Not Better or Worse, Just Different

See that mountain
You can...well...let's just move on...

Having finished Elden Ring, I decided to go back and take a look at some of the older Souls series games to see how they compared.  It was an interesting experience, but the title that caught my attention the most was the PS5 remake of Demon's Souls.  In particular, Bluepoint Games had the unenviable job of trying to update this PS2 classic into a modern action-RPG.  For the most part, they succeeded.  However, I do find myself mystified by what they chose to change and what they decided to leave as is.

Take, for example, the Dragon God boss battle.  It was overly simple even by the standards of the day.  For whatever reason though it was left unchanged.  I can't help but feel like this was a missed opportunity.  A more egregious example is the shattered Archstone.  Originally cut content that was intended to be added later in the form of DLC, From Software ultimately decided to simply move on to Dark Souls instead.  Some of the level geometry and even a few foes that would have resided there were discovered thanks to the tireless effort of data miners.  It's odd that Bluepoint did try to make there own version of this area considering it was partially finished.  

Of course, the reason is because they didn't want to take creative risks...except they kind of did.  In some cases they were well implemented, such as with alterations made to certain items and multiplayer.  In other cases though, I'm not sure why they decided to make changes.  For example, the line of dialogue "Art thou done?" was replaced with "Art though finished?"  Other lines of spoken dialogue were dropped completely in the remake.  Due to audio quality issues, all voice acting had to be re-recorded and for the most part it's just as good or even better than the original.  Particularly when it comes to Patches..."Trusty Patches"..."the Hyena", "the Spider", "the Unbreakable", "the Untethered"...or if you want to go way back "Patch the Good Luck".  On the other hand King Allant and the Maiden-in-Black are noticeably less impressive.  Overall, I do like the addition of facial animations.  When it comes to From Software titles, even Elden Ring is still lacking in that regard.

Despite these criticism, I have to praise Bluepoint for being receptive to feedback and making changes accordingly.  The Flamelurker boss underwent some visual alterations after fans pointed out that the new design seemed a bit generic.  I also noticed a few tweaks made after the reveal trailer, but before the final release, with the express aim of making the color tone and oppressive gloom match more closely with original game.  Still, much like Capcom's Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, I feel like they just missed the mark in terms of greatness.