I've been contemplating writing about this game for a little while, and I decided to let you all in on this seriously under-appreciated and overlooked game.

If you've had a chance to know me, you'll know I tend to be picky about alot of things. Mostly I'm picky about what food I like, but to an extent I'm picky about my games too. As a result, I used to always stray away from anything to do with bloody war and such things, prime examples being games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Assassin's Creed, Resident Evil, etc etc etc. And tho for the most part I still want no part of these types of games, I have come to respect them for what they're worth and for how much trouble the developers of said games went through. In fact, to some extent I've even started opening up to the world and lore of the Dark Souls games. I'll never look at gameplay of the Souls games or Bloodborne though, even after opening up to it...

Unless of course you're talking about Demon's Souls. In which case I can talk about that game for hours!

For those who don't know of Demon's Souls- and I imagine alot of you in fact don't know- is the long forgotten predecessor of the first Dark Souls game and comes before everything that happens in the Souls games. It only really became "popular" after its descendant game, Dark Souls, hit the limelight, and even then it was still fairly hidden in obscurity. Nonetheless, those who do know and even played this gem are forever touched by its story and depth.

⚠WARNING: SPOILERS FOR DEMON'S SOULS AHEAD.YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!⚠

The game takes place in the twisted kingdom of Boltaria, a massive kingdom recently plunged into the mysterious Fog, and any and all who enter never return. One sucker finally did return from inside the Fog alive to the outside kingdoms and tells everyone that Boltaria has basically become overrun with demons of all types. And the Fog has no signs of stopping its spread until everything is covered in this demon infested plague. This only makes more warriors and powerful individuals seek and brave the Fog, but none have yet to return. What's worse? The Fog was brought on by the Arch-demons, demons who take on souls and unwittingly feed them to the Old One, a Lovecraftian horror awakened by the Soul Arts used by the King of Boltaria himself. And with the Arch-demons comes hundreds of other demons and insane humans whom are ravaging the land like locusts.

In other words it's a typical Tuesday for your average Bloodborne player. :p

Demon's Souls came out around 2009, and the online servers to keep the online capabilities of the game active were up until only a few years ago! Players of the game have longed for a remake of some kind, especially after the online servers were finally shut down permanently, and now the game was recently announced just earlier this year to be planned to get its well-deserved and long-awaited remake. Screenshots show that the game will still contain its high-definition medieval fantasy and good word has it that the remake is being made from the ground up. Naturally there's going to be many returning elements, but there's just some things that the fans are surely going to demand that remain the same and even suggest possible improvements that couldn't be done with the original. Here's my personal list of things that I imagine many such fans (myself included) will want to keep the same or better. Welcome to the Nexus strangers! You're here for a long stay!

First things first, let us go over what is arguably the most memorable and fan-coveted subject that comes out of Demon's Souls. And that is none other then the loveable and most motherly of Souls characters; the Maiden in Black.

The Maiden in Black is the players' main source for stat-wise upgrades via soul power. You hear her voice, and you know she has no intent on being hostile to you or anyone else who may be trapped in the Nexus- that is, your hub world for the game- along with her. I believe the story goes that the Maiden's voice actress was told to do her best medieval accent, which ended up mixing with the actress' Austrian accent, and the voice came out so blissfully unique that the actress was hired later on for voice work in the other Souls games. This voice is practically a whole reason in-of itself to love the Maiden's character. Mysterious yet gentle, soft and sweet. It's like an angel's voice amongst the roar of demons and deranged. I sincerely hope that they hire the same actress to voice the Maiden in Black, or at least hire a d**m good impersonator to do the job. I'm telling you, call me crazy, but there will be consequences if the fans get a botched version of the line "touch the demon inside me". And before you ask, that line was unintentionally but infamously suggestive, especially when taken out of context.

D**m that "rule 34" nonsense. 😑

Now onto something that I consider would be a much-needed improvement, tho I don't have much confidence that it'll happen. As good as Demon's Souls was, it did have its problems, even ones that affected the world of Boltaria itself. See, when you arrive in the Nexus- again, your hub world- you leave to defeat the Arch-demons through the Archstones, huge stones that transport you to the five lands that make up the kingdom of Boltaria. These areas include the kingdom's version of Hyrule Castle Town (if you can call it that anymore), a prison that could put DC Comics' Arkham Asylum to shame and PTSD, a volcanic mining operation gone hotter the H*ll, a Japanese-like land filled with the pagan gods of an outrageous cult gone mad, and the most unsanitary valley in existence filled with abortioned monstrosities. However, the Monumental- an individual charged with keeping the fabric of reality in check essentially- tells that there was a sixth area whom contributed to the previous defeat of the Old One and the creation of Boltaria, a land where the Northern Giants reigned. Unfortunately, the Archstone that presumably led to this far-northern area of Boltaria was demolished, thus preventing travel to this land.

However, thanks to the dedicated work of data-miners, we have a lot of information in regards to what this area would've been like in game. It contained castle ruins caught in the grip of a storming frozen tundra, and at least one of the boss demons might have consisted of a twisted royal family. Other demons and insane would've included creatures and/or humans with animal skins and almost native-american inspired warriors, not to mention the humanoid and poisonous snake men enemies. I'm afraid not much else is known, but that's a start. I feel that, since they had so much of this northern area left behind unfinished in an otherwise finished gem, they should include a fully-detailed version of this northern area so that we can get some fresh new content as well as possibly get a few questions answered about the forgotten sixth Archstone. Like I said, however, it's always possible that they don't include a playable sixth Archstone and leave it broken and shattered, forever to leave us guessing what could've been of this land. After all, the game managed fine enough without this sixth Archstone and to my knowledge there hasn't truly been much complaining so much as there has been just curiosity.

