After playing bloodborne and dark souls 3, playing the oldest soul game sounded meh to me. But I was determined enough to see every souls game so I played. And I am glad to say I am really happy for giving this decision.
Why? Because this game still have exclusive things that no souls game ever did it, so it's still feels fresh somehow. But of course with their first time, there is unfortunate shortcomings as well.
I will only talk about differences compared to the souls games because of that you will not understand some of the things that I will say if you haven't played the game.
World
First I thought world is kind of disappointing, because it was too straight, yeah you can select which world to start but every world looked like straight ways to me unfortunately, but then I realized oh shit. This game's world is actually massive but condensed.
What I mean by saying this is, there is a surprise in every corner of this game. Not just that, game does every step so naturally that you don't even realize.
First you see the which kind of world you are in, then you see which kind of enemies in it then you see how the game combines the both beautifully. What I mean is for example you are in cave, what do you expect? Some miners and usual grotesque monsters right? But as you go more deeper and more deeper, game evolves and changes the cave area to be an volcanic area, then the enemies become more volcanic and rock like, then you go even deeper in and you find an ancient area that holds scary boss like ancient monsters.
Now did you get what I mean? Game evolves and shows a different part of the world in every. Step. Of. The. Way. and you really feel the world building and immersion with this one, once you feel that, you realize actually how massive the game is. Because it keeps changing with every progress.
I can confidently say this game have god level world building in it. It's feel so natural that even tho I haven't played every souls game, this game feels more superb then the ones that I have played in this area. Because it "evolves"
Also tower of latria could be the best area I had ever experienced in a souls game. I am not kidding about it.
Gameplay and Challenge
After playing older games, when you come back to this you kind of feel dumbfounded. Because it's slow and really heavy. You can make this more bearable with equipping less heavy equipment and using a ring that gives you an ability to carry more weight but you still feel the heavy weight of it. I felt kind of not sure about this situation but then I realized it is not that important anyway in the end. Why?
Because this game acts a bit more puzzle like. Rather than making your character more reactive for action, you should consider how to act in that area, and not forget PATIENT IS THE KEY maybe even more with this title, because of it's puzzle nature.
For example there is an area with poisonous water that slows your movement also it does have enemies that can move fast in it so then you should use ranged equipment to kill them before they get to you, or there is a area that have enemies that have unkillable spirits in it, so you have to find the necromancer to kill them, not just that bosses are the same way. Every bosses require a different puzzle strategy to solve.
Of course every souls game does this to an extent but demon's souls is the one that tries the most with giving every bosses and areas some uniqueness and never repeats that one thing again. I really find this awesome. Because the ones that I played mostly changed their boss attack patterns and timings, but didn't felt entirely different.
I still can't forget about the maiden astrea obliteration fight or mantra ray super sword moment, or managing to force tower knight fall to his knees, or punching finale boss to death or playing hide and seek from a blind boss. No souls game ever manage to replicate these moments for me.
Also if you are crying about there is too much puzzle bosses rather than spam dodge bosses like every other damn souls game, demon's souls is not for you. Like I said it's focus is not about being full reactive it's about cautious counter acting.
Unfortunately it's not a complete win, because I felt like they couldn't balance some things right in this game.
What I mean is, when it comes to some bosses, some of them stays too passive and you can slash them to the death and some bosses are too much aggressive so it forces you to stay a bit too much defensive. There could be a better midpoint I think.
Also not just that there is one unfortunate thing you can carry near infinite of healing items. So, near the endgame no amount of challenge can stop you at that point and I found this a damn shame in this beautiful game... (At least dark souls fixes that, but bloodborne have the same problem for some reason...)
Unfinishness
Now everybody knows that snow area cut at this point right? But I feel like it's not that big of a problem. The bigger problem is, in every world's archdemon area doesn't have it's own fleshed out finale level and I find this kinda disappointing. Most of the time final boss area is so desolate that you can practically run to it's archdemon boss without any challenge. I don't know if this comes from the unfinishness of this game but this kinda bothered me, so this reason and balancing reason I can't give 5/5 even tho part of my heart cries to give it...
Why? Because this game still have exclusive things that no souls game ever did it, so it's still feels fresh somehow. But of course with their first time, there is unfortunate shortcomings as well.
I will only talk about differences compared to the souls games because of that you will not understand some of the things that I will say if you haven't played the game.
World
First I thought world is kind of disappointing, because it was too straight, yeah you can select which world to start but every world looked like straight ways to me unfortunately, but then I realized oh shit. This game's world is actually massive but condensed.
What I mean by saying this is, there is a surprise in every corner of this game. Not just that, game does every step so naturally that you don't even realize.
First you see the which kind of world you are in, then you see which kind of enemies in it then you see how the game combines the both beautifully. What I mean is for example you are in cave, what do you expect? Some miners and usual grotesque monsters right? But as you go more deeper and more deeper, game evolves and changes the cave area to be an volcanic area, then the enemies become more volcanic and rock like, then you go even deeper in and you find an ancient area that holds scary boss like ancient monsters.
Now did you get what I mean? Game evolves and shows a different part of the world in every. Step. Of. The. Way. and you really feel the world building and immersion with this one, once you feel that, you realize actually how massive the game is. Because it keeps changing with every progress.
I can confidently say this game have god level world building in it. It's feel so natural that even tho I haven't played every souls game, this game feels more superb then the ones that I have played in this area. Because it "evolves"
Also tower of latria could be the best area I had ever experienced in a souls game. I am not kidding about it.
Gameplay and Challenge
After playing older games, when you come back to this you kind of feel dumbfounded. Because it's slow and really heavy. You can make this more bearable with equipping less heavy equipment and using a ring that gives you an ability to carry more weight but you still feel the heavy weight of it. I felt kind of not sure about this situation but then I realized it is not that important anyway in the end. Why?
Because this game acts a bit more puzzle like. Rather than making your character more reactive for action, you should consider how to act in that area, and not forget PATIENT IS THE KEY maybe even more with this title, because of it's puzzle nature.
For example there is an area with poisonous water that slows your movement also it does have enemies that can move fast in it so then you should use ranged equipment to kill them before they get to you, or there is a area that have enemies that have unkillable spirits in it, so you have to find the necromancer to kill them, not just that bosses are the same way. Every bosses require a different puzzle strategy to solve.
Of course every souls game does this to an extent but demon's souls is the one that tries the most with giving every bosses and areas some uniqueness and never repeats that one thing again. I really find this awesome. Because the ones that I played mostly changed their boss attack patterns and timings, but didn't felt entirely different.
I still can't forget about the maiden astrea obliteration fight or mantra ray super sword moment, or managing to force tower knight fall to his knees, or punching finale boss to death or playing hide and seek from a blind boss. No souls game ever manage to replicate these moments for me.
Also if you are crying about there is too much puzzle bosses rather than spam dodge bosses like every other damn souls game, demon's souls is not for you. Like I said it's focus is not about being full reactive it's about cautious counter acting.
Unfortunately it's not a complete win, because I felt like they couldn't balance some things right in this game.
What I mean is, when it comes to some bosses, some of them stays too passive and you can slash them to the death and some bosses are too much aggressive so it forces you to stay a bit too much defensive. There could be a better midpoint I think.
Also not just that there is one unfortunate thing you can carry near infinite of healing items. So, near the endgame no amount of challenge can stop you at that point and I found this a damn shame in this beautiful game... (At least dark souls fixes that, but bloodborne have the same problem for some reason...)
Unfinishness
Now everybody knows that snow area cut at this point right? But I feel like it's not that big of a problem. The bigger problem is, in every world's archdemon area doesn't have it's own fleshed out finale level and I find this kinda disappointing. Most of the time final boss area is so desolate that you can practically run to it's archdemon boss without any challenge. I don't know if this comes from the unfinishness of this game but this kinda bothered me, so this reason and balancing reason I can't give 5/5 even tho part of my heart cries to give it...