When it was first announced for the platform, the idea of confronting Ornstein and Smough on public transport sounded farcical, but in practice, Dark Souls feels oddly suited to a portable device. The option to play Dark Souls in handheld mode is the best thing about the Switch version. These are minor amendments to the original, changes made with seven year’s worth of hindsight that longtime players will feel more keenly than newcomers, but they’re welcome nevertheless. (Previously you would have to pay a visit to the covenant leader, which could involve a lengthy trek.) It's yet another small change but one that makes exploring Dark Souls’ oblique multiplayer aspects just that much easier. Incidentally, it’s possible to switch covenants at any bonfire.
You can now easily consume multiple items at once, making it much less laborious if you want to buy something with collected souls or deepen your allegiance to a covenant. There are a handful of quality-of-life improvements that address some very small, dated issues from the original. It’s important to remember this is a ‘remastering’ of the 2011 original, not a remake – these minor graphical improvements mostly to polish the original rather than pave over it, which is still a welcome improvement.ĭark Souls Remastered includes the exceptional Artorias of the Abyss expansion, but outside of that, there are no major changes to the core experience. While it doesn’t have all of the texture improvements you can find on those other platforms – bonfires don't burn as realistically, chugging estus has a less showy visual flourish – it only really suffers in a direct side-by-side comparison, and wasn’t something that detracted from my experience, especially in handheld mode. While this is technically inferior to the 60fps, 4K experience available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, it’s still such a refreshing upgrade from the original that it really didn’t affect my enjoyment whatsoever. The Switch version supports up to 1080p in TV mode (dynamically switching resolution depending on the action), which is an improvement on the original, and locked 720p in handheld mode. I reached the end of the game, regularly switching between docked and handheld mode, and never encountered anything that diminished my experience. Thankfully those problems have been ironed out in the Remastered edition.
Blighttown – already a hostile environment for any player – was plagued by crippling frame rate issues that made navigating its gauntlet of dung pies and toxic darts even harder. One criticism that can be fairly levelled at the original is its shocking performance in certain areas.
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