Quick Look: Dark Souls Remastered (Nintendo Switch Handheld Mode)

Nice!

Undead Burg rooftop parties are the wildest parties out there

This seems like a terrible idea and I am here for it!

The tail thing is in the original game

The fact that it does not pause when you hit the home button is terrible!!!!

Welcome to Dark Souls

@narx: I don't think you could ever pause in Dark Souls?

You can get a cheap grip case to relieve some of the tension from holding a Switch for extended amounts of time. I can't go back to using mine without one now.

The PS4 version does the exact same thing when you hit the home button to go back to the console home menu, so I’m not at all surprised this one does the same thing (other games in the series on PS4 do too I’m pretty sure). If you want to stop time as it were, you quit out to the main menu and let the super aggressive auto saving take care of you.

Hm, this looks like it runs far better than the network test; I felt it was incredibly sluggish and frame-y both docked and un-docked when I tried it out.

I echo Brad's sentiments with the JoyCons, they don't feel great, particularly with this game, and I would assume other gamepad optimised games could run into the same problems; if I see myself getting this game I'll definitely be getting a pro controller too.

Dark Souls seems like a weird thing to bring to a portable system; I tend to see more compact or short time games as a better fit for the system, but if you're out on vacation or in a hotel room, or if Switch is just your main console, I can see it being worthwhile.

Note: the animation framerate on the dragon's tail is an performance optimising thing that all versions have had, but it typically happens with long distance characters, maybe they shrunk the proximity for the Switch's performance.

Note 2: Dark Souls' version of pausing is to hit "quit game", it will then load you back in to where you were standing, keeping the world state.

I wonder how Blighttown runs.

I really dig this method of showing how a game looks in handheld mode, which is usually the #1 question regarding games on Switch. Keep doing this for Switch games!

This seems exactly how I imagined it and unless you really, really want to be able to play it on a small screen anywhere you are, or don't have other ways to play it, I don't understand why one would get this version. 60 fps really elevates the experience compared to the original, without it, I just don't see the point.

I'm glad Brad got his backstab.

Looks like a not that great version of this game.

Who is even the audience for this? Are there really people who haven't played DS1 in any form yet and go like "Oh great, this will run perfectly on my Switch."

I get the handheld argument, but this just doesn't seem like a great fit for that either.

@salbert: Dark Souls doesn't have a pause function but I think that at any time you can go to the menu and quit; which saves your progress. I think the only exception is when you're in a multiplayer session.

Finally, a QUICK look. So sick of these non-quick looks.

everything needs to be ported to Switch.... NOT

Stop going along that one side that both guys see you!!

Otherwise to me, I see no reason to play DS this way unless you don't have a choice, or playing DS mobile is like a NEED. Like sexual or something.

Actually, you can start up the media player, and the PS4 will say "Suspending X Game", and you'll be able to go into it right where you left off.

@bloody_skirmish: I’ve been killed by monsters and PVP opponents while writing captions for screenshots I’m tweeting, or while I’ve gone to the home screen to clear a notification. If I leave it that way long enough without doing something that actively suspends the game (like trimming a video and a few other things), it will kick me back to the main menu as if I’d lost network connection. It works out fine in practice, and I’m not surprised the switch version is similar.

The game was designed to be played in an always online capacity. Freezing time / pausing wouldn't really be possible when connected with other people. Imagine if you invaded someone and they could freeze the entire simulation by hitting the home button. That would really suck. I can understand why it's frustrating when playing in offline mode, but I can understand why the devs would want to preserve consistency.

You can, however, quit out of the game. It autosaves incredibly frequently, and quitting out will always preserve your progress.

The tail FPS thing is a very common technique to keep framerate up. Objects in the distance are rendered with fewer animations. This is a thing is almost every game with long view distances.

Xbox360 original graphics on a handheld console would be enough to convince me to buy it. Portable Dark Souls, say no more.

Too bad the Switch has so many other things dragging it down, really a bummer because of awesome stuff like this.

Dark Souls is by far the best in the series, and many consider it among the best if not the best action rpg game ever made. That industry changing Half-Life, Deus Ex, System Shock 2 tier of games that people still happily play to this day. I'm not here to convince you to agree, but it's an opinion many hold.

Considering it's a game people continually come back to and will keep doing so for years, finally having it on a portable platform is enough to justify a sale. It's not a new phenomenon, many great games on the PSP were just lesser ports or "versions" of great PS2 games.

@teo22: I agree with almost everything I've read here, except for one thing. Demon's Souls is the best in the series. :)

This seems like an OK version of Dark Souls if you must have a portable version, but DS Remastered on the PS4/Xbox One/PC is a much better choice if you're OK with not having a portable version of this game. Vastly superior frame rate, much clearer visuals, far more comfortable controls, etc.

This looks like a bad version of this game. Also why is he playing with a dagger and not trying for crits lol

Saw a stream of the network test and the audio was horribly compressed. Why did they do that?

The dragon's tail looked framey like that when you were far away in the original versions too.

A bit off topic, but is Remastered worth getting if I have the original on PC?

As for Switch version, I might pick it up if the price drops down the line, assuming there isn't some egregious problem with it.

EDIT: for the online stuff, does the PS4 version act similarly (i.e. do you need PSPlus to see msgs or summon)?

The platform of severe compromise is starting to show its edges to more people in its second year.

