Byte Size – Dark Souls Remastered, PS4 Review

Love it, hate it or avoid it like the plague – Dark Souls has influenced the last decade, I first reviewed it on PS3 for long gone website Buttonmasher. Back then it was a breath of fresh air, a game that dared to challenge you, make you play against high risk for a bit less reward.

Back then the game brought innovation and didn’t pander to the soft hearted PS3 owners that couldn’t understand why a pause didn’t pause the game or why they couldn’t quick-save at will. I applauded the game for those things, even though I struggled to progress and to be honest still do. Treading the same paths, fighting the same creatures and getting trounced by the same Bosses, I’m not a patient fighter of Bosses and the traditionally heavy Souls controls do me no favours.

Having spent the best part of the last ten years spawning sequels, imitators and gracing new platforms I have to say its a game I can happily put down these days. I will never truly learn how to make the most of the franchise and no amount of crisper, yet still angular graphics will convince me, especially given that the pretty screenshots are nothing like my those my PS4 is pumping out.

The Good – Look, its a classic game make no mistake and there is still a decent community leaving messages or ghosts in your game.

The Bad – The remaster process hasn’t added much and in comparison to recent games it just feels s…l…o…w…

The Ugly – Boss fights, Boss fights are ugly and unfair and repetitive and just not my cup of tea. Anymore.

Overall: I enjoyed going back, but to honest got no further in than I did nine years ago. I don’t have the passion I had for the game’s innovation back then, but I do respect what it did and now looking back, we were never going to get on for long.