Dark Souls Remastered On PC Is Better But Still Has Problems

Dark Souls Remastered Is An Improvement, But It Still Has Problems

Dark Souls Remastered has been released for a nearly a week now and as a massive fan of the series, I was curious to see just how much of an improvement it would be the original.

The original PC version game had some massive problems. By massive, I mean huge. It suffered from terrible framerate issues and was only capable of outputting in 720p resolution. Blighttown, one of the games most infamous areas. An area requiring precise jumping and difficult navigation (as well as a lot of unpleasant enemies) barely ran at 20fps. That, if you were lucky.

If all that wasn’t enough, then it had what is quite possibly the worst keyboard mapping ever created.

There are, however, some extenuating circumstances. For one, it was From Softwares first ever PC port. In addition, it was only created because of fan demand. So, has the remastered release improved or not?

Whats better and whats still bad?

Having played the game quite extensively over the last few days, I can confirm that it is a lot better than the original. Support for higher resolutions (even up to 4k) is nice. Additionally, the graphics while not massively overhauled are a little crisper. That being said though, the game still suffers from a number of problems.

Firstly, I’ll start with a minor point. If you don’t have your controller turned on before booting, it won’t recognize it. Similarly, if your controller disconnects mid-game, you have to quick and restart for it to work again. Not a major issue, but certainly inconvenient.

Other biggest problems still remain though. While Blighttown has been fixed, there are other areas in the game that do cause framerate drops. I personally found that the area from Anor Londo to Seath The Scaleless suffered most notable. These were spikes rather than consistent, but still occurred regularly. The game’s graphics as well are not as exceptionally improved as I had hoped.

No additional hand-holding!

Dark Souls Remastered is still highly difficult. With the re-release I thought that they may have attempted to help you out a little bit more, but no. Bonfire warping and Estus Flask increases are still locked-out until you defeat certain bosses. My biggest issue that they didn’t fix, however, is the cameras occasional wish to move you around. This can make rolls, precise movements and jumps very unpredictable. For example, you have to walk up a very narrow path and on occasion, the scenery will get in the way. The camera will auto-adjust, but that can completely throw off your angle and you enter very real risk of simply walking off the edge.

Overall, Dark Souls Remastered is better and given the choice between the original and this, I’d recommend the Remaster. If you are expecting perfection though, sadly this isn’t it.

What do you think? Are you a fan of Dark Souls? Have you played the remaster? – Let us know in the comments!