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[Raven117]

I prefer Demons. Demons is different than any other of the "Souls" games is that the real "boss" is mastering the levels with a boss that absolutely makes perfect sense for the level you just traversed. In that way it is more consistent than any other Soulsborne.

Dark Souls is awesome, do not get me wrong, but I just like the focus being on balls hard levels rather than on balls hard bosses.

 

[SCB3]

Cool writeup! That interconnected world sure is something, huh? Here's a map someone made:

Spoiler

I actually have this very map framed on my Wall, heres a link if anyone wants to also buy it (note I had to get a custom frame made for this)

DARK SOULS - Laudate Solis - Fangamer

You'll spend at least as much time identifying your most loved/hated locations as you did grinding humanity from the rats in the Depths! This official Dark Souls print by Judson Cowan comes in three sizes.

www.fangamer.com

On a side note, I wish Dark Souls Remastered had not happened until Demons Souls Remake came out, imagine Dark Souls with these graphics

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Sounds more like You are talking about scholar of the first sin or ds2 dlc.
Vanilla DS2 is not like that. That's why it's my fav.

Got DS2 vanilla day one on console. Never touched Scholar, always sounded like more of the worst of DS2 but at 60fps. I also played vanilla on PC.

Knights in Iron Keep will aggro you from miles away, and enemies in places like the forest and the Lost Bastille will follow you to the end of the earth.

 

[Danjin44]

I prefer Demons. Demons is different than any other of the "Souls" games is that the real "boss" is mastering the levels with a boss that absolutely makes perfect sense for the level you just traversed. In that way it is more consistent than any other Soulsborne.

Dark Souls is awesome, do not get me wrong, but I just like the focus being on balls hard levels rather than on balls hard bosses.

The way I see it, Demon's Souls at its heart is a dungeon crawler, each archstones is basically dungeons with multiple levels.

The level designs are the real highlight of Demons Souls, this is why the bosses is much more simple compare to later Souls games.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

The way I see it, Demon's Souls at its heart is a dungeon crawler, each archstones is basically dungeons with multiple levels.

The level designs are the real highlight of Demons Souls, this is why the bosses is much more simple compare to later Souls games.

Yeah, Demon's has the easiest bosses but it's still the most challenging for me (besides Sekiro) on the strength of its level design.

 

[Raven117]

The way I see it, Demon's Souls at its heart is a dungeon crawler, each archstones is basically dungeons with multiple levels.

The level designs are the real highlight of Demons Souls, this is why the bosses is much more simple compare to later Souls games.

I agree. Thats why I like it more. Boss fights were simply something that got in my way of enjoying the game and getting to the next level.

 

[Danjin44]

I agree. Thats why I like it more. Boss fights were simply something that got in my way of enjoying the game and getting to the next level.

But the problem is going multiple playthroughs in Demons Souls is not all that fun compare to FROM's later games. Demon's Souls bosses kind of have very simple move sets, once you learn them you just going through the motion to beat them and once you learn its levels layouts its no longer as difficult and threatening as your first playthrough.

Later Souls games have better boss designs so fighting them multiple times is still fun.

 

[Raven117]

But the problem is going multiple playthroughs in Demons Souls is not all that fun compare to FROM's later games. Demon's Souls bosses kind of have very simple move sets, once you learn them you just going through the motion to beat them and once you learn its levels layouts its no longer as difficulty and threatening as your first playthrough.

Later Souls games have better boss designs so fighting them multiple times is still fun.

Fair enough. I only play through the games once, so thats not a factor for me. But I hear ya.

 

[EverydayBeast]

These days I still hear how great these soul borne games are, they look impressive and this isn’t hate but nah they seem sloppy and if I’m wrong than sign me up for a Souls collection, GAF defends the series to an extreme.

 

[Clear]

Got DS2 vanilla day one on console. Never touched Scholar, always sounded like more of the worst of DS2 but at 60fps. I also played vanilla on PC.

