Release: 2020
Developer: Bluepoint Games, Sony Entertainment
Publisher: Sony Entertainment
Gameplay Stats: xx hours, xx trophies
Oh man, this game was both a blast and a drag to revisit. The updated graphics and slight QoL improvements here went a really long way towards making this game more enjoyable. Particularly letting items be sent back to storage immediately as they are picked up or anytime from your menu. I can't tell you how many times in the original I ran through some of the areas only because I needed to grab some items that I couldn't carry my previous time through.
The PS5 version is definitely the way to play this game if you have access, the visuals are greatly improved and I think the audio has a higher fidelity from what I remember playing through the ps3 version nearly 10 years ago. They left many of the mechanics alone (apart from some minor Quality of Life changes mentioned previously) and the enemy AI appears to be intact from the original, for better and worse. A lot of the bosses here are still puzzles meant to be solved as opposed to the longer fights the series has become famous for. The janky AI was very apparent in the Maneater (3-2) and Flamelurker (2-2) bosses in particular, with them leaving you alone for a minute to either fly to the horizon for seemingly no reason or to pounce a bit of the environment a ways away.
This game is still fairly challenging with them not being afraid of killing the player with a single hit, I think the later games are more forgiving here. You can still kind of cheese your way through many scenarios by just tanking damage and healing yourself almost indefinitely. I think my only gripe here was a gripe that I had with the main game as well, the tendency system. It is bold and interesting! But it's not touched on ANYWHERE in the game itself. No tutorials, no mention. And it's pretty important if you want to see all of the content in the game. Which lead me to spend a bit of time combing through the wiki. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's still easy to spend a load of time looking stuff up for the Souls series, but it's definitely a dated thing. It felt weird for a game that came out in 2020.
It was definitely weird returning to a Souls game that wasn't a continuous world like the series is known for. It wasn't as nice having to warp back to the Nexus and then warp back out to a particular level as opposed to being able to warp around, although that is fixed after you take down your first archdemon. I walked away from the game feeling a little weird about it and I think that has to do with the look of the game being so fresh and new while the mechanics feeling so dated. I could see that turning a lot of potential players off from the game entirely once they get going and realize there's a rat's nest of things to do and to know to fully explore the game. It's intimidating in a way games no longer need to be.
Overall I'd recommend this game for people who are into the series in general, but I don't think I would recommend people start with this game in the series. I think Dark Souls 1 or 3 would be way better introductions to this sort of game and I think both of those games can be pretty fully enjoyed with what is present in them, not much wiki-ing necessary. That being said, playing this game so close to the release of Elden Ring has me very excited to see where the series continues. I am STOKED. [7.5/10]
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