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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I don’t think people will understand the problem until Bluepoint remakes Bloodborne and gives Ebrietas horrible acne, adds six rows of nipples to Mergo’s Wet Nurse, makes Lady Maria look evil when she is one of the kindest people in the lore, replaces Gehrman’s theme with an epic orchestra, makes the music box play through all of Yharnam instead of near the little girl’s house, and so on and so forth.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

i’m kinda surprised you didn’t go into detail about the “bloodbourne-ization” of the soundtrack, completely killing unique boss atmospheres

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.

First off, I enjoy both the original and remake, and I only play the remake now for accessibility reasons. However, I agree that the "overgrown" aesthetic is misplaced in Boletaria. When the remake first debuted, my biggest concern was the presence of so much foliage. It makes sense when you are exploring a decaying land in Dark Souls, but DeS is about a kingdom that was recently conquered by demons. The absence of overgrowth in the original emphasizes that the wounds inflicted by the calamity that overtook Boletaria are fresh. For instance, Stockpile Thomas is anguishing over recently abandoning his family, and is devastated to learn of their fate. The addition of overgrowth, which is an overused aesthetic trope, makes the world feel generic.

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.

gamers said the same thing when Bluepoint did Shadow of the Colossus, but of course it was largely drowned out by a sycophantic games press who is more interested in flashy screenshots.

Bro, they turned the Flamelurker into a fucking Diablo monster and then call us whiny? xD

“They didn’t like the anime warrior guy” is a perfect line to why they changed the art style.

The most obvious area where the remake contrasts the original is the soundtrack, understated songs are replaced by bombastic melodies. Changes like that affect the tone and give the game a different feel. Having played neither of the two games though I did listen to both osts, I find the original's to be better by its theme, best seen by the difference in maiden astraea's theme from the two games.

always felt this way. I talked about this non stop when DS remake was out and I had played a ton of the OG. A few streamers I follow think the OG has better atmosphere / game feel as well. Something of how everything came toghether created a sum that was greater then its parts. Once they added things to the remake it took away some of the magic.

two notes: Ostrava was isolated from his homeland and father for most of his youth. I think a better point about the oppressive brutalism of the castle-city with the lack of nature being something that was intentional and to do with the degradation within the fog. At the same time a lot of the older textures implied the sort of disrepair and growth; mainly the floor tiles The Vanguard Demon was a reused asset from a previous game. It's definitely a conscious choice to reuse him but it's worth keeping in the back of your mind when considering what From wanted to portray always wished with all the creative liberty they decided to flex that they would've added the cut archstone instead of making it a 1:1 copy of the levels and gameplay but with some cool coins and the penetrator armour

I honestly cannot believe that Bluepoint saw the Maiden Astraea fight and made the conscious decision that "you know what? This fight needs a really *heroic* sounding boss theme!" Like, what the fuck? The original Maiden Astraea theme was sad and melancholy for a reason. How do you possibly miss that? More than changing Tower Knight's theme to not have the laughing any more, I think Maiden Astraea's theme is the most egregious example of changing the soundtrack for the worse.

Agree 100% on everything said here. The reality is this BP misunderstood the entire 'point' of what the game is about. The game is about Human Greed and the Cruelty we inflict on one another, it is NOT an 'Epic' Demon Slaying game. The Epic Music with the fight of True King Allant is one of my greatest issues with it. In the original that moment made me feel genuinely sick, with the sound track to match it.

I believe the elegant thing is how everything looks like the things put themselves together instead of being just a pile of stuff. Like in dark souls, the serpent men honestly look like they actually put their equipment together to work well with them. Overall just a lot of things look like they were put together well

Well, I tried original demons souls recently and I think it's one of the best in the series, especially tower of latria with it's spooky and anxiety inducing atmosphere.

