In 2011, From Software released its spiritual successor of Demon’s Souls called Dark Souls. The dark fantasy action RPG was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews due to its challenging gameplay that forced players to think carefully about their moves and attack patterns. Recently, a remastered port for the PS4, Xbox One and PC was released. So what does it have to offer?
While this review will be mostly focused on the upgrades and changes of the remaster, I’ll give a brief explanation about Dark Souls itself so any newcomers to the genre will know what they’re getting into. Dark Souls is set in a dark, medieval fantasy world called Lordran. You create your own character and basically have to run through levels and defeats monstrosities until you reach the final boss. This may sound an easy task, but Dark Souls is not about playing easy. Enemies in Dark Souls are challenging, with the exception of some obvious mindless grunts, and require strategy to be dealt with. It might seem like an unforgiving game, but it actually isn’t. See, dying in Dark Souls is a gameplay mechanic and works towards your advantage if you know how to use it effectively that is. Whenever you die, you are transported to the nearest bonfire while every enemy you’ve slain comes back to life. You also lose all your souls (the game’s currency to buy gear and upgrade stats) but can retrieve them If you manage to find the spot where you died. The respawning enemies are an easy way to grind more souls, although they will never go down without a fight. It makes for an interesting blend of ‘taking risks reaps rewards’ and ‘strategy is key to combat’.
But enough about the basics of what makes a ‘Souls’-game. After all, most gamers have played a Souls-game before and those who haven’t have at least heard of it. So let’s get to what really matters: is the remaster good or not? Well, simply put, yes it is. The game runs at a locked 60 frames-per-second and supports 4K resolution on PC, PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. The texture quality is slightly better, but the most obvious visual improvement is the particle effects of objects like fog gates and souls. Motion blur has also been reduced quite a bit, which makes the overall visuals more clean and sharp. Do the changes make the game look next-gen? No, they obviously don’t but they do offer both veterans and newcomers the possibility to play the game on a console without it running like garbage. Remember Blighttown, the area the made both the PS3 and Xbox 360 version drop its framerate hard? Well, Dark Souls Remastered doesn’t have that problem. Even in Blighttown, the game maintains its smooth framerate. Outside of the visuals updates, there are changes to the multiplayer. It now uses dedicated servers and instead of four you can play with up to six players. But what if you’ve played the PC version? Does the remaster offer any noteworthy upgrades?
Well, talking about the PC version of the remaster requires some insight on what it was like to play the original Dark Souls on a computer. When it first came out, the game wasn’t optimized well for PC’s, which gave a lot players frustration and buyer’s remorse. The framerate was abysmal, it didn’t support high resolutions and it was filled with bugs. The worst part of it was that From Software and Bandai Namco did nothing to improve the experience and basically said “tough luck, deal with it”. Their incompetence with PC optimization at the time was so bad that a random fan on the internet made a mod called ‘DSfix’ that solved a lot of the game’s problem. It even became the standard answer on Steam forums where people were sharing their issues with the game. Dark Souls not working on PC? Install DSfix, there, problem solved. This was standard practice until Dark Souls Remastered got announced. Then, all of the sudden, you couldn’t buy the original version anymore. It was deleted from online store platforms and replaced with the new remastered version, which currently costs €40 (€20 if you have the original on Steam). So, what are the differences between Dark Souls with the DSfix mod and Dark Souls Remastered on PC? Well, visually it’s almost exactly the same. The only difference is that in Remastered the textures are slightly better and even this could be accomplished in the original by installing some mods if you knew how to install them. The only advantage that Remastered has over the original in terms of visuals is that you don’t have to mess around with mods to get the visual updates and fixes. This puts owners of the original PC version in a weird spot, since they’d have to pay for the same game again that only offers more online players and dedicated servers. I wonder why owners of the original don’t get a free update to the new version like most other remastered games have done (the Bioshock series, to name an example).
Conclusion
It’s kind of hard to give Dark Souls Remastered an overall rating, as it depends on which platform you’d buy it and if you are a veteran or a newcomer. So, I’ll simply score the console and pc version separately, while taking into account what your connection to the original game is. If you’ve never played Dark Souls before and want to try it on the PS4 or Xbox One, then it’s a 9 out of 10 since the game itself is still great and the remaster offers a smooth gameplay experience, although it doesn’t offer many extras besides dedicated servers and more players online. If you want to play it on a console but have played it before then I give it an 8 out of 10 as its current retail price is a little too high in my opinion since, again, it doesn’t offer that many extras. Lastly, if you’re either a veteran or newcomer and want to play it on PC, I’d suggest waiting for a price drop or keep playing the original version if you have bought that in the past. The remaster doesn’t offer anything visually that can’t be achieved with the original by using mods, although it does offer a hassle-free experience since the visual upgrades and fixes are already installed. That’s why I give the PC version a 7 out of 10. It works fine but doesn’t offer much for those who already have the original version. Combine these scores together and you’ll get my overall rating of…
