Demon's Souls: The final write-up maybe.
So as I start down the painful, painful path that is the NG+, I look back with dread on various things I'll have to do over, and mild excitement over other things.
Boss Rankings because hey why not? Listed from hardest to least hardest, along with a few non-boss enemies that are pretty much boss-like anyway. Also RPGDL rankings because I find it funny that one of the easiest bosses because of his AI pattern also makes Godlike because of that AI pattern.
1: Old King Allent, 1-4: Fitting that the final boss be first for once. The guy is a bastard, his attacks vary between physical and magical, ranged and melee, fast and HOLY SHIT HIT HIM BEFORE HE KILLS EVERYTHING. He also has a very, VERY nasty trick in Soul Sucker, where he kills you instantly and DROPS YOUR LEVEL. If it wasn't so easy to dodge... sorta, it'd be even worse. And like most bosses he as a goddamn fat sack of HP. Makes Godlike because of it all. Prepare to see that a lot.
2. Red-Eyes Knight 1-1: A basic enemy you encounter in a rather out-of-the-way place in the very first level. The Red-Eyes Knight will smack your little bitch ass apart faster than you can shout BULLSHIT. You see, the Red-Eyes Knight is normally found in the third part of world one. Ah, you ask, that doesn't sound too hard? Well it wouldn't, since enemies get harder stat-wise the deeper you go, so Red-Eyes Knight 1-1 would be weaker than them. But then I say, you can only get to 1-3 after you beat an entire different world. That's right, they stick an enemy that normally exists in an area after an Endboss fight in the first stage. And it's the hardest type of Red-Eyes too. They're divided into three types, sword&shield jokers which hit like little girls and have no range, big honking Claymore bastards who can kill you in one hit on a backswing, and spear&shield bastards who can attack while they're guarding and have a dashing attack which hits about seven times in a row followed by a giant SCREW YOU final hit which would overkill you at full HP but they want to make your last sliver of health a painful thing. Bluelike the first time you fight him, and Heavy the time you're "supposed" to fight him.
3: Dragon God, 2-3: With a name like Dragon God, anything less that top ten would be a farce. Dragon God is a gimmick fight, but my build was not designed for his gimmick, so I died about five time trying him. The goal of the fight is to pin his ass down with giant spear-launchers, but the path is blocked off by debris and the Dragon God's desire to turn you into a smear on his finger. I didn't have any range to hit the debris from what little safe havens there are, and my weapon blew for damage and the debris is remarkably resistant to magic. But still, I won! Unrankable due to his gimmick.
4: Maneater, 2-2: Maneater isn't too hard of a boss really, his attacks are telegraphed, he doesn't hit hard, and you can even damage his tail and lower his movepool. So why is he so hard? You're on a pretty damn narrow strip of land(which is larger than the various other paths you cross in the level) and one of his attacks is a tackle that can knock you off pretty easily. Also there's two of them. Unrankable.
5: Black Phantom Heroes, 1-4: A trio of Black Phantoms at the start of 1-4. Aggroing all of them at once is easy, grabbing one at a time is hard. Combined they'll wreck you damn easily as they're a bowman, heavy infantry and speedy infantry. Also the heavy can break your gear. Separately, only the heavy is difficult, as he has a shield that's all but impossible to guard break, and it's hard to take the bowman out while he's lumbering about. Heavy is Heavy, speedy is Middle and bowmen is Light.
6: Armored Spider, 2-1: Is a joke but I'm a coward who hides away and gets roasted by bad hit detection. Melee fighters can wreck him in less than a minute and ranged fighters have a freaking hittable zone. His health and damage both suck, but he can slow his targets and stop casting with webs! Light, which is goddamn depressing.
7: Flamelurker, 2-2: Pure fire damage and a goddamn lot of speed can take you far. Unfortunately, not far in the league, but who cares. The magic vulnerability is what I used to beat him after only one death. Still, he's a tense fight, and him getting faster and more aggressive when he's already one of the most relentless bosses his harsh. Makes Heavy, but being pure Fire damage stops him from being Godlike.
8: Satsuki the Jackass: Is a jackass. He's not hard or anything, but in his BP form at least he can one-shot you with any hit and heal himself to full when he gets low. And he has a lot of health. Makes a boring Heavy but Heavy he is.
9: Adjudicator, 4-1: Like Tower Knight, Adjudicator needs to have a lower part damaged first for melee to actually damage him. Unlike Tower Knight, this is hard as hell since the area is cramped, the camera zips around like mad and he can kill you in one hit. Ranged guys can try and play there game again, but unlike Tower Knight, Adjudicator's ranged attack will drag your ass down to melee range. Also his HP is a fat stack, just like him. Makes Godlike, since he's basically Tower Knight+.
10: The PENETRATOR, 1-3: The Penetrator is a boss whose difficulty is entirely dependent on whether you want NPC help dealing with him. If you do, he's pretty easy. If you don't, prepare for the goddamn pain train as he rams his Penetrating Sword through you time and time again. With the way his sword glows I think he used Sticky White Stuff on it as well. Just to put into perspective how much damage this guy does, the NPC help you get takes 54 damage from this guy's PENETRATE. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that same NPC only takes 13 damage from the Blue Dragon, the same Blue Dragon that can OHKO you while your 100% flame block shield is up, and you have 100% health and possibly even fire reduction armor and spells. Ball lightning Godlike.
11: Old Hero, 4-2: The Old Hero is a tense fight. He is blind, so he swings about randomly until he gets attacked, then he brings out the pain. If he gets you in a bad position, it is easy to get rocked. This fight is easy to do a no-damage run on, since taking damage is quick to fatal even for this game. Only makes about Heavy though.
12: Storm King, 4-3: Part gimmick fight, but can also be done straight. Storm King is flying(auto-heavy), has a bunch of support that needs to be killed off before he's even damageable(and they are his spawn, so they're legal) and when he actually comes down to fight, his attack is nigh-unavoidable, does good damage, and unleashes more minions that need to be killed before he comes back down into damage range again, where everything repeats. So how does a melee character in-game beat him? With the Storm Ruler, a super-powered sword that splits the sky asunder and wrecks the shit out of everything. The spawn die in one hit, and he'll die in about 10. Yup, 10 hits, and you can't chain these attacks together. He was a fat stack of life to shield him. Go giant flying manta ray, Godlike for you!
13: BP Lord Rydell: He's an interesting guy to be sure, his melee attacks are part-magic so can go through most shields, and his pole gives him good reach. At low HP he gets a pretty big defense boost, and like any BP he's a giant ball of HP. Makes a slightly interesting Middle at least.
14: Fool's Idol, 3-1: Discounting the revival trick, Fool's Idol is one of the frailest and least damaging bosses in the game. It wouldn't take more than five rounds to deal with her, and she spends so much time not attacking that healing isn't a problem. The real problem comes up in her gimmick, which is anytime after she gets attacked she teleports away, summons a bunch of identical clones and throws a bunch of paralyzing traps all over the area. The clones attack is less damaging then the real Idol's, but there are a lot of them, so it adds up. Get caught in a paralyzing trap at a bad spot and kiss your ass goodbye. Can probably skirt her way into Heavy due to her tricks.
15: Tower Knight 1-2: He's big, he's bad, his shield is bigger than some other giant bosses, but like so many bosses he can be pretty easy. Going melee on him is a recipe for disaster since you have to hit his feet and knock him down before you can actually do real damage to him, all while he's trying to crush you with his giant shield or stomp you or stab you. So, what about the range game? That's where the magic spear attack comes in and dammit if it doesn't hit hard. Easy 2-3HKO off of that, and it's pure magic so you will take damage even with a shield up. Makes Heavy because he can scrub melee fighters so easy.
16: Garl Vinland, 5-3: Oh Garl, you're so damn badass but like I alluded to earlier your AI stops you from being a threat. But that same AI makes you a Godlike. Garl is stuck always locked unto you with his shield in front(making him pretty much invulnerable to arrows, melee and magic) but won't pursue you beyond a certain point allowing you to bait him like little else. The Dark Silver gear makes him nigh-invulnerable to magic, and the Brandt means any hit on you will be the only hit he needs. It's the heaviest item in the game, requiring 36 strength to use one-handed and he does use it one-handed, except when he wants to murder you some more and two-hands it. Oh, and what's worse, he can riposte too, sticking that damn thing straight through you making even baiting him a difficult task. And it boosts his resistance to poison and plague. And he can heal! Healing that isn't effected by his armor and returns a fair amount of his truck of health.
17: Executioner Miralda: Miralda's a joke, even in her BP form. She hits kinda hard, and rolls a lot and rolls into attacking, and her armor is the best all-around female set, but she doesn't have a shield or anything special about her. Still, hitting hard and moving fast means she can play in Middle a bit.
