Lords of the Fallen Version 2.0 Review

 

 

 

 

 

So, this is actually an update post for a change and not so much an actual revisitation (well it sort of is I guess!) as I take another look at the action RPG, Lords of the Fallen, which I've recently replayed again afters its latest 2.0 version, which has seen a lot of changes since the game's initial release in October 2023.

So, with that said, I will use most of the original review below but add and change a few things as well as I take another look at this RPG and see how it fairs in 2025...

PREMISE

So, rather say anything about the story of the game, which for once I won't I will instead go over the premise of the game. So, the game essentially is similar to Dark Souls in that uses swords and sorceries but the twist here is that you can go between two different worlds, one which is called Axiom, which is the realm of the living and the other is Umbral, the realm of the dead. So, throughout the game your character must traverse between both worlds and fight many dangerous enemies before finally reaching your goals, which will vary depending on which ending of the game you go for.

THOUGHTS

On its initial release, Lords of the Fallen had a lot to live up to the high standards of the Souls games and even its counterpart, Lies of P, which has received much acclaim since its releae. However, Lords of the Fallen has not enjoyed the same level of acclaim and had left many gamers frustrated at its uneven difficulty and its technical issues, which cannot be ignored or denied as the game's performance is pretty stuttering particularly on Xbox but even so on PS5 although it it is a bit better on that console.

That said however, despite the criticisms of the game, Lords of the Fallen has in its latest version 2.0, seen a lot of improvements in terms of its balance of difficulty and enemy placement as well as some quality of life changes. This has made me enjoy the game a lot more this time round as I returned to it with a somewhat renewed sense of vigor (also the currency of the game funnily enough!) as it feels more like the game it should have been on its release.

GAMEPLAY

As for the gameplay, I will split this section into the usual sub-sections as I always do for video game reviews.

COMBAT & WEAPONS

Starting with the combat, Lords of the Fallen uses a third person perspective similar to the Souls games and does the usual mix of regular and strong attacks, along with shield parries and even kicks, plunge attacks and critical attacks, where you can stun an enemy with a strong attack behind, which will allow you to perform a finisher attack. Similar to Bloodborne, you also have a rally system of sorts where when entering Umbral you will lose some health but on attacking enemies you can go get it back as you strike them, however if they attack you, then that white health (or withered health as its known) will disappear and you will need to use a healing item.  

As for the weapons, there is plenty of variety here to choose from as the player has access to the likes of short swords, long swords, axes, spears, halberds, flails, daggers as well as bows and crossbows and you also have the option to dual wield weapons. You will also have access to catalysts that are used for casting spells and come in different varieties for casting the three types of spells of radiance, umbral and inferno, which consists of holy, magic and fire respectively.

AXIOM & UMBRAL REALMS

As for one of the key concepts of the game, it is split into utilising two different worlds, Axion, the realm of the living and Umbral, the realm of the dead, which the player can access the Umbral realm via their umbral lamp. And in order to progress the game, there will be times where you need to swtich between the two different realms to access areas where you might not be able to access in Axiom, you need to switch over to it Umbral to access unseen paths or climbs unseen ladders that will come apparent when you switch.

There will also be what's called umbral entities in the Umbral realm, which you need to destroy as they will block you path otherwise. And although you can enter Umbral whenever you want, you can only exit umbral by finding certain exit points ot reseting yourself at a checkpoint. The Umbral realm will also have its own enemies, which appear as ghostly figures that will attack but as you remain in the realm, the enemies will become more present and stronger, so its dangerous to remain in that realm for too long. Its also worth noting that when you die in Axiom you will be transferred into the umbral realm and when you die there, that's you properly dead and you will lose your souls (or vigor as its known).

UMBRAL LAMP AND SOUL FLAYING

Another key item of the game is your umbral lamp, which will let you character traverse between the two worlds but it also can be used to gain access to platforms or unlock umbral entities that block your  path. You can however also use the lamp for attacking enemies and using a technique called soul flaying, which will force an enemy briefly out of their body allowing you to attack their soul-like form, or you can even pull their form over a cliff, which when the enemy will recover its normal form, they will fall off the cliff, which is alot of fun to do! ;-)

RADIANT, UMBRAL AND INFERNO SPELLS

In the game, it uses three different types of magic for players that want to play as a caster, so you have the choice of radiant, umbral and inferno magic. Starting with radiant spells, they are very similar to miracles in the Souls games, where offensive spells will deal holy damage and resemble lightning and laser like beams, however you also have healing radiant spells that restore your hp. As for the umbral magic, this is more akin to like regular magic in the Souls games which has a blue light to it and is a mix of projectiles, magic weapons and weapon buffs. And lastly are the Inferno spells, which are basically pyromancies from the Souls games and again features mix of offensive projectiles and fire infused weapon buffs or damage buffs.

VESTIGES AND VESTIGE SEEDS

Another key aspect of the game are the use of its checkpoints, which are known as vestiges but they are somewhat sparsely found throughout the game and there will be long stretches of the game before you can reach your next vestige. However, as a way around this, you can use what is called vestige seeds, which you plant in areas known as flowerbeds, which will become visible when you see your umbral lamp glow. The only issue here is though, you can only plant one vestige seed at a time, so you need to be careful with your usage of them.

CHARACTER STATS

As for character stats, they are again quite similar to the Soul games, where your character has six stats to choose from to level up their character. So, the stats are strength, which you can level up to use strength based weapons, agility, which can be used to wield skill based weapons, endurance, which affects your stamina levels and equipment load. The other stats are vitality, which determines the amount of health your character has and also effects your equipment load, Radiance, which is used to increase your ability to use radiant spells and weapons and lastly there is Inferno, which is used to boost pyromancy spells as well as umbral ones. An important secondary stat also worth mentioning is called Mana, which is basically like your focus points bar in the Souls games and determines the amount of spells you can cast at one time, which can be replenished with the use of items called mana stones.

CHARACTER CLASSES

Moving onto the character classes, you will have a similar mixture to what you see in the Souls games of knight classes, warriors, sorcerers, pyromancers, hunters and the most difficult class, the condemned, which starts off with the lowest points of any class. So, you can choose between these different classes when you start the game and you can also later respec your character if you want to rejig your stats to fit your character. There are also four classes that can be unlocked Dark Cursader, Lord, Putrid Child and Radiant Purifier.

XP AND VIGOR

Another aspect of the game is the use of XP (or experience points) which you will gain when you kill enemies, you will gain vigor, which is similar to souls in the Souls games, which is your currency for buying items or leveling up your character. Also similar to the Souls series, if your character dies then they will lose all their vigor and they will need to pick it up afterward they have respawned at the point where they died last, but if they fail to get it and die again, the vigor will be lost forever. Your required vigor level will also go up each time you level up your character but overall the level requirement remains quite low as I get up to 11,000 vigor per level after I had finished my first playthrough but then the vigor gained from enemies is also lower than you find in the Souls games.

ENEMIES AND BOSSES

As for the game's enemies, there is reasonable mixture of humanoid and monster enemies to be found throughout the game, which will vary in challenge from easy to pretty difficult and areas can quite often become overwhelming to deal with as there plenty to be found! As for the bosses, again there is a variety of humanoid and monster bosses to fight and some of them can be very challenging whereas others can be pretty easy although initially the difficulty was inconsistent originally, these bosses in version 2.0 are for the most straight forward with a few exceptions.

THE EMPTY MIRROR

Another new(ish) inclusion, which was actually included in an earlier patch (patch 1.14 I think) is the ability to change your character's appearance. This however isn't as easy as it sounds as you need to obtain four items first, three of which are glass shards and then a reversal dagger, which you can buy from the Umbral merchant, Molhu at the Skyrest bridge. However, once you do get these items, you use them at the mirror founds at Skyrest and then you can change your character's gender, features etc to something different. 

RESPEC (REBIRTH CHRYSALIS)

You can also respec your character via the use of an item called the rebirth chrysalis, which you can obtain from Molhu at Skyrest bridge. You can then give the chrysalis to Pieta, who will facilitate your respec similar to how she upgrades your Sanguinarix for HP recovery. 

NPCS & SKYREST BRIDGE

And last of all, I will mention the NPCs in the game and there quite a few to be found here and there are some that will have their own quests that you can follow throughout the game. Some of the NPCs you will find are at the central hub of the game, which is known as Skyrest bridge, where you find NPCs such as Exacter Dunmire, who will give you a series of tasks to complete, Pieta, who can boost your character's healing item's potency and number of usages known as a Sanguinarix and Gerlinde, who is a blacksmith, who can upgrade your weapons. There are also other characters, who act as merchants such as Stormund, Theikh Ihir and Winterberry found throughout the game, who also have questlines to follow.

GRAPHICS

As for the graphics, the game itself looks very impressive and it features a good mixture of environments that have plenty of good detail in their surroundings and the game also has a good colour palette as it offers some nice vivid colours in areas, which is a nice welcome to some of the more dreary coloured games out there. The character models are also pretty good in the game although they are not the very best out there as there are better ones but they are still good enough.

The game however does suffer from significant performance issues on console and my Xbox Series X version, has serious frame rate dips at different areas and as the game has been patched, it runs even worse at times than it did when it was first released! So, not sure if that is to do with just poor optimisation or are the Xbox consoles just not up to the task of running this game (which does use the latest Unreal 5 engine). It most likely will be the game is just poorly optimised by its developers, which is a shame as these frame dips are pretty significant and do impact on the game's performance quite badly at times.

Update: as for the PS5 performance, having bought the game for my PS5 recently, the performance is a bit better on this console but there are still some noticable dips that impact performance but not quite as bad. I also had a PS5 Pro for a short time (but couldn't stand its noisy fan!) and on this, LOTF ran pretty well with very few frame dips. Overall though, the game looks pretty good but still has its faults technically speaking, which is a letdown.

MUSIC

As for the game's soundtrack, it was composed by American composer Cris Velasco and Norwegian composer Knut Havenstroup Haugen (who composed the 2014 similarly named game) and overall its great with plenty of variety in its themes. The score definitely does have some standout moments such as the boss fight themes for Pieta, The Hushed Saint, the Skinstealer, the Lightreaper and even the main theme of the game itself is very good. So, overall I was quite impressed with the score's variety of styles and at times it sounded like I was listening to a mix of Souls games, The Matrix and even Doctor Who. So, the score is definitely one of the game's strongest aspects and one of my favourite scores from any video game.

FLAWS

As for faws...yes Lords of the Fallen does have some worth mentioning but some of these issues have been addressed in my update here.

For starters the game's difficulty level is very inconsistent at the best of times and it has to be said this game has hands down one of the HARDEST first main bosses ever in Pieta, as I was stuck on her two or three days alone! I mean this boss is way too hard for the first boss of the game and clearly the developers haven't heard of the concept of progressive difficulty and thought "Sod it! We'll just put a really tough boss first!" to mess with players.

