hello and welcome to the first episode
of my demon souls compare through
this is a spin-off from my demon souls
dissected series where i'm going to go
through every area of the game
to explore the environments and see how
things got redesigned for the remake
we'll be doing a bunch of exploration
out of bounds to get a better idea of
how much work went into flushing out the
environments
unfortunately the tools for a proper out
of bounds exploration of the remake
don't exist yet of course
but we'll be abusing photo mode as much
as we can along the way
and i'm also going to be taking this
opportunity to show off a bunch of weird
stuff
even if you've been a fan of this game
for a long time i feel pretty confident
that i can show some oddities that
you've never seen before
do note that this isn't intended to be a
proper comparison of the graphics
as i'll be running the original demon
souls in emulation at an upscaled
resolution and improved frame rate
i'm more interested in artistic changes
and seeing the new assets compared to
the old
and i'd prefer to show the original
demon souls in a sort of best case
scenario rather than worry about
demonstrating its performance on ps3
accurately
so we'll start things off from the very
beginning the tutorial
also known as the journey to the nexus
[Music]
so
brave soul who fears not death
i shall guide you i shall guide you
to the fissure
so that you may love the old one back to
slumber
so that you may know the old one back to
slumber
all right so right off the bat we can
see how much more detail there is in the
environment of the remake
but there's a good chance you've already
seen some side-by-side comparisons like
this
for a good chunk of what i'm going to be
looking at i'm more interested in what's
on the periphery
manipulating our placement to go out of
bounds will make it abundantly clear
just how much their workload increased
by
including the photo mode in the remake
sometimes it's constrained by invisible
walls and various bits of collision
but it has a surprising amount of
freedom that would get us into trouble
very quickly in the original where we'd
see how the content dead ends much
sooner
back here at the starting tunnel there's
a few pillars poking up from out of
bounds
but otherwise it's pretty barren out
here
the remake gets rid of the pillars but
flushes out the surrounding land and put
some trees out there
over in this direction we can see that
they've added the ruins of another
building
where there was also nothing previously
turning to the right we can see an
out-of-bound structure here in the
original
but once again a closer look reveals
that it cuts off almost immediately
as soon as we get too high we can see
more of the surrounding land in the
remake
and one creepy environmental addition
comes in the form of a noose
hanging from a nearby tree
i would be remiss not to mention the
obvious stylistic change
the columns and perfectly flat roof of
the original manages to feel a bit more
roman i think i'm not the most qualified
person to recognize and identify various
architecture throughout history
but the original feels like it comes
from a different time and place
i know these sorts of changes will be
upsetting to some and if you already
find this frustrating
you might want to buckle up because
there's going to be a lot of this in the
remake
that being said i really only have like
a short list of maybe six specific
things throughout the whole game
that i felt really strongly about my
overall impression of the remake is very
positive and i'm okay with most of these
sorts of changes
there's a particular charm to the look
of the original but there are a lot of
strengths
and good ideas that the remake brings to
the table as well not everything is bad
simply because the vibe has changed a
little
okay but that's enough defending the
remake let's get back to exploring
of course there are more objects added
about but i'm not going to stop to point
out every little new object that was
added unless there's something more
noteworthy
about how a particular set piece was
filled out but i would like to talk
about how we can find some more boxes
sitting out of bounds nearby in the
original
what are these doing out here well an
earlier prototype version of the
tutorial reveals a wall of boxes
blocking your path at the end of the
tunnel this might have been an
opportunity to teach the player about
breaking objects or
vaulting but i'll talk a little bit more
about vaulting later
ultimately they decided against it and
i'd be willing to bet that the boxes we
find out of bounds
are what became of this they wound up
clearing this first area out entirely
but it's kind of like the remake splits
the difference by adding some back in
and placing them off to the side
here's one small difference that's not
really of any consequence but i still
thought it was interesting
turning around we can see the top of the
starting tunnel was open in the original
but it has a closed ceiling until we
reach the first clearing in the remake
moving forward a see-through gate allows
us to see more stuff that wasn't there
before
we can get a better view from over here
for some reason i'm particularly fond of
the partially open doors on that
out-of-bound structure
it's a lot of detail and looks very
pretty for a location we can't get to
and one that we can't see clearly at all
without photo mode
moving on to the next area there's a
very simple 2d texture for the wall
containing the next room
it almost looks unfinished like there
should be some kind of rooftop
but it just abruptly and cleanly cuts
off going higher up shows that they
really did the minimal amount of work to
convey the facade of the structure
unsurprisingly there's more detail in
the remake but we did lose something
kind of neat which was the
weird rooftop to this connecting passage
i like the sloped roof and the relief of
