Playing Demon’s Souls Right After Elden Ring Was a Mistake

I loved my time with Elden Ring—loved it so much I beat every boss, did every dungeon, completed every quest, and collected every weapon. Sadly, once I had nothing left to do, I still wanted more. However, as Elden Ring was my first Soulsborne game, I had several similar games to choose from. Since the Demon’s Soul remake was the only one specifically made for PS5—not to mention it being the progenitor of the genre—I decided that it was the perfect place to start. This was a mistake.

I approached Demon’s Souls in the exact same way I had Elden Ring. I wanted to play as a ranged magic user—i.e., the game’s nearest equivalent to having an easy mode. I looked up a few YouTube guides that showed me what I needed to do:

• Clear the opening level (1-1)
• Kill six skeletons in 4-1 to pick up a magic-scaling (and MP restoring) Crescent Falchion sword and then take the shortcut to kill the 4-1 boss.
• Farm the runes and materials to level the Crescent Falchion up by killing the reaper at the start of 4-2 again and again.
• Beat 2-1—and, in the process, get access to Ed the Blacksmith, pick up the magic-boosting Kriss Blade, and get the material to buy the Fire Spray
• Beat 3-1—and, in the process, pick up the magic boosting Ring Of Magical Sharpness, rescue magic trainer Sage Freke, and get the material needed to buy the Soul Ray
• Beat 3-2 in order to reach 3-3.
• Defeat the Old Monk boss in 3-3 for the material needed to buy the Homing Soul Arrow
• Become the Old Monk boss in 3-3 and defeat another player for the Monk’s Head Wrappings (which boosts magic damage).

This done, all that was left was to level my stats as I collected souls naturally and continue leveling up my weapons as I came across the needed upgrade. Basically, I was only a few hours in and ready to start leisurely enjoying my way through the game just as I had through Elden Ring. Of course, any Demon’s Souls veterans reading this will have already noticed the big problem with my way of thinking.

You see Demon’s Souls is made up of five worlds. Each world has three stages (except for the first world which has four). The final stage of each world is little more than a boss fight. This means that, just by gearing up. I had completed five of the eleven fully fleshed-out stages. Without realizing it, I was basically halfway through the game. Moreover, being geared up, I was able to move through the remaining stages much quicker than the previous ones. Only a few hours of fun later, I was watching the credits roll.

To say I was feeling a bit disappointed would be an understatement. However, I can’t really put the blame on anyone but myself. It’s not the game that was the problem—nor was it the strategy of gearing up to become as powerful as possible from the start. Rather, it was my expectations.

Coming off of Elden Ring, what I really wanted was more Elden Ring—that is to say a massive, sprawling adventure in an expansive, lore-filled world. While I knew that Demon’s Souls wasn’t exactly this, the shiny, new PS5 coat of paint allowed me to trick myself into believing that it was—despite the undeniable fact that it is the oldest of the Soulsborne games. When it comes down to it, Elden Ring is a huge game that requires hundreds of hours to master while the entirety of Demon’s Souls could fit into Elden Ring’s starting area of Limgrave with room to spare.

What I should have done was played Sekiro or Bloodborne—newer games that are far more meaty than Demon’s Souls. They, like Elden Ring, have been built on the foundations laid by Demon’s Souls and its Dark Souls predecessors and thus have been free to evolve, expand, an innovate. In fact, I have been playing through Bloodborne (going for an early 99 Arc build) and have enjoyed it much more than Demon’s Souls for this very reason.

In the end, I really feel like I did Demon’s Souls a major disservice. It’s in no way a bad game. It was just a mistake to play it right after Elden Ring when my expectations were so high. Hopefully, I’ve learned by lesson and won’t ruin Dark Souls for myself in the same way when I get around to playing it.

Top image source: PlayStation on Twitter.