Another idea I think would be considered in improvement on the original Demon's Souls? Let the NPCs that can actually fight be more useful to the player. In the first Archstone contains not only your likely first official taste of the game's true nature, but also where the "final" boss of the game is hiding. In this particular Archstone you meet certain NPCs that have the capacity to fight back, whether that be because of the demons attacked them or if YOU attacked them, they can and will fight. Two such NPCs that come to mind is Biorr of the Twin Fangs- one of the finest knights of his class- and Yuria the Witch- a woman who has since learned her lesson when it comes to the abuse-ment of soul power but is not afraid to use her magic (kind of). We get to rescue these two individuals during our time in the first Archstone, but we don't see too much of them battle-wise. I mean, I don't mind if Yuria isn't seen fighting since the game hints at her being a possible rape victim during her time as a prisoner of the Fat Officials (and believe me, that WOULD be a fate worse then death I mean those officials are U-G-L-Y and cruel as H*ll). And for Biorr it makes some sense he isn't seen fighting much either since he has kinda lost his marbles since he was locked up as a prisoner of war. I mean the guy was just freed of his cell and he immediately falls asleep STILL IN HIS CELL with the door wide open. However, Biorr is also a loved character since he does go out of his way to help you with one of the boss demons and indirectly helps you reach the top of the Boltarian Castle by tanking the fire blasts of a massive blue dragon (which believe me is as bada** as it sounds). But the only time we see Yuria fight is if you decide to take a side-quest that is essentially the Souls games' version of Undertale's Genocide Route, which requires you to kill off several of the residents of the Nexus and unfortunately this includes precious Yuria. When you attack her, whether because of this horrid side-quest or by accident, she will not hesitate to use the game's most powerful fire spell to fight you, which makes her a most formidable witch indeed. I just think maybe they should let Yuria help you out alongside Biorr during the boss fight Biorr helps you out with. She deserves to get some retribution for the torture she went through.

Idk, maybe this is just me trying to promote Yuria. Seriously she is the most precious character besides the Maiden in Black and deserves to be protected and hugged. I mean she apparently had an off-screen character growth development before we even meet her. She needs respect okay?

This next thing is kind of a minor thing for me- I don't particularly care what they do in this aspect- but maybe they can use some remixed versions of the original Demon's Souls soundtrack? I mean, remakes usually do that. I just enforce that, assuming they do decide to remix the original soundtrack, that they try to keep it as recognizable and befitting of the respective areas of the game as the original soundtrack was. Other then that I don't really care too much about the music selection or anything, as long as it doesn't drown out any of the dialogue in the game.

Another small thing I want to mention is that maybe they could reduce the number of cutscenes that the aforementioned Fat Officials get included in. I mean, look, every boss demon and Arch-demon gets one cutscene each, and some of the other monsters like some of the dragons get a cutscene or two in the game. But the f**king Fat Officials get like, what, five or six cutscenes!? I would personally either make more cutscenes for the other demons and possibly more cutscenes for other moments in the game, or just reduce the number of cutscenes the Fat Officials prominently feature in. The first Fat Official introductory cutscene as well as the cutscene where a Fat Official gets shish-kabobbed by the giant knight suit boss demon is enough for me. Also, while we're on the general subject of such, maybe the game can make it easier for you to realize that you need to put on a Fat Official's hat to trick another dumb Fat Official to lower the walkway so you can rescue Yuria. I mean, the original literally had nothing to show you that you can even do that, let alone have a reason to or that it would lead you to Yuria. The quicker we can rescue Yuria from those fat b*****ds the better.

Obviously we need the online servers to do their job again. Maybe not the exact same servers but we just want the amazing online capabilities the original Demon's Souls introduced. They allowed players to essentially either help each other out during gameplay or randomly invade and troll other players as hostile phantoms. There's even a boss in the game who- if the online ability of the console is on- will pick out a random Demon's Souls player who is also online to fight you! You're literally fighting another player to the death! This was one of the things that makes Demon's Souls as awesome as it is, so this feature most certainly has to come back.

This is really not a major thing to discuss, but it would make me happy if they did something about it. In one level of the game, there's a special merchant you can deal with. The merchant's unofficial name is Sparkly, so named due to the crow's love for "sparkly things" in particular. Yes, this merchant is a literal crow, but they can give you some good items if you give them the right shiny things. However, as minor as it is, Sparkly is never actually physically seen by the player. Only heard when approached. But how do you trade with an unsee-able merchant? Well, the game let you put the item you were willing to trade with Sparkly on the ground near the tree Sparkly lives in, then you'd exit the game for a few seconds before re-entering the game. Then you'd go pick up whatever Sparkly gave you in exchange for the item you left them. The item Sparkly gave you would be random, yes, but no other merchant in the game functions this way (then again most of the other merchants were human). I kinda think maybe- for the remake- they could give Sparkly the crow a physical body. After all, we've seen humanoid crows/ravens in Dark Souls and the other games the came after Demon's Souls. They don't have to turn Sparkly into a merchant that functions like every other merchant in the game. Just let us see if Sparkly is like a normal crow who can talk or a humanoid crow like we've seen in later installments of the Souls games.

Hm... Well honestly I can't think of much else. I might as well end things here before the remake comes out before this little rant of sorts, otherwise this page wouldn't make much sense to you. There's rumors going around that the new Demon's Souls remake may be a launch title game for the new PS5, but even if it isn't a launch title that still means I'll probably never get to play it for myself. The PS5 sounds like it'll be awfully expensive and I have enough games as it is. Still, I'll always be down to play it if I get the chance. It's a most grand game, and I'm glad they're giving the game another chance to shine onto new players. Peace. 🐉