a star
or whatever that is though to be fair
the remake did add this other circular
relief in a few places which was likely
inspired by that previous design
this next room demonstrates a recurring
technique found throughout the remake
where they kept the traversible game
space
mostly the same as the original but
added nooks that are purely visual
there's this plain wall here on the
right which gets opened up and has some
stuff added in
the same goes for this wall at the far
end where they added a storage space
and there's some newfound ceiling
storage as well
this all keeps the walkable map space
pretty much identical to the original
which is important
earlier they added some objects into a
walkable space that weren't there
previously
but thankfully this is something they
did somewhat sparingly
they didn't just throw a bunch of extra
crap everywhere if they did
the environment would have gotten
cluttered in a way that it wasn't
previously
they did manage to avoid that for the
most part relegating a lot of the extra
visual elements to things that don't
physically get in your way or block your
view
now to immediately contradict what i
just said i find it interesting that you
can walk over this object in the
original
but you can't end the remake i feel like
this is the
exception to the rule though where the
walkable space almost always remains
entirely the same
let's take a closer look at some
characters it might just be the natural
result of having more detail
but the drecleans feel a bit more
humanized in the remake
in the original it almost felt like they
could be an entirely different group of
people from the soldiers
but now it feels a bit more like they
could be the same people
perhaps a lower class and you know maybe
they're just further down the path of
being soul starved for too long
i think the audio might play a role here
where in the original they sounded a bit
more monster or
zombie-like
not that some of their sounds in the
remake aren't a bit over the top as well
and a quick observation about what
they're wearing the clothes may have
changed a little bit
but they're still wearing those wooden
boards on their chest i have to imagine
that makes for some pretty poor armor
we also have a ghost scene running up
the staircase which is something you
don't really see as much of in later
souls games
sure you see plenty of player ghosts but
this is an offline ghost
it's not generated by someone online and
it's guaranteed to appear on a fixed
loop
demon souls has a few of these
throughout the game sometimes pointing
out helpful things
like the levers in stone fang
what we see here is more than just a
visual animation
remember that npcs and demon souls will
turn their heads to look at you
we can see the ghost look in our
direction this first time it looks
towards its left
and now that we're on the other side of
the staircase we'll see it look right
this is our first indication that
there's an actual entity of some kind
here
and that's not purely a visual effect we
can mess with his character type to make
him come fully into view
we can also mess with his team type to
make him hostile to the enemies in the
environment
and get him to kill some dragons for us
thank you ghost friend
but now that we no longer have a use for
him we can also even kill him
by directly modifying his hp to zero
they did clean his behavior up in the
remake though where he does ignore us
properly
instead of turning his head to look at
us
okay let's continue on
they added an extra space back here that
you can see into
unsurprisingly there's nothing back here
in the original
foreign
so here's the sort of money shot of the
tutorial where so much was added
and it makes for a really striking
moment i don't have too much to say in
terms of a direct comparison
because of how different they are
one important difference in terms of
world building is found in the inclusion
of the bulletarian insignia in the
remake
the design of this insignia is borrowed
from the original game
however it wasn't previously found
anywhere in the tutorial
once again purists might feel a little
uncomfortable with these kinds of
liberties being taken by bluepoint
but i think it's a perfectly justifiable
addition
if we were truly meant to be somewhere
far away and completely distinct
it wouldn't make a lot of sense for
there to be bulletarian soldiers
occupying the place
so identifying this area as something
like a bulletarian outpost
is an understandable design change and
it's even reflected in the name change
the tutorial wasn't named at all in the
original it was simply known as the
journey to the nexus
but now all of the individual locations
have new names and it is being referred
to as an outpost
i like how the remake adds this kind of
detailed landing nearby
that's out of bounds
it includes some breakable and movable
objects and i find it oddly satisfying
to interact with things that are out of
reach
upon closer inspection this architecture
doesn't make a lot of sense
we can see that there aren't any other
paths or doorways up here
so the stairs don't really lead anywhere
and no one would be walking around out
there
but they didn't likely intend for us to
look this closely
for this closed off path here they added
sounds of the vanguard demon off in the
distance
which is a really nice touch
in the original we can go out of bounds
to see a short path that extends beyond
the closed gate
there's a darker segment that goes
straight ahead into a dead end
but it's connected to a path that ramps
upwards and it all has collision
i'll come back to this a little later
but i'll just say for now that the
implications of this design are really
cool and i think i might blow some minds
in a few minutes here out of bounds and
off to the right
we have this area below there's a couple
trees on one side
some water flowing through and one more
tree on the other side