Ok but for real what the fuck did they do to the adjudicator? I thought the implication was that it was supposed to a noble figure. One that judges the souls of fallen warriors and is worshipped at the shrine of storms. There's even a shield depicting the adjudicator being prayed to. (The remake also fucked this up by drawing the art on the shield in perspective and thus losing the look of medieval tapestry that made the original design interesting). If you look at the og adjudicators model it's got intricate patterns over its body and is almost shaped like an antique urn. it's still grotesque, but subtly regal and that's what makes it cool and memorable. They took an ambiguously elegant and revered creature and turned it into some fuckoff ugly monster so they could show off their 4k nipple jiggle physics.

when you did find grotesqueness in the original, like in valley of defilement, it had a big impact. In the remake everything is grotesque

Bro I totally agree with everything you said especially about the Vanguard demon. When they announced they were remaking Demon's Souls the first thing cam in my mind is how they would redesign Vanguard's skull with those yellow eyes and a well textured black helmet that covers his head making his yellow eyes stand out and deliver the feeling that you're actually standing against a demon not just an ugly fat monster. One thing I noticed in the remake is that they made world four raining all the time. I mean people in that world had something like a myth that it's believed that those flying creatures who through you with spears are responsible for weather change especially when it comes to rain. So when they added rain to that world they confirmed that those people's myth was real not just a myth. If they made it rain after killing storm king that would strengthen the original story confirming that those flying monsters including storm king don't have a real effect on weather or rain. They literally made a huge difference in the remake hoping people wouldn't notice it. I mean just imagine the Island's edge area covered in fog with modern graphics that would be insane. But no they had to become masters who know better than those stupid fools who played the original Demon's souls and enjoyed the lore in detail. I hope when a remake of Bloodborne comes out that Miyazaki himself overseas those arrogant devs and directors who think they know better than the original creator.

yo anyone know what the ost at 9:00 is called? Its been stuck in my head for a long while but I dont know what its called

I think the biggest atrocity is how they somehow managed to make Tower of Latria not scary

The music was everything to me. Scores for film are made to help set a mood and compliment the visuals and story. When they changed the score for DeS so drastically, it changed the experience of the game for anyone playing it for the first time.

I feel the same about Shadow of the Colossus remake

I do think some of the artistic changes might have been done at Sony's behest. The remake feels like a showcase or a tech demo. The kind you'd use at launch to shift consoles.

What is the most disturbing about this remake is that when they show trailer for this game we saw a completly different design for the flamelurker and people complain so they went back and change it why didn’t they understand that it would be the same for all of the boss ?

This is why learning your favorite game will be remade by Bluepoint should send a shiver of dread down your spine. Shadow of the Colossus is my favorite game of all time. I played the ps4 bluepoint remake and it was ruined. I've known for some time Bluepoint on a conceptual level is a problem. This studio's leadership might not have the concept everything existing in a game was a choice based on engine, time, restrictions, hardware etc. If anything is going to be changed, this includes graphical fidelity, genuine care must be given to the original intent. This is why I'm not excited for a bluepoint bloodborne remake--the studio just misses the point on everything. Not sure if Sony or bluepoint but it needs to stop in regards to any remake.

A lot of these changes are things that I didn't really notice until they were displayed here. Now that they've been pointed out, I agree with all of them. I'd would like to add a complaint of my own that I did immediately notice regarding The Valley of Defilement. In the original, I HATED this area. I didn't just hate it, I dreaded going there and it always took me a very long time to get through it compared to other places. The reason I hated it was the sounds the enemies made. This cross between a weird moan and laugh, you know the sound if you hear it. This sound made my skin crawl, in fact I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. It would paralyze me and I wouldn't want to continue going forward. This sound in particular, or anything remotely like it, was completely absent from the remake. Without this the entire area to me felt so much less threatening. Just to be sure I plugged in one of my PS3's and loaded up the area. Sure enough that old sound still gets to me to this day, so I know it isn't that I've changed. I know I said I dreaded this area, but even so I was profoundly disappointed that the remake did not instill this same feeling.

there’s a noclip documentary on the remake (great channel btw) and it’s clear from how the higher ups at bluepoint talk about it that the whole thing was a huge vanity project. just like with SoTC they remade a classic, highly visually distinct game, not because they felt like they could do the original vision justice, but because they wanted to show off their technical prowess and impress everyone with raw graphical power. both remakes are just *gaudy*

the redisign of the officials is the weirdest thing to me honestly, who at blue point saw the old one and went "lets not only make his whole fit just his body and make him look like he midway through puberty but lets also make him capable of frowning" like the static grin is THE most iconic thing about that enemy and the removed it.

