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[SLoWMoTIoN]

If that was truly the case, and there was a real degree of growth and innovation between the two, it would still be bad, because if a game proves the formula viable first its always the originator and deserving of the credit creatively.

However that in actuality isn't the case, and FROM's later, better games in the series are the ones that harken back specifically to stuff in Demon's. I could list these things out but it'd be pointless because if you've actually played every game in the series sequentially, its blazingly obvious.

That is just your opinion man. BTW I did play most of FROM's games except for Sekiro. Bloodborne>Dark Souls>everything else.

 

[dilbag]

FROM is amazing but i feel like blade of darkness sorta had the same style back in the day.

 

[Sygma]

There's definitely a Souls genre

Does Doom or Halo even have unique characteristics that other games blatantly copy? .....nah I don't think so....

I needed the laugh, thank you

FROM is amazing but i feel like blade of darkness sorta had the same style back in the day.

Absolutely, Rebel Act pioneered everything to begin with, Souls didn't invent shit. It just had the right settings and a very good level design

On top of that, Blade of Darkness extensively used physics and real time shadows too

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

I was looking at the Wikipedia article for First-person shooters, but you’re right that a simple Google search of “FPS 1993” turns up more. A few games there that I hadn’t heard of (including some hits for stuff that is definitely not FPS). Anyway, you should stop assuming the worst of people. It would have been a lot easier if you just listed the games you were referring to.

It would have been easier if you researched your claims before making broad statements. There are still others that you haven't seen, because you didn't know about the FPS scene but pretended that you did, so I don't want to assume the worse but you are making that very hard.

I think it’s still debatable to say there were “plenty” even though the number is greater than 3.

Why even make this post? You were already proven wrong already let it go.

Some random FPS games released before and the same year as Doom off the top of my head:

Robocop 3
Terminator Rampage
Blake Stone
Catacomb 3D
Escape from Monster Manor
Lethal Tender
Terminator 2029
Kens labyrinth
Curse of the Catacombs
Isle of the dead
Dracula

That's 11 random games off the top of my head, there are many more, it's time to drop this belief there weren't plenty of FPS games before 1994.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Fair enough, but I don't think putting stuff like this in the same boat as Doom or Wolfenstein makes a lot of sense. They share very little besides perspective.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

Fair enough, but I don't think putting stuff like this in the same boat as Doom or Wolfenstein makes a lot of sense. They share very little besides perspective.

I don't know why you keep doing this to yourself, you always have to add a remark to every post.

All 4 of them are clearly FPS games and two of them basically use an engine ripped from Wolfenstein. I have no idea why you keep digging.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I don't know why you're countering links to gameplay videos with screenshots, but my point was that they appear to share very little with the type of gameplay found in Doom. Yes, you shoot in first person, but they appear to play almost nothing like the style of FPS that Doom introduced. You shot things in first person in the 1983 Star Wars arcade game, for example, but few would call that an FPS.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

but my point was that they appear to share very little with the type of gameplay found in Doom.

Oops?

but I don't think putting stuff like this in the same boat as Wolfenstein

Get lost.

Changing the argument and ignoring that two of the games rip the W3D engine just shows you are wasting time. You basically admitted you lost the argument when you stopped quoting me when replying, we are done here.

 

[Hinedorf]

From was making great games long before they ever wiped their asses with Demon/Dark Souls

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

From was making great games long before they ever wiped their asses with Demon/Dark Souls

Armored core has too many problems and touch competition imo, I think Kings Field was their best series before Souls personally.

 

[SLB1904]

Walking simulators have been around since the start of this decade. Kojima calling the genre something else doesn't make it a new genre.

You ignorant. But again all kojima haters are

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Oops?

Get lost.

Changing the argument and ignoring that two of the games rip the W3D engine just shows you are wasting time. You basically admitted you lost the argument when you stopped quoting me when replying, we are done here.

Not sure why you feel the need to be so horribly aggressive in your responses.

My argument with has always been that Doom, not Wolfenstein is the game that truly pioneered the FPS genre. The "first-person shooter released in 1993 or earlier" was a side discussion to that point that stemmed from your arguing that, "You clearly don't know the history of FPS, FPS was a common term before Doom, there were already a bunch of them before it came out, Doom came out in 1993." You shared examples of FPS that came out in 1993 or earlier and I probably unnecessarily pointed that a few of them had very different gameplay to not only Doom, but also Wolfenstein 3D. That's what I was trying to illustrate with the four YouTube videos I posted. They were very far away from Doom, but they also weren't all that close to Wolfenstein 3D, either. Either way, that whole discussion was just an aside. Even if you feel they did copy Wolfenstein 3D, my point still stands that Wolfenstein 3D only planted the seed that Doom took to really define the genre with the examples I listed earlier in the thread that you never even responded to.

You ignorant. But again all kojima haters are

People who call Death Stranding a walking simulator have either never played walking simulators like Gone Home, Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Firewatch, etc. or they have never played Death Stranding.

 

[SLB1904]

People who call Death Stranding a walking simulator have either never played walking simulators like Gone Home, Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Firewatch, etc. or they have never played Death Stranding.

Exactly. But again we know why they do this.
Wars wars and wars

 

[Danjin44]

People who call Death Stranding a walking simulator have either never played walking simulators like Gone Home, Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Firewatch, etc. or they have never played Death Stranding.

That word became meaningless, it just something people like to throw at things they don't like, it doesn't matter it true or not.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Difficulty is one of the appeals to the Souls series especially for people craving competition.

 

[Danjin44]

Difficulty is one of the appeals to the Souls series especially for people craving competition.

I don't know, I played all Souls and Bloodborne offline. What I'm looking for those type of games are exciting boss fights and exploration, I never felt I need other people for that.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I don't know, I played all Souls and Bloodborne offline. What I'm looking for those type of games are exciting boss fights and exploration, I never felt I need other people for that.

To tell you the truth I meant competition from the game itself.

 

[Plague Doctor]

I like how with these games that gamplay mechanics is brought to the forefront and downing a boss is a victory.

This is not for everyone, but I like the idea that DS helped usher in the gameplay first in the 3rd person action/rpg genre to taking a more of a front seat consideration.

 

[Kharnivore2099]

Though it's more challenging than most games today, it's arguably pretty easy in comparison to a lot of older titles.

 

[Danjin44]

Though it's more challenging than most games today, it's arguably pretty easy in comparison to a lot of older titles.

FROM games are tough but they never had crushing difficulty like old games, I would say SMT Nocturne on hardest difficulty is harder than any FROM game.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

That's what I was trying to illustrate with the four YouTube videos I posted. They were very far away from Doom, but they also weren't all that close to Wolfenstein 3D, either.

You have never had point, you lost the original argument, changed your argument, and still lost. Stop replying and wasting time, you're very dishonest, I've never seen someone spend so much time making stuff up about something they know nothing about, fail to back up their broad statements, than change the argument by making another broad statement that is still wrong. You make the same mistake over and over again ad nauseam.

Why are you still trying to have a conversation? You originally said that W3D wasn't meaningful and disqualified it because YOU ignorantly believed that there weren't clones, there weren't several FPS games before Doom, and implied W3D didn't have a shