Reflections on the Past E3

  In the annals of man's history, there are numerous events that have lifted his soul above the everyday and the banal and made him contemplate life. The invention of the airplane, the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the Spanish Reconquista come to mind. E3 2021, however, was not one of these events. Flying in the face of my original high expectations for this year's E3, the final product we fans were delivered can only make me exclaim the following:

Chef Skinner expresses his justifiable outrage over E3 2021.

    

    This E3 was a series of one letdown after another. Most of the games that were shown were bad, and few of my desired reveals occurred. While the fact that my pet projects didn't see the light of day isn't too surprising, neither did the hopes and dreams of almost any fans of any franchises! Most promising in-development games received no word as to their development statuses, which I will list in greater detail below. I had assumed that since game developers skipped E3 last year and had a whole year's reservoir of information to share, this year would be jam-packed full of exciting announcements, but I was sorely mistaken. It turns out that game developers had nothing to show for themselves, and in some cases it would have been better if they actually didn't show anything at all. (I'm looking at you, Square Enix.) I hadn't watched E3 for several years before I tuned into E3 2021, but this year's presentations were so bad that I feel a strong inclination to avoid watching them in the future, so as not to disappoint and disgust myself.

    Now I shall offer my thoughts on the conferences of the developers I mentioned in my previous post on E3: whether they lived up to my expectations or not, which of my hopes (if any) were fulfilled, and then I shall assign them a final grade. Without further ado, here is my evaluation of E3 2021, company by company.

1. BANDAI NAMCO

    Bandai Namco's E3 presentation was nothing short of abysmal. Indeed, the only grade I could fairly give it would be a resounding F. It consisted of a single trailer for a Western game called House of Ashes, developed by Supergiant Games, followed by a developer interview on said game. Now, if said game had been featured in Ubisoft's presentation, say, or Take Two Interactive's, I wouldn't complain. I wouldn't be enthused by the game, either, but I would acknowledge that there is a place for Western games in Western developer presentations. But to have literally the sole focus of one of the largest Japanese game developers' presentations at the biggest video game conference of the year be a Western game that it is merely publishing is wholly unacceptable. It is nothing short of asinine, as well as insulting to its fans. In general, fans of Japanese games watch Japanese game developer conferences hoping to see new games from their favorite Japanese game franchises, or to see a new surprise Japanese IP reveal. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as fans of Deus Ex watching Square Enix's press conference in hopes of a new game announcement for said series, but these are merely exceptions to the rule. And Supergiant Games does not have nearly the devoted fanbase that Deus Ex does.

    In addition, FromSoftware's new unannounced game was nowhere to be seen. I had hoped we'd see its reveal this E3, but no dice. To be sure, it is possible that it's not being published by Bandai Namco, but no other publisher has announced it yet, either. It seems to still be languishing in obscurity in some corner of FromSoftware's headquarters in Tokyo, apparently not yet ready for public scrutiny.

    Of course, there's one thing about Bandai Namco's "E3" presence that I am neglecting to mention: Elden Ring. When I said that I could only give Bandai Namco's E3 conference an F, I was excluding Elden Ring, for Elden Ring was not revealed at E3 this year, but rather at Geoff Keighley's "Summer Game Fest," which was held two days prior to the commencement of E3. But since the Summer Game Fest was held in such close proximity to E3, I will make an exception to strict E3 conference grading and include its reveal as part of Bandai Namco's E3 presentation. As I mentioned in my first post, I was hoping that Elden Ring would show up this year, and show up it did. Although, frustratingly, Elden Ring was not shown any further at E3, as many suspected it would be following its reveal at the Summer Game Fest, which is yet another stain on Bandai Namco's E3 presence this year. But at long last, we've got ourselves a release date for FromSoftware's next epic dark fantasy adventure. I'm looking forward to its release, and as a matter of fact, its reveal at E3 this year was good enough to lift Bandai Namco's grade from an F to a D. Such is the power of FromSoftware games.