UPDATE: However in Version 2.0, Pieta's difficulty has been greatly reduced and you can now defeat her more easily making the fight more accessible and far easier for the player to progress to the Skyrest bridge hub area. So, this for me was a welcome change given just how brutal she was when the game was originally released.  

The game is also very guilty of having way too many enemy ganks as you try as you often have to resort to running through areas, otherwise you will get massacred by a slew of enemies. And this is particularly bad in the umbral world areas where there are enemies such as reapers that carve you up or ravenous fascinators, which are basically mimics that are invisible and chunk most of your HP (if not all of it!) when try pick up what seems to be an item. So, as the game went on, I did find myself getting frustrated with the endless ganks and it was a game that managed to out Dark Souls II, Dark Souls II in its gankage.

UPDATE: to be fair, in the latest 2.0 update, the enemy ganks are more manageable and they don't chase you to the ends of the earth like they used to, which makes life a lot easier. The game still does feel a bit BS towards the end in the final area of the game, Bramis Castle, in terms of enemy gankage but that aside its not too bad.

Another of course relates to the limit checkpoints in the game as there are very few vestiges to be had in the game with only or two tops in each area. However you can of course use your vestige seeds to plant a seed in an umbral flowerbed and use that as a temporary checkpoint but you can only place one at a time and be careful that you don't run out of any as you progress although they are only 1200 vigor each, so its not too bad in that respect. However, part of the issue I have with this is to do with the HUD display for how many vestige seeds you have, as the number is not clearly displayed and somewhat hidden behind the icon for it, so its easy at times to forget you need to go back and buy another seed.

Another issue I had with the game was the disappearance of the one of the key merchants in the game, Thek-Ihir, who sells cures and resistance balms for different ailments such as poison, bleed, fire or ignite build-up as well as other useful items. However, at a certain point late on in the game (once you fight the boss in the Empyrean area) he will disappear forever and you will never be able to purchase his items ever again!

So, I found this to be a really stupid decision on the developer's behalf, because it means you then need to try and farm these items off specific enemies instead, which is nowhere near as handy or straight forward (although some of the salts can be easily farmed right enough). This forces you to stockpile these items before he effectively disappears and the fact there isn't even an item you can obtain to access his shop items similar to the bell bearings in Elden Ring for merchants, is frankly, a truly dumb decision made by the developers, which they STILL haven't resolved over 18 months later!

Then there are also some frustrating issues to do with the layout of the areas, as you can easily get lost in certain areas after a while and one such area for me was Forsaken Fen, which is a poison area and it took me forever to get through that area alone! I also spent alot of time running around trying to find an entrance into the Revelation Depths area, which you access via the Sunless Skein area but again the access point is far from obvious or easy to find. So, this game is definitely quite frustrating when it comes to navigating its confusing areas.

Further to this previous point, I also found trying to access the Saintly Quintessences a real chore as well, which are used to boost the amount of charges your Sanguinarix can be used to restore your HP, as the game really sends you on a wild goose chase to find them! So, more often than not, you need to enter Umbral and wander around forever to locate them in different areas but in the end, I just wish they made them more accessible to find.

And then we have the issue of the enemy variety as there is simply not enough enemy variety in the game here and you will have seen pretty much the same enemies in each area over and over again as you progress. There are one or two new enemies included in the later areas but overall in the final areas of the game, I was just seeing the same old enemies and its a pity the developers got lazy with their choices here as more variety would have been a good thing.

And lastly there are of course as I mention earlier in the graphics section, the technical issues with the game as it has some horrendous frame rate issues, where the frame rate literally at times slows down to a snailcrawl and even other times, the screen froze completely! And one of the worst glitchy areas in the game for me was the central hub, Skyrest bridge, which was frequently jittery and stuttery and quite frankly there is no excuse for releasing a game in this state and the developers really should have devoted more time to this one rather than put it out as the buggy mess it is and adopt the "we'll patch as we go!" attitude but sadly this game is just one example of a recurring theme these days with new game releases.

UPDATE again with the PS5 version, the stutters aren't as noticable or frequent as the Xbox but they are still there and after all this time, its still pretty frustrating this hasn't been addressed properly by the developers.

So, that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, Lords of the Fallen Version 2.0 is a noticeable improvement over the original game and adds better balanced difficulty and more forgiving enemy placement as well some new features, some of which were added in previous versions. There are still some technical issues and yes there are still some issues with the game (like STILL no option to access Theikr Ihir's items after he disappears!). However despite these issues, Lords of the Fallen 2.0 is a much improved version of the game and well worth checking out now if you haven't already.

So, I will rate Lords of the Fallen 2.0:

8.5 out of 10

So, that's it for now guys and I will be back soon with another post.

Until then, its bye for now!

Doctor Who - City of Death (revisited) - "You're right! She hasn't got any eyebrows!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, guys thought I would quickly get another post in before the end of the month and this one is on another revisit of a post I did years for the classic Doctor Who story from the Baker era, City of Death.

So, this story has always been seen as one of the best stories from the Graham Williams producer era (who took over from Philip Hinchcliffe as producer and was succeeded by John Nathan-Turner, who was actually the production unit manager on this story!).

So, after 46 years how does this classic fair??? Well, let's take another look and find out..

So, the usual warning is coming up....

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY

So, the story takes place in Paris 1979, where the Doctor (Baker) and his companion and fellow Gallifreyan time lady, Romana (Lalla Ward) are on holiday.  When they arrive at the Louvre gallery they encounter strange slips in time, and the Doctor grabs onto the arm of a woman, who was wearing a bracelet.  The Doctor soon reveals that he had stolen the bracelet as he noticed its was not of Earth technology, and that the woman in question was using it to scan the security systems round the Mona Lisa.

Meanwhile the woman in question is Countess Scarlioni (Catherine Schell) who is the wife of the Count Scarlioni (Julian Glover) as they intend to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.  The Doctor and Romana soon also meet a detective, Duggan (Tom Chadbon) who has been following Count Scarlioni's activities, but the three of them are soon captured by the Count's men.

The Doctor, Romana and Duggan are soon taken to Scarlioni, where the Doctor acts the fool to set them off his interest in them, but instead Scarlioni has them locked in his basement.  In the basement, the Doctor soon uses his sonic screwdriver to escape and he stumbles upon time experiment equipment, which is operated by Doctor Kerenesky (David Graham), and is behind the time slips that the Doctor and Romana had encountered.

The Doctor also finds behind their room they were locked in, six exact replicas of the Mona Lisa, which turned out all to be genuine as they have Leonardo Da Vinci's signature and pigment on.  The Doctor then decides to go back in time himself in the TARDIS to have a chat with Leonardo about his work, but instead he meets Captain Tancredi, who is identical to Count Scarlioni.  Tancredi reveals to the Doctor that he is in fact an alien named Scaroth, and he is the last of his race, the Jagaroth.  Scaroth millions of years in the past on Earth was in his spaceship and was at the centre of an explosion which threw him into a time field and he ended being splintered into 12 different time periods on Earth's history.

Tancredi reveals that he also has been using his technological advances to push the human race and also using Leonardo to create six extra copies of the Mona Lisa so he can fund Kerensky's experiments with time, in an effort to travel back in time before his ship exploded.  The Doctor manages to escape Tancredi's clutches and travels back to 1979 where he goes about to try and stop Scarlioni from carrying out his plan, as the explosion itself brought about the beginning of the human race.  But can he do it?????

THOUGHTS

The City of Death is without a doubt one of the most entertaining and purely enjoyable Doctor Who stories of its era.  After Philip Hinchcliffe left the series as producer, Graham Williams took over, and while he served the show well enough, there weren't as many classics in his tenure, but this is definitely one of them.

The story itself was written under the psuedonym of David Agnew by Douglas Adams (who was the script editor at that time) and also Graham Williams and it is wonderfully funny with plenty of amusing dialogue and the story itself is quite cleverly thought out.  And the story's light comedic tone is just right here, despite some of the overt uses of comedy in some of the other stories of the Williams era. On a sad side note, Williams himself would later tragically take his life in 1990, some years after retiring from producing television shows.

PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

Onto the performances, well the cast are on excellent form here in both the regular and supporting varieties.

Tom Baker is wonderful as ever as the Doctor, as he was mostly considered the most popular of all the Doctors in the public eye, he does a great job here again.  And Tom as you would expect has his fare share of funny dialogue and good scenes throughout the story.

So, as this is a story that is rich with great scenes and dialogue it will be hard to whittle this down but I will start with Tom's scene where the Doctor and Romana are both followed by Duggan around Paris until they sit down outside a cafe.

So, in the scene Romana says to the Doctor "Doctor, do you realise we're being followed?" and the Doctor without looking up from a cafe menu says "Yes, all the way from the Louvre by that idiot with the gun!".  Romana then asks "What do you think he wants?" and the Doctor says "Look in your pocket" and Romana looks in one of her pockets but the Doctor says "Other pocket!".  Romana takes a green bracelet and she asks "What this?" and the Doctor tells her "The woman I bumped into was wearing it" and Romana on examining it says "Its a micromeson scanner!". The Doctor tells Romana "That's right. She was using it to get a complete report on all the alarm systems around the Mona Lisa".  Romana asks "You mean she's trying to steal it?" and the Doctor says "It is a very pretty painting" and Romana says of the device "Its a very sophisticated device for a level five civilisation" and the Doctor says "That's never the product of Earth's civilisation?" and Romana asks "What? Do you mean an alien is trying to steal the Mona Lisa?" and the Doctor again says "It is a very pretty painting!". 

And then after a pause, the Doctor says to Romana "Romana, you know I think something very funny is going on. You remember that man who was folllowing us?" and Romana says "Yes" and the Doctor tells her "Well he's standing behind me, poking a gun into my back!".  Then we see, Duggan standing behind the Doctor with his gun pressed against the Doctor's back and Duggan says to them both "All right, you two!  Into the cafe!".

Then there is the scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are captured by Scarlioni's men and taken to his chateau.  And in the scene Scarlioni's henchman pushes the Doctor into the Count's drawing room where the Countess waits for them.  So, the Doctor falls onto the floor and quickly get's up, grinning ear to ear he says "I say, what a wonderful butler, he's so violent!".  The Doctor then on his knees introduces himself to the Countess "Hello, I'm called the Doctor. That's Romana, that's Duggan. You must be the Countess Scarlioni and this is clearly a delightful Louis Quinze chair!" and the Doctor goes to sit in one of the chairs "May I sit in it? I say, haven't they worn well? Thank you, Hermann, that'll be all!".

