Dark Souls Remastered Network Test, Impression and Thoughts

By:

Published:

17/05/2018

Updated on: 22/02/2024

Over this lovely weekend, I had the pleasure to enjoy the short but fun Dark Souls Remastered Network Test. Honestly, I did not plan to write about this but coming to the final day of the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test. I put a fairly high amount of hours into playing this network test. I had the sudden urge to write about it. Because there were a few things that bothered me but also I felt like expressing my overall experience with the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test. So Please bear with me through this article. Since this is my first time actually writing about a Videogame. And not Anime, since Anime and Manga related articles tend to be my main focus on this site. So since this is my first time doing this. I’ll try my best to keep it hopefully short(I clearly failed at keeping this short).

Dark Souls Remastered Preview

But before I start. I should make it clear. This was the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test. Not the full game. Overall expresses I encountered throughout the game. Can change drastically compared to the full game releases. But this only applies to the Network side of things. I highly doubt there will be much change graphics wise. And I want to get into that topic about the graphics of this remastered. Later on in this article.

Now then before I get to express my disappointment in some aspects of this Dark Souls Remastered Network Test.

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate coming to Nintendo Switch in August

Let us talk about my overall experience with the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test

But wait first, I need to tell you guys which console I decided to play the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test. So you guys can understand which console I was playing on and why my overall experience might have been different from yours due to being on another console. It was either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. I ended up deciding to play the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test over on the Xbox One. “Why?” you may ask. Well simple because connection and online wise. I tend to get a better connection on Xbox One.

But Also the Main Reason for deciding to play on it was. I actually Have Dark Souls 1 on the original on Xbox 360,  Which means I can play Dark Souls 1 the original on Xbox One due to the Xbox One’s Backwards Compatible feature. I have the game ready and installed right here next to the remastered.

This made it really easy for me to switch between Dark Souls Remastered Network Test and the Orginal Dark Souls 1. And compare the two and just see what exactly this remastered dark souls changed.

These are the moments that make you realize backwards compatible with New consoles is really a great thing Xbox One has going for it. Despite having no great exclusives.

Now then let’s get to my overall experience with the Dark Souls Remastered on the network side of things was fairly okay to be completely honest. Tho the starting area is small the network test gave you enough choices to full try out the online features of the game. The start screen will give you 6 classes to pick from.

Warrior of Sunlight and Black Knight being the 2 new classes to try because I do not remember them in previous test versions of the game. So Obviously I decided to spend most of my time playing with these new classes.

Starting with the Warrior of Sunlight class.
Warrior of Sunlight dark souls remastered network test

Praise the Sun.

As you can see you could use the Lighting spear miracle with him. Since you know this is basically Solaire of Astora class so makes sense obviously. And honestly, that’s pretty much all he could use. This class honestly had nothing else interesting going for it. You could also put down the summon signs that makes you praise the sun when you summoned but yeah that’s it. You couldn’t invade people with this class you could only be summoned. Which made playing as him online pretty boring and pointless. So after running around with him for like 30 mins exploring the area, this Network Test allowed you to explore. (valium) Then Got Bored since I couldn’t invade anyone with this class and no one wanted to summon me. So, I ended up quitting and switching to the.

Black Knight Class
dark souls remastered network test Black Knight Set

Black Knight Set

And this is when the Network test became really fun for me. First, though before I get into that let me explain what this class had. The set came with the Black Knight Armor, Black Knight Sword, and Black Knight Shield. This alone already made it the most overpowered class in this Network Test. But on top of that, you also got Havel’s Ring. Rounding up this already overpowered class.

So it’s safe to assume all old school players who were taking part in this Network Test. Were all running this class. But that is not the best part of this set. The best part of it came with the fact that this Class came with a Red Eye Orb. This Orb allows you to invade other people worlds to kill them. This is something the Warrior of Sunlight class did not have. And it was ultimately the thing that allowed me to have the most fun with the online in this Dark Souls Remastered Network Test.

Now then getting to how Dark Souls Remastered Network Test ran when you played online

Surprisingly enough I did not have much network issues. I thought due to this being a test. I’d probably experience a lot of lag or disconnects. But surprisingly that happened rarely.  Occancenly you’d get the whole character teleport lag and or fail to invade a user world message. But it never got so bad to the point where it made me mad and want to turn off the game. It was some really smooth sailing throughout the whole network test for me. Which is why I was able to enjoy it to it’s fullest.

Now then speaking of online alone and the people you met while invading. There were 2 types of people. The new users to dark souls and the old school players from the original dark souls. It was fairly easy to tell who is the new player and who is an old player while invading. (www.leankitchenco.com) It was honestly interesting to see how different a player style can be comparing the new users to the old.

The New Users Had NO Honour While Most Old Users had Honour

This was the most fun part to mess around with. Starting the game most old users would have figured out. You could actually kindle the bone fire at your spawn zone to get 10 Estus flasks(These are used to Replenish your health for those who don’t know). Most old users would know about this and do it instantly the moment they spawn in and figure that out. But the thing is. In an invading online duel. The old user would almost NEVER use one of those 10 Estus flasks even when they close to death in a duel. The old school dark souls players would always fight to the death with there one life bar even if they about to die.