GRADE: D

2. NINTENDO

    Ah, yes, Nintendo, the saviors of the American game industry. The most seasoned console maker in business today, and the last of the Japanese console-making giants. (I don't count Sony as Japanese anymore, since they moved PlayStation's headquarters to California in 2016.) I had hoped they'd offer us a reveal of Breath of the Wild 2, along with news on Pikmin 4, Monolith Soft's new games, and a new Fire Emblem title. Alas, only one of these hopes actually was fulfilled.

    

    Nintendo's conference had the most games of any that I watched, so I must commend them heartily for that. In an E3 short not just on new reveals, but games at all, Nintendo at least brought games to the table. And they even brought a surprise, too. A new 2D Metroid game was announced, apparently the first in 19 years, an announcement which was received positively by fans. I myself have never played a Metroid game, so it didn't interest me very much, but I am happy for fans of said series. Shin Megami Tensei V, a game which had languished in development hell until last year, received a release date and finally showed some gameplay. And, as I mentioned above, Breath of the Wild 2 was revealed, and a release window given. These are significant positives, to be sure. But there were also quite a few negatives, too. So many that I'd say they outnumbered the positives.

    Firstly, as I mentioned above, Nintendo failed to show any of the games I was excited for other than Breath of the Wild 2. As I mentioned in my first post, it has been literally four years since Pikmin 4 last received an update. In the time since, Nintendo has released both a Mario Golf and a Mario Tennis game. (Well, the Mario Golf game isn't out yet, but it will be in four days.) The ordering of Nintendo's priorities is out of whack. It's high time Nintendo either reveals this game or disconfirms its existence. Similarly, it has been nearly two years since the last Fire Emblem game was released, and in the whole history of the series, the longest gap between game releases has been three years. Since no new Fire Emblem game has been revealed yet, it is very unlikely that one will be releasing later this year, which means that we are due for a new title next year. I hope Nintendo shows it sooner rather than later. No word was given on whatever Monolith Soft is doing at the moment, which is disappointing. Furthermore, though I am not a Metroid fan (as I mentioned earlier), I feel badly for the fans because Metroid Prime 4 was not revealed (as many were hoping it would be), but rather merely received an update saying that it was "progressing." And the poor Bayonetta fans received no word on the third title in their series, which supposedly was a Switch exclusive game. The last word on it came in December 2017. And even though Breath of the Wild 2 was shown, its trailer was not very promising. It appears that the game will use the same map as Breath of the Wild, with some modifications like floating islands. But I am not confident that floating islands will be enough to spruce up Breath of the Wild's map. It would not be enjoyable to run around the same map once again, since part of the fun of Breath of the Wild was exploration. If the map has already been explored in the previous game, and its sequel merely makes minor modifications to it, what would be the point of playing the sequel at all? As it is, it's still too early to dismiss the game out of hand. I am still hoping that Nintendo adds actual Zelda dungeons to Breath of the Wild 2, and I hope the game turns out well in the end.

GRADE: C-

3. SEGA

    I won't have to spend much time on this section. Sega had no conference at all this year. Despite E3's official website listing them as a participating developer, they did not show off anything other than a trailer for an 11-year old Sonic game. That was it. I cannot even fathom how this occurred. Not only was nothing interesting shown, nothing at all was shown. No Persona, No Project Re Fantasy, nothing from Atlus, nothing from Sega itself, nothing at all. That Sonic trailer doesn't even count. How was Sega even listed as a participating developer? It boggles the mind. There was some profound incompetence on the Entertainment Software Assocation's part here, or else on Sega's part. Anyway, having no conference at all automatically assigns Sega an F.