i like how faithful they were in keeping
this unreachable area pretty much
identical
one small difference is that in the
original this area is raised above the
water level below
and there's like a bit of a waterfall
there in the remake it makes it all
level to the water which makes a bit
more sense to me
there's also an extra patch of land
nearby instead of all just open water
in the distance we have the ruins of
some kind of bridge
in the remake it curves in towards this
area i think the idea was to put some of
these runes a bit closer
so we could see a little bit of it in
better detail in the original it's a bit
further out and runs more
parallel to this area though in the
original it's also not
in a perfectly straight path with the
segment for this to the right
being at an angle as well
and here we have an interesting addition
to the tutorial instead of having an
opening that we simply walk
off of we now have a barrier to vault
over with a new message explaining the
vaulting mechanic
vaulting isn't something that was
explained in the original and a lot of
players didn't know it existed
you would often find players doing
things like rolling off of stairs to
reach a strava
when they could have just hopped over
the wall
that was a boat jump a surprise indeed
it was mentioned in the original game's
manual but forcing players to encounter
in-game
is the better way of handling it this is
something the developers were
experimenting with in the original
but for whatever reason it was scrapped
in the prototype version of the game we
find a solid but
slightly shorter segment of wall that
can also be vaulted over
if we go out of bounds in the final
version of the game we can find a
message floating off nearby
it's just far away enough that it can't
be seen from within the level boundaries
it pops into view once we get a little
bit closer
it doesn't have a completed message tied
to it so we can't be certain it has
anything to do with the scrapped
vaulting mechanic
but it's kind of suspicious being found
nearby and i wouldn't be surprised if it
was originally intended for that
looking back at the earlier wall of
boxes in the prototype there is an extra
message of some kind placed near those
as well
which loads automatically here the weird
part is that these boxes can also be
vaulted over
unlike other boxes so this is yet
another possible candidate for where
vaulting might have been explained to us
okay let's move on i don't have too much
to say about the courtyard below
here's a few quick area comparisons
here's a rooftop added to the area with
the closed gate while the original has
some weird textures on top
and over here we have one of the star
reliefs again this time replaced with a
more ornate glass window
an item corpse was added in this back
corner that wasn't originally there
perhaps they wanted to be generous by
adding just a couple extra grasses
or maybe if you had the original game
memorized this was meant to be a
reminder to continue exploring the
remake since it has a few new items
throughout
once again here's a look over the wall
and how that compares to the original
i do want to talk about the design
change for the archstone node
in a previous video i mentioned how
there's something of a hidden design in
it that's hard to see on playstation 3.
especially considering how they're all
rotated differently often obscuring
these
details but it takes on the appearance
of an animal's head
looking a lot like a tapir this has
since been identified by vadi
as probably intending to convey a baku
something from japanese mythology that
devours nightmares
and he's elaborated why that might be
relevant to the lore of demon souls
it does keep the baku design but at
first i was a little frustrated that
they changed these to have a smoldering
look to them
it might be a nod to dark souls making
them look a bit more like bonfires now
but it loses its unique flavor why
harken back to dark souls when these
have an interesting and kind of
alien feeling to them i think giving
them a greenish glow in the remake would
have looked really cool
however by changing the design they
might have been trying to replicate what
the original did
in a roundabout way what i mean is the
original design made it hard to
instantly recognize it as an animal's
head
due to the low resolution on the ps5 it
might have been a lot clearer and also
easier to spot with photo mode
but by making it more reminiscent of a
bonfire players coming over from dark
souls
might be tricked into dismissing the
arch stone as a simple analog to the
bonfire
not realizing what's unique about it so
by making it look more like something
else
it loses its original aesthetic but it
might actually reinforce the goal of
obscuring its design
okay so now i want to show something
that's really cool here we have another
gate here where we can also hear those
new sound effects of the vanguard demon
snarling somewhere in the distance but
how much does this make sense
just from playing the game normally we
don't know how the maps are meant to
connect
presumably when we use the arch stone
here it takes us inside that building
ahead of us
but these are disconnected map pieces
that have loading screens between them
and particularly the final area of the
tutorial really feels like it's far off
somewhere else but what if i told you
that this was all designed as one
cohesive area
and that it would have been very easy to
convert the tutorial into
one bigger level well that's really how
it was designed
even though it didn't need to work this
way when you use this arch stone to warp
to the next area
you are being taken to the other side of
this gate when we go out of bounds we
can see another unused path behind it
[Music]
this links up with the blocked off path
we find behind us when we start the
second area
now the different levels aren't loaded
simultaneously which explains why we