Knights in Iron Keep will aggro you from miles away, and enemies in places like the forest and the Lost Bastille will follow you to the end of the earth.

Scholar is just better in every way, anyone who thinks vanilla is better... I just do not see the argument.

Its the game as it was supposed to be, without all the compromises made to make the original release. Disregard people who made dumb videos showing them aggroing everything for no good reason and getting swarmed. If you play like you have half a brain these things simply never occur, everything is manageable with correct positioning and tactics.

 

[TonyK]

Same here, I finished Demons souls and right after that I played Darksouls, Darksouls 2 (I enjoyed it a lot except some parts of the DLC that are extremely difficult for my taste), but I stopped after some hours in Darksouls 3 . I don't know why it hasn't clicked on me. Maybe it's only saturation of the formula after playing the four Souls in a row.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

These days I still hear how great these soul borne games are, they look impressive and this isn’t hate but nah they seem sloppy and if I’m wrong than sign me up for a Souls collection, GAF defends the series to an extreme.

They're objectively the best games of all time

 

[rofif]

Scholar is just better in every way, anyone who thinks vanilla is better... I just do not see the argument.

Its the game as it was supposed to be, without all the compromises made to make the original release. Disregard people who made dumb videos showing them aggroing everything for no good reason and getting swarmed. If you play like you have half a brain these things simply never occur, everything is manageable with correct positioning and tactics.

I absolutely do not agree.
Scholar moves items and enemies to weird places just because they wanted to mix it up. Heide knights should not be in heide tower... they are lost knights without kingdom.
Dragon in front of dragonslayer.
More gank squads.... ton more phantoms and pursuers.
iron Keep fucking sucks now with 3x more enemies.
The aldia keep requires You to lit the scones and fight phantoms to make the skeleton move?
Graphics are good but just brighter. The sky in Majula is overexposed now. Sadly, they did not fixed textures, lighting or darkness. But the contrast is in general higher which is ok.
Dragon aerie is better. I give You that.

But generally Vanilla is a bit more fair and balanced imo. Most changes are not that huge and I love both versions but vanilla is more... pure/fair/relaxed?
I feel that DS2 was what it was and just because it was different and people expected ds1 again, they backed out with scholar and just made it more asshole city because "it's dark souls". Just like they fucked up ds2 dlc. I prefer them sticking to the original vision, of dreamy land where land moves and people go hollow.
edit: btw - the pc steam version of vanilla has the durability patched. It was patched alongside scholar version. Scholar DID NOT replaced the vanilla version of ds2. Scholar is more like a "mix it up and 3x the enemies" mod.
The only thing they added to vanilla from scholar was the aldia encounters and boss. Or is there anything else? Anyone knows?

 

[Danjin44]

These days I still hear how great these soul borne games are, they look impressive and this isn’t hate but nah they seem sloppy and if I’m wrong than sign me up for a Souls collection, GAF defends the series to an extreme.

I don't understand what part of them is "sloppy"? If you expecting them to be typical action RPG that you can button mash way through the entire game, this is just that type of game. you hear same thing when people play Monster Hunter game for first time and say the combat feels "clunky" without trying to understand how combat suppose to work.

 

[Kamina]

In my opinion Demons Souls Remastered outshines every Dark Souls in everything but game content. Its just a little too short and would desperately need a 6th Archstone DLC

 

[Alexios]

Well, obviously.

Demon's was plagued by dev hell before becoming the diamond in the rough it is when the director was replaced with From's now head honcho to salvage it and a face lift doesn't change the core compromises, especially with such an 1:1 remake that does nothing to expand the often small and simplistically linear levels.

Maybe if Bluepoint had expanded each level to be more complex and fun to explore and especially so the last two bosses of each weren't in adjacent rooms, but who knows if they had the talent for such an attempt.

It's still a cool game though, I played the original emulated on PC just before the remake hit and I had a good time even without the fancy graphics.

Still managed to gaffe kill some NPCs too, despite experience. I recall in Dark Souls I first killed some mushroom NPC cos it fucking scared me when it moved as I approached and also the cat observing you from above in that ruin thinking I got the drop on an enemy that would pop out and own me if left alone, lol.

In Demon's I attacked Patches thinking I'm justified to do so after his bs but apparently you're meant to just treat him like any cool hub NPC you benefit from. Took me so long to kill him too, he's pretty tough at that point and hard to cheese for a melee character, you can't just backstab him, he rotates and blocks like a boss.

 

[Danjin44]

Maybe if Bluepoint had expanded each level to be more complex and fun to explore and especially so the last two bosses of each weren't in adjacent rooms, but who knows if they had the talent for such an attempt.

Expect I don't really trust Bluepoint to make those changes, they are for most part graphics engineers rather than game designers. If FROM themselves was working on this remake then I won't mind seeing them making improvements.

 

[bender]

It probably has a lot more to do with what order you played them in. Dark Souls is wonderful and obviously offers improvement to the core concepts (I do think the level design in the back half of the game takes a noticeable hit), but the sense of wonder didn't quite hit me like Demon's Souls did. Everything in Demon Souls was a surprise and Dark Souls reused a lot of those tropes. I do give it major props for a fully connected word.

 

[RyRy93]

These days I still hear how great these soul borne games are, they look impressive and this isn’t hate but nah they seem sloppy and if I’m wrong than sign me up for a Souls collection, GAF defends the series to an extreme.

Just play one of them, they are dirt cheap and if you like one you'll probably enjoy the rest or most of them at least. It's not just a GAF thing.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I think Demons Souls has much tighter gameplay.

I actually prefer Dark Souls 3 over Dark Souls.

 

[Clear]

I absolutely do not agree.
Scholar moves items and enemies to weird places just because they wanted to mix it up. Heide knights should not be in heide tower... they are lost knights without kingdom.
Dragon in front of dragonslayer.
More gank squads.... ton more phantoms and pursuers.
iron Keep fucking sucks now with 3x more enemies.
The aldia keep requires You to lit the scones and fight phantoms to make the skeleton move?
Graphics are good but just brighter. The sky in Majula is overexposed now. Sadly, they did not fixed textures, lighting or darkness. But the contrast is in general higher which is ok.
Dragon aerie is better. I give You that.

But generally Vanilla is a bit more fair and balanced imo. Most changes are not that huge and I love both versions but vanilla is more... pure/fair/relaxed?
I feel that DS2 was what it was and just because it was different and people expected ds1 again, they backed out with scholar and just made it more asshole city because "it's dark souls". Just like they fucked up ds2 dlc. I prefer them sticking to the original vision, of dreamy land where land moves and people go hollow.
edit: btw - the pc steam version of vanilla has the durability patched. It was patched alongside scholar version. Scholar DID NOT replaced the vanilla version of ds2. Scholar is more like a "mix it up and 3x the enemies" mod.
The only thing they added to vanilla from scholar was the aldia encounters and boss. Or is there anything else? Anyone knows?

Got to disagree with your complaints:

A ruined, half submerged tower isn't much of a kingdom! They also are passive until you either aggro them or kill the DragonRider. (who is actually in the area with the Dragon, not the Old Dragonslayer who technically is in Cathedral of Blue). Its just more logical. Same deal with the Pursuer actually pursuing you now!
Lighting Sconces to spawn phantoms/trigger events is no a consistent mechanic used across the game world. Like more enemies reacting to light. The game as whole at least tries to add more mechanics and bits of business to encourage you to experiment.

Its not just Dragon Aerie, most areas are tweaked, bonfires moved to better locations. Its evident they did what they could without changing up the environment geometry.

Obviously there's no getting around that it was a troubled production, you can see how the layout in the early and mid parts of the game has been hastily reshuffled, but contrary to DS1 these issues get much less prominent the further you get in, culminating in the 3 DLC areas which I think are all series highlights in their own ways.