GRADE: F

4. SQUARE ENIX

    Good grief. Square Enix's presentation was probably my most anticipated of E3, and yet it ended up being a complete disaster. The presentation lasted about 40 minutes, and yet incomprehensibly, the first 20 or so minutes of it were devoted to showing off a Western-developed Guardians of the Galaxy game. How did this happen? It's the same thing that happened with Bandai Namco, all over again! Nobody watches Square Enix press conferences for news about Guardians of the Galaxy games! People watch them for news about Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, or Kingdom Hearts or Deus Ex (as I mentioned above). The rest of the conference consisted of announcing remasters, DLC to a (Western) game that flopped, mobile games, and two other games which I shall describe in greater detail. The first is Babylon's Fall. This game is being developed by PlatinumGames, a studio known for making high-quality action games. As such, I was happy to see it shown off at Square Enix's presentation. Unfortunately, its reveal was also accompanied by some bad news: it will be published as a live service title. This is disappointing to hear. The game originally looked like it would be a single-player action game, like those that Platinum is known for, but instead now it looks as though it will have multiplayer mechanics and live service elements shoehorned in. This is not good. It is perhaps too early to proclaim the downfall of the game, but it is certainly a distinct possibility now, and more so than it was before. And the other game was a Final Fantasy game, which is great. But it wasn't a great Final Fantasy game. Not in the least. As a matter of fact, it looked awful. Final Fantasy Origin, as the game is called, is a spin-off of the mainline Final Fantasy series, but it lacks all of what made Final Fantasy good in the first place. Final Fantasy traditionally was renowned for its art direction, character designs, music, worlds, and to some degree plot. But the trailer that was shown was truly laughable, with an absurdly edgy tone that does not befit a Final Fantasy title, a ludicrous main character who looks like he came straight from an American gym, and horrible art direction and character designs. This is all the more disappointing considering the fact that Tetsuya Nomura did the game's artwork and character designs, and he has proven his mettle in both of these fields time and time again with his work on older Final Fantasy games, and considering the fact that the game takes place in the universe of Final Fantasy I, which had excellent art direction and character designs due to its fantastic artist, Yoshitaka Amano. The least Square Enix could have done was to hire him out to work on this game. But no. It was not to be.

    There was nothing in Square Enix's presentation that wasn't disappointing in some way. There was no word on Final Fantasy XVI at all, let alone a release date, and nothing on either of Yoko Taro's new games. Well over half of the presentation was spent focused on Western games, an absurdly high proportion considering that, again, this is a Japanese developer's press conference. I was greatly disappointed by the conference as I watched it. The company I was most excited for turned out to be my biggest disappointment.

GRADE: F

    Well, E3 this year was a pile of garbage. But at least we got to see Elden Ring at the Summer Game Fest. Thanks, Geoff, for attempting to salvage the smoldering corpse of E3 before it even began. Maybe the Tokyo Game Show will have some actual news. Or maybe next year's E3 will be better. But I won't be getting my hopes up again any time soon. Until next time, my fair readers.

OVERALL E3 GRADE: F

Reflections on the Upcoming E3

    The past few months have not been kind to gamers worldwide. The video game industry was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, and as a result news has slowed to a trickle. Games in development hell have rotted away with no updates as to their statuses, while new game announcements have been scarce. But all that can and should change with the welcome return of E3 on June 12, a mere nine days away. E3 was sadly and conspicuously absent last year, also because of the coronavirus pandemic (though one must wonder why a digital event could not have been arranged as is being done this year), but it makes its glorious return this year, albeit in digital form. The conference boasts an impressive lineup a lineup, with several heavy hitters from the East participating, and a few from the West as well: Nintendo, Sega, Square Enix, Bandai Namco, and Capcom representing Japan, Ubisoft representing France, and Microsoft (including their new subsidiary Bethesda), Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. (ostensibly a film production studio), and Verizon representing the United States. Notably absent are EA, Sony, and Konami. Before this E3 I had no idea Verizon was in any way involved with video games, but perhaps the company is using this E3 as an opportunity to stealthily (or not so stealthily) break into the industry, to provide it with some much-needed healthy competition. If KFC can make a video game console (which I suppose remains to be seen), then why can't a telecommunications company have a presence at E3?

A screenshot of the home page of the E3 2021 website. (Verizon logo highlight added).

    All levity aside, I'm hoping for a good E3 this year. There are many previously announced games without release dates whose presences are sorely desired at it, and since developed societies the globe over have somewhat regained their footing after shooting themselves in the foot with the hullabaloo over COVID-19, I figure that E3 2021 is a great opportunity for developers to provide updates on said games. It has been long enough since these games were announced and since developers adjusted to pandemic work guidelines that they certainly are due for an update. I'm speaking of games like Breath of the Wild's sequel, Elden Ring, Bayonetta 3, and Metroid Prime 4. Even if I don't care about all of these games, their fans most certainly deserve some news. Since I mostly care about Japanese video games, I won't be commenting on my hopes for the Western companies' press conferences, because I don't have any.

