The Demon's Souls Remake Is Inferior To The Original

Some of you wont know how I feel until Bluepoint remakes Bloodborne and changes the things you like. 😔😔

"second of all, no I can't let people enjoy things, because that would prevent me from enjoying the thing I like the most, which is critical analysis and being a hater." Caught me off guard with that one, I burst out laughing.

During the segment about deliberate changes that missed the point, I wish you had included a segment about the Flamelurker. It was apparent before release Bluepoint didn't 'get' Demons Souls vibe. I say this as in one of the 1st trailers they showed off their design for Flamelurker and it was a generic westernized demon. It looked like it was designed for Diablo, not Demon Souls. Due to minor backlash from that trailer, they did update Flamelurkers' design to be truer to his intended design. But it left a lot of questions about what they had done with any content that wasn't included in trailers and didn't take feedback on. Which left us with what we have now.

Now I'm imagining dark souls where they play Ornstein and Smough's theme music as background music for the entirety of Anor Londo and redesign Smough so that he's fleshy and sad.

As someone who never played the original but loved the remake, this was very compelling. What were they thinking with the sound design of Latria??? I love blue point but wow. They really dropped the ball in many areas and I understand og fans frustrations now.

One part of the environmental storytelling and lore I like to point out is also in Latria. In the original, the level has these yellow flags, or straps of cloth, spread throughout the level. This obviously, OBVIOUSLY references the Old Monk's takeover and corruption of the area, which the player only realizes later when they meet the boss and see his famously yellow robes, the source of his power. Now Blue Point saw these bits of foreshadowing, figured yellow wasn't scary enough or something, and made all the flags red. RED How do you even miss the point this bad?

I did not play the original. The lullaby argument is what drove this home for me. I cannot imagine how I'd feel of they remade bloodborne and added the music box throughout central Yarnham. It would absolutely ruin the greatest atmosphere I have ever experienced in a video game. Bloodborne was my first fromsoft game and the crippling fear of wandering the streets of yharnum was the most immersive atmosphere of all. Hearing the music box only from outside the gate and finding a way to get to the window was exhilarating. It would dramatically change if the music played throughout, and even worse if they made it soothing and less creepy.

Bro, imagine if Bluepoint remade Dark Souls and made Smough into an actual grotesque fatass instead! 😂

one thing I noticed is that many of the bosses in the remake give me doom or Diablo vibes with their design

On top of the Adjudicator redesign, it also impacts the concept of its whole mechanic. You cant harm it outside of the wound on its stomach because its made of gold armor, in the remake, unless you are aware of how it was originally, its entirely possible to not have any idea why you cant harm it, and you might not even realize that its the wound that lets your attacks land, it might appear that attacks land at random

The thing about the Tower Knight's OG song is that it's a rally chant. It's symbolic of a kingdom putting all of their hope and faith into a giant knight in order to protect the kingdom against intruders that may mean harm to its inhabitants. Changing his theme into a generic orchestral piece is plain stupid.

I knew Bluepoint didn't understand Demon's Souls when i heard they changed--not just updated but outright rewrote--the music. The dude said their job was to make the game not like it actually was but like people remember it. Well, i dunno about him but that's not how i remember Demon's Souls.

Im surprised, but it seems remake delevopers didn't have access to og demon souls design documents. No artbook, nothing. Which is so odd.

I have to also mention that the change to maiden astrea's theme in the remake completely changes the tone of the fight. In the original it was supposed to make you really think about what it is you were doing and the consequences of your actions. These are real, sentient people you are slaying (sometimes). In the remake it feels like a grand fight with garl vinland with a melancholic tone. It doesn't have the same impact since garl was never supposed to be a real threat to you, although he hit hard and strong, he was designed to be able to be killed easily, you were supposed to be unstoppable, and astrea showed you what that means.

You convinced me at the fat official example. That's actually pretty outrategous.

It blows my mind when people say they want a bluepoint bloodborne remake... please god no just give me a pc port.

The original Demon's Souls avoided trends and didn't care about sales. The remake does the complete opposite.

the luck of bluepoint is that demons souls was an extremely niche game, if they make these changes in dark souls for example, they would suffer a wave of hate, souls is not about the graphics but the best set of atmosphere and design that counts their stories, and that's why they are such special games

I love how you explain that in the souls games the inherent look of things and design is there because they cared to make a cohesive world and context.

A central problem with the art design, which I think most people struggle to articulate, is how much more positive space there is in the remake over the original. This is a bit complicated to explain in text. Basically, the human eye and brain are extremely sensitive to contrast. Between colours, in different hues, saturations and shades (especially shades). Between shapes, in 2D & 3D. Between shapes in different positions, rotations and scales. Between the size, shape and composition of different groups of elements. And any combination of the above. Because humans are pattern-seeking animals. We naturally pick up on patterns, and breaks in patterns. Contrast is a break in a visual pattern, so it attracts our attention. Dark against light. Red against blue. A circle among squares. An individual apart from a crowd. We tune out patterns, because they don't demand a lot of attention. If we've seen one bit of it, we don't need to see the rest. We can just extrapolate from what we've already seen. While breaks in patterns get our attention, because we have to determine what we're seeing, and what it might mean. Even if the exception is meaningless, our instinct is to check anyway. That's what positive and negative space are. Negative space is any element of an image that is either a repeating pattern, or a random pattern. Such areas of an image don't attract our attention, because they are predictable. You can even make highly-contrasting visual elements read as negative space, by arranging them in clearly repeating or random patterns. On the other hand, positive space is the elements of an image that are irregular. Such areas of an image attract our attention, because they are unpredictable. They are questions that demand answers. And therein lies the great difference between the original and the remake of Demons Souls. Look at the opening of original Boletarian Palace. The high stone walls, towers and turrets are covered in repeating elements. There's the crenellations and machicolations atop every wall; the quoins running up every outside corner; the arrow-slits in the walls; and the whole thing is covered in a repeating stone brick texture. All the contrasting details of the building are organized so that they read as negative space, whilst still being recognizably a castle. Compare that to remake Boletarian Palace. Putting aside the architecture being a completely different shape in places, it's all covered in irregular details. There's the arched stone decorations; the coloured draping banners; the random and overwrought wooden hoarding around the gatehouse towers and elsewhere; and the damage to the crenellations and the fire in some of the hoarding. All of these things are vastly more eye-catching than the original castle, because they are all pieces of positive space that were not present in the original game. These kinds of changes are everywhere in the remake. Areas that were previously negative space have been filled with detail, making them positive space. Which changes how those environments feel, because now they're more visually-stimulating than they were previously. But it's visual stimulation for no other purpose than the stimulation itself. It's more detail for the sake of having more detail, not in service of replicating the original game's experience. And making previously-negative space into positive space is not an inherent improvement. Because filling an image with positive space makes it feel like the whole image is yelling "LOOK AT ME". And in a videogame, the imagery is yelling for attention constantly. It is exhausting. Negative space gives the viewer a visual rest, and allows the remaining positive space to stand out more through contrast. Good art needs a mixture of positive and negative space. The original Demons Souls understood this. The remake does not.