18: Dirty Colossus. 5-2: Another boss with a fire weakness and bad attacks. At least he can do actual damage, and the fly swarm is better than leeches, since they'll stick on you until you get hit by fire damage while also stopping spellcasting and healing and stuff. Still weak to fire, and gets weaker to it the more it gets hit, but... yeah there's no upside other than decent physical defense. Sticks around the Middle mark.
19: Leechmonger, 5-1: Ugh, leniency on the game's part? Or trolling? Either way, leechmonger is a joke, his attacks suck, his HP blows and he's even weaker to fire than Phalanx. The leech status is crappy despite being unique to him, but stopping healing for a round on a DL target might not be too crappy. Either way, I use that too much, but Leechmonger mongers in Light. Oh yeah, it can heal itself too, but its slow and over time, heals for crap and only uses it when you're out of range. And it leaves it wide open. Haha.
20: Phalanx, 1-1: The first boss of the game is aptly enough a joke. Despite being covered in shields which reduce damage and it being impossible to level-up before-hand, he's still piss easy. See, he has a horrible, horrible weakness to fire, and 1-1 gives you a ton of fire items to use against him. But despite being an absolute joke, his sheer damage potential is really high, just good luck seeing it. Probably scrapes Middle because of the damage+non-fire protection.
21: BP Selen Vinland: She's aided a lot by the fact she's in that damn swamp, but she's so concerned on getting her spells off it's easy to go through this fight without a scratch(other than poison). At least her melee attack ignores shields, whoopee. Light.
22: Old Monk, 3-3: Hahahahahahahahaha, oh god do you suck. Then again, this fight is ridiculous anyway. Like, he sucks so bad that I was running in a circle for a straight minute looking something up online and didn't get hit once. His damage is ass, only dealing about 1/10 a SOUL FORM lifebar, which means only about 1/20th a normal lifebar, and he's pathetically frail. Homing Soul Arrow can deal some decent damage, but it's a goddamn limit and despite their name are stupidly easy to dodge. A Light, if it wasn't for the fact that his whole fight is some bizarre gimmick which actually means this is Unrankable.
NPCS: The following NPCs you all have to goad into attacking you(with one exception) by attacking them for some % of their HP first, so their HP scales are odd.
Orstrava of Bolataria: The one exception, as he as a BP form that can be fought. Anyway, despite probably being the nicest NPC in the game, Orstrava is a complete joke in combat despite his decent gear. The Rune Sword allows his attacks to be magical, and the rune shield reduces magic damage, but neither make up for his terrible stats(save his abnormally high HP). He was only doing around 40 damage to basic enemies at one point, 40! I was doing more at level 1! Languishes in Light. Until NG+++++++ where the scaling of NG+ means his damage is fixed and his health is now higher than most bosses.
Old King Doran: THE MAN. In order to fight him you need to halve his HP, then pray he doesn't murder you instantly. His damage output is massive, and is partly magical as well. He'll get a lot of attacks in a row due to his stamina boost, and his armor makes him take tiny ass amounts of damage. I was doing about 80 with a backstab to him. He has 1223 HP after being halved. Yeah. Sits with the pantheon in Godlike.
Biorr of the Twin Fangs: Remember that NPC help I was talking about earlier? Well, here he is. With insane defenses, offense to match it, and even some ranged ability with a crossbow, Biorr is the Godlike man and don't you forget it.
Patches the Hyena: Ain't he trustworthy. Patches aggravates really fast, so he only has about 90% HP. Not like it'd help him, since he's piss-easy if unpredictable. His shield is constantly healing him, and his spear allows him to attack with it up. But still, he doesn't have that much HP for it to be effective. Fails in Light like a loser.
Sage Freke, the Visionary: He's a mage you get the first attack on. Light.
Yurt, the Silent Chief: Yurt can be fought in two different places, one of them is more dangerous but gives you more free hits in on him. Either way, despite being fairly resistant to bleed/poison/plague due to his armor he's not much of a threat. Despises being in Light but can't help it.
Saint Urbain: I killed him in two hits. Light.
Yuria the Witch: Yuria nooooooooooooooooo! You're too damn nice and adorable to be killed but alas. Anyway, another mage you get the drop on but gets mad faster. Light.
Mephistopheles: You really though you could kill me bitch? Another joke fight, but uh... at least she can do fire damage? Light again.
The others and nameless guys aren't worth the words about them beyond being OHKO fodder.