    Without further ado, I now present my hopes for E3 2021, listed by the respected companies each "hope" is associated with. Note that I don't expect all of these to occur, which is why they are hopes and not expectations. But a man can dream, can't he?

1. Bandai Namco
• Hopes: Elden Ring update and release date, plus a new FromSoftware game announcement. At the end of 2018, company president and gaming overlord Hidetaka Miyazaki confirmed that FromSoftware was developing two new unannounced games alongside the then-unreleased Sekiro. (Source here: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/from-software-sekiro-two-games-dark-souls-bloodborne). One of these games was revealed to be Elden Ring at E3 2019. The other has not been announced yet. I hope that this E3 will see its reveal. There is a good chance that it will not be published by Bandai Namco, but I'm categorizing it with said company, because it published all three Dark Souls games outside of Japan and is publishing Elden Ring as well (it also published Demon's Souls in PAL regions).
2. Nintendo
• Hopes: Breath of the Wild 2 reveal and release date, Pikmin 4 announcement and release date, plus Monolith Soft's (a Nintendo-owned studio) medieval fantasy game announcement. I personally thought Breath of the Wild was a good game, a 7/10. I didn't think it was the masterpiece that many people claimed it was, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And thus I'm interested in its sequel. As for Pikmin, well, I played Pikmin 3 many years ago and liked it a lot, so I'm most definitely interested in a new installment in the franchise. Shigeru Miyamoto last teased Pikmin 4 in July 2017, and sadly, nothing has been said about the game since. Maybe this year the game will finally get its time in the spotlight. And as regards Monolith Soft's game, for the past few years, Monolith Soft's website has contained a recruitment page for a new project, alongside some concept art. (This page can be accessed here: https://www.monolithsoft.co.jp/recruit/special/). While this project may at first glance appear to be Breath of the Wild's sequel (since Monolith Soft co-developed BotW with Nintendo), there is a separate listing for a Zelda project on the website, indicating that the two games are separate. Although nothing is known about the game yet, its concept art looks cool, so I am eager to learn more about it.
3. Sega
• Hopes: Persona 6 announcement, Project Re Fantasy reveal. Project Re Fantasy is an RPG that was announced by Atlus (which is owned by Sega) at the end of 2016 and has received almost no coverage by the developer since. At the end of 2020 its director claimed that he would like to make its reveal in 2021, so I hope that finally happens at E3 this year. But, we might be kept waiting yet. Regardless, I'm interested in the game due to its excellent concept art and high-caliber production team. The game is being developed by the core team of director Katsura Hashino, artist Shigenori Soejima, and composer Shoji Meguro, the group of men responsible for Persona 3, 4, and 5, so if nothing else, the game will at least likely have good art and character design and good music. Project Re Fantasy's teaser website can be accessed at rpg.jp, but only in Japanese.
4. Square Enix
• Hopes: Final Fantasy XVI update and release date, Babylon's Fall update, reveal of Yoko Taro's two new games. I like Final Fantasy (although the series has really gone down the gutter in recent years), so a new entry in the series is assuredly going to pique my interest. (If XVI sucks, though, I might give up on this franchise ever being good again.) Babylon's Fall looks pretty neat from the trailers released thus far, and PlatinumGames is reputedly great at developing action games, so this game has my attention. Square Enix has already confirmed that Babylon's Fall will receive an update at E3 this year, so that doesn't really count as a hope, but I'm including it here anyway. As for Yoko Taro's new games, at the end of 2020, his producer and buddy Yosuke Saito stated that they together were working on not one but two new games (source here: http://firesanctuary.com/blog/2020/12/31/yoko-taro-is-working-on-2-new-games/), neither of which has been revealed yet, so I'm waiting with bated breath to see what these new games are. Every *real* game (I'm not including mobile games) Yoko Taro makes is interesting, so whatever he comes up with will likely be worth checking out.