have to go through a loading screen
and why we unfortunately can't cross
levels by simply going out of bounds
but to help demonstrate that these two
things really are linked i can load both
maps at the same time in dark souls map
studio
here we're going through the closed off
gate at the end of the first area
[Music]
now we're in the out of bounds hallway
immediately behind it
and now we're passing through that first
gate that marks the entrance to the
second area
here we can go out of bounds in the
second area to see how much of the
hallway path is included from the side
and here's where it gets even more
interesting the second area shows a few
places you can't get to
there's a closed off gate with a
staircase behind it
there's a broken staircase further ahead
and there's also this area
opposite from the boss behind another
closed gate these aren't just random
filler
they actually convey a cohesive design
that connects back with itself
and also connects back to the upper
walkway that we had to vault down from
in the first level so this isn't just
some random gate that we can't get
through
it would have actually led to those out
of bounds areas in the second level
now there isn't that much to the out of
bounds prototype content
it's mostly just hallways that connect
to each other here we'll turn around
from the vanguard demon and go through
that gate that's normally blocking our
path
off to the right there's a blocked off
path but if we teleport to the opposite
side
we see that it's a hallway with a broken
floor
from the beginning of the level we can
look up and see that same broken floor
and inaccessible hallway but instead of
turning right upstairs
we can turn left at the end of this
hallway we can turn right and head down
some stairs
this is the same broken staircase with
the wooden platform that we can see from
near the beginning of the level
but instead of turning right we can find
the one unique aspect to the prototype
version that's
actually pretty amazing and more than
just another hallway
it's an outdoors balcony and there's a
bunch of detail here
[Music]
we can see a river mountains with trees
on them
a bridge and ruins in the distance
so we have an entire vista of distant
stuff that was cut from the game
there's a bit of dissonance in both of
these views they don't totally fit
together perfectly
these mountains on the right would be
blocking some of the distant bridge
seen from the first area if you're
wondering about the orientation of this
balcony
basically if we hugged the building
around this side we'd eventually get
there
i'll do exactly that in the map viewer
to help make sense of it
[Music]
this here shows the broken bridges in
the distance seen from the first area
and this shows the small segment of
bridge seen from the balcony in the
prototype
so they are placed very near to each
other and aligned very closely at least
here's a closer look at the buildings on
the right
[Music]
here's the broken bridge going over the
river
[Music]
looking up the river we can see that it
forks
going over the bridge leads to some more
ruins and further back behind it there's
an entire town of some kind
most of it's very low resolution and
just one simple texture
so it's hard to get a clear look at it
in game but map studio can help give us
a clearer look
there's an l-shaped wall protecting some
houses and buildings behind it
then there's a raised structure behind
another wall beyond it
this one has a bit more detail like
columns placed at each corner
this is clearly some place of importance
to the town below
and it has a couple towers next to it
that are overlooking the river
demon souls only has a small number of
distant towns that can be seen so i find
it really fascinating that they put all
this effort into one that wound up
getting scrapped
all for this view for a balcony that no
longer exists
but we can see the remnants of paths
that would have led to that balcony
in the final product heading back to the
balcony let's continue along
from here there's a couple ways we could
go this close off path on the right is
simply
the far end of that broken pathway with
the collapsed floor that we saw earlier
this gated path on the left is the
hallway that would have connected back
to that upper gateway in the first level
and we also have the staircase that
heads below
it takes us down to the opposite side of
the closed gate we see at the beginning
of the second level
there's even a lever still down here
that would have been used to open this
gate
it's not working for me because i didn't
get every little aspect of the prototype
map functioning correctly
but you can see it in wolf's
demonstration of the prototype map
something else we can see in wolf's
demonstration is a different loading
transition
with the gates opened up we wouldn't
have used an archstone to travel between
the two areas
simply running down the hallway would
put us through the loading screen
and we would have been able to travel
between the upper path of the levels in
the same way
i'll include a link to wolff's video in
the description below
and if all these interconnecting paths
weren't enough there's also another
hallway
connecting the unused upper and lower
entrances directly
if we go just beyond where the upper
path dead ends from the prototype map
in the second area we can find it
heading back down towards the beginning
of the level
but it's invisible it is here though i
currently have gravity disabled and i
would be falling to my death if there
wasn't collision for a hallway here
as seen from the first level it would
have been at the very top of the path
where it ramps upwards
heading down towards the left
this missing hallway can be seen more
clearly in dark souls map studio
and that's not all we also have the
dragon god area
this feels like somewhere completely
separate and random but it also connects
as one big map
if we go out of bounds behind the
vanguard demon and the normal version of
the level
we'll find a small patch of ground that
looks like it could be the entrance to a
cave
if we go out of bounds behind the
entrance of the dragon gods area we'll
find an unused cave path
that slopes upwards
the prototype version of the map shows
us the cave still intact behind the boss
this time behind a gated entrance
instead of having a solid wall behind it
and once again a fly-through in map
studio removes any shred of uncertainty
about the direct connectivity of these
different maps
where does that put the dragon god in
relation to the first area
we might have to suspend our disbelief a
little and that it's hard to imagine
that massive lava escape
not being too far around the corner but
to be fair
the map viewer shows us that it's back
into the left in this direction
[Music]
this view is properly obscured by these
rock walls which explains why they're
out here in the first place
it's not just a bunch of random rocks
they're here to simplify the area's
design
so they wouldn't have had to work harder
to show distant scenery that would work
with the dragon gods area
okay that was a pretty big tangent about
the layout of the tutorial
but that was hopefully news to most
viewers for demon souls i can't really
do the same kind of world layout
analysis that i've done for dark souls 1
and 3 so
far because of how everything is
disconnected here but from software
manages to throw us yet another
geographical surprise by
making the interconnectivity of the
tutorial way more cohesive than i think
anyone would have guessed
ok back to some normal area comparisons
before moving on to the next area i
wanted to quickly demonstrate some of
the enhancements to the ambient audio
as you progress through an area there is
more variety from moment to moment
walking through this passage we may
dislodge some arrows stuck into our
surroundings
that weren't there in the original
version of the game
[Applause]
sometimes corpses will be surrounded by
flies that are buzzing about
there's also some off-screen
environmental events
stuff that isn't part of the looping
background audio
earlier i showed the vanguard heard
killing someone in the distance
but another event is found in this
hallway when we reach this particular
spot
we hear a crow get startled and fly off
[Music]
i think the implication is one sauce
through the new opening they added
in the wall
all of these little details make the
remake sound fantastic particularly with
a decent pair of headphones
okay now moving on to the second area
now known as the forlorn outpost
the same out of bounds areas are hinted
at here in the remake as well
it is missing the broken hallway above
but the rest are still here
the edit doors obscure our view a little
i was trying to see if it still
contained the unreachable lever
back there on the left but we wouldn't
be able to tell from here
they did add a completely new doorway
along this wall though and carefully
moving the camera around
allows us to just barely see where i
think the lever should be
and since we can't see it i do think it
was probably removed for the remake
i didn't comment on it before when we
were in here but this room has a unique
set piece inside
which are these barrels resting inside a
storage nook inside the walls
i just find it interesting that you can
barely notice it in the original
but it's reminiscent of things that got
added back into the remake elsewhere
the object placement inside the room is
identical in the remake as well
and these objects are also breakable
with projectiles
they did flush out some of the
surrounding ruins and that's pretty cool
to see
in the original we can see that there's
nothing back here and here's what it
looks like now
there is also an added hallway down
below
let's move on again i find it
fascinating to think about how that
unused balcony and distant scenery of
the prototype
would be just beyond that door up there
oh yes
the blue eye knight found here is
standing in some rubble in both versions
however in the original the rubble was
placed between its legs
the remake seizes the opportunity to
instead put some rubble underneath its
foot
which puts the enemy into a much cooler
looking stance
this is something they could have easily
done in the original as the inverse
kinematics make it happen automatically
it's not like they have to create a
different idling animation for this
though the remake does also add a bunch
of new idling animations
but i'll save that for the next episode
up above
we'll find that the roof of this hallway
is broken open in a similar way but in
the original you'll see a recessed patch
of ceiling that could have held more
bricks
and i believe this was originally
intended to be a possible death trap
in the prototype version you can see
more bricks tucked in up there
and in wolf's run through you can see
them fall from the ceiling properly
it doesn't look that deadly in his
demonstration but there is an unused
cutscene
of the player getting crushed here
the cutscene ends abruptly but i believe
you can hear the beginning of the
player's death sound effect
perhaps in the same way that there is
more to this area if you can get past
the vanguard demon
they might have wanted you to be able to
die here even earlier
allowing for a couple extra points of
progression i think there's something
else that might back this up
but i'll talk more about that later
going up the stairs here we have a wall
that was opened up to contain some large
wooden casks
and throughout the game we also get a
lot of extra corpses in the environment
and once again there's more storage
space nearby
up the stairs a fireplace was added
and this is one of those times where the
walkable space was modified just a
little bit to accommodate the new
visuals
where it was previously more of a flat
wall
i don't know why but i find it
interesting that these objects remained
completely identical for some reason
they might look like kind of a random
structure but they did have a purpose
they were built to hang meat from which
goes along with the boiling stew in the
next room
what happened to the meat you ask
well we can't see what's in the stew in
the original maybe it's just some tomato
soup
in the remake we can see it was stuffed
with rats which is pretty cool
but surely something bigger was hanging
from these chains at some point
and the blood stains on the floor make
it look like something bigger was
dragged around here
we can find some answers in dark souls
map studio which reveals some cut
content
here we have a human corpse hanging
awaiting preparation for consumption
it's pretty macabre and shows what the
soul starved humans are willing to eat
but it's also a bit cliche sure
cannibalism is spooky and all but
couldn't they have come up with
something cooler and surprising
oh yeah so there was originally going to
be an alligator over here
there's an unused character model for an
alligator but it doesn't have any
animations
it's been no no for a long time i
believe it was first discovered by gibb
when he was the first to demonstrate cut
enemy models all those years back
but i'm just now realizing that there's
this corresponding object file
and where it was going to be placed
along the outside we can see some new
distant hallways that didn't previously
exist
i would love to be able to explore out
of bounds in the remake to see all of
that more closely
i think this hallway might essentially
be a copy and paste of the other new
hallway we saw down below
earlier
if we try to lift the camera through the
hole in the ceiling back in this room
we'll hit an invisible wall but at the
right angle you can see some weird
shadowing or
texture issues up there
and we can lift the camera a little
higher than i was expecting in the soup
room to see a little bit more of the
surrounding rooftop structures
opposite from the boss we're back at the
forking path of the prototype
if we crank the brightness up in photo
mode we can see that there's still two
passages where they would have been
and here's something i found interesting
it might just be a coincidence
but it was the path on the right that
was fully blocked the one that would
have led to that hallway with the broken
floor
that gate is fully closed here it was
the path on the left that was open and
led towards the balcony
and while it does have a closed door now
the gate itself is open
unlike the gate on the right so it might
be a nod to which one of these paths
would have been
accessible originally
in the room before the vanguard demon
there's quite a bit of extra detail with
the chandeliers
and the ornate chairs along the walls
both the remake and the original have
holes in the ceiling here
though the placement was different and
it was smaller in the original
in the original game it's another
remnant of where the ceiling was
previously designed
to collapse on you
and the staircase heading up to the boss
is now lined with statues
there's five different statues here so
there's a good amount of detail
one of them appears to be of a crowned
woman holding a child
let's talk about fog of course the fog
effect is much more detailed and i like
the way it flows along the ground
but it's become much more opaque you can
no longer see the boss through it
something i liked about demon souls
foggates is how they were pretty
transparent
always giving you at least a fuzzy
glance at what's on the other side
perhaps that ruins the element of
surprise in some situations
but i always thought the solid fog gates
of dark souls managed to look worse
and they were less aesthetically
pleasing than what demon souls had
they sort of split the difference here
they're not completely opaque
and there's a little bit of transparency
for things that are very close to the
fog gate
but otherwise you can't see much at all
unless you go into photo mode to lift
the camera higher
where the fog is thinner i think it
looks pretty cool like this
and it's how i would have liked the
thickest part of the fog to have looked
okay now onto the boss
[Music]
this is one of those cases where i feel
like less is more and i'm definitely a
bigger fan of the original design
yes it's a bit goofier but i'm reminded
of that often quoted segment from the
dark souls design works book
where director hirataka miyazaki
discusses his preference to steer away
from grotesque designs
to be perfectly fair about the vanguard
demon it was a reused asset from a
previous from software game called
enchanted arms where it was originally
named de brad
it underwent some minor tweaking for
demon souls but was largely unchanged
so being something of a copy and paste
in the first place i don't think its
original design was
super carefully considered or anything
but the end result was something more
alien
and somehow more dignified one major
difference is how it doesn't look
wounded or sickly in the original
and they remake their skin worn down on
its knuckles and it has weird growths
and deformations of the skin that make
it look like it would be unhealthy by
the standards of
whatever its original anatomy would be
its face makes angry expressions
where the original can't emote very much
and looks a bit indifferent about the
situation
and something kind of out of left field
they did add a mouth to the back of it
this i don't mind nearly as much because
it's a pretty big random thing to change
and it does feel like something that
from software might have done
there's a cut demon soul's enemy that
was intended for the broken arch stone
area
it was basically a yeti with a mouth in
its belly
but overall they lean towards making
this boss more aggressive and scary
looking and i feel like this design
would have been more appropriate for
something like
doom i've also heard some people
complain about the chains and shackles
that were added on
now indicating that it was a prisoner at
some point this is actually one aspect i
can get behind but
i'll save the discussion for when we
meet the second one in the shrine of
storms
i don't know how deep i'm going to get
into the music for the series but i feel
like some themes get a bit muddied and
lost at times when they're put into
these larger orchestrations that have
more nuance to them
so at times i really find myself wishing
the game allowed the option of using the
original soundtrack
but it's not all bad and this theme in
particular starts off very faithful and
lasts that way for a good while
you can sync things up to play both
versions at the same time and they
actually sound shockingly good together
i didn't even have to beat match
anything they're the exact same tempo
[Music]
we lose the timpani's sort of incessant
quarter note pulse in favor of a softer
eighth note pattern on a snare drum
despite being a simple change for the
percussion i feel like this is the
biggest change in personality between
the two tracks
to highlight a positive of the new
soundtrack i like the variation of this
section where the strings go crazy
[Music]
anyways here's a few more measures of
both versions playing together because
it sounds so good
[Music]
ok now on to the next area when we
survive the fight we of course wind up
at the final
optional part of the tutorial which is
now named unknown egress
unlike the original they actually put a
door behind us this time which helps
reinforce the idea that this could be
connected to the previous area in some
way
i tried raising the camera over the wall
to see if any of the sloped path behind
it remained intact
it doesn't look like it but we also
can't see much
i should also mention that they've
adjusted the really over the top screen
shake that the original has
the screen now only shakes when you're
closer to the dragon god
they also made it so that a bit of
rubble shakes loose each time the dragon
breathes
in the original you can see similar
small bits of rubble on the ground
but none of it actively gets shaken
loose so i appreciate how the remake
picked up on this design element
and turned it into something dynamic
they also added an effect
where the air and smoke is pushed by the
dragon god's breath
the general idea of being deep in some
crevice remains intact
though they removed some architecture
like the outer walls and replaced them
with cave walls
and also the weird arch that feels kind
of random and out of place in the
original
that was removed as well
a new item was added here called the
iron helm it better matches the helmet
from the original fluted set
object placement is mostly the same
boxes with one barrel on the left
and just two boxes over here on the
right
and the skeleton corpses look very
similar to the original as well
overall things feel opened up a bit more
the path is now lined with iron fences
we can see through
and scotches are moved off the floor and
into the columns
we do lose this sort of design pattern
from the architecture
and get these instead
here we can get our first clear look at
the dragon god here's a side-by-side
comparison
i don't really have anything specific to
say about any design changes
it looks really cool to me in both
versions
here's a random kind of design detail
about the dragon god that you might have
not noticed but he actually has six
fingers and toes
and they kept that the same in the
remake
inside here we can see a statue that's
not here in the original game
but that doesn't mean it's entirely new
the statues are based on some out of
bounds content that we can just barely
see in the original
we can't see them clearly at all unless
we cheat to get closer
so i find it really cool that they
decided to keep these and make them more
prominent
something else very strange out here is
a structure that's hidden out of view
behind the dragon god
we can normally never see it from any
vantage point but with a bit of cheating
we can kill him off
so it's straight back there
i've tried to look very carefully around
the dragon god in the remake to see if
we can see part of the structure at all
i suspect it's probably not there
anymore but it could still just be
blocked from view
perhaps we'll find out when the ps5
inevitably gets hacked some years in the
future
it's a really strange set piece with
unique shapes and textures we don't find
anywhere else in the game
it's pretty weird they put this effort
into something we can't see at all and
it has more detail than you'd expect for
something this far in the distance
i also find it pretty strange that
there's a couple blistey out there
i mean it kind of makes sense
thematically it ties in with how we
fight it later
but these are different instead of being
these simple weird magic ones from
stonefang
these ones are a lot more detailed and
they even had animations made for them
once again that's a lot of effort for
something that's entirely out of bounds
which all points to an obvious
conclusion this isn't just thematically
similar to the dragon god encounter
later
but i believe it's likely a scrapped
prototype version of that fight
they must have been demoing the concept
for themselves here and they had the
bigger ideas down
the dragon watches you from behind some
columns you use a couple bliss dye to
kill it
and it punches you
but then the next step of the design
dictated that it can't just be an easy
walk from one blister to the other
so the same concepts are adapted to a
wider obstacle course
and at some point it made more sense to
develop that for a different level
instead of continuing here
again this is all just speculation but
it would make all the extra detail make
sense
i wouldn't be surprised if someone made
this set piece with the expectation that
it was something to be encountered
after defeating the boss this is
something i said i'd talk more about
earlier
remember the unused early death cutscene
if you could die earlier in the tutorial
originally
then also having more content afterwards
makes sense as well
i mean having all these extra progress
points would be very convoluted if your
expectation
is to just die and wind up in the nexus
but what if that wasn't always the case
i think there's a possibility that demon
souls was a very different game much
earlier in development i mean we do know
that was the case
but we don't have a lot of specifics on
what was going wrong
what we do know from an interview with
the director is that sony wanted
something to compete with the elder
scrolls series
oblivion was a very big deal at the time
and they approached from software
because they envisioned them being able
to steer king's field in that direction
but things didn't go according to plan
demon souls was not doing well
the project had issues and the team had
been unable to make a compelling
prototype
could you imagine sony wanting to see
something that reminded them of oblivion
in some way
and then from software completely drops
the ball by making something that's
weirdly dragon's lair-esque in a way now
i'm not suggesting that demon souls was
just going to be a series of quick time
events or that it wasn't going to be an
action rpg
but it does appear to me like it was
originally leaning harder into scripted
events
with an emphasis on avoiding a series of
deadly obstacles
don't let the ceiling crush you don't
die to this boss
don't get punched by the dragon etc
we do know that there was a cup
permadeath mode known in the data as
true death we don't know exactly how it
would have functioned but it involved
losing all of your stats and gear if you
died in ghost form
initially the plan was to have the game
feature permadeath where the death of a
character would result in the save file
being erased
of course we all agreed that we probably
went too far with that
the cut content describes something a
little less harsh than that it didn't
say your entire safe i would be deleted
but it describes something more like a
roguelike that would de-level you and
take gear away
but it would start you right back up we
can kind of picture this functioning in
the final game
but if that was a design concept from
the start a more dragon's lairish
try not to die type of game really seems
like it could have been a previous
consideration
what do you think am i speculating too
much maybe but
at least i have a more specific
hypothesis on how this game was shaping
up in its earliest stages
before miyazaki-san took over and
drastically overhauled the project
and regardless of how it evolved exactly
it's still fascinating how
sony kind of made a mistake when
partnering with from software
they didn't deliver the kind of game
they wanted and the project was on the
verge of cancellation mid-development
shuhei yoshida the former president of
sony worldwide studios
is famously on the record for really not
liking demon souls the first time he
experienced it
for my personal experience with demon
souls when it was close to final i spent
close to two hours playing it and after
two hours i was still standing at the
beginning of the game
i said this is crap this is an
unbelievably bad game
so i put it aside but he said all of
this not to crap on the game this all
was part of an admission that they
screwed up
we definitely dropped the ball from a
publishing standpoint including studio
management side
we were not able to see the value of the
product we were making
and what's really cool about the
turnaround here is that i have zero
doubt that it's 100 authentic
i don't think this is just a hollow pr
statement after the success of dark
souls
for bloodborne promotion yoshida-san
fought the watchdog on more than one
occasion
demonstrating a ton of skill in this
first promo but failing to win
he followed it up with a stream of a
successful win
you absolutely would not go through all
of that just a faint of respect for the
series
for something that was initially a big
disappointment here we are now with
themselves as a ps5 launch title
it's quite the redemption story and i
find it pretty great that we have this
remake in addition to the original
for those who have stronger opinions
about some of the design changes i get
it
and future episodes will have me
nitpicking some more stuff i really
didn't like
but for me no matter how strongly i feel
about a handful of particular changes
this is still a game that has a great
overall experience and it certainly
feels
like more than the sum of those parts
hopefully ps5's will be easier to get in
the near future so more people can
experience this for themselves
if you enjoyed this episode please
consider subscribing i had a blast
making this
and i can't wait to pour over the rest
of the game i'd like to thank wolf 2k
meow martis and drop off for their
assistance in getting the prototype
version of the tutorial working
and also rick gibb for releasing the
debug mode of demon souls which is
incredibly helpful for every video i
make about this game
and i'd like to give a shout out to grim
rook and basley adams
for additional assistance and also thank
you to everyone who supports me on
patreon
any support goes a long way towards
helping this channel
we just recently met the goal for
creating the second dark souls video
screen saver
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area is done next i've opened the poll
for 5
backers and above but that poll will
close after this video has been up for a
week
and lastly an extra special thanks to my
backers at the evil vigrant tier
alex the bear astranicus curtis ware
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lude frago nashwan azari nate heinz
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watching
you