual Path Shortcut
Demon's Souls is practically a master class in level design. As players progress through its various Archstones, they'll frequently find themselves looping back around on areas they've already been to or opening up shortcuts that shorten the run to retrieve souls after dying. Unlike Dark Souls, there's no mid-level bonfire checkpoints for players to use, so it's even more important that levels feel intuitive and easy to traverse in this game. For the most part, all of that was already baked into the original game, but there's one instance where it failed.
In world 4-2, also known as The Ritual Path, there aren't any shortcuts that players can use to get back to the boss. Since the Old Hero is a particularly challenging boss battle, this means players will have to make the run several times. Pair this together with the fact that it's very difficult and full of enemies that can potentially instantly kill the player with a long range, sweeping beam attack, and it's basically asking for a short cut.
Dragon God Boss Rework
The Dragon God is essentially the mascot of Demon's Souls, appearing in several trailers for the game and its opening cutscene. If players manage to beat the Vanguard Demon in the tutorial, they're even able to meet up with this boss early. With so much hype leading up to this incredible monster, fans are no doubt thrilled when they finally get the chance to fight him. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to realize that the Dragon God boss in world 2-3 is really more like a puzzle than an actual Souls boss.
In Demon's Souls' defense, it was still figuring out exactly what makes a great boss battle, and it's clear that the Dark Souls franchise learned from this mistake, not including puzzle bosses such as this one. While Bluepoint Games' decision to maintain the integrity of the original game is certainly commendable, this is one change that most fans would probably have been happy about. The climactic confrontation between the demon slayer and the Dragon God is rather lackluster, and many players don't feel the sense of accomplishment they should from felling such a terrifying beast.
The Sixth Archstone
When Bluepoint Games remade Shadow of the Colossus, fans of that franchise were treated to the conclusion of a mystery over a decade in the making. The diehard fans of the original game scoured the open world in search of a way to open a sealed door, spending years trying everything they could think of. Community members combed through lore and created theories that seemed so realistic they had to be true. Bluepoint Games rewarded the community by adding 79 enlightenment coins to the game that, when found, would allow players to open the door. The reward inside was a powerful new sword.
Demon's Souls has a similar easter egg in the form of ceramic coins that players can find on pure white or pure black World Tendencies, also opening a locked door and granting a unique armor set. As interesting as this is, many fans were instead hoping for a way to restore Demon's Souls' broken sixth Archstone, something that many fans have pondered for years. Unfortunately, it was not to be, and the archstone remains broken, leaving fans to wonder where it might have led. To be fair, creating three or more new areas would be a major workload for Bluepoint Games, but it still would have been a welcome change.
Demon's Souls is available now on PS5.