And after the Count instructs his henchman, Herrman, to take the Doctor, Romana and Duggan down to the cellar to lock them up, Duggan suddenly grabs a chair and is about to hit Herrman with it and the Doctor shouts out "Duggan! What on Earth are you doing, for heaven's sake?!  That's a Louise Quinze!".  And as Duggan is about to protest, the Doctor shouts "Just tried to behave like a civilised guest!" and he says to Herrman "Now, Herrman if you could show us to our cellar that would be terribly helpful!". 

Another good scene comes when the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to escape the Count's prison cell in the basement, so he can have a look around at the Count's scientific equipment.  And the Doctor says to Duggan "In the last few hours I've been thumped, threatened, abducted and imprisoned! I've found a piece of equipment which is not of Earth technology and I've been through two time slips! I think this lab might have something to do with it!".

So, as the Doctor and Duggan stand around and argue, Romana is busy moving equipment back into the prison cell as she is testing something out.  Duggan however insists he's had enough and is about to go when suddenly they hear a sound and hide as the Count's scientist, Kerenski comes down the stairs back to his work.  So, as Kerenski places a chicken egg on time-slip appartus and activates, we see the chicken emerge from its egg and grow.  The Doctor then springs up on him and says "Which came first?  The chicken or the egg?!" and Kerenski asks the Doctor "Who are you?" and the Doctor answers "Me?  I'm the Doctor!  What you are doing is terribly interesting, but you've got it wrong!".

Another good scene is when after the Doctor and Kerenski discuss the flaws in the time-slip apparatus, the Doctor suddenly sees an image of Scaroth in his true form appear from the apparatus, which distracts both of them long enough as Duggan sneaks up and knocks out Kerenski.  The Doctor then annoyed after discovering Duggan has knocked Kerenski out, says to him "That's your philosophy isn't it?!  If it moves hit it!" and then "If you do that one more time, Duggan. I'm going to take very, very severe measures!".  Duggan however becomes threatening and angrily asks "Yeah?!  Like what?!" and the Doctor takes a moment and quietly says "I'm going to ask you not to".  
 
Then there is the scene where the Doctor takes the TARDIS back to 1474 to meet with Leonardo Da Vinci after he has discovered six identical paintings of the Mona Lisa bricked up in the Count's basement.

So, after the TARDIS materialises in Leonardo's home, the Doctor looks around for him but he is nowhere to be seen. So, the Doctor calls out "Mona Lisa? That dreadful woman with no eyebrows who wouldn't sit still, eh?!" and he laughs and looking around, he spots Leonardo's designs for a helicopter "Your idea for the helicopter took a bit longer to catch on, but as I say, these things take time".

Then all of a sudden the Doctor is then met by the blade of a sword as a soldier has entered the room and asks the Doctor "Who are you?!" and the Doctor says "Ah, well. I just dropped by to see Leonardo".  Soldier then tells the Doctor "Nobody's allowed to see Leonardo. He's engaged in some important work for Captain Tancredi" and the Doctor reacts with shock at the mention of the name and the soldier asks "Do you know him?" and the Doctor flatly says "No".  The soldier then says to the Doctor "He'll want to question you" and the Doctor says "Well, I'll want to question him, so we can both have a little chat, can't we?!".  And then we see a shadowed figure stand by the door and the Doctor looks on in surprise and asks "You! What are you doing here?!" and the figure moves out of the shadows and it is a man who looks identical to the Count, who is Captain Tancredi.  So,Tancredi says to the Doctor "I think that is exactly the question I ought to be asking you...Doctor!".

Another good scene from Tom is when the Doctor heads back to the chateau to try and rescue Romana and Duggan and confront the Count over his attempt to travel back in time to save his people.  So, the Doctor first of all meets with the Countess and he asks her if she knows any Shakespeare and she replies "A little" and she goes over takes a book and presents it to the Doctor and says "Hamlet, first draft".

The Doctor looks at the book in amazement and says "Its been missing for centuries!" and the Countess says "Oh, its quite genuine. I assure you" and the Doctor says "I know. I recognise the handwriting".  And the Countess says "Shakespeare's" and the Doctor corrects her "No, mine. He sprained his wrist writing sonnets!".  So, the Doctor then reads a little and he scoffs as he reads back a line "Take sea in the arms of troubles, I told him that was a mixed metaphor and he would insist!".  The Countess then laughs and says "Oh, Doctor. I'm quite convinced that you're perfectly mad!" and the Doctor laughs and says "Oh well, nobody's perfect!" but he then turns serious and asks her "If you think I'm mad because I say I met Shakespeare, where do you think your precious Count got that?!".  The Countess tells the Doctor "He's a collector.  He has money and he has contacts" but the Doctor annoyed asks her "Contacts?!  Human contacts?!  How much do you really know about him, eh?!  I think rather less than you imagine!".

Another good scene is when the Doctor, Romana and Duggan pursue Scaroth back in time 400,000,000 years ago to when he originally tried to take off in his spaceship, which caused the explosion.  So, the Doctor looks around the bleak wasteland and says to Duggan "This will be the middle of Atlantic ocean".  The Doctor then looks around and he picks up some black sludge and he says "The amniotic fluid from which all life on Earth will spring, where the amino acids fuse to form minute cells. Cells which eventually evolve into vegetable and animal life" and he puts some of it into Duggan's palm" and he says "You, Duggan!".  Duggan looks in disbelief at it and asks "I come from that, that soup?!" and the Doctor says "Yes. Well, not that soup exactly. It's inert. There's no life in it yet. It's waiting on a massive dose of radiation. The explosion that caused Scarlioni to splinter in time also caused the birth of the human race, and that's what's about to happen. The birth of life itself".

So, as Scaroth suddenly appears and shouts at the Doctor to get out his way as he must stop himself from pressing the button to launch his ship,  the Doctor confronts him and says "No, Scaroth, no. You've pressed it once! You've thrown the dice once! You don't get a second throw!".  Scaroth then angrily says "Then I will splinter in time again and all my people will be killed!" but the Doctor shouts back "No! The explosion that you in there are about to trigger off will give birth to the human race! The moment your race kills itself, another is born. That has happened! It WILL happen!!".  Scaroth however remains defiant and shouts "What do I care of the human race?! Scum!  The tools of my salvation!".  The Doctor however shouts back "No! The product of your destruction!  History cannot be changed!  I cannot!" bu the Scaroth grows furious and raises his arms and shouts "I WILL CHANGE IT!!!" and suddenly Duggan knocks him out.  The Doctor delightedly at Duggan's violent actions for once, grins and says to Duggan "Duggan!  I think that was possibly the most important punch in history!".

Lalla Ward, who was at that time Tom Baker's wife is also really good as the Doctor's companion and fellow Time Lord, Romana and the two of them together share a nice chemistry, which obviously they shared off screen.

And for the sake of time (and space!) I will only mention a few of Lalla's scenes such as the one where the Doctor and Romana arrive outside the Louvre and the Doctor proudly tells her "There we are.  The Louvre!  One of the greatest art galleries in the whole galaxy!".  Romana however scoffs and says "Nonsense! What about the Academia Stellaris on Sirius Five?!" and the Doctor says "No, no!". Romana then asks "Or the Solariun Pinaquotheque at Strikian?!" and the Doctor scoffs back and says "Oh, no, no!" and Romana suggests "Or the Braxiatel Collection?!" and the Doctor laughs and says "No, no, no! This is the gallery.  The only gallery in the known picture like..." and we cut inside the Louvre and we see the Mona Lisa painting and the Doctor says "...the Mona Lisa!".

On inspection, Romana however seems less impressed and merely says its "Quite good" and the Doctor, taken aback asks "Quite good?! That's one of the great treasures of the universe and you say "quite good??!".  Romana suddenly feels self conscious of the Doctor's voice carrying and she says "The world, Doctor, not the universe in public!". Romana then asks "Why hasn't she got any eyebrows?" and the Doctor says "Is that all you can say? Why hasn't she got any eyebrows?!" and he looks closer and he realises Romana is right, "You're right. She hasn't got any eyebrows! You know I never noticed that before!".

Another good scene is when Romana and Duggan arrive at the Louvre just after the robbery of the Mona Lisa has been performed by the Count's men. So, they both find an unconscious guard and Duggan says "There's another alarm been immobilised!" and Romana, irritably says to him "You've got a pretty cynical attitude to life, haven't you, Duggan?!".  Duggan then says "Yeah well, when you've been around as long as I have.  How old are you anyway?" and the Romana tells him "125" and the Duggan after a suprised pause asks "What?!".  

Then there is the scene where Romana and Duggan meet back at the cafe and he smashes the window of the front door in and opens it. Duggan then says to Romana "I thought these places were meant to be open all night!" and Romana wearily tells Duggan "You should go into partnership with a glazier. You'd have a truly symbiotic working relationship!".  Duggan asks "What?" and Romana says "I'm just pointing out that you break alot of glass!" and Duggan says "You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs!" and he smashes open the neck of a bottle of red wine.  Romana then annoyed says to him "If you wanted an omelette, I'd expect to find a pile of broken crockery, a cooker in flames and an unconscious chef!".  And as they sit down, Duggan asks "You know what I don't understand?" and Romana says "I expect so!" and Duggan says "There are potentially seven buyers and seven Mona Lisa's. How did the Count know they were there?!  How did he know where to get them?!" and Romana says "Taxes the mind, doesn't it?".

And lastly there is the scene where the following morning at the cafe, Romana and Duggan discuss how the Count could possibly have gotten the other six Mona Lisa's and Romana suggests that the Count somehow managed to travel back in time.

So, Romana tells Duggan "Perhaps Scarlioni has discovered a way to travel in time. Yes, perhaps he went back in time, had a chat to Leonardo, got him to rustle up another six, came forward in time, stole the one in the Louvre, and now sells all seven at enormous profit. Sound reasonable?!".  Duggan however, looks completely baffled and says "I used to do divorce investigations.  It was never anything like this!". Romana continuing her theory says "There's only one flaw in that line of reasoning as far as I can see" and Duggan blankly asks "There is?" and Romana tells him "That equipment of Kerensky's wouldn't work as efficiently as a time machine" Duggan again blankly says "You couldn't?". And Romana continues "You can have two different time continuums running at different rates" and Duggan puzzled asks "You can?" and Romana says "But without a field interface stabilister, you can't cross from one to another" and Duggan completely pretends to play along and asks "You can't?". Romana however says "Well, I'm just guessing. Come on, let's get back to the chateau where at least you can thump somebody!".

As for the guest supporting cast, Julian Glover is terrific here in his trio role as Count Scarlioni/Scaroth/Captain Tancredi and he plays his part with great charm, charisma and also menace.