I'm looking forward to seeing how my hopes pan out. Maybe there will be a few pleasant surprises at this E3. Only time will tell. After E3 concludes I will be writing a post detailing my thoughts on the event, so please look forward to it. Until then.

EDIT: I also would like to see Nintendo show off a new Fire Emblem game at their conference. The latest Fire Emblem game was released in 2019, and Fire Emblem games typically follow each other within two or three years, so I think a new one ought to be coming out soon.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Review—An Underappreciated JRPG Classic

    Back in 2004, an obscure Japanese video game developer named Nihon Falcom released a game entitled Eiyū Densetsu Sora no Kiseki (英雄伝説 空の軌跡) for the PC. This game was not localized outside of Japan until 2011, when its port for the PSP was released in North America and Europe. Its English title is, of course, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. It was the sixth entry in the long-running Legend of Heroes series, and the first in the now-long-running Trails series, which has continued ever since 2004. Trails in the Sky itself is also only the first game in the Trails in the Sky sub-series of Trails, which is why it is often referred to as Trails in the Sky FC, short for First Chapter. Trails remains an obscure series in the West, but it has gained much greater recognition here in the world of Latin characters through the relative popularity of the Trails of Cold Steel series, the third part of the Trails series, which itself is a part of the Legend of Heroes series. What a dizzying number of games, series, and sub-series to keep track of! But one need not understand all of this series' nuances for the purposes of this review. Suffice it to say that Trails in the Sky is not a groundbreaking game, nor is it entirely unique, and I would not call it a great game. But I believe it is a good one, a game worth the time I put into it. 

    Where to begin? Well, let me start with the negatives of the game. First of all, the game has poor combat. The battles are typical boring turn-based JRPG fare, complete with extended animations, monotonous average encounters, and generally dull, uninteresting fights. However, the game does have a turbo mode (whose key binding is accessible from the game launch configuration tool) that apparently greatly speeds up gameplay, making it much less tedious (according to my friend who also played this game). Unfortunately, when I played through Trails in the Sky, I had no idea such a feature existed, and so I was stuck with much slower, more irritating gameplay! Although I do believe the combat is poor, I also think it is passable, and it generally wasn’t too much of a bother. If you have played other turn-based JRPGs before and found yourself able to deal with the tedium of their combat, then you should be well-equipped to handle Trails in the Sky. 

    Second, the side quests of the game are quite boring and annoying to do, so I skipped most of them. They usually involve finding items for people or searching around rather large sections of map to fight optional bosses, and since the combat of the game wasn’t fun, and I didn’t really care about average NPCs’ plights, I only found them tedious to do. The problem with my strategy is that completing the side quests does increase an in-world ranking of the main characters, and so if you want your characters ranked highly in this regard, you will need to do lots of these side quests. 

    The third major problem with the game is that it is extremely dialogue and cutscene-heavy. This game has a very high cutscene-to-gameplay ratio (and unfortunately its cutscenes are not skippable), even for a JRPG, and so if that bothers you, you likely will not enjoy this game. I have to wonder whether or not this game would have been better served being a visual novel, anime, or book, because of how much of the game is spent simply reading through dialogue between the characters, and because of the lackluster gameplay.

Estelle Bright, one of the game's main characters. Image credit goes to Nihon Falcom.

    Fourth, the game takes a long time to develop the plot. I would argue that for the most part, the story is quite slow until the second half of the third chapter. For a significant part of the game I felt as though I were running around involved in rather tiresome, generic trivialities, and there was even one point in the first chapter at which I nearly quit. Thankfully, immediately thereafter the story picked up and I was engaged once again. There is an advantage to the lethargic build of the game, however, which I will discuss later. 

    Finally, this game’s story and characters are formulaic in some regards. The villain is rather predictable and underwhelming, there are multiple deus ex machinas, and the main character’s dramatic espousal of the overwhelming power of friendship as though it were some kind of legitimate plan for the future was irksome and absurdly cliched. 

    So just why is this game any good? Why have I given it a positive review? Below I will list the reasons why I believe Trails in the Sky to be worthwhile and a good game. Though it is significantly flawed, I believe that its flaws listed above are outweighed by the game’s merits, of which there are many. 