In retrospect its very obvious that they ran into memory issues that severely limited the number of different enemy types in some areas, and Scholar fixes that.

What grinds my gears is that DS2 marked the end of FROM trying to add to the formula, everything subsequently has stripped back and simplified the mechanics. I'm curious to see if Elden Ring reverses this trend because literally everything that's followed has become increasingly streamlined, and honestly I don't think its been a benefit.

 

[DelireMan7]

You preach a converted.

Dark Souls is for me the best game ever made.
World design is perfection. And the story telling is THE thing I love the most in it. Then the variety of gameplay/build is in my opinion unmatched (others Souls brought more weapons, magic... but weapons are less unique and the disappearance of medium and fat roll greatly amputate the diversity).

I haven't play Demon's Souls remake yet, but I have replayed the original in last October. The first time I've played it (after Dark Souls) I like it but not that much. I considered it a "Beta version " of Dark Souls.
This time, I liked it much more but still inferior to its successor. There some moment of unfairness that isn't there in the other Souls and the disconnected world is not as immersive as the interconnected one from Dark Souls.

Still in the end, story telling, characters and build diversity are great (I like the slow playstyle possibilities of Demon's and Dark Souls 1). Bonus point for boss fights which are all unique compare to its successors.

Demon's Souls created the formula, Dark Souls perfected it.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Scholar is just better in every way, anyone who thinks vanilla is better... I just do not see the argument.

Its the game as it was supposed to be, without all the compromises made to make the original release. Disregard people who made dumb videos showing them aggroing everything for no good reason and getting swarmed. If you play like you have half a brain these things simply never occur, everything is manageable with correct positioning and tactics.

I dunno. I’ve read the changelog, and some decisions just seem unnecessarily punishing to me. Also I’ve played DS2 three times, I think I know how the game works regarding aggro and everything.

 

[Troglodyte]

I out Demons Souls and Dark Souls in the same top tier category. IMO those two games are the best in the "Souls Games". 3 is right behind them. 2 is meh.

I usually do a playthrough of all of them at least once a year and when it comes time to run through 2 it just doesn't have the same excitement. Still a decent game however.

 

[existensmaximum]

It's a masterpiece for sure! DS3 really is great as well, to me it feels like a hybrid between Dark Souls and Bloodborne (another timeless masterpiece).

Can't wait until I can get my hands on a PS5 so I can try Demon's Souls for the first time!

I can't believe how many actually like Dark Souls 2 though. I've really, really tried to give it a chance but I just hate everything about it. Boring, frustrating, annoying, poor level design, boss design and just uninspired in every way. Huge disappointment, I had to give up.

But you should definitely try it to form your own opinion!

 

[D.Final]

I actually like both

 

[Salmon Snake]

Today I started playing Dark Souls Remastered on PS5 and I've finished the Demon's Souls Remake.

Demon's Souls Remake has spoiled me because it's graphics, sound and use of Dualsense are freaking awesome. Still I'm totally hooked on Dark Souls Remastered. It just seems an awesome game and it has a rock solid 60fps.

My Demon's character was a strong build and destroyed everything with my Crushing Claymore. In Dark Souls I think I'll go with s Quality build with some magic.

Is Claymore as good in Dark Souls as it's in Demon's Souls?

 

[Clear]

I dunno. I’ve read the changelog, and some decisions just seem unnecessarily punishing to me. Also I’ve played DS2 three times, I think I know how the game works regarding aggro and everything.

Its not more punishing, additional enemies in most areas only spawn or become aggressive based on the player's actions.

The famous example of this being the honour guard of Knights leading up to the Ancient Dragon. Some joker on youtube aggroed one of these passive figures and unsurprisingly pulled the entire group down on him leading to yet more knucklehead claims about "gank squads".

Even situations like the increased number of encounters with the Pursuer are optional as you can always run out of their aggro zone and let them despawn. Side mechanics like lighting braziers tend to have actual effects, be it attracting new foes or repelling them in the case of spiders.

I wouldn't describe the game generally as being particularly punishing outside of late-game and DLC areas which ironically are mostly untouched change-wise between versions.

 

[Corgi1985]

Dark souls is very much a flawed gem. It has higher highs and lower lows than demon's souls. Bed of chaos can suck a bag of dicks though.

 

[Corgi1985]

Today I started playing Dark Souls Remastered on PS5 and I've finished the Demon's Souls Remake.

Demon's Souls Remake has spoiled me because it's graphics, sound and use of Dualsense are freaking awesome. Still I'm totally hooked on Dark Souls Remastered. It just seems an awesome game and it has a rock solid 60fps.

My Demon's character was a strong build and destroyed everything with my Crushing Claymore. In Dark Souls I think I'll go with s Quality build with some magic.

Is Claymore as good in Dark Souls as it's in Demon's Souls?

Claymore has a great moveset. You can definitely beat the game with it.

 

[rofif]

Yeah, I finished Demons Souls on ps5 and it was the only souls game I;ve not played.
It's the worst souls game for sure even if it's still excellent game.
Grinding for chunks, less weapon combos and some movesets are lacking, world tendency is bullshit, armor stamina impact is bullshit and makes tank builds terrible, worlds are not really connected, story and lore is a bit weaker, the swamp area is the worst in the series, first level of latria is just hallway galore.
I will replay it for sure but it's not as good as Dark Souls trilogy. Disclaimer.. I like ds2 the most, then ds3, then ds1 but it changes..

 

[D.Final]

Dark souls is very much a flawed gem. It has higher highs and lower lows than demon's souls. Bed of chaos can suck a bag of dicks though.

This

 

[Salmon Snake]

Holy hell the Catacombs are a pain. Please don't tell me there's even more horrible place! (Swamp of course..)

I don't think there was a similarly annoying area in Demon's Souls.

 

[Jooxed]

I have also recently started the dark souls series after finishing Demon Souls and then Bloodborne.... I'm in love. Don't tell Nintendo GAF

 

[Ulysses 31]

I have also recently started the dark souls series after finishing Demon Souls and then Bloodborne.... I'm in love. Don't tell Nintendo GAF

Dark Souls Remastered is on Switch.

 

[Jooxed]

Dark Souls Remastered is on Switch.

I started playing it on switch... but then I started again for glorious 60fps and enhanced visuals

 

[PrimetimeKnight]

Both games are great, I give the edge to Demon's. Dark Souls interconnectivity is really amazing but that 2nd half is just so meh. Bloodborne is GOAT and I even prefer Dark Souls 3 over Demon's and Dark 1.

Basically its Bloodborne>>>>>D3>DeR>D1>>>>>>>>>>>>>D2. Sekiro strays too far from the formula to rank I feel.

 

[Jokerevo]

Back in November I was lucky enough to get my hands on PS5. The first game I fired up was Demon's Souls remake. Month later in December went onto complete the game twice and platinum it. Demon's Souls remake was my first ever souls type game to experience. Shortly after that I wanted to get more out of Souls and @EviLore suggested Dark Souls Remastered. I've now completed the game (missed the Black Dragon Boss Fight somehow in the sanctuary DLC locations) after 49 very fascinating hours in this big labyrinth of a place called Anor Londo. Traversing through this place, one bonfire after another unlocking short cuts was so damn satisfying. Played the game entirely as temple knight with a Halberd+5 and Gravelord Sword. Majority of the bosses were memorable, some of them felt like a repetition (Asylum boss who gets re-used with AOE with bombs as Demon Firesage and back as a third boss when we return back to Undead Asylum). The game's lore and story around certain characters has been insightful to listen and read about on youtube. It's crazy how they managed to deliver this game during PS3 gen, a vast interconnected world with no loading (excluding bonfire warps). I wouldn't be surprised to see text books on level design having Dark Souls as a real world example. The frame rate was rock solid at 60fps and it ran very smooth. But the audio didn't sound right, was a little too noisy coming from Demon's Souls Remake. A friend of mine told me the bell sound that we hear whenever we are near to the Church bell gargoyle area is basically another player in the same world ringing it (mind blown). I honestly can't get enough of souls games now. I can now see why these games are so highly regarded and has a strong fan following. I didn't have the maturity among other things to appreciate these kind of games in past playstation generations. But thanks to PS5, I've now been able to experience and understand these games. Coming off of Demon's Souls remake and it's audio, visual and gameplay(haptics) glory, Dark Souls remastered felt like a huge step down and was bit jarring at first. The audio especially when you enter a new location or hit the bonfire, the sound effect played was actually hurting my ears a bit. The sound didn't have the level of finesse that I'd experienced in other games. But this didn't stop me from enjoying the whole experience of navigating through the bleak worlds and fighting bosses.