Glover naturally has his share of great scenes that include the one where the Count asks his henchman, Herrman to sell off another valuable collector's item.  So, the Count says to Hermann confidentially "That Gainsborough didn't fetch enough.  I think we need to sell one of the bibles" and Herrman asks "Sir?" and the Count says "Yes, the Gutenberg".  Hermann then warns the Count "I suggest we tread more carefully, sir? It would not be in our best interest to draw too much attention to ourselves. Another rash of priceless treasures on the market could..." and the Count interrupts and says "Yes, I know, Hermann, I know.  Just do it discreetly".  Hermann looks at the Count in disbelief and asks "Discreetly, sir??? Sell a Gutenberg bible discreetly?!" and the Count now irritated says "Well, as discreetly as possible, just do it will you?".

Another good scene is when the Count talks with his scientist, Kerenski and Kerenski is worn out with all the pressure that the Count is putting him under to produce results.  So, Kerenski tells the Count "You are pushing me to the limit, Count!" and the Count says "Only thus is true progress ever made. You, as a scientist, should be the first to appreciate that!".  Kerenski says "Oh, I do, Count, I do. I appreciate many things. I appreciate walks in the country, I appreciate sleep, regular meals!".  The Count turns to Hermann and then says "Would you please prepare for the Professor half a dozen escargot au beurre followed by an entrecote bordelaise with haricots vert and pommes sautees served directly here to the laboratory".  The Count then says to Hermann "Oh, and a bottle of Chambertin. My own. Better make that half a bottle.  We don't want to interfere with the work do we, Professor?!".  Kerenski however wearily says "Count.  I would really like to get some sleep!" and the Count goes off after Hermann and calls after him "Hermann, cancel the wine! Bring the vitamin pil!".

Then there is the great moment where, back in Florence in the 16th century, Captain Tancredi reveals himself to the Doctor as he looks identical to the Count.  So, the Doctor looks at him in surprise and asks "You!  What are you doing here??" and Tancredi steps out of the shadows and says to the Doctor "I think that is exactly the question I ought to be asking you...Doctor!".

Then we have the scene where Tancredi questions the Doctor, who is very evasive in his answers and the Doctor spots what appears to be the original Mona Lisa and the Doctor reveals that he knows the Count and Tancredi's scheme. So, Tancredi smiles and says "I can see that you are a dangerously clever man, Doctor. I think it's time we conducted this conversation somewhat more formally".  And Tancredi makes to leave and he says to the soldier "Hold him here while I collect the instruments of torture. If he wags his tongue, confiscate it!".  The Doctor then asks "How can I talk if you confiscate..." and Tancredi interrupts and says "You can write, can't you?!".

Another good scene from Glover is when the Count having re-captured Romana and Duggan, tries to coerce Romana into helping him with his plan. So, as Romana asks the Count if she refuses to help him what will he do and the Count says "Oh, must we go into vulgar threats? Let us just say that I shall destroy Paris, if that'll help you make up your minds!". Romana then asks "How am I supposed to believe you can do that?" and the Count says "Well, you won't know until you've seen the equipment, will you?".

So they go downstairs and Romana confirms that the Count can indeed destroy Paris with his equipment, which prompts Kerenski to ask "Why all this talk about destruction? What are you doing my with work?!".  So, the Count replies "Professor, I shall show you.  Would you care to examine the field generator?" and Kerenski shrugs and walks right into the middle of the generator.  So, the Count then says to Romana "You will now see, my dear, how I deal with fools!" and he presses a button that activates the equipment, which ages to Kerenski to death as he turns into a skeleton.

Then there is the scene later on where the Doctor confronts the Count over going back in time to stop his ship from blowing up.  So, as the Doctor says he is going to stop him, the Count says "Oh no, on the contrary, Doctor, you're going to help me" and the Doctor asks "I am?" and the Count smiles and says "You are indeed. And if you do not, it'll be so much the worse for you, for this young lady, and for thousands of other people I could mention if I happened to have the Paris telephone directory on my person!".  The Doctor then tries to reason with the Count and he asks him "Count, do you realise what will happen if you go back to the time before history began?" and the Count coldly says "Yes. Yes, I do. And I don't care one jot!".

And this is followed by the scene where the Count goes off to say his farewell to the Countess, who by this time has sussed out the Count isn't what he appears to be, so she aims a gun at him as he comes in.  So, the Countess in shock asks "What are you?!" and the Count asks "I beg your pardon?" and the Countess asks "What have I been living with all these years?! Where are you from and what do you want?".  The Count tries to bluff her and says "If I may answer those questions in reverse order, what I want is a drink. Will you have one?" and as the Count picks up a decanter, the Countess shouts at him pointing her gun at him "Stay away! PUT IT DOWN!".

So, after a pause, the Count does so and the Countess asks "Now, WHO are you?!" and the Count tells her the truth "I am Scaroth. Last of the Jagaroth. It has not been difficult keeping secrets from you, my dear. A few fur coats, a few trinkets, a little nefarious excitement".  The Countess asks "What are the Jagaroth?" and the Count looks up to the ceiling and says "The Jagaroth. An infinitely old race and an infinitely superior one. I shall show you what you want to know, my dear".  Scaroth then tears off his latex mask, revealing his true form of the one eye green scaly skinned Jagaroth and the Countess drops her gun in horror.  Scaroth in his true alien voice then shouts at her "I am Scaroth! Through me my people shall live again!".

Scaroth then says to the Countess "I'd glad to see you are still wearing the bracelet I designed for you, my dear. It is, as I said, a useful device!" and he touches his signet ring, which activates the bracelete on the Countess's wrist, which emits a loud noise that kills her and she falls to the floor, dead.  Scaroth then looks down at her and says "Goodbye, my dear. I'm sorry you had to die. But then, in a short while you will have ceased ever to have existed!".

Tom Chadbon next up is great as Duggan, the dim-witted English private detective, who is investigating the strange goings on in the Parisian artworld and he ends up helping the Doctor and Romana against the Count but at the same time is all too keen to use his fists at any given opportunity!

And Tom has his own share of good scenes that include the one where Duggan leads the Doctor and Romana into a cafe where they are soon met by two of the Count's thugs, who take the bracelet from him. So, after they leave, Duggan angrily says to the Doctor "All right, that's enough. Very cleverly staged, but you don't fool me!" and the Doctor looks puzzled and asks "What are you talking about?" and Duggan says "Your men who were just in here!".  The Doctor looks on in surprise and says "My men?  Those thugs?!" and Duggan says "YOU'RE thugs!" and the Doctor asks "Are you suggesting those men are in my employee?" and Duggan says "Yes".  The Doctor then tells Duggan if they were in his employee he would have sacked them on the spot but Duggan says "Except that I know you arranged for them to hold you up as a bluff! You're trying to put me on a false scent!".

And in the next scene, Duggan talks about the mysterious goings on in the art world that he is investigating with all the strange rare artefacts suddenly coming available. So, Duggan says "So, you can imagine the furore!" and Romana, who hasn't heard of the word before asks "The what?" and Duggan tells her "The furore! The whole art world in an uproar!".  Duggan then goes on and says "Masterpieces that have apparently been missing over the centuries are just turning up all over the place!".  The Doctor says "All fakes of course" and Duggan says "They've gotta be, haven't they?" but Romana asks "Are they?" and Duggan says "They're very, very good ones. They stand up to every scientific test!".  The Doctor then asks is the Count the only connection in all this and Duggan says "Nothing dirty can be proved, though. He's clean. Absolutely clean. So clean he stinks!".

Then we have the scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are locked into the Count's cellar and Duggan complains about they could have escaped ages ago.  So, after Hermann locks them in, Duggan angrily asks the Doctor "What do you think you're playing at?!" and the Doctor shushes him and says "Light the lamp" and Duggan takes the only match they have "There's only one match" and the Doctor says seriously "Then get it right".  Duggan then protests and says "You tell ME to get it right?! We could have escaped at least twice if you hadn't...!" and the Doctor interrupts and says "Exactly! What's the point of coming all the way here just to escape immediately? What we do is, we stay here" and Duggan asks "Yes?" and the Doctor says "Make them think they've got us safe" and Duggan asks "Yes?" and the Doctor produces his sonic screwdriver and with a grin says "THEN we escape!".

This is followed by the moment where Romana has discovered there is a secret room behind the cellar, which the Doctor starts to break down the old mortar using a hammer and chisel, however it is taking too long.  So, the Doctor says "I think I'm going to need some machinery" and Duggan tells him "I've got all the machinery I need!  Stand back" and Duggan charges at the wall and bashes it in allowing them to get into the secret room.

The Doctor then checks behind a series of wooden doors of which all contain a painting of the Mona Lisa, all identical and all apparently genuine. So, the Doctor confused asks "Every one. What I don't understand is why a man who's got six Mona Lisas wants to go to all the trouble of stealing a seventh?.  And Duggan, who mentioned earlier that he had buyers in his diary who would all pay big money for the Mona Lisa, tells the Doctor "Come on, Doctor, I've just told you. There are seven people who would buy the Mona Lisa in secret, but nobody's going to buy the Mona Lisa when it's hanging in the Louvre!".  The Doctor then realises what Duggan means and he puts his hand on Duggan's arm and smiles saying "I wouldn't make a very good criminal, would I?!" and then we hear the Count say "No, good criminals don't get caught!".  The Count then questions the Doctor as to what happened to Kerenski "Can you shed any light on that?" and Duggan says "I can!" and he throws his lamp at the Count and knocks him unconscious. 

Another good scene is when Duggan and Romana arrive too late at the Lovure to find the Mona Lisa has been stolen.  So, Romana in the scene says to Duggan "I though the Louvre was supposed to be well guarded" and Duggan tells her "It is. It just looks as though every alarm in the place has been immobilised. A fantastic feat!".  Then they find an unconscious guard nearby and Duggan cynically says "There'a another alarm been immobilised!" and Romana, annoyed says "You've got a pretty cynical attitude to life, haven't you, Duggan?!".  Duggan says "Well, when you've been around as long as I have...how old are you anyway?" and Romana says "125" and Duggan, shocked asks "What?!".

And they soon see the Mona Lisa is gone and Duggan says how the laser beams that protect it should be impregnable but as he puts his hand by them, he sets off the alarm.  Duggan shouts "Hells bells!" and Romana says "That's what it sounds like!  Let's go!" and Duggan says "Split up!  We'll meet back at the cafe?!" and Romana asks "But how do you suggest we get out?!" and Duggan indicate "See that window?!" and he runs toward it and we hear a smashing noise as he jumps through it.

Then there is the scene where Romana and Duggan meet back at the cafe and he breaks into it and he says to Romana "I thought these places were meant to be open all night!" and Romana wearily tells Duggan "You should go into partnership with a glazier. You'd have a truly symbiotic working relationship!".  Duggan asks "What?" and Romana says "I'm just pointing out that you break alot of glass!" and Duggan says "You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs!" and he smashes open the neck of a bottle of red wine to pour some.  

