From Software With Love: Re-releases and Remasters

This month sees the release of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin edition on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC; an updated version of the game running in a high definition 1080p resolution (with increased textures), 60fps frame rate, and with many improvements to the lighting and effects. Personally, I’m delighted, as I joined a petition a long time go to try and get this game released onto current generation consoles. I even purposefully held off buying the DLC for this game because I had a gut feeling it would be released in a complete package like this at some point down the line. On the flip side though, Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin further fans the flames of people who are irritated by remasters or rereleases of videogames that are barely a year old, which has been happening quite a lot recently. This is understandable, and even though I’m perfectly happy, I can see how some people would be slightly annoyed. Nevertheless, I think there are some remasters of From Software’s games that would be appreciated by the community at large, and since this month is both my “Month of ‘Souls’ and also the Band of Bloggers topic I thought I’d fire out a couple of ideas and see what people think.

King’s Field: Collection on Sony PS Vita would be a rerelease of the “Dark Side Box”, released in Japan to commemorate the series anniversary, but this time ported to the Vita/PlayStation TV.  My reasoning here is that the first three games were released on the PS One and would run fine on the Vita under software emulation, hell you could even throw the PSP versions on here too as extras for good measure. The fourth game, King's Field: The Ancient City, was originally on PlayStation 2 and thus would need to be ported and remastered into HD. The leap to PS4 would probably be too much of a stretch, but onto the Vita/PSTV it would look absolutely great, just like the Final Fantasy X remaster (we’ll see how the PS4 release of that turns out). Also, these games would be *fantastic* to play on a portable, being that you could pick it up and go dungeon crawling for a bit and then quit or suspend whenever you had to stop playing. My only change to the game would be a variable speed option so that you could either play the games in their original and atmospheric slow crawl, or speed up the movement and combat to something more in keeping with the ‘Souls spiritual successors. So, would you people be interested in King’s Field: Collection on PS Vita, in a special box with all the extras from the “Dark Side Box” (such as maps, art books, soundtracks, etc.)?

Demon’s Souls for PlayStation 4 would be a 1080p 60fps remaster of From Software’s original game released on PS3 in 2009, and be a special edition with all the extras found in the “Black Phantom Edition” released by Namco Bandai in Europe. With the release of Bloodborne on PS4 it has renewed much interest in this original game, which basically started the whole ‘Souls series, and many people who have migrated across from other platforms like the Xbox 360 did not have an opportunity to play Demon’s Souls. A remastered version would not only allow these new players to experience what many consider to still be the best game in the ‘Souls series, but also preserve this game from falling into obscurity; at some point the servers for the PS3 version will have to be switched off and as more people move off PS3 and onto PS4 this unfortunately becomes ever more likely. Sony could even throw at bit of money From Software’s way in order for them to include some DLC in the form of the missing archstone levels, which many people have always been clamouring for. This is probably the ideal time to celebrate this fantastic game and release it with a load of extras including strategy guides (to preserve the hard work of contributors to the wiki), soundtrack, art books, etc.  It would also be another strong exclusive for Sony catering towards a hardcore gaming audience. So, would you people be interested in a Demon’s Souls PS4 edition with or without extra content?

This month is my “Month of ‘Souls” and I kicked it off with a recap of all the previous games before Bloodborne, and have also written an article about the peaceful but melancholy sanctuary areas found in each game. Please check back during the month of April for more features and articles regarding From Software’s seminal videogame series.

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