The original Game Boy celebrated its 30th anniversary this past weekend. Amongst all the fanfare and adulation heaped upon the handheld across social media and the web, some shared visions of modern games on the decades-old device.
One of those fans was Christopher Pariano, an artist from North Carolina. Putting his adept (and killer) pixelart skills to work, Pariano imagined what From Software’s Demon’s Souls would have looked like had it launched on the Game Boy instead of the PlayStation 3.
Including the game’s iconic splash screen, the 4-color tribute also showcases the game’s character-leveling screen, a confrontation with the intimidating Phalanx boss, and a dialogue screen recreating the player’s interaction with Maiden Astraea in Stage 5-3.
Happy 30th, #gameboy ! Here’s my Demon’s Souls demake in all it’s 4 color glory! #pixelart#retro#gamedev#gameboy30thpic.twitter.com/oH3mY7YWfp
— Christopher Pariano (@ChrisPariano) April 22, 2019
However, this isn’t the first time Pariano has reimagined scenes of From’s Souls series in pixelart form. He has previously recreated sequences from Dark Souls as a “demake” for the Game Boy Color. These include scenes of Oscar, Knight of Astora and the formidable Asylum Demon.
Prints of Pariano’s Dark Souls art are currently available on his Society 6 storefront.
In the years since its release, Demon’s Souls has become a cult classic for many masocore and ARPG players. Spawning the highly-popular and successful “Souls-like” subgenre, fans of the game have clamored for its return for more than a decade.
While the game’s director, Hidetaka Miyazaki, has remained relatively non-commital on the issue, he has said that Sony would ultimately be the ones signing off on the project.
Speaking with GameInformer earlier this year in preparation for the release of From’s latest Souls-like, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Miyazaki said:
But I understand there are many users and many players and fans out there who really love Demon’s, so if that’s something they could accomplish with a studio that loved the work, then yeah, I’d be okay with that.
Regardless of what happens with Demon’s Souls, it’s evident that the game still holds a spot in the hearts of fans. Fantastic artistic tributes like Pariano’s are a testament to that.
Header image source: Chris Pariano (Twitter)