Then we get to the scene where the Doctor, Romana and Duggan follow Scaroth in the TARDIS back to prehistoric times where Scaroth intends to stop himself from taking off in the Jagaroth spaceship and Duggan in mild surprise points out Scaroth's ship and says "That's a spaceship!".  So, in the scene the Doctor shows Duggan some black sludge, which would eventually form the cells that would generate human life. So, the Doctor says to Duggan of the sludge "You, Duggan" and Duggan, incredulously says "I come from that, that soup?!".

And last of all if the final scene of the story where the Doctor tells Duggan about how the Count's mansion was destroyed in a fire, which in reality happened when Scaroth was returned to the chateau via his lab appartus but a startled Hermann threw something at him, which shorted out the machine and caused a big fire.

So, Duggan asks "The one nearest the wall?!" and the Doctor tells Duggan "It was the only one that wasn't damaged in the fire" and Duggan annoyed says "But its a fake!  You can't hang a fake Mona Lisa in the Louvre!".  Romana however asks Duggan "How can it be a fake if Leonardo painted it?" and Duggan says "With the words "This is a fake" written under the paintwork in felt tip?!" and Romana says "It doesn't affect what it looks like" and Duggan says "It doesn't matter what it looks like!".  The Doctor however says "Well, some people would say that's the whole point of painting" but Duggan annoyed, says "But they'll find out!  They'll X-Ray it!" and the Doctor says if they have to, to find out if its good, they might aswell have painting by computer.  So, Duggan asks the Doctor "Yes, where do you two come from?" and the Doctor answers the question in an awkward fashion and says the best way is to work out where you're going and work backwards and Duggan, puzzled asks "Where are you going?" and the Doctor says "I don't know" and Romana says "Nor do I!". 

Catherine Schell is also excellent in her role as the Countess and she plays part very well, as a wealthy woman who is blinded by the fact she is married to an alien.

And for the sake of time, I will mention only three of her scenes (this review is long enough!!) starting with the one where the Count and Countess have successfully stolen the Mona Lisa and the Countess expresses her delight.  So, the Countess says to the Count "Why do you still worry, my dear? We've done it! We have the Mona Lisa. Think of the wealth that will be ours!" and the Count, who is staring upward in a daze says "The wealth is not everything".  The Countess then says "Of course. The achievement.  Yes, the achievement!" and the Count laughs and says "Achievement?!" and he scornfully asks her how it would feel to have built the pyramids, invent the first wheel and show the true use of fire.  The Countess, puzzled asks "What are you talking about?!  No one can achieve everything?!".  

Then there is the scene where the Doctor confronts the Countess over her relationship with the Count and how she is blind to who he really is.  So, the Doctor asks her "How long have you been married to the Count?" and the Countess replies "Long enough" and the Doctor says "Long enough. I like that. Discretion and charm. So civilised. So terribly unhelpful!".  The Countess smiles and says "Discretion and charm. I couldn't live without it, especially in matters concerning the Count" and the Doctor tells her "There is such a thing as discretion. There's also such a thing as wilful blindness".

The Countess however is taken aback by this and says "Blind?! I help him to steal the Mona Lisa, the greatest crime in the century, and you call me blind?!".  The Doctor shouts back "YES! You see the Count as a master criminal, an art dealer, an insanely wealthy man, and you'd like to see yourself as his consort. But what's he doing in the cellar?!".  The Countess replies "Tinkering.  Every man has his hobby" and the Doctor asks her seriously "Man?!  Are you sure of that?!  A man with one eye and green skin, eh?! Ransacking the art treasures of history to help him make a machine to reunite him with his people, the Jagaroth, and you didn't notice anything? How discreet, how charming!" but the Countess just laughs at this.  Hermann however interrupts them and tells the Doctor he is to go down to the cellar but before he goes, the Doctor says to the Countess "Think about it, Countess. Think about it!".

The Countess laughs it off for a moment however she then remembers seeing a book in her library containing a parchment, which she unfold one that has a picture of an Egyptian wall painting featuring various Gods, a Pharaoh and the figure of a being with a green head and one eye, leaving Countess looking shocked.

David Graham next up is also very good as Kerenski, the Count's hapless scientist, who works with him on the machine, which the Count keeps his true intentions of its use from Kerenski.

And I will mention two of Graham's scenes, firstly the one where the Doctor having escaped from the cellar looks at the Count's lab equipment but he is interrupted by Kerenski coming down the stairs.  So the Doctor waits long enough for Kerenski to start his chicken egg experiement with the machine and then he says to Kerenski "Which came first?  The chicken or the egg?" and Kerenski, startled asks "Who are you?  What are you doing here?!" and the Doctor tells him "Me? I'm the Doctor.  What you're doing is terribly interesting! But you've got it wrong!".

So, the Doctor starts to discuss the flaws of the machine with Kerensky "Well, you're tinkering with time. That's always a bad idea unless you know what you're doing".  Kerenski however insists "I know what I'm doing. I am the foremost authority on temporal theory in the whole world!" and the Doctor asks him "The whole world?" and Kerenski says "Yes!" and the Doctor muses "Well, that's a very small place when you consider the size of the universe!".  Kerensky however insists " But you saw it work. The greatest achievement of the human race. A cellular accelerator. You saw it! An egg developed into a chicken in thirty seconds. With a large one, I can turn a calf into a cow in even less time. It will be the end of famine in the world!".  

The Doctor then explains there are still problems with the machine and he suggests something else as he reverses a control on the wall, causing the chicken skeleton to reverse back through its life cycle to being an egg again, leaving Kerensky astonished.  The Doctor then says "There you are. Did you realise it could do that?" and Kerensky, astounded says "No! What did you?!" and the Doctor "I just reversed the polarity.  This is very expensive equipment".  And Kerenski says "Oh, very expensive. The Count is very generous. A true philanthropist. I do not ask too many questions!" and the Doctor taken aback says "Well you...what's your name?!" and Kerensky says "Theodore Nikolai Kerensky...." and the Doctor tells him "Theodore Nikolai Kerensky...a scientist's job IS to ask questions!".

And lastly there is the scene where the Count shows some papers on a workbench for Kerensky to look at and he says to him "You will now see the true end product of your labours. This is what you will now produce for me. Look at it!".  Kerensky then takes a look at the papers but reacts in horror and says "But Count, this machine is precisely the reverse of what we, of what I have been working on!". Kerensky then says to Count "But the scale of this is fantastic. Count, what you are trying to do, this is monstrous beyond imagining!" and the Count asks him "But you will do it?" and Keresnky refuses "No!  A thousands times no!".  The Count then asks "Oh, why not?" and Kerensky urgently says "Equipment on this scale, power on this scale, it would cost millions and millions. Even you, Count, could not afford such things!".

However they are then interrupted by a delighted Hermann, who reveals they have managed to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and Hermann reveals triumphantly that they stand to make $100,000,000 from all seven sales of the Mona Lisa paintings.  So, the Count laughs triumphantly and he turns to Kerensky and says to him menacingly "Continue with your work, Professor. Enjoy it, or you will die!" leaving Kerensky, just a little terrified.

Kevin Flood is pretty good in his role as the Count's ruthless henchman, Hermann, who takes pleasure in his job of being...well a henchman!

So, I will only mention one of Flood's scenes and its the one where Hermann leads the Doctor, Romana and Duggan down into the cellar.  So, the Doctor asks Hermann "How long has the chateau been here, Hermann?" and Hermann, impatiently replies "Long enough!" and the Doctor says "Really that long!  Restored maybe four or five hundred years ago?" and Hermann offers "May have been".  And the Doctor then asks "Very stimulating, very stimulating. And this would be the cellar, would it?" and Hermann finally says "Doctor, you're boring conversation does not interest me!".

Hermann then leads them into the cellar and he throws a box of matches to the Doctor and says "You may light it if you wish".  Romana asks of the lamp that lies in the cellar "How long's that thing going to last us?" and Hermann says "Two hours, maybe three" and the Doctor then gravely asks "What happens after that?" and Hermann threateningly says "After that, you won't NEED any light!" and he shuts and locks the cellar door.

Peter Halliday is also pretty good in his small role as the soldier that holds the Doctor captive back in Florence when the Doctor visits Leonard Da Vinci but is met by a sword instead held by the soldier.

And Halliday has two moments I will quickly mention, such as the one where having met Captain Tancredi, who leaves to get instruments to torture the Doctor with, the Doctor says to the solider of Tancredi "He's mad, isn't he? It must be a tough job humouring him!" but the soldier says nothing.  The Doctor then asks the solider "You don't believe all that, do you?" and the soldier asks "What?" and the Doctor says "Well, Jagaroth spaceships! Isn't it.  Isn't it?" and the soldier, not really interested says "I'm paid simply to fight".  The Doctor then says "Yes, well, I mean, quite honestly, when you think about all that Jagaroth spaceship!" and he scoffs but the soldier tells him "When you work for the Borgias, you believe anything" and the Doctor looks on fearfully and says "The borgias?! Yes, yes. I see your point".  And the soldier says "As I said, I'm paid to fight" and the Doctor looking down the sharp end of the soldier's sword says "Yes, and as I said, I can see your point!".  

And last of all is the moment where the Count is troubled by a psychic call from his other selves and this distracts the Count enough for the Doctor to ask "Are you alright?" and the Count in a daze, says "Continue. The interface of the time continuums is unstable!".  So, the Doctor asks the soldier "Is he often like this?" and the soldier says to the Doctor "I'm not paid to notice!". 

And last of all there are two very notable cameo performances from  John Cleese and Eleanor Bron who are very funny as two art lovers that stand and critique as well as appreciate the TARDIS, which is parked inside another gallery.

And as the two of them stand at the TARDIS, the man says "To me, one of the most curious things about this piece is its wonderful afunctionalism!" and the woman says "Yes, I see what you mean. Divorced from its function and seen purely as a piece of art, its structure of line and colour is curiously counterpointed by the redundant vestiges of its function".  So, the man then says "And since it has no call to be here, the art lies in the fact that it IS here!" and suddenly the Doctor, Romana and Duggan enter the gallery and board the TARDIS and it dematerialises, leaving both the man and woman astounded and the woman says "Exquisite!  Absolutely exquisite!". 

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC

Finally moving onto the director and music paragraphs, starting with the director, Michael Hayes, does a very fine job here with the story and he keeps the pace of the story moving along very nicely and at four episodes, it never lags and is just the right length.  Hayes himself directed two other serials during the Tom Baker era, which I believe would have been during the Graham Williams producer era, so this is certainly the strongest of the three no doubt.

As for the music, well...its good old Dudley Simpson once again and he produces another charming score here, which is perfectly well suited to the tone of the story itself as it features some playful moments as well as sinister and dramatic ones.  Basically, Dudley was the show's best composer overall as he churned out so many good scores for the show over the years and this is certainly another one.

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

As for flaws....yep as good as City of Death is, it still does have some worth mentioning.

For starters, I think that while the Count and Captain Tancredi both make for effective villains, it has to be said that Scaroth's mask, is pretty silly looking with its green spaghetti head and one eye, even though Glover plays a very entertaining and memorable villain, that mask is still the only weakness behind it all.  Its also especially notable in its naffness when we see the Count tear off the mask at the end of the first episode and you can actually see the actor's real face peep through underneath!

There are also one or two plot points that don't quite make sense, for starters, Duggan in the scene where he breaks into the cafe durng the night with Romana, takes a bottle of wine and breaks off the neck of it to pour wine for himself and Romana (or at least that's the way it appears!).  However he didn't even have to do that, as there was already just a cork stuck in the bottle and he could have easily taken it out rather than smash the bottle open!  Also, what if Duggan was planning to drink straight from the bottle?!  If he had, after smashing it, he would bound to have cut his mouth!  But that's me just supposing here of course but I certainly wouldn't take the chance of drinking from a broken bottle of wine!

And then there is what I see as the biggest flaw in the story, which is when the Doctor, Romana and Duggan follow Scaroth back in time via the TARDIS to pre-historic Earth where the Scaroth intends to stop himself from taking off in his spaceship.  Now, in the story, Romana reveals that the device she built that will allow Scaroth to travel back in time to his ship will only last for two minutes, which the Doctor said would still be sufficient time to make the change.  OK.  However...in the time it took for Scaroth to activate the machine and transfer back in time to pre-historic Earth, he would got to his ship alot sooner than the Doctor ever could have got back to the TARDIS!  This is clearly the case, as the Doctor, Romana and Duggan are seen running frantically around the streets during Paris traffic, which would have taken them easily MORE than two minutes to get back to the TARDIS in time!

So, basically there would have been no way in hell that the Doctor and his companions could have realistically made it back to the TARDIS in time before Scaroth was able to reach his spaceship and press the button.  And if that being said, you'd actually think the way it would go is that the world would have been wiped out while the Doctor, Romana and Duggan were in their mad dash to get back to the TARDIS!  So, for me this remains the story's biggest drawback.

Last of all is the scene at the end where the Doctor and Romana, who are up the Eiffel tower, reluctantly tell Duggan where they are from, or rather they don't tell him really and leave him with an abrupt goodbye. However, after they leave, they quickly head down below outside and from afar the Doctor shouts "bye bye, Duggan!". Two things, I doubt sincerely that the Doctor's voice would travel that far from that distance for Duggan to hear him and second, how the hell DID the Doctor and Romana get down to ground level so fast??! Just as they leave quite quickly and Duggan buys a postcard of the Mona Lisa and before you know it, the Doctor and Romana are down below shouting bye bye to him. So, yeah, this scene never really sat right with me.

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, overall, City of Death remains one of the great classics of its era, and it sees Tom Baker in wonderful, comedic form and Lalla Ward and the supporting cast all give wonderful performances. The script is also very funny and cleverly written despite one or two plot holes here and there and Dudley Simpson again proviides a fine score as the show's regular composer. So, without a doubt City of Death remains one of the great classics of the show's era and well worth watching again and again.

So, I will rate it:

10 out of 10

So, that's it for now guys and I will be back soon with another post next month. 

Until then, its bye bye for now!

Top 5 Worst Blake's 7 Episodes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, as its Easter time, I thought I would do another post and I did a top 10 best Blake's 7 episodes list a few years ago, so figured I would do a list of some of the worst episodes of the series and the show did have some clangers among the good ones. 

So, with that said, let's take a look at some of the worst episodes from this sci-fi classic show.

5. The Web (Series 1)

So, at No.5 is this clunker from the first series, The Web, which is the first really naff episode of the show in general imho. In the episode, Cally (Jan Chappell) the sole telepath of the crew, comes under a strange influence, which soon traps the Liberator (Blake's ship) in a large web. So, Blake (Gareth Thomas) and Avon (Paul Darrow) teleport down to the planet surface and discover the race, the Lost, are descendants of Cally's people, the Auron, however they the Lost in return for freeing the Liberator, want power cells, but its soon revealed they want them to destroy a race they also created on the planet, the Decima.

So, this is overall a pretty dull episode with some boring enemies and also some clunky aliens in the Decmia, who are small people running round in weird outfits. Its poorly paced and frankly boring but to be fair the idea of Cally being taken is not a bad one and its something they would expxlore later in the series again although not in a satisfactory way either but nonethless it does knock the viewer off initially when she does turn on them at first. But the execution of this episode overall doesn't work and its climactic scene of the Decima destroying their creators is just messy and also unpleasant to watch as it is silly.

However despite it all. there is still worse to go on the list but The Web certainly deserves its place on here as its series 1's lowest point.

4. Voice From The Past (Series 2)

At No.4 is this one from the second series, which is an intriguing concept but ultimately its poorly executed as Blake's mind comes under control from a mysterious force and he relives harrowing memories of his mind conditioning after his initial capture by the Federation. Blake also begins acting strangely as a result of this and changes course to a different planet and ropes Villa into believing the others plot against him, so he has them locked away. Blake then soon meets with a group led by Ven Glynd, who previously had him convicted but now claims he is a defector. However there is also another man present, wearing a mask and heavinly bandaged up named Shivan, who is soon revealed to be a familiar face...

So, yeah this episode had potential but sadly it was squandered by including the supporting characters, all of whom are pretty dull and uninteresting and of course (SPOILER!!!) we find out that the masked man, Shivan is none other than Travis himself and his reveal while a slight surprise, it shows the writers were starting to get pretty desparate with what to do with Travis's character. It also highlights how Villa is easily misled and again its getting a bit predictable that they pick on him to manipulate the situation. However, it also has to be said that given Travis's blind hatred for Blake, its funny how he doesn't try and kill him as soon as he sees him! 

Anyway, so Voice from the past, is definitely a poor episode from the series and one that's really not worth bothering with any time soon for sure and well worth on the list.

3. Weapon (Series 2)

At No 3 is another clunker from Series 2 (which had a fair few!) which involves the Federation's interest (or rather Servalan's) in a powerful weapon called IMIPAK, which can kill someone by placing a target on them and after kill them from any distance up to 1 million miles away. In the episode, we also get the return of Travis, who helps Servalan in trying to get the weapon but she also has clone of Blake created to trick its creator, Coser (John Bennett) into buying it from him. 

So, yeah this episode really is very dull and the supporting characters of Coser and Rashel are both as uninteresting as Blake's own clone happens to be also! The idea of the weapon itself is somewhat interesting and there is a fun moment where we see Servalan blatantly target everyone in sight around here including Travis! The recasting of Travis also falls flat here as Brian Croucher takes over in this episode from Stephen Grief, who was far better in the role and his back and forths with Jacquline Pearce come off as less entertaining and more hollow. 

So, overall, Weapon is definitely a weak episode in the series and one that is well worth skipping if you plan to revisit the show.

2. Sand (Series 4)

So, the runner-up here is this crapper from the fourth series, Sand, which would be more suited in a Mills and Boon love novel than an episode of Blake's 7. However, unfortunately that is what we get here as Liberator or rather Scorpio crew member, Tarrant (Steven Spacey who was in Series 3 and 4 and replaced Gareth Thomas in those series) has a somewhat romantic encounter with Servalan on an alien planet where the sand is deadly and they are trapped in a bunker and must find a way to survive it.

This really is a god awful episode from the series and its slapped own love fest between Servalan and Tarrant is frankly nauseating and simply doesn't work as Servalan had a hankering for Avon for a while but now turns her attentions to Tarrant. Its admittedly an intriguing idea to have the sand as a hostile lifeform and how unlikely the two of them are together in this situation but it doesn't help relieve the tedium of this episode overall. 

So, for me this is certainly one of the worst Blake's 7 episodes with the series penchant for romance permeating its way into the show from Series 3 onward, it culminates in one of its worst episodes right here in Sand. 

So, the worst episode of Blake's 7 is....

1. The Keeper (Series 2)

Yep, at No.1 is this unappealing turd (sorry!) of an episode from Series 2, The Keeper where Blake and his crew head to the planet Goth, to try and find the location of the "keeper" who knows the location of Star One, the control centre of the Federation, which Blake is desparate to destroy. On the planet however, we find the natives are a medieval type race, who's leader has Jenna be his consort, Vila his new jester (replacing the old one temporarily who plays a pivotal part later on in all this). Its pretty tedious all round really! However, one thing this episode does have going for it is how Avon thinks he has destroyed Travis by blowing up a ship he thinks Travis is on, only to find out later he wasn't! So, it does allow for a decent exchange between Blake and Avon, when Avon left him stranded temporarily on Goth while Avon took care of Travis and Blake angrily asks "Where the hell where you???!" and Avon tells him "We just got Travis for you!!" and Blake in disbelief says "What???". 

This is really bottom of the barrel stuff as far as Blake's 7 episodes go as far as I am concerned as its nothing but filler before Series 2 signficantly better finale, Star One and that's pretty much its worth offense that we need to sit through this BEFORE we can get to it. What is worse is that the concept of how the location of Star One is revealed could have been handled so much better than they did here, where in the end the Jester character on Goth, eventually reveals it in a conditioned memory. The episode while it does make good use of Jenna, most of the others are completely wasted in this story.

So, in the end, The Keeper is a waste of 50 minutes of television and its a pity they didn't skip this one or simply do a rewrite into something better, either way this is the worst episode in Blake's 7.

So, that's it for this one folks, hope you enjoyed it and have a good Easter (and plenty of eggs!).

Until the next one, its bye for now!  

 

Demon's Souls Remake Review (Revisited)

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, guys figured I would get one more post into the blog before the end of the month to make up for a lack of posting for the first two months of 2025. So, here I will revisit my initial review of the Demon's Souls remake, which was the launch game for the standard PS5.

So, after four years or so, let's take another look at this remake of the classic original and see how it fairs.

And the usual warning is coming up...

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY

So to save time on me typing the story synopsis, here's a decent size snippet of it from Wikipedia

"In ancient times, Boletaria was attacked by a being called the Old One due to the abuse of forbidden Soul Art magic, with the world being almost lost in a magical "Deep Fog" filled with soul-eating demons. The Old One was eventually lulled into slumber, saving Boletaria and populating the damaged world with special humans called Monumentals. In the game's present, Boletaria's ruler King Allant has restored Soul Arts and consequently awoken the Old One and its demon army within the fog. Boletaria is now being consumed by demons, with those humans without souls turning into insane monsters. Players take the role of an adventurer entering the fog engulfing Boletaria. After being killed, the player wakes up in the Nexus and meets a benevolent demon called the Maiden in Black, as well as various other characters.