Summarize:

+ve
-Brilliant level design
-Bonfire Warps
-Memorable boss fights and NPC encounters
-I didn't know Patches from Demon's Souls makes his return in Dark Souls. I fell for his trick here once again
-While Demon's Souls remake is a staggering achievement in itself, the level design of that game feels more simplistic(lack of a better word) when compared to the vast interconnected world of Dark Souls Remastered.

-ve
-there were multiple occasions during which I felt like I was stuck not knowing where to proceed. There are so many locations to memorize and not knowing which key opens which place was bit challenging at first.
-not knowing the curse can be removed after being cursed by the weird Frog type creatures in the undead parish section. I traversed through all of blight town with just half the health bar. Only after finishing Quelaag and getting back to Firelink shrine did I learn that there's a man in churchbell gargoyle area who can rid of my curse and restore my health. So yeah there are some things the game doesn't quite explain to you and I guess that's inherent to every souls game.
-Bed of Chaos fight was quite frustrating.

I will gladly double dip if BluePoint did a remake of Dark Souls akin to Demon's Souls Remake (visuals done from the ground up including animations, audio, haptics and lightning fast loading)

Also FYI, I adore Demon's Souls remake to absolute bits. Love everything about it. Dark Souls Remastered is equally incredible if not better. I am sure most of you would rate Dark Souls better than Demon's Souls remake on certain aspects like the a big interconnected world vs hub type design to navigate to individual worlds. This could be subjective.

Uhh one preceded the other..surprise..the later one surpasses the first...

Imo we have best of both worlds in design here and you're complaining? What happened if DeS was a hub too? Would that have lessened Dark Souls quality?

 

[Mr. PlayStation]

Uhh one preceded the other..surprise..the later one surpasses the first...

Imo we have best of both worlds in design here and you're complaining? What happened if DeS was a hub too? Would that have lessened Dark Souls quality?

I am not complaining at all, where aer you see my complaint?

 

[Jooxed]

Yeah, i just went through the dark souls trilogy for the first time + blood borne and I thought the 3 was good but a little too fan servicey. Bloodborne was probably my favorite out of the 4 then 1,3,2. I don’t think 2 was as bad as everyone claims it is. It was just different feeling and far too long.

I started Sekiro but i think i need a little souls break so I started on my PS backlog Days Gone which is also fantastic.

 

[Allnamestakenlol]

I will gladly double dip if BluePoint did a remake of Dark Souls akin to Demon's Souls Remake (visuals done from the ground up including animations, audio, haptics and lightning fast loading)

That would be a quadruple dip for me. Bought it on PS3, then PC, then the remaster again on PC. Would happily buy it a fourth time for a glorious BluePoint-esque remake.

 

[johntown]

I prefer Demon's Souls over Dark Souls. Having played DES first probably has a lot to do with it. I would have actually preferred Demon's Souls 2 over Dark Souls. Meaning basically Dark Souls with the same mechanics DES had (human/soul form, world tendency etc).

 

[Neff]

It's the better game, always was

Bloodborne > Dark Souls II > Dark Souls > Dark Souls III > Demon's Souls