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Post by Ex on Nov 12, 2020 21:45:25 GMT -5
Honestly DeS already felt absolutely perfect to me, the only way to make it more perfect, would have been to shiny up the graphics with new shaders, raise the resolution to 4K, hit 60fps nonstop... and restore the Archstone of the Giant, so we could have The Northern Limit area as originally intended. If all of that is not the case, then I don't give a damn about the remake.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 15, 2020 17:50:52 GMT -5
I rest my case boss. They butchered the atmosphere in this remake.
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Post by Ex on Nov 16, 2020 14:49:12 GMT -5
Oh nay, nay I say. The fate I cast upon the remake:
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 16, 2020 15:25:29 GMT -5
That sad moment when I don't think I'll get to Valkyrie Profile this year, when it was in my plans! Drat, but I think I fulfilled any other gaming goals I had this year. I don't know the specifics on this Demon's Souls remake music shenanigans, but it sounds like some tracks are even missing and some bosses have completely new tunes. And from briefly digging around I don't think the original OST is an option or anything. I thought a little more about this in general. I think the PS2 era is my soft cutoff for when I think a remake is appropriate. That's from an era where game design could be changed up a bit and the graphics are so simplistic, a remake would really have to re-envision just about everything. This never means a remake will replace the original but the new version will be such a different take and a new experience that stands on its own. I'm also all for straight "remasters", that performance bump with ports that upscale resolution and smooth out framerates. You're playing the exact same game, just in peak performance. It's like you're playing the perfect arcade port of a game that might have some home console releases too, as it happened in the 90's. This Demon's Souls remake tried a little too hard unnecessarily changing up little things that dramatically change the experience, when mechanically it's still the same game underneath! So it's just a wack situation. The original game is barely over 10 years old, still looks, plays, and feels fantastic. Bluepoint apparently employed a full scale orchestra and with all that money in the world, they can't hold a candle to the soul that original composer Shunsuke Kida brought to the game, even on a budget I bet. A classic case of where less is more. PS3 era games and up don't need remakes yet and if it happens, don't go completely changing something about it like this, because when everything else seems mostly faithful, it just seems so wrong.
This makes me think of like if they had Hans Zimmer re-score the Star Wars OT.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 16, 2020 16:05:44 GMT -5
Ehhhhh, I honestly don't see the big deal - the remake version feels like what they might have shot for if they'd had a bigger budget and not used what sounds like it might be synthesized instruments.
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Post by toei on Nov 16, 2020 16:16:23 GMT -5
Sarge The compositions sound like boring orchestral fluff, though. Xeogred Never been a fan of Star Wars, but it doesn't change the fact that the theme song is legendary. Forget Hans Zimmer, though - the series started in the '70s, so if anyone else had scored it, it would need to be Lalo Schiffrin or Dave Grusin.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 16, 2020 16:18:19 GMT -5
But, but, but I like orchestral fluff! Especially if it has choir work in the background!
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 16, 2020 17:57:10 GMT -5
This is the "Nexus" in Demon's Souls. A bizarre enclosed fortress hub that might perhaps be in another dimension or some space between world's. It is peaceful yet haunting and lonely recourse, even if you know it's just temporary before you venture back out into the dead world. The silence is deafening.
Then there's the remake.
I don't mean to be a hipster in this case Sarge , but I just think these new compositions completely and fundamentally change the atmosphere of the game and for the worse. Demon's Souls has a vibe like no other that is so much part of its unique experience and the obtuse music sets it apart from all the other games that released after. Which all have great OST's I love too but they don't have the weird unique personality that Demon's does. And most might know by this point that music is sparsely used in this series, so when it finally drops it really leaves a mark and this new stuff just isn't cutting it. That Maiden Astraea track I posted earlier, takes place in a pit of dead baby bodies. The original track is pretty chilling and depressing. The new track doesn't really seem to convey how gross and sad the situation should be.
I even love the new music in REmake. But it doesn't always happen. It didn't seem like they even tried to remix old tracks of RE2 for REmake2. But luckily in that case, you can switch to the original music / menu sounds and it seriously makes a 2019 game all the better. A wrong or right OST can really change the whole thing for me.
EDIT: This could be a big reason why I still like Metroid NES over Zero Mission too. I don't care for the sound in Zero Mission at all, outside of Kraid's theme still being rad. But beyond that... Metroid NES has a far better and darker atmosphere that I love.
Anyways, I know I'm just pulling hairs here and it's very subjective. I'll be all over this remake whenever I get a PS5 and appreciate it on its own. But I just really think they dropped the ball here and messed up the potential to make perfection again. I don't think this would have happened had From remade it themselves! Even if their current frequently used composer Yuka Kitamura, loves using choirs left and right, she's probably even my favorite composer in their modern stuff. But they shouldn't have changed the Demon's OST!
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Post by Ex on Nov 16, 2020 21:40:23 GMT -5
Xeogred - I agree with your opinions about the new OST. There are also graphical changes I don't like. Really I'd have been happy with the original DeS, except including the missing Archstone and its related content. Edit: Also I'm not a fan of bombastic orchestral music*, or choir music in general. No offense Sarge! I just don't enjoy human voices in harmony or what have you. I prefer sparse instrumentation or synthetic tones. *WRPGs that all have that exact same sounding orchestrated/strings OST bore me silly. You all know what I'm talking about I'm sure.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 17, 2020 17:44:58 GMT -5
*WRPGs that all have that exact same sounding orchestrated/strings OST bore me silly. You all know what I'm talking about I'm sure. All I can add to that is that the Witcher music puts me in a coma. I hated how Soul Calibur 6 had Geralt and a level in there, with a boring tune.
Good WRPG music... all I can think of in recent years would be Mass Effect. And even those games, started to ditch the cool techno flavor that first OST had with the two sequels and they got a little more "Hollywood", but I'm still a sucker for some badass synths.
Makes me think, for how much I still like the general "soundscapes" of Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, they absolutely do not hold a candle to the original game at all. But I guess Invisible War might have the worst OST of them all, I can't think of a single track in my head.
When you get to Dark Souls next year Ex , you might be shocked to know that the main composer is Motoi Sakuraba, of many Namco, Enix, Tales of, Star Ocean, etc fame. It's super different than his norm and impressive how far he went out of that comfort zone though. I'll say no more though and am just excited to vicariously experience Dark Souls again through your lens when you get to it.
When are you going to play these masterpieces Sarge? The Dark Souls saga has all the earfill you'll appreciate...
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