Does anyone remember the name of the song that starts at 8:45?

what's the song playing at 9:40

One of the things that irritates me the most is how the Kris Blade is no longer like, y'know, an actual kris? It's such a small thing but it really exemplifies how bluepoint's changes are all arbitrary and backed by nothing besides "i think we should change this... because we should!".

They also did quite a job on Maneaters. When you enter the arena in original, the first thing you see is a pair of glowing green eyes coming at you from darkess, as this extremely creepy and ominous music kicks in. In remake, you'll see the monster right away and the music is changed to a generic orchestra piece. Not to mention that Maneater's design was changed from a statue embedded with a tortured soul to a hairy gorilla with wings

Here's one. In the original, the Sage Clothing and the Saint Clothing were basically the same model, the difference being the color. This implied that Sage Freke used to be a member of the Church and possibly a Saint himself at one point, before becoming disillusioned. While SOME of these design elements are still visible in the Remake, it is much less obvious and the similarities might be accidental. It removes some nuance.

While I agree with the core message of the video and many of the points brought up, I do disagree with this notion that Souls Games and especially Demons Souls are these finely crafted worlds where every design, every model and every piece of minutiae was meticulously crafted and deliberately placed. Yes: Souls games do very much use environmental storytelling and designs for worldbuilding as well atmosphere but this isn't always (and I'd argue in Demon's Souls mostly) the case. While the Fat Official is a great example of a deliberate design telling a story through visuals, the Vanguard is not. The Vanguard was not designed to be comical or evoke a clumsy brute. The Vanguard was designed as a spooky Golem monster you could synthesize in Enchanted Arms, a Fromsoft game that came out 3 years before Demons Souls. Similarly the armored spider is a reused asset from Ninja Blade. Obviously those designs fit what Fromsoft was going for but they weren't specifically and intentionally designed to tell the story or enrich the atmosphere of Demons Souls and I would appreciate it if people stopped overselling every bit of smartly reused assets, references or oversights as if they were these meticulous choices born from an uncompromised vision. Most Souls games, in their released states, are a quarter of what they were supposed to be with many parts of it salvaged from ideas that were scrapped somewhere during developement and used outside of their intended context. Souls fans have created this competition between each other to find or attribute meaning to every single design decision made in these games even if those decisions were purely pragmatic from a game development point of view and it's getting silly.

It's like remastering a WW1 documentary but all characters wear WW2 uniforms, somehow.

Elden Ring drew me into FromSoft games and I've been going back to play their old games (recently been playing a bunch of Armored Core games, love it). I grabbed a copy of Demon's Souls on PS3 thinking "Well, I'm not gonna buy a PS5 for this, but at least I can play the old version." Little did I know I bought the better version of the game.

Definitions of Remake: "to imagine again or in a different way" "to have a new idea about the way something should be" "If you remake something you write it, tell it, or present it again, often in a different way from its original form." Hope that helps lmao.

Perfect video, I saw one like this with the same intent from Sentinebula (a brazilian youtuber) long ago (like 2-3 years ago), and all the points match. But of course, most people put the video as a "bait", and he didnt get more than 30k views, but it's good to see that people are getting more attention to this criticism right now

I enjoyed the remake, but only because i didn’t have any clue whet the original was like. But now im wishing bluepoint kept many of the original elements. There were a lot of good points here, like the vibe of Latria being gone and the fat official being gross instead of decadent

What they did to Mephistopheles is a crime, just to show how they managed to make the characters open their mouths when speaking, they removed the mask that covered her face and that made her so intimidating and they changed her voice to a more feminine one.

The point about the existence of the remake reducing access to the original is so true and infuriating to me. I'm just imagining this being the basis for future remasters of Demon's Souls to future systems, instead of the true original, and that's just sad. Biggest reason I've kept my PS3: so that it's not forgotten.

