It's safe to say that Dark Souls III is a visual masterpiece. Sure, the engine can't always keep up, but everything else about the game - the enemy designs, the environments, the particle effects, the animation - looks absolutely gorgeous. If this third game is indeed the final game in the series, then From Software has definitely sent its action-RPG franchise off on a high note.
Of course, without the power of the current generation of consoles, Dark Souls III wouldn't look nearly as good. Just look at the jump from the original game to Dark Souls III - the two games' art style may be similar, but that's about it.
It begs the question: what if From Software had tried to make Dark Souls years earlier? Most U.S. gamers didn't even know about the studio until the PlayStation 3 exclusive Demon's Souls, and that was back in 2009 - so what would have happened if Dark Souls had launched 20 years earlier?
Well, we may actually have an answer. "Dark Souls 3 - 1996 Version" by YouTuber veselekov may not recreate any specific moment from the latest game in the series, but it does offer an intriguing glimpse of what could have been had From Software released Dark Souls on the original PlayStation:
It's not all that hard to imagine Dark Souls as a PS1-era survival horror game. With a camera straight out of classic Resident Evil, the video almost makes it seem like Dark Souls could have actually worked in such a radically different form, even if it's a far cry from the series that fans are familiar with.
What's funny is that there's already a PlayStation version of Dark Souls - it's just called King's Field. From Software's first foray into brutally difficult action-RPGs was actually a first-person game akin to The Elder Scrolls, and it was only released in Japan. Sure, it may not look like anything From Software's published over the past decade, but there's no denying that the Dark Souls DNA is there.
Either way, it's safe to assume that most fans are happy with what Dark Souls is like now. The original PlayStation was one of the best consoles ever, but it's hard to go back to Sony's older hardware after playing through something as pretty as Dark Souls III.
For more on From Software's latest, check out our in-depth Dark Souls III coverage hub.