Now bound to the Nexus until the Old One is returned to slumber, the player travels to five regions of Boletaria, killing the powerful demons controlling those areas and absorbing their souls to increase their power so they can face King Allant".

THOUGHTS

Well, just after over four years from its initial release, the Demon's Souls remake remains an excellent update to the original PS3 classic game, which sees the game get an impressive visual overhaul with 4K graphics thanks to the PS5's enhanced graphics. However, the gameplay mechanics of the game also remain faithful to the original game too and are also keeping in with the spirit of the other Souls games. In short, if you enjoyed the other Souls games, then you are sure to enjoy this update remake also as the developers, Bluepoint (who also remade the acclaimed RPG, Shadow of the Colossus) did a fantastic job here.

GAMEPLAY

Now this section will be quite big of course and I will split it as usual like my other game reviews into sub-sections below.

MOVEMENT

Starting with movement, the game follows much the same system as the Souls games that succeed it with a third person perspective view that can be rotated 360 degrees to see the character face on or from behind. The player can also do the usual actions such as attack, run, sprint, walk (of course!) and in addition that was never included in the other Souls games, your character can even climb up ledges! This was expanded a little in the remake as at certain points in the game, your character can vault over walls although this is pretty limited in its use. One thing your charatcer cannot do however is jump, which is a bit bizarre but ah well, hey ho, this must come down to a limitation from the original game that was kept here.  

CHARACTER CLASSES AND STATS

Next is of course your character classes and stats, which are of course very important and have a big impact on your overall progression throughout the game. Starting with classes, you have 10 different types to choose from that include a warrior, knight, magician (sorcerer in the sequels), priest (cleric in the sequels), hunter and a wanderer and these can be either male or female. These classes will all have their own individual characteristics that are determined by their stats and these can be altered as you progress through the game and this will also grant them usage of different weapons, spells and other items in the game.

As for the stats, similar to the other Souls games you have a set number that are much the same that include vitality, endurance, strength, intelligence, luck, magic and faith. Vitality, endurance and strength are pretty much self-explanatory whereas other stats such as intelligence affect the amount of spells magic spells you can hold and the magic stat determines the power, which increases as you level up that stat itself. Faith is also much the same in that when you level it up you will gain access to more slots and it will boost the strength of offensive miracles or also increase the requirements needed to use these miracles.

There are also some additional stats that would feature in the other Souls game too such as luck, which boosts your item discovery from fallen enemies as you can increase it. And of course there is dexterity, which is used to handle certain weapons that requirement more refined skill to use such as spears, bows, halberds or katanas.

And before moving on, its worth mentioning of course that these stats are leveled via the NPC known as the Maiden in Black, who appears in the game's main hub, the Nexus, which I will mention in a bit.

WEAPONS

And this brings us onto weapons and there are plenty of weapons to be found in Demon's Souls just like in the other games in the series and some of these appear in the other Souls games too. And the remake largely keeps the original weapons intact with little new weapons added.

So, similar to the Dark Souls trilogy, you have different classes of weapons such as straight swords, large swords (which are the equivalent of great swords in the sequels) spears, hammers (including clubs I think), bows (including crossbows), katanas, daggers, curved swords (that inflict bleed damage) and axes. And these weapons all have varying requirements when it comes to strength and dexterity although I don't think they require intelligence or faith like some of them do in the Dark Souls trilogy.

There are also a selection of shields in the game too, which you character will use for defense and to block attacks (as you do with a shield!). Again there are different classes of shield such as small, standard and large with a mixture of wood, leather and metal shields with varying degrees of resistance and effectiveness for physical and elemental damage.

You can still of course use these weapons even if you do meet the requirements for them but it just means, like the DS trilogy you cannot use them effectively until you meet those requirements. However some of these weapons, especially weapons such as large swords, can be used if you meet the dexterity requirement for them and will allow to use them two-handed with most strength weapons proving most effective being held with two hands anyway.

As for the remake, they did add two new weapons which are the ritual blade and the reaper scythe as well as the hoplite shield. The ritual blade is a large axe (although it does look more like a large machete than anything else!) which can be found used by the skeletons in Shrine of Storms. The reaper scythe is a polearm weapon, similar to the great scythe in the other Souls games. Both of these weapons however cannot be upgraded.

ARMOUR

As for armour there is actually a surprisingly small amount of armour sets in the game with just 18 in total to be found and every class has their own individual set. The armour sets can range from very light for characters such as magicians and hunters to the more heavy sets worn by knights and priests. Again the weight factor of the sets will also impact on your equipment load as you will fat roll (i.e. roll slowly) if you are wearing a heavier and don't have sufficient endurance to wear it.

COMBAT

As for the combat again it is very similar to the following Souls games in that your character uses a mix of defense and offense when taking down enemies with a weapon and shield. You can also as a caster (mage or priest) use spells to take down enemies at range or use a bow or cross-bow to do the same. The game also introduces the parry and riposte system where you can use your shield deflect an enemy's attack and follow it up with a deadly finishing move and addition to this you can get behind enemies and backstab them.

The remake version of the game has enhanced versions of the riposte and backstab attacks, which are altogether a bit more brutal looking in their execution! However, these attacks actually remain faithful to the original take down methods of the original game.

THE NEXUS

And then we get to what is the game's central hub, which is known as the Nexus and is like Firelink Shrine in the sequels (or Majula in the Dark Souls II) where your character can level up their stats (via the Maiden in Black) talk to other non-playable characters (i.e. NPCs) and purchase items and upgrade weapons. The Nexus also features what appear to be five headstones that allow the player access to different worlds that are the main playable areas of the game but in order to access them you need to talk a specific NPC (the Monumental) to do so.

NON-PLAYABLE CHARACTERS (NPCs)

Then there are the NPCs, who like in the other Souls games can help your character along the way and offer different things such as the Nexus blacksmith, Boldwin, who can upgrade your weapons and purchase weapons and other items form. There is also another blacksmith, Ed, who does further weapon upgrades and can craft weapons from boss souls as well as upgrade unique weapons. There is also an NPC, Stockpile Thomas, who can store items and weapons for you if you become over-burdened with your equipment load and this can happen quite often in the game as you pick up items throughout. Then there are NPCs you can purchase spells or miracles from that you find as you travel through the worlds and you can also trade boss souls with them for additional spells/miracles.

Then of course we have the Maiden in Black, who levels up your character and she also plays a pinnacle role in the end of the game but I won't say much more than that! Plus I cannot forget to mention the one and only Patches, who features in just about EVERY Souls game (bar Dark Souls II that is!). Patches if you don't know is basically a sneaky and untrustworthy merchant, who will screw you over at any given opportunity but can later on sell you stuff that is of good use such as healing items, arrows and rings.  

CHARACTER AND WORLD TENDENCY

Another key aspect of the game is to do with your character and world tendencies.

Starting with character tendency, this affects your character directly based on your choices throughout the game to either help NPC's or kill them or invade online players and kill them. So, essentially you will have either a black or white tendency with the black tendency it reduces your health to 45% and your attack power is increased as an invading black phantom.  White tendency however will increase the player's attack power in Soul form and it will also increase your attack power as a blue phantom (i.e. where you assist other online players to fight bosses).

As for the world tendency, this directly affects the difficulty level of events that take place in the game's different worlds and are specific to that world. So, essentially if you stay in human form and keep dying then this will lead toward the world tendency turning black, which in turn strengthen enemies HP and attack power but they will end up dropping more souls when they die and you will have a better chance at obtaining rare items. Your character's maximum HP will reduce in Soul form also, which can makes thing very challenging indeed! There will also be more black phantoms of standard enemies that appear at different areas in that world as well to challenge you.

As for white world tendency, enemies will have less HP and attack power and will reduce the chance of dropping rare items but they should still provide health items when they are killed. Your attack power is also increased when in soul form and can go up in increments based on how white the world becomes.

SOUL AND BODY FORM

And this brings me onto the two different forms your player can take, which are soul and body form as both these forms have different effects on gameplay.

Starting with soul form, the player will have reduced health but they can as previously mentioned have more attack power in this form based on your world tendency as it will be more if it is white and less if black. They will also appear more ethereal than they would in body form and one benefit also is that they make no noise when they move around. When you are in body form however you will have full health but you will do less damage than in soul form and you will also make audible noise when you move.

ARCHSTONES

Another key aspect of the game are the archstones, which your character will use to travel between the different worlds and the Nexus and there are often more than one to be found in each world. Each world will begin with one each but as you defeat bosses, more will appear as you progress and they can allow you to checkpoint your progress in the worlds as you make your way through them. You can also use what is known as shards of archstone, that are the equivalent of your homeward bone from Dark Souls that can return you to the Nexus at any time.  

ENEMIES AND BOSSES

Moving onto the enemies there are is plenty of variety here with no shortage for your character to fight against that range from your low level scrubs that are the dreglings up to red eye knights. There are also some really annoying enemies called fat officials, who are appear in a couple of the worlds who armed with whips or axes and can throw fireballs at you. However in the remake, they decided to redesign the officials a bit by giving them warty skin! There are also plenty of monster/creature type enemies such as giant bugs, rockworms, gargoyles, man centipedes, storm beasts and of course your typical rabid dogs!

There are also hybrid-human enemies such as mind flayers, who are essentially octopus headed magicians that can deal out some pretty nasty damage, shadow lurkers, who are like ghostly spirits that deal out magic damage and of course we have armoured skeletons, who can really mess you up with their falchions (i.e. a curved sword that deal heavy bleed damage!). So there are certainly plenty of bad guys here to keep you on your toes and will test you throughout the game.

There are also another type of enemy in the game that appear as red phantoms and they can interrupt your progress at different times in the game. The phantoms will vary in challenge as you progress and their presence can also be affected by the world tendency of the game as they will often appear more if you have a black world tendency than white.

Boss wise there are plenty on display here and they of course will allow the player to regain their body form if they were in soul form when the boss is defeated. The bosses will of course drop a high number of souls as well as their own soul, which can be traded with the magician or priest NPC's for special spells/miracles. Bosses also come in different types such as humans and monsters and there is plenty of variety on display here in the game in that regard.

The bosses definitely vary in their challenge level and I have to say that most of them are pretty easy in comparison to the rest of the bosses found in the Dark Souls trilogy but some of them are pretty interesting in their design all the same.

RINGS

Then there are the rings in the game, which just like in the other Souls games, grant the character different abilities and resistances and they can equip two at a time. There are 26 rings in total in the game and as a few examples there is the Cling Ring, which can be used to boost your HP when you are in soul form and the regenerator ring, which slowly recovers your health over time. Other rings also include the Thief Ring, which enables you to become harder for enemies to detect, Ring of Magical Sharpness, which boosts your magic power but also lowers your magic defense. Other rings also include the ring of flame resistance, which boosts your fire defence as well as the ring of gash resistance, that boosts your defence to bleed weapons. As for the last one I will mention is The Ring of Herculean Strength, which boosts your equipment load similar to Havel's Ring in the sequels.

WEAPON UPGRADE STONES

Next we have the stones used for upgrading weapons and there is a big variety of stones to be found throughout the game that all have different properties and can add various effects to weapons such as infuse them with fire, magic, bleed or poison.

There are too many to mention here to go through them all but the two primary types of stone you will use in the game are hardstone and sharpstone and they can fully upgrade your weapons from its base level up to +10. These types of stone however are the basic upgrade paths and will not add any additional elemental effects to weapons.

Starting with hardstone, this is used to upgrade weapons such as straight swords, axes, hammers, bows and even shields and they come in different varities that are shards, large shards, chunks and pure stone (maxes out the weapon to +10). So, basically hardstone would be used to mainly upgrade strength based weapons as opposed to dex based ones. As for sharpstone, this is used to upgrade weapons such as spears, curved swords, katanas, daggers and rapiers, which are all pretty much dexterity based weapons. Again similar to hardstone, sharpstone comes in varieties of shard, large shards, chunks and pure stone.   

CONSUMABLE SOULS AND ITEMS

And last of all for the gameplay section, I will mention a bit about the consumable items in the game as well as souls that you can collect throughout. To start with the consumable souls, these are often found on dead bodies and will range in the number of souls they give you from as little as 200 up to 10,000 souls. These are very handy for boosting your souls count when you might be low and want to purchase items or even uprgade weapons or level up.

As for the consumable items there are plenty also to be found in the game and primary ones are for healing your health but some can also be used to cure status ailments such as poison or toxicity. The healing items vary from the smallest, which are Crescent Moon Grass alway up to New Moon Grass, which completely restores your health. As for the status healing items there are three usable ones here that are Widow Lotus that cures the plague, Royal Lotus, which cures poison and Soldier Lotus that cures bleeding.

Other consumable featured also help restore your magic power and there are two such items that can do this that are Fresh Spice and Old Spice. Fresh Spice will only recover a small amount of your magic power whereas Old Space will recover a larger amount of it. These items can also be purchased from different NPC merchants in the game.

EQUIPMENT LOAD

And lastly in the gameplay section, I will mention more about equipment load as already mentioned, your character can become overburdened by the load that they carry as they pick up items throughout the game. However, you can offload equipment to the NPC at the Nexus called Stockpile Thomas, who will hold your equipment safely for you. However, in the remake, a neat change that has been added is if you are danger of being overburdened, the game will allow you to move any items that would do so to storage, so it can be retrieved at a later date. This is a nice change from the original's rather inconvenient way of forcing you to drop items to or leave them behind due to your equipment burden.

GRAPHICS

Finally moving onto the game's graphics, well its safe to say that the orignal Demon's Souls graphics were easily the most dated looking of all the Souls games, especially given as it was initially released on the PS3. However even by PS3 standards, the graphics are still a bit behind the times but I guess this might have come down to the budget limitations available to the developers at the time.  

However, this is not a problem in the remake as the graphics are simply stunning in their richness and detail as the environments all look fantastic as they have been given a huge 4K upgrade over the original's dated looks. In fact the game comes with two modes, a performance mode targetting 60fps and a native 4K mode, which runs at 30fps. Character models also look excellent too although I would still say their facial animations looks a bit weird an unnatural at times. Regardless of this though, they still look very impressive.

You also have access a number of visual filters that give the game a different look as the standard look of the game is pretty dark alot of the time, particularly in the Nexus. However, the visual filters allow players to make profiles for the game that appear more bright or vivid, which can prove useful especially in a darkly lit area in the game.

So, overall the visuals are very impressive in the remake and it does show off the PS5's graphics capapbilities very well indeed.

MUSIC

As for the music, the game features a pretty good score by Shunsuke Kida and it is largely very orchestral and features choral sections also very much like the Souls scores that would follow it but I would still say that the Dark Souls trilogy's music scores were far more memorable than this one here. Regardless of that though there are still some good themes here that include the themes for the bosses, Armour Spider, Tower Knight and my favourite is Maiden Astraea, which is quite different from the rest of score and is easily the real standout of the soundtrack.

As for the remake however, the score has been re-orchestrated by American composer, Bill Hemstapat, who recorded the score with a 75 piece orchestra. The remake score however doesn't bear a great deal of resemblance to the original although some themes do have a familiar sound to them but for the most part, the score is quite different to the original as it is more grandiose sounding in its orchestral arrangements. However, the score itself in the remake is still pretty good even if it lacks the charm of the original in some ways, there are some standout tracks such as the themes for King Allant, Maneaters, Fool's Idol and Maiden Astrea. So, it does vary from the original score but its still worth a listen.

FLAWS

As for the flaw, well yes the game does have some worth noting.

For startings is the concept of World Tendency, which if you are new to the game then its something that might trip you up as it did in my first playthrough of the original (which the save file got corrupted for, so I had to start a 2nd playthrough to finish the game!). And the main problem with this is if you stay in body form and keep dying, the world tendency will turn black as mentioned in my WT section and the enemies become stronger and harder to kill and your max health is reduced in soul form. So, this is a real pain in the asss if you get stuck in such as situation and it can also force to deal with an extra bunch of in-game invaders who also have more health! So, in short you really need to take care when you play this game at first and if in doubt, just stay in soul form to avoid this trap.

Something else that bugged me in the game was to do with how the Maiden in Black keeps changing her position every time you travel back to the Nexus and given it is a pretty big place, its easy to lose track of where she is! I mean one minute she's at the bottom of the stairs and the next she is right up the top where you can't see here without running around or she might sitting down in a crouched pose! So, I wish they would have limited the amount of positions she can move to when you travel back to the Nexus to make your life just that bit easier to find her and level up.

Another problem found was to do with the lack of archstones at times in the game, which can cause much frustration in certain areas, particularly in the Tower of Latria world, as I had found myself having to do a massive runback from the second archstone to try and progress through the swamp area and up the top. However, when I did this one time, I was killed en-route to the top by a gargoyle and another time I carelessly jumped off a lift taking me up, which meant I had to start all over again! So, the lack of archstones really does force you to be extra careful in these areas, which can also be pretty challenging.

Then there is of course the issue relating to the sheer amount of upgrade stones throughout the game as there simply too many to choose from and they are quite confusing in what some of them even do! In fact I think overall there are 16 different types of stone to be found in the game, which is too many if you have ask me and serve more to confuse the player than help them.

Another thing that might also be a big problem in the game is that there is no forgiveness system like there is in the Dark Souls games, where you can be pardoned for your sins if your accidentally attack an NPC either in the Nexus or in the worlds. And if you make this mistake that means you are pretty much scuppered with dealing with that NPC, so if you e.g. unwittingly attack the magician, Freke, then he will refuse to deal with you and will try and kill you instead, leaving you no choice but to kill him. So, if you are a mage then that's you pretty much screwed!

UPDATE TO LAST PARAGRAPH: This is actually not the case in the remake, as a seek forgiveness option was added to this new version of the game, where you can select different options for character custimisation at a statue found in the Nexus. So, yeah, this previous paragraph while true to the original, is no longer relevant to the remake.

I also noticed in the game that there are certain weapons that cannot be upgraded, which I found a bit annoying such as the crossbows and certain shields like the leather ones. Now I can sort of see the point of not necessarily wanting to upgrade a leather shield but a crossbow?! I mean come on! A crossbow can be a pretty essential weapon in the Souls series and to not allow it to be upgraded is frankly ridiculous! So, I'm not sure what the game director, Hidetaka Miyazaki's logic was here when he made these upgrade decisions in this game.   

Another issue I have, which is specific to the remake version is to do with killing the crystal lizards in an area, because in the original game and other Souls games you could just reload the game from the menu and the crystal lizards would reappear. However, in the remake, you cannot do that here as you need to travel back to the area to reset it, so you can kill the crystal lizards you missed. This is an annoying change especially when it comes to having to kill the surrounding enemies over and over again and probably one of the poorest changes in the remake.

Another remake issue is to do with the new recording of the NPC dialogue, which has been altered somewhat and feels like its lacking some of the character and personality in the original. A prime example of this is the character, Boldwin the blacksmith at the Nexus, who was a grumpy Scotsman in the original game but here they've made him more amicable sounding. So, instead of his grumpy sign off of "You come back alive! I need your business!" its now "Do come back alive. I need your business" which makes him sound more submissive and wishy washy!

Another example of this comes in the form of needlessly changing the dialogue from the original with the worst offender being the Maiden in Black's dialogue when you finish leveling up your character. And in the original, the Maiden at this point would ask "Art thou done?" but they changed it to "Art thou finished?" in the remake! Now, this to me is totally pointless and adds nothing to the game whatsoever other than maybe annoy or irk some fans of the game, who would also feel these choices are largely pointless.

Another issue and one of the more disappointing aspects of the game is how just easy most of the bosses in the game are to defeat. I mean the final boss of the game, King Allant, who is essentially a large grub is ridiculously easy as you can even just finish him off with magic spells without even going anywhere near him! There are still a few tricky bosses in the game but to finish it all off with a "boss" that has zero challenge to him, is pretty disappointing. Although at least with the remake, they kept the difficulty level quite consistent with the original game overall.

WARNING: THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH HAS SPOILERS RELATING TO THE END OF THE GAME.

Last of all is an issue to do with the end of the game where after you defeat the second to last boss, King Allant, however after you do this you can no longer upgrade your stats via the maiden anymore, as she then grabs you and takes you underneath the Nexus to the Old One. So, by doing this, you are locked out of upgrading your character stats anymore, despite getting over 100,000 souls for killing Allant, you are denied the chance to do so and now need to wait to begin the new game plus before upgrading again, which really sucks. This also remains one of the more disappointing decisions in the remake, that they didn't amend this and allow your levelling up even after the Maiden takes you below, but nope(!) they decided to stick to the original game's daft decision for this, which was a big mistake imho but oh well!

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So to finally sum up, Demon's Souls Remake is an excellent update to the original game and its enhanced, stunning visuals really show off the PS5's graphical abilities. The gameplay also remains as enjoyable as the original and with a few tweaks here and there, it gives the game a more modern feel to its combat, which is a good thing.

There are a few issues however with the gameplay here and there and the sound effects and some changes to the voice acting are a bit annoying and disappointing in places. However all that aside, Demon's Souls is still an excellent upgrade to the original game and if you own a PS5, then its certainly worth a look to anyone, who fancies giving the Souls games a try.

So, I will give Demon's Souls remake a rating of:

9 out of 10

Right, that's it for now guys and I will be back in April for more posts.

Until then bye for now and Umbasa!