Firstly, this is what I have done thus far (I haven't had a ton of time to play yet, will this weekend):
Finished Boletaria Castle area up to the blob phalanx monster, then returned to collect items and discovered that the area keeps going, I have now worked across a bridge under watch of a small dragon and have come to face a giant steel clad monster something like the Iron Golem. I had just begun his fight before I had to work. I had just run through the ramparts and dispatched the archers, now I'm gonna try and figure the best way to fight him. I only have a halberd, bastard sword +1, and scimitar +2. I have some turpentine and a few bolts, but I'm pretty much stuck going melee for now.
I don't have any plans for this character, I just want to kind of get a feel for everything. I will stick to melee and possibly a few miracles, but I'm just not into magic, and I have heard magic is easy in this game anyhow. I chose the Paladin Knight class because it seemed to not have an equal in DKS, and he had badass starting gear.
Ok, here's a few observations just off the top off my head.
Backstab works in Demon Souls how I always thought it should have worked in DKS. Why did they change it? In Demon Souls it is fast and fluid, and feels like you are simply capitalizing on an opening with a powerful thrust, rather than the dopey "Where did he go??" animation in DKS.
Online play is way more active than xbox DKS. I see messages everywhere, and also they are 99% useful, whereas on the xbox DKS they are usually the inverse, 99% rubbish. The messages you can lay are also way more varied, but I can see why they toned this down. Messages pretty much hand walked me through the whole first area, warning me of every dangerous area. It works to well kind of. I might stop reading them.
I also see a ton of phantoms. I never bothered to watch phantoms on xbox DKS because they never seemed that useful, but I have gathered some good info from at least a couple so far in Demons, and had a few laughs too. I watched one phantom swat a wooden gate holding a ton of giant rock balls and get crushed, so I swatted it from the side and watched the balls roll down the ramparts and crush like 10 dredgelings, ha!
DKS presentation was of course better, but I am kind of liking the feel of Demons more. It has an oldy-worldly bubonic plague feel to it. The music is just great. It seems almost a little corny at first but it really gets me into it. So far the Demons story seems a little more straightforward, and for me that is better. I am just a dude hunting demons because they are up to no good. That's simple and I dig it.
The NPC's seem to be voiced by the same actors, no problem there because they are great. Some of them are obviously pretty much the same concept. It seems DKS is probably a more realized vision of what they wanted from the get go. Nothing wrong with that, I hope DKSII follows the same lines. This is a winning formula and any changes only need to be minimal.
Overall difficulty, despite my familiarity to the series, seems to be quite a bit less. Enemies do substantially less damage per hit, though certain tough enemies did give me some trouble and got me feeling pretty tense because you have to play through the whole map again.
I've only seen a small amount of the armors, but so far I like them more than DKS. There seems to be more varieties of plate and metal armors, which I always wanted in DKS.
HP being halved while in phantom form would seem brutal, but the enemy mobs are way easier. Perhaps if I was brand new this would be different, I might be raging. As such, it is just like a reminder to me that when I do die I need to be more careful.
I like the Boletarian castle area more than DKS counterpart, the Undead Burg and Parish. I don't know exactly why, but if the whole game took place in a dark old castle like this I would be perfectly happy.
The blob phalanx monster wasn't hard to beat at all, but it was a hell of a lot of fun. I felt like a wolf, dividing the prey and then striking at the loners. The bridge sequences where you have to dash through huge mobs while the dragon is careening down at you was just awesome. I just wish the mobs were more deadly.
The difficulty in Demons vs Dark got me thinking about how I would like DKSII. I think the best approach is to have the base game be on par with DKS, but offer a difficulty for "experienced souls gamers" too. The lesser difficulty is by no means an easy mode, just the regular mode you would normally have, but I think most of us who are big time fans of the games would totally get off on an experienced mode where almost all hits are lethal or close. The margin for error in Demons is pretty big, especially with all the grass you get. DKS is definitely stiffer, but the fans of the series are going to need an even bigger challenge next time.
I both like the Nexus and dislike it. There is definitely something to be said for DKS contiguous world, but the Nexus kind of gives me more of an old school game feel, because I have to go through an entire level without respite. Overall I think the bonfires are smarter, but if they cut them down to just a few main ones, like fireshrink, parish, daughter of chaos, etc, it would be a better balance between the two.
Overall attack animations seem to be slightly faster, something I always wanted in DKS.
There is an actual tutorial and message center in the Nexus with all sorts of newbie tips. Also, when you are online, the game opens up with a brief summary of how online play works. People are scared of this in DKSII, and I was too, but its totally cool. I needed it just to get used to the new controller anyway. The boss at the end of the tutorial is ridiculous. I started a new game to try him twice, he crushed through my block and killed me. Oh well.