Yeah, when I first played Demon’s Souls and especially the first Dark Souls it felt more like a successor to the NES Zelda games than anything. Punishing and placing high expectations on the player, but also giving them great freedom.

I know a lot of people complain about being forced to backtrack through early game areas in DaS1 but I pretty much agree with you completely. To some it may seem like it just adds unnecessary playtime but they’re missing out on what it added to the immersiveness of the game. I feel like in 2 and 3 the areas of the…

Tendency was horribly counter-intuitive and is the one thing from Demon’s Souls I’m glad they never brought back. OK, one of two things, the other being Item Load. Still remember grabbing the Brushwood Armor at the bottom of that tower and having to chuck half my inventory just to be able to carry it.

What I really miss is this bad boy.

Praise the Sun? I think you mean ‘Umbasa’?

And cartwheeling naked.

Yeah, destroying those “cakes” in Burgertown was too much fun.

Only legit use for that powered up tornado spin-slash move you learned later in the game.

Funnily enough one of the quests (Yoel/Yuria) requires you to die 20 times so to get everything you literally have to git bad.

If we’re including hostile NPC then my vote easily goes to the gank squad at the top of Grand Archives. THEY EVEN HEAL.

Yup. The skelly wheels are back too, but they and the basilisks are both shadows of their former selves. I honestly miss how stupid those enemies were in Dark Souls 1.

Lure one of them with a bow from near the ladder.

But in their defense that bite grab is probably the most badass attack animation in all of Souls. Also muh Berserk.

They’re severely nerfed since Dark Souls. The curse meter was like 1/3rd the size in that game if you didn’t have a lot of humanity stocked up, and the first place you encounter them drops you into a hole full of them.

I think those guys are some of the better designed enemies in the game along with the Jailers due to how they force you to think about the fight differently. The Jailers force you to be stealthy and sneak up behind them or use hit-and-run, and with those Pyromancer demon things you really need to think about cover and…

They’re about equal in my opinion, the boss in Smouldering Lake is a little easier than Sullyvahn. Also once you get to the bottom of Irithyll dungeon and away from the Jailers it gets a bit easier.

At least the Mimics this time don’t vacuum you into their mouths from the other side of the room when you attack them.

There’s actually a third one. It’s worth killing them too if you can pull one at a time through the gate.

Fun fact: Those enemies are called Ghru. The big guys with the tree trunks and the homing magic are Elder Ghru, which are evidently supposed to be the elite mooks of that area, but I’d definitely rather deal with those guys than the unarmed jump-spamming Ghru.

Yeah those are definitely the worst enemies in the game. Like if you try to hit them more than once you’re probably going to get jumped on because that move has super armor for no reason. And if you don’t wail on them you have to watch out for that damn grab.