It is super impressive that such a large, beloved, and complex game can be jammed on to tablet hardware in a fairly playable fashion. That's the best part! I never got a version of Dark Souls, so the Switch version is a possibility for me. Unfortunately, I don't see myself playing this on handheld. At least, not as much as I see myself playing Diablo 3: Eternal Collection on Switch.

The Switch is having a weird Sophomore year, to speak charitably. An awful year for some owners and those-on-the-fence. Personally, there's Smash Ultimate on the horizon which means I'm fine with how the Switch's second set of 12 months went down. I'm not gonna fault anyone for being extremely down, critical, and/or frustrated with the lack of unique, interesting, special, and non-ported games for the Nintendo Switch. That is, outside of mention that this is the Switch's second year, it takes time for software to mature, and there always seems to be weirdness and lag with developing games (in a business sense, mostly) on Nintendo platforms.

Though, I don't think that means the Switch as a platform should be given a break as the second year of software for PS4 and XB1 was in the bulk of 2015. Game of the Year 2015

Awesome, this is exactly what I was interested in seeing, as handheld mode is probably how I'm going to end up playing the majority of this game.

Digital Foundry has a Switch with an HDMI mod that lets them get direct feed out of handheld mode. If you plan to grab more handheld footage of the system that might be something you should get too.

You can never have too many copies of Dark Souls, says I. I've been looking forward to having a portable version personally, but I'll stick to the pro controller for this one. Like others have pointed out, there are some who like to replay this game on the regular. So I've already played it once on PC this year, and I'll do another playthrough at least when this hits...

...I need to kill Artorias while sitting on the toilet, ok?

Like Skyrim, this seems like the worst way to play this.

Meh. I'll not begrudge more people be given the chance to play Dark Souls. I'm curious to see how the whole game translates to the console. This looks closer to the PS3/360 versions but with a more consistent frame rate and quicker load times.

@teo22: Don't worry, I agree that DS1 is truly amazing and the best game in the series. And sure, you are right, lots of great games get rereleased dozens of times. I just have to wonder about diminishing returns at some point.

Anyways, so for DS1 it's really mostly the portability for you? What I don't understand here is that most games I'd play in portable Switch mode are games you can enjoy very piecemeal (for various reason like the short battery life and the fact that as a man with big hands playing like that gets real uncomfortable), and here DS1 just doesn't seem right. Playing just from one bonfire to the next for example seems insane to me.

For a 2018 remaster of a 2011 game, this looks absolutely dreadful. It's easy to see why they delayed it several times. One can only imagine the state of Blighttown in this port.

Hmmm, I don't know, I just can't justify playing this version of the game, unless you really are just into the idea of playing some Souls on the go. You just can't pass up the 60 fps on PS4 and Xbox One. That being said, this doesn't look any worse than the last-gen versions of the game, except for the muffled sound.

uhh excuse me this is tabletop mode

and you guys call yourselves game journalists

This looks terrible, not the game, the format. Please don't make recording handheld format of switch games a recurring feature. A camera on any video screen will make it look worse, obviously. If the intent is to show a slightly faster frame rate then, ok? Maybe I'll take your word for it, and just show the docked mode.

*raises hand*

Never played a Souls game, don't have a PS4 or Xbox One because they took way too long to become worth the cash and even some of the games people are raving over just seem like prettied up or worse versions of games I've already played.

I have to play my copy of Demon's Souls before deciding to get Dark, but if I like it, then a better-running version of the PS3 version, which I hear runs abysmally in some places, would be perfect for my Switch.

You do have a point about handheld being feasible though. If the autosave is as great as people are saying, it shouldn't be a big issue, but I'm wondering if putting it in rest mode is an effective pause for those times when I have to jump off the bus.

EDIT: Just watched further in the vid and it actually is! Nice! Yeah, this is definitely the version I'd pick.

This is the first time it's on a portable platform, right? I doubt we've hit diminishing retuns yet, keep in mind porting the game is a much lesser investment than making a new game. I have no doubt they will keep milking the Dark Souls franchise ad infinitum though.

I'm not the "3 minutes while waiting on line" type of portable player. I'm the "3 hours to kill on a train ride" type of portable player. The shoulder button hand cramping issue described in the video sounds real, but I would most likely disconnect the joycons rather than play it "PSP-style". Sure that makes it closer to the experience of playing the PC version on a laptop with a USB controller which you could've done for ages, but realistically I'm never going to haul a laptop and a usb controller on a trip or a commute.

I'd have to guess docked mode is a hot mess and they want to patch it?

OR

It's a hot mess and they want to get that week 1 sales and crash and burn?

EDIT : Even $2 is not worth it. They don't have proper voice chat! Phone app for voice chat? WTF...

@avidwriter: Does Dark Souls even have voice chat? 0_o

that was there day 1 on the PS3/360 version, but okay.

P.S. no one buy the Switch online. until like...Mario Maker comes out its lame af.

i remember when the gang was turned off by this weird new game that moves slow and lets you die often back when it first released. Only vinny saw the future that was dark souls. A game that now caused assassins creed to change. Glad they gave it a chance by 2 but 2 was not as good. 3 was a nice middle ground for new people to make it faster and forgiving but their is nothing like a hard game that demands you to be engaged

I managed to get my hands on an early copy of this as well and I'm going to go ahead and say that unless you literally dont have another platform you should not get this version.