Dark Souls Remastered

While bare-bones on the surface, Dark Souls Remastered is one of the best games of the last 20 years running better than it ever has. New players will find all of the mood, challenge, and tension of the original, and returning vets are given beefier online options and minor tweaks to small details. More importantly, it keeps one of the medium’s best games easily accessible and readily available.

To that end, this isn’t a traditional review either. Whatever score I tack onto the end of this will struggle to capture the proper essence of what must be the purest Souls experience you can find on modern consoles. Bloodborne feels fundamentally different, while Dark Souls III carries all the improvements and changes that have been made to the franchise up to this point.

It's been seven years since Dark Souls was released, and I'm surprised it's taken me this long to get an understanding and appreciation of the series. For those who are already fans of the series, Dark Souls Remastered is just a polished version of an already great game, but for me, it was a bit more special. With the technical issues eliminated, Dark Souls can shine and is a much more satisfying experience.