    First, as mentioned above, there is an advantage to the game’s leisurely pacing. I’ve played a lot of JRPGs, and I’ve never seen one which builds the dread and mystery of its world and story as well as Trails in the Sky does. Unlike games like Final Fantasy, which usually wow the player with the novelty and intrigue of their worlds and stories only early on in the game, so that by the end of the game the player can anticipate exactly what is going to happen next, Trails in the Sky gradually increases the tension of the game’s world little by little over the course of the story, and leaves the door wide open as to what will occur by the game’s end. (Incidentally, I did not predict the game’s ending, nor do I think the average player will.) Early on in the game, little bits and pieces of mysteries are established, and cracks in the game’s world are revealed, but the focus is not placed on these unresolved tidbits. But as the game progresses, all of the different fragments of information come together to reveal the truth behind the game’s events, and they all lead up to an exciting conclusion. This restrained exposition of the game’s story left me intrigued and interested in what would happen next throughout most of the story, and this feeling assuredly remained through the game’s ending. Note that my friend, who has played all three Trails in the Sky games, and at whose behest I purchased this game, mentioned to me before I played it that the purpose of Trails in the Sky is really just to set up the sequel, which is called Trails in the Sky SC. And I must say that I think it sets SC up very well. 

    Second, Trails in the Sky has what I would consider to be a good story. It’s nothing exceptional, but as mentioned above, it’s told well, and it has many things going for it. It has heartfelt and truly touching moments which will tug at your heartstrings, as well as exciting and dramatic events that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It also has an excellent plot twist at the end of the game, and a great ending as a whole, which if you see it through, will certainly make you want to play the next game in the series.

    Third, Trails in the Sky has characters which are explored deeply over the course of the game. Because it has such an emphasis on dialogue and cutscenes, Trails in the Sky affords itself the opportunity to explore its characters deeply, beyond what I’ve seen other JRPGs offer. The characters themselves are also generally good and likeable, but it's their deep level of characterization that really sets Trails in the Sky apart, in my opinion.

Joshua Bright, one of the game's main characters. Image credit goes to Nihon Falcom.

    Fourth, Trails in the Sky has an interesting and detailed world. The story of Trails in the Sky sees the main characters venture around their country, and along the way the world is explored quite in-depth. Several NPCs even journey around the world with the main characters, and all have unique dialogues for their different locations at a given point in time. All of the different Trails games share a common continent, which allows it to be explored very deeply over the course of the many games in the series. There is also a fascinating lore behind the world of Trails in the Sky, much of which is not revealed in the game itself but rather hinted at and likely expounded upon in the game’s two sequels (I can’t say for sure whether or not this is true, since I have not played them yet). 

    Fifth, Trails in the Sky has a good soundtrack. I’m someone who greatly appreciates having good soundtracks in video games, and Trails in the Sky really struck me with just how good its soundtrack was. It’s not quite as good as Final Fantasy, but it’s better than most JRPGs I’ve played. The game also has the best final dungeon music that I’ve ever heard in a video game. 

    Sixth, Trails in the Sky’s combat is greatly benefited by the fact that it has no random encounters. If this game had random encounters like many JRPGs, it would likely be so frustrating that it wouldn’t be worth playing. But as it doesn’t, the combat is elevated to the position of being tolerable (at least in my eyes). 

    Seventh, Trails in the Sky has unique writing, at least for a JRPG, which makes it refreshing as an entry in the genre. There’s something about the game’s translation that struck me as particularly Western-feeling, a quality which I have not seen other JRPGs’ translations possess. This occasionally works against the game, but I think that most of the time it is a benefit to the experience. The game’s translation gives the characters some extra spice and helps cement their interesting personalities, and it livens up the dialogue. It’s not as if this game has the writing quality of a good novel, but I think it’s pretty darn good for a JRPG. 

    Eighth, Trails in the Sky has a nice equipment customization system. I didn’t experiment too much with the orbment system, since the combat of the game held little appeal to me, but it is an interesting system nonetheless, one which allows for flexibility and lots of variety. 

    And finally, Trails in the Sky just has a certain charm to it. I concede that this aspect is unfairly ambiguous, but I feel I would be remiss not to mention it, since it was an integral part of why I enjoyed the game. I mentioned before that I’ve played a lot of JRPGs, but not many can come close to the charm that this game has. The characters, story, music, and even the graphics form a coherent whole that is like a bundle of love sent from Nihon Falcom to the player. From the very first scene of the game I knew that Trails in the Sky was a passion project, or at least something like it. It has the hallmarks of a game that was really worked on with care by its developers. If you play this game and do not immediately see what I’m talking about on this point, you may want to consider refunding it, because you might not experience what for me was such an important part of this game’s appeal. 

    In conclusion, Trails in the Sky is a fun JRPG with a lot of heart, an intriguing story with a slow buildup, a deep level of characterization, a truly great ending and setup for the sequel, an interesting world, and good music. If you can overlook its flawed gameplay and its heavy reliance on dialogue and cutscenes, I think that you’ll have an enjoyable experience playing through the game (though I doubt I would ever enjoy replaying the game, considering its insipid gameplay). I give Trails in the Sky a 7/10.

Reflections on Demon's Souls and its Remake

The original Japanese cover for Demon's Souls.

    Today I checked out the original Demon’s Souls from my local library and played it for about an hour. I had heard that the game's remake changed its art style significantly, and I wanted to experience the original beloved game for myself, so I did so in the most inexpensive legal way that I knew of. (The public library system sure is nice!) As part of my investigation, a portion of the time that I was playing the game, I compared it directly with some YouTube footage of the PS5 remake in the exact same location. I did this for portions of both the Nexus and the Boletarian Palace. And the sheer difference between these versions is staggering. Here I will offer my reflections on the remake and its treatment of the original game.

    The Demon’s Souls remake is extremely different in its visual aesthetics compared to the original game. The most striking change in the visuals is the dramatic change in lighting. Whereas the original game’s Boletarian Palace is dark and gloomy, the remake’s is bright and sunny. And this massive discrepancy in lighting is presumably true for the rest of the game’s environments, as well, and it most certainly is based on the screenshots and trailers I have seen of the remake. One could make an argument that the remake’s art style is superior to that of the original’s, and it’s true that the remake’s graphical fidelity is indeed vastly superior to the original game’s, but even if the remake's art style was superior, it would still be wrong for Bluepoint Games to have changed it so drastically. I believe that a requirement of all remakes is to be faithful to the original game, and clearly, in terms of visuals, this remake was not. The original game really looks completely different than the remake, in more ways than one. It doesn't merely look like the remake with poorer graphics. It looks like a different game set in a different world.

Above is a direct comparison of the PS3 original (on the left) to the PS5 remake (on the right). Image credit goes to Kotaku Australia.

    And that’s not the only way in which the remake differs from the original. The remake’s combat interface, while functionally the same as the original’s (except for the fact that it inexplicably eliminates the location description in the upper right hand corner), stands in stark contrast to the original game’s. The original game’s combat interface is clearly lovingly designed, with a deliberately old-fashioned, antiquated style, and really enhances the feeling of a medieval RPG that the game is attempting to convey. Having played some other Souls games, it clearly has all the hallmarks of a Souls game combat interface, albeit in a rather crude, unrefined form. The remake’s combat interface, by contrast, is beset with the overused minimalistic blight that pervades all of modern American graphic design. It reduces the size of the combat interface’s icons, eliminates the visual depth of the stamina, health, and MP bars, replaces the iconic Souls equipment slots with some cheap diamond, and looks as though it could be in use for any old game. It is entirely indistinctive and uninspired. The original game’s combat interface is soulful and uniquely suited to the Souls series, but the remake’s combat interface is simply generic and dull. That's not all, though. The game also modified the menu interface (at least for archstones, and very likely for the rest of the menus as well), renamed the Small King’s Archstone for no apparent reason to the “Covetous King’s Archstone,” made the Crestfallen Warrior black just because Americans need diversity in all of their entertainment, and even modified the description of the Boletarian Palace, which presumably would mean that other descriptions were modified as well (although I must confess that I think Bluepoint’s description is actually better written than the original game’s was). In addition to this, I have heard that several other character and monster designs were changed.

    All of this taken together indicates to me that Bluepoint really did not have respect for the original game when they made their remake, or at least not enough respect for it. A truly respectful remake would have kept all of the things that I mentioned intact, while simply updating the graphics for the ninth generation of video game consoles. It wouldn't have been hard. Everything that Bluepoint changed probably would have been easier to keep the same as in the original game. But Bluepoint apparently thought that it was too good for that, and that it had to impose its own vision of what the game should be over what Miyazaki originally intended it to be. It's nothing but an unforced error. I think that this remake was a missed opportunity, and it’s sad that so many people will play it (and have played it) oblivious to the needless changes that have marred the creator’s original vision for the game. I think that Demon's Souls Remake would have benefited from taking a page out of Dark Souls Remastered's book. That game, although failing to significantly improve Dark Souls' original graphics (at least to my eyes), kept virtually everything about the original game the same. It didn't change any of the interfaces, character designs, or monster designs, and in my opinion, was all the better for doing so. I think Demon's Souls Remake should have really just been an exercise in improving the original game's graphics and technical performance, and not a "re-imagining" of it.

   What's worse yet than Bluepoint taking so many liberties with creating its remake is the fact that there has been, as far as I know, no mainstream criticism of it for doing so. The only people I know who have criticized the remake for these qualities are 4chan users, primarily on the board /v/. /v/ is notorious for its negative tone regarding modern gaming, and so it is not very surprising that its users were so upset regarding this remake, even from the very day it was announced last year. And as far as I know, its criticisms are not taken seriously or even read by any gaming publication or developer anywhere in the world, so its message has not been spread very wide. But I must admit that having played some of the original game now, I believe that many of their criticisms are well-founded, if overblown. Regardless of whether or not Bluepoint Games improved the game's art direction, which one could plausibly argue, it still has radically changed the visual tone of the game, something which I do not believe it was Bluepoint's place to do. Fans of the original have a right to criticize Bluepoint for doing so, and Sony and Bluepoint ought to heed these criticisms in the future.

Key artwork for Demon's Souls Remake.

    I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, however, and I must give credit where credit is due. Although I disagree with most of the changes Bluepoint made in the remake, I must admit that it is clearly a work of very high quality, especially by modern, AAA video game standards. The game's graphics, as I mentioned above, are obviously sterling, and leave very little to be desired. Even with this, though, the game manages to have excellent technical performance. Bluepoint Games had the good sense to include a 60 FPS "performance mode," and from what I've seen and read it works virtually flawlessly. This is actually a substantial improvement on the original game's 30 FPS, which it does not even maintain perfectly, and I will not fail to applaud Bluepoint's terrific efforts here. I greatly value stable framerates, and so if and when I get around to playing the remake, (which I will likely do at some point, notwithstanding my criticism of it) my experience will be all the better for the glorious smooth frames rolling like the smooth seas across my television screen. The game has no DLC or significant bugs that I know of, and as far as I know, the gameplay was kept virtually the same as in the original, a greatly commendable decision on Bluepoint's part, for based on the little that I've played of the original game, it has great gameplay. It's clear that Bluepoint's team worked very hard on making a complete, finished, polished product when developing this remake, and this achievement deserves to be recognized. 

    Now, if only Bloodborne could receive a 60 FPS patch on the PS5, then we'd be set for life! But I digress. In conclusion, though I have a bone to pick with Bluepoint's Demon's Souls Remake for PS5, and I regard it as a missed opportunity, its faithfulness to the original's gameplay, its technical accomplishments, and its overall high production quality deserve to be acknowledged as well as its shortcomings. And as a Soulsborne fan, I appreciate the team at Bluepoint making the game available (legally, at least) to be played at a crisp, sleek 60 FPS, and for giving the PS5 even the barest hints of a launch lineup. Let us hope that FromSoftware creates many more wonderful Soulsborne experiences for us in the years to come, starting with the ever-absent Elden Ring. Oh, Elden Ring...