The concept behind the remake was: “Guess this Miyazaki guy didn’t have enough money to hire a full orchestra! Let’s correct this”

I love your takes. I think it lost the atmosphere it was too focused on being “next gen” it lost all the aspects that made the game dingy / dark and mysterious. I hated the look of it. I still can’t get over how badly they ruined the fat officials I just feel blue point doesn’t get it.. just don’t get the atmosphere at all. Edit : you even touched on the fat officials bro you are my spirit animal

I’m terrified they’ll do this to Bloodborne. Changing the atmosphere or music would be a crime.

I’m very bummed out to hear this analysis, the original was one of my favorite game experiences and the sense of accomplishment for beating it the first time was right up there with anything I’ve done outside of video games.

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 will never not feel heartbroken over the fluted armor set being redesigned. For me, it’s the best and most iconic set in the entirety of Miyazaki’s portfolio. I could not contain my excitement when Bluepoint announced this remake. I couldnt wait to use their photo mode on the fluted set. Then one day, for no reason, they just arbitrarily redesigned it. Not one fan had ever complained that Demon’s Souls was held back by its art design. If anything, Demon’s Souls was held back by a restrictive camera system that often made it tough to get a clear view of its brilliant art design. Thank you for your video, I totally agree.

The Demon's Souls remake being *the* main PS5 launch title probably played a huge factor. From a development standpoint, they probably wanted this game to be a visual spectacle. That's an understandable goal in theory, but they chose one of the most visually subtle and restrained games on the market to use as a base. Many games like Demon's Souls or SMT: Nocturne are great because their intentional lack of decadence is part of the atmosphere. It's actually kinda nuts that Bluepoint keeps doing remakes for games with very uncommon and avant-garde art styles (DS and Shadow of the Colossus). Bluepoint are obviously experts at optimizing games for the hardware and more gaudy visual styles, and other games like Bloodborne would have been a better fit for their skillset (not saying they should have had a Bloodborne remaster as a PS5 launch title, just that it's more compatible with Bluepoint).

one of the worst things they changed is the meaning of the ost, maiden astraea's one sounds like its garl's one instead of hers(its epic/heroic) while the original gave you a sense of dread and made you think if what you were doing was the right or wrong thing

Demon's Souls and Dark Souls always had this magical feeling to them, which no other game ever recreated for me. I've seen a lot of videos that let me to remember this other-worldly feeling, but your vodeo is one of the very best! I will check out the rest of your channel in a bit, but i would really love to see in-depth analyses on the most mundane aspects of these masterpieces☺️ Thank you! For keeping its memory alive and vivid

I think this only reflects the game industry in general. When I was learning game design 10 years ago... I was trying to get a job in level design, my task was to build 2 maps, a florest and a canyon, so i made a little plot to each of them and a canyon became an connected with a poison swamp where there was an infection and almost everything was dead and the florest was an really beautiful organized florest because of the people that lived there, so they dint like it, they said that a florest needed to be almost random like nature and a canyon just need to have rocks and cliffs... Those are the things I'm seeing in Demons souls Remake, a bunch of people that learned something from someone but never think about it themselves. Of course that new statue would make more sense in some real aesthetics, but never in the demons souls culture and lore...

I never played the original Demon's Souls, but I have played everything after Dark Souls and I absolutely love the atmosphere of From games. I could not point out why the remake fell off, wrong, the whole time I was playing, I did not have the frame of comparison (or any nostalgia for that matter) but I was aware the whole time it didn't feel like a from game at all. It's good to see concrete examples of why that was. Also, a reminder that this remake was made also in part because of how increasingly hard it is to access the original, since there is no consistent way to play it without an actual PS3, so... Yeah, this runs the risk of erasing and replacing the original Demon's Souls

The old statue gives me major Nameless King vibes from DS3, the Dark Souls most akin Demon's Souls, and them changing that is heartbreaking

Take it to Bluepoint to turn a very interesting Japanese take on western fantasy into a generic western fantasy in the most egregious and expensive way possible. Architectural changes, atmosphere, and other aspects whose details are CLEARLY shown on the concept art for anyone curious on how they may look unrestrained by OG Demon's Souls' graphical limitations which Bluepoint proceeded to entirely ignore. The most telling is when enemy designs like Fat Official were turned into generic zombies especially, which is a deliberate change on their part as dialogue from Rydell SPECIFICALLY references the fat official as "that ebony swine" and the remake removes the word "ebony" from there. The use of color specifically feels inspired by the obnoxious trend in Hollywood of turning every scene into the most overused combination on the color wheel: Orange and teal. Literally every area had its colors nudged in that direction even where it makes no sense. Latria's second half was given a big glowing orange moon specifically for that purpose. Speaking of Hollywood, the soundtrack is Hollywood-ified to the max. So many tracks that had no choral elements in the original now sport a choir for some reason. They put a choir on the bloody Leechmonger, a pile of leeches now has an epic choir blasting your ears out. There's absolutely no restraint with this sorta stuff which completely contrasts with the original's subdued use of instruments to emphasize specific aspects of the each boss' character. Sound design changes were also annoying, especially the constant loud yelling on every sword swing from both the player and enemies. The sounds of impact and explosions also feel jarring with some stuff feeling straight out of a sci fi game. Continuing the trend of sci-fi stuff, the UI is terrible. It's so "clean" it'd feel right at home in space game or something, doesn't belong in a medieval game at all. Worse still is how much it violates pan-and-scan and other rules of UI design which FromSoft are uaually very cautious about.

The original game felt dark, stark and almost depressing the world felt picked from a horror novel. The remake was to bright, too full of life. The original really felt like a dying region removed from the rest of the world as if evil had won and the only ones alive are now stuck in this world without hope. It made you feel hopeless like you’re fighting for something already lost with hope being “what could be,” not what is.

i will never forgive them for butchering the ost

As someone who hasn't beaten a single souls game, at first I was like "wow this is a souls fan being a souls fan" but once you got to the fat nobles I was like wtf that's an awful design change and now I want to play the original on my ps3 Great video you clearly love this series deeply and it's honestly inspiring

Yea you're right. As someone who never got to play either game, I would be upset if BluePoint did a Bloodborne remake and took massive liberties with the architecture or enemy design and the story that it tells.

100%. It's like if a conservator who was tasked with restoring a painting just decided they'd like to paint a new painting over it. Being careful to follow the outline of its "core", of course.

Let me count my experience. I've only played the Original Demon Souls, and I loved it. One of the things I loved the most was the intro cinematic where we have a sound and fights that transmit you fear; further the part were we can see how the boss skeleton watches us in a sepia color with his eyes making that you could feel his thirst of blood. When I heard about the remake I was so enthusiastic, I was watching a streaming and expected to enjoy an evolved intro cinematic. However, I've got disappointed very quickly from the first second, because they changed the sound of the cinematic with one that didn't transmit fear. Another thing they replaced was the original fight movements with another that seemed to have come from a template cinematic; the worst of the fight is that they REMOVED the part that the boss skeleton watched us. I agree with you that the developers of the remake disrespected the original work from the first developers. They (the developers of the remake) really thought that they could do better than the original developers, that's way of thinking was very arrogant.

I have a different take on remakes. To me, either you go completely true to the original or you go completely different BUT create something new and actually valuable. Demon's Souls remake does none of those things. It's not true to the original and it doesn't bring anything valuable with it's changes. It just uses the demon's souls legacy to sell a generic action game for a new generation. I wouldn't really care about remakes IF we had an easy way to play old games. Alas, this is not the case for many pieces of art, not only videogames.

The section about the fat officials is where you got me. Changing them from fat and creepy to fat and disgusting made you just feel sorry for them, not hate them. I only ever saw the remake version and I thought this was going to be a "back in my day" kinda thing but I actually feel you. Imagine Mergo's Wet Nurse had a weird great one face instead of the void. Would just take a lot away from her design. I will however still play the remake and I will most likely still enjoy it (or hate it for other reasons at least)

That's generally a big problem that lots of great stories get bastardized being filtered through a mainstream lense. And it was to be expected that Bluepoint would do this to some degree because they wanted the game to appeal to the mainstream to make more money. It also happened to Lovecrafts stories, where the mainstream believes it's about tentacles and monsters while it's true quality is something more profound and nameless that isn't captured by superficial monster design. Or take movie adaptations like Harry Potter: In the novels, Voldemort was eerily cold and stern and that's what made him scary. But in the movies (except 1 and 2) they made him more flamboyant and Joker-like, which is a major mischaracterization in my opinion. The mainstream/ big companies tend to simplify and distort the uniqueness of stories to fit them in a cliche, already-known category, because they want to play it safe and not take the risk that the audience possibly wouldn't like something more special.

I'm just glad ps3 emulation has come as far as it has, I can play the original at 60fps with online functionality.

I feel like Bluepoint got the purpose of Demon’s Souls completely wrong. The reason why Demon’s Souls holds up today is its dreamlike atmosphere, unique aesthetic, brilliant exploration of themes, and the subversion of the fantasy genre. What is dated is the terrible AI and janky gameplay. I can’t believe I live in a universe where Bluepoint is praised for being so detailed in their remake and the Man Eaters have the same busted AI. Like come on…it’s so lazy not to change the 1 thing that has aged poorly. Might as well have went all in a redesigned the bosses to be more of actual fights, but no, they took the laziest way out. Slap on a generic fantasy coat of paint and leave it as if it’s “true to the original”. I hope they never touch another Soul’s game.

It’s almost like one game was made by people who got creative because they thought it was a lost cause, and the other was made by people who were smug and complacent because they knew a graphically impressive launch title was going to sell. It’s almost exactly like that.

The remake is visually amazing but my god, it completely murders the feel of the original. The atmosphere and visuals of the original are so unique and captivating

What song is playing during the real problem section?

Could not agree more. My heart aches whenever I read comments actually pleading for Bluepoint to remake other souls games and, god forbid, bloodborne. How is it not crystal clear how far Bluepoint missed the mark with tone and atmosphere, themes and art design. My biggest fear is Sony seeing these comments as a majority opinion from the community and actually moving forward in this direction in the future.

Finally someone said it. I realized Bluepoint didn't "get" Demons Souls when they added facial animations and changed the music, seriously, why does every score in the game need to have a choir to make it more "Epic ™️ "

Here I thought this video was going to be filled with hipster takes. But you know, I actually find myself agreeing with you on the art direction influencing the story of the areas. Well done.

Your argument makes a lot of sense. I would add that the real problem with the remake being artistically inferior to the original is that new players will NEVER experience the old one, most likely. So thanks for letting people know they are missing out.

9 out of 10 times the original is always the best.

The Fat Offical changes read as a very 'American' for lack of a better term to me. Strip out the horror of class-opperession and disgust for the clean, put-on cheery faces of bureaucracy and replace it with body horror.

The hilarious thing about that first quote from Gavin is that the gameplay / enemy ai is what I would want to have updated the most and them leave the art style and character designs alone. The fact that is plays pretty much the same with worse art is justt sad.

I never got into demon souls and i don't know much about it but this remake gives me serious silent hill HD collection vibes.

Bluepoint gets away with way too much shit. All of their remakes have similar problems but people love them because they look good on a surface level. You won't notice how they ruin the original style or miss small details unless you are already really familiar with the original game.

I never got to play the original. I never knew how different the remake was. Now, I feel like I’ve missed out significantly. Thank you for pointing this all out. It’s re-inspired me to seek out a copy of the original game, or at least find a way to emulate it.

Great video and agree. However, I think this video needs a part 2. There’s a lot more examples you could talk about, mainly the score. I’d love to see like another hour long analysis of the environments and themes. Don’t be afraid to do longer videos

14:00 redesigned fat officials don't even make practical sense. Isn't the whole point that they are "elite" and second to only Alant in status? That's not just from visual clues, that's item description lore that was kept in the remake. That's not how a "rich fat person" looks. Pretty sure if they can afford more than most people they can afford well-tailored clothes💀Imagine seeing *this* in real life and thinking "wow, this guy must be rich"...

What’s the background music at 22:55 ?

as somebody who had a very distinct memory of the fat official, it's really tragic seeing what they did to his iconic design in the remake

Bruh after seeing the original compared to the remake , i really see where people come from when they say this, i agree with your take