Demon's Souls had much better combat the hits were registered extremely well, as well as the hit detection, hitboxes had a 1:1 ratio, which were all way off in DS 3 and DS 3's actual combat is just a braindead R-1 spamfest for the most part. As for the level design, I much preferred the level design in Demon's Souls and that hub system was really cool. I do agree with you somewhat in terms of difficulty, my first playthrough of DS 1 I had quite a lot of trouble in a few areas, replayed it recently and smashed through it with ease, regardless they aren't hard games at all, but respect your skill, dying in DS 3 meant nothing, there were bonfires scattered all over the place which is another thing that disappointed me heavily.
No it wasn't, the hit reg is pretty bad.
This is funny actually. Demons souls, bloodborne and dark souls 3 have no poise. In all three of these games you can easily get by through r1 spam. Difference is that demons souls doesn't have bloodborne and dark souls 3 mechanics.
You can stun lock a good amount of the humanoid bosses in demons souls and hyper armor is non-existent in demons souls. You can be at the end of the animation for a hit and an enemies attack will cancel yours.
I don't give a fuck about the hubs. I actually believe that the focus on hubs that every souls game except dark souls 1 has is a problem. I do not want to constantly go back to the nexus/majula/ firelink shrine/hunters dream to level up and upgrade, I'd rather do it on the fly. The worst thing is that farming becomes a nuisance in demons souls because you'll always have to go back to the nexus and then go back to the location you want.
Same for the annoying healing system that dark souls improved. You don't know how trivial the game becomes when you can get 99 full moon grass.
Also the bonfire system was better than the use of arch stones. Demons souls level design is linear in a way that I don't like. Most levels start at a bonfire and expect you to directly follow a line to a boss. There are Few shortcuts to be found and every boss must be beat. There are only 2 great worlds in demons souls. Stonefang Tunnel and Boletarian palace. Tower of Latria is very good depending on the Ai's behavior.
Valley of poo poo and shrine of storms end up being pretty bad. They're both clusterfucks of poor mechanics and poor bosses. I much prefer the way world design and level design is handled in dark souls 1.
I Like how I'm able to ignore or skip content at my leisure and I much prefer the vertical level design that connects different areas together over whatever demons souls had.
Even the world tendency system that is supposed to reward the player if they don't die much or punish if they die too much is broken as all hell.
The upgrade system is ridiculous in the amount of items needed to just fully upgrade a weapon even though every upgrade item is rare and soulbrandt, Demonbrandt and northern regalia are better than every single weapon in the game.
Magic is also more broken than every single souls game and I thought dark souls 1 magic was broken.
Demon's souls ends up being a rather weird game.
