After playing this the first time, I thought this was MUCH worse than Dark Souls, and now after playing through it again on New Game +. I think it is MUCH worse than Dark Souls, but still p good actually :)
Its a pretty solid start to a good ass series, still having good combat and usually really solid level design
However you can absolutely feel this game being the first of its kind, the bosses are EXCEPTIONALLY weak for the most part, especially after playing games like dark souls 3 and bloodborne. Every boss is either way too easy or way too annoying, with only around a couple being any good or serving a real challenge, sure its the first game but on average it might have the worst bosses. The boss runbacks are also absolute garbage, areas do not have checkpoints in demon souls, and some levels do not have ANY shortcuts that mean anything, some runbacks are absolutely unacceptable and for this playthrough I started cheating by quitting out of the game fast just so I did not have to deal with like 3 of the runbacks (idc if its cheating its not fun). It also does not help that every time you die, you lose half your health and pretty much cannot have your full health bar as a human because when you die, the world tendency gets worse and the game gets 10 times harder. Its a really badly explained mechanic that sounds cool in concept but just seems counterintuitive with the whole human mechanic.
I also think some of the areas are just SEVERE blocks to funtown, especially the depraved chasm in the valley of defilement being one of the worst areas in soulsborne with worse enemy spam than dark souls 2 and terrible level design. You can definitely feel this being the first souls game because of stuff like this, but despite its flaws theres something about this game that makes it sooooo easy to replay. The more segmented and open approach and very short length in comparison gives this game a lot of replay value, and just like the other souls games, making your build and becoming stronger is just inherently satisfying.
Overall a solid start to the series, with mostly great level design and the same very solid gameplay souls is known for alongside being very replayable. But its absolutely one of the weakest in the series and can be sooooo frustrating despite it easily being the easiest souls game overall. Solid/Good game for sure, but I def respect it way more than I like it
Its a pretty solid start to a good ass series, still having good combat and usually really solid level design
However you can absolutely feel this game being the first of its kind, the bosses are EXCEPTIONALLY weak for the most part, especially after playing games like dark souls 3 and bloodborne. Every boss is either way too easy or way too annoying, with only around a couple being any good or serving a real challenge, sure its the first game but on average it might have the worst bosses. The boss runbacks are also absolute garbage, areas do not have checkpoints in demon souls, and some levels do not have ANY shortcuts that mean anything, some runbacks are absolutely unacceptable and for this playthrough I started cheating by quitting out of the game fast just so I did not have to deal with like 3 of the runbacks (idc if its cheating its not fun). It also does not help that every time you die, you lose half your health and pretty much cannot have your full health bar as a human because when you die, the world tendency gets worse and the game gets 10 times harder. Its a really badly explained mechanic that sounds cool in concept but just seems counterintuitive with the whole human mechanic.
I also think some of the areas are just SEVERE blocks to funtown, especially the depraved chasm in the valley of defilement being one of the worst areas in soulsborne with worse enemy spam than dark souls 2 and terrible level design. You can definitely feel this being the first souls game because of stuff like this, but despite its flaws theres something about this game that makes it sooooo easy to replay. The more segmented and open approach and very short length in comparison gives this game a lot of replay value, and just like the other souls games, making your build and becoming stronger is just inherently satisfying.
Overall a solid start to the series, with mostly great level design and the same very solid gameplay souls is known for alongside being very replayable. But its absolutely one of the weakest in the series and can be sooooo frustrating despite it easily being the easiest souls game overall. Solid/Good game for sure, but I def respect it way more than I like it