This can lead to fun and exciting 1 on 1 battles. Where both players are on low health. Where you in a position where you tempted to use your Estus flasks to get back to full health. But you know using it would be a scummy move and lead to you having no honor in a duel. So you often chose not to use it and fight to the death with one life bare. These are always the most fun duels.

Things often don’t play out like this against new players though

New players on the other hand when fighting them in a 1 v 1 duel. Would often instantly use their Estus flasks instantly the moment they get too low health. Because of this fights tend to not be exciting or interesting. But they are sometimes fun because once you see a player use an Estus flask in battle. You know, “Yeah this is a new player”. I had this moment a bunch of times while invading people. Which would often put a smile on my face because. You know this is a new player which means. He has no idea you can get 10 Estus flasks instantly at the starting bonfire. So in your mind you realize, “This guy only had 5 Estus flasks”. And then once you realize this. That’s when you can have fun with these new players.

Normally baiting them into your attacks getting their health really low. And then stepping back and bait them into using there Estus flask. And you do this 5 times. Get their health low allow them to drink there Estus Flask. And then just watch as they start to panic when they realize they no longer have healing items. These moments are so much fun to watch. Yeah, you an asshole for doing it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a lot of fun. Playing around with new players.

Anyway, now that I’m done going on about invading other people and talking about the difference between new and old players. Why don’t I actually show how 2 invading duels ended up going for me while I was playing. These two moments pretty much shows the type of things you will run into while invading. Starting with my very first invasion.

The first invasion

You know how I was talking about honor and stuff above when it comes to old-time DS players. Well, I clearly had no honor in my first invasion. I was too excited to finally play online and ended up just backstabbing a clearly new player who was running away from the giant armored pig that is standing in the first part of the area. That who he got attacked by the armored skeletons. But after this, I never did something like this again. I gained back my honor after this invasion.

But yeah as you can see that was a new player since he was clearly having a hard time trying to get past the first area. Which honestly isn’t that hard. I’ll actually show you a way to get past that area which might come in handy even in the full game.

Now then the 2nd Invasion

2nd Invasion

In this Invasion, I walked into 2 people already fighting which is something that happened quite frequently. But as you can see in this. Unlike the first invasion here you can see these are people that have played Dark Souls before. The other phantom even greeted me as you can see at the start while I was walking down. Shaking his shield before fighting again. But yeah as you can see. Clearly, 2 people that have already played Dark Souls before. Since they both were fighting fairly and with honor not drinking there Estus Flasks even when they low on health. Which kept the duel entertaining to watch. So in entertaining, I tried to find the sit emote so that I could sit down and watch them. But then I remembered this ain’t Dark Souls 2 and there is no sit emote. Which make me sad, to be honest.

Wish they at least added the Lay down emote from Dark Souls 3. Heck, maybe they did in the full game add new emotes. But I highly doubt that. But as you can see in that 2nd invasion I didn’t want to be an asshole and spoil there duel. So I ended up just watching them. The duel lasted for quite some time but it was really fun to watch and the red phantom won in the end.

 

But As you can see. There is a big difference when invading a new people compared to an old Dark Souls player

But even though there is a big difference between the old and new people and I go on about honor in duels. I have to state that not all old players have honor. Sometimes the most high-level players in the game tend to be the worst kind of trolls and honestly your worst nightmare if they invade you. Luckily in this Network test, these highly skilled trolls did not appear in once while I was playing. But they will become a new player’s worst nightmare in the full release of the game.

NOW then Beside the online stuff what else could you do in the Dark Souls Remastered Network Test

The overall area of the game allowed you to explore was fairly small but big enough to get an understanding of how the overall game might look an play when released. The network test starts you off at the Sunlight Altar. And from there it’s pretty much a straight run through the area to the Gargoyles boss fight.

Once beaten if you went up the ladder behind the boss fight once you have done and rang the bell. It would end the dark souls remastered network test and kick you back to the title screen causing you to start from the beginning again.

I somewhat enjoyed running through this small area and seeing if all the little-hidden spots from the original game were still there. And most of it was. You could even find Lautrec sitting in his cell right before the boss fight and free him. But since there is no point in freeing him in this Network test. You could just kill him and he would drop his Ring of Favor and Protection.

Which made you fairly powerful in this dark souls remastered network test if you played with it online. Since this ring somewhat gives you a big boost in health and overall states as you can see here for those who didn’t know.

So this ring ain’t no joke. It’s really useful especially at the start of the base game. But in this Network test it just made you more powerful then you already were if you were running something like the Black Knight set in the Demo. Increasing your survivability in online duels. Honestly, I am shocked they didn’t remove it from this Network test. Anyway, that was probably most of the stuff like this you could find in this network test. I had fun exploring things again but I did it so much I started to realize how lackluster this game remaster seemed to be. I’ll get to explaining why I said that in a bit.

Back to the topic of overall online expreince.

I can state it again it was downright fun. I can honestly say the reason for it being so great was probably the series change from P2P  to dedicated servers. Which made the overall online experience in the dark souls remastered network test really darn smooth. Despite it looking like they didn’t fix any of the online bugs and glitches from the original game. Only increased the player count and added dedicated servers and that’s pretty much it.

So if you looking for a well polished and cleaner experience not fully focused on only the online.  I do not think I can recommend this remaster. Well, I can’t recommend it at its current price point. You are paying full price for basically the same old game which slight changes to the base game and online. It seems like all the focus of this remastered was put in its online features but not the base game though.

All they seem to do in the base game was with kick up the resolotion increase the frames and smoothed out some graphical areas.

I’ll try and make you understand what I’m talking about in a second. First, I would like to say again. This is just me pointing out the things I’ve seen in this Network Test demo. Things might change in the base game but again I highly doubt they will be able to change things graphics wise since the release of the game will be soon. So what you see here will probably be the same in the full game.

Let me compare Dark Souls 1 original to the Remastered game.

After I was done playing the  Dark Souls Remastered Network Test. I decided to start up Dark Souls 1 the original and thanks to Xbox Backwards compatibility and Cloud Save. I was able to play on my old save from almost 3 years ago. Where I was running the Ornstein’s Set.

Original Dark Souls Ornstein’s Set

And what I found from comparing the remaster to the original Dark Souls REALLY disappointed me. Looking at the original Dark Souls Graphically wise the game still looked fairly good. In fact, it pretty much looked identical to the remaster.

You may also like : read korean webtoons at thebiem

Here are a couple of screenshots from certain areas from the remaster and comparing it to the original.

From Dark Souls Remastered Overlooking The Undead Parish

Overlooking The Undead Parish

From Dark Souls The Oringal Overlooking The Undead Parish

From Dark Souls Original Overlooking The Undead Parish

As you can see between the two images comparing the original to the remaster. There isn’t much change here. Only a slight lighting change. You can see that lighting change more clearly in this next comparison

Undead Parish Church Dark Souls Remastered.

Undead Parish Church Dark Souls Remastered.

 Dark Souls Oringal Undead Parish Church.

Undead Parish Church Dark Souls Original

As you can see once again. It’s small lighting changes, if I do say so my self Dark Souls the original looks at some points much better then the remastered. Since the new lighting changes in the remaster do not work in favor of the game. If you look at the two images above and look at the engraving in the statues. You’d see it actually looks more detailed in the original compared to the remaster where the lighting makes it look less detailed.

Disappointment starts to sink in the more i look at the remastered game

The more I play the original the more I run around in it and compare it to the remaster on how it looks and plays and realize they changed almost nothing in the remaster. The more I start to realize how big of a rip-off this so-called Dark Souls remastered game is. You’d think using the experience they have gained from making Dark Souls 2, 3 and even bloodborne. They would at least try and fix some of the issues Dark Souls 1 had to make it a more smoother and better experience. But they didn’t do any of that.

Some hardcore Dark Souls fans would probably defend this. Saying they happy they changed nothing and kept it the same because if they change things it wouldn’t be the same Dark Souls 1 we use to love. And I think they would be right in that aspect. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that they barely changed the game graphically wise. You will essentially be playing the same Dark Souls 1 game from 2011 and you’ll be paying full price for a 7-year-old game that has all the bugs it had in the past.

No Matter how you look at it. This remaster is a major rip-off to souls fans 

To just souls, fans selling the same thing for full price from 7 years ago is too much of a rip-off. Maybe to brand new players. Buying this game for full price would be worth there money. But to old-school souls fans, it is not worth it. You’ll just be getting ripped off.

At this point for old and new people to dark souls. It would honestly make more sense to buy the original dark souls on maybe PC then mod it so that it looks better than the damn remastered version.

The only real benefit from this remaster game is that the online experience for it would be very active for sure. But that’s pretty much it. If you simply want to play the base game and not care much about the PVP stuff. I’d honestly just recommend you buy the original.

It really hurts as a souls fan to see how half assed this remaster is.

And it hurts, even more, knowing how much fun I had playing this Dark Souls Remaster Network Test. I guess for that short period of time of enjoyment. It was only because of nostalgia of the first series. Once I was done playing the Network test and went back to the original. I see how I was blinded by excitement for this remaster without at the time realizing how it’s really not a great remaster. Only a copy and past game re-sold years later at full price.

I really do recommend people not buy this or at least get it when the price for it lowers. Because as it stands right now. This game really is not worth getting unless you want to experience nostalgia at a really HIGH price.

But then again this is only what I think of the game after playing the dark souls remastered network test. Maybe things will be different in the full game that makes the game worth buying at full price again. But I highly doubt that.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Patch scheduled for May 9th!

Categories FeaturedGaming

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *