When I went into this, I was led to believe this was the easiest one. I do not agree with that horseshit. 50/50 slog and fun. If Dark Souls 1 is a gem and 3 is that same jewel, polished and sparkling, then Demon's Souls is the rough, scuffed, unrefined ore in the vein. I can't believe I played this one last. All the quality of life improvements and the tender mercies of modern technology are so much vapor. Frame rate stutters and the brutal, lengthy gauntlets nearly did me in at the end of my road. (The run to the False King had me completely tilted.) I didn't have to use magic or do serious grinding in any of the other titles and it felt absolutely necessary here. Without Heal magic, I'd have bellyflopped for sure. I don't think there's much reason to go back and play this one unless you've declared your undying love for Fromsoft. You can see the DNA of all the other games swimming in this primordial ooze and that's reason enough to go for it. But, after switching publishers from Atlus to Bandai Namco, they essentially redid it and drastically improved with Dark Souls. This one was begging for a remake and I can only assume the PS5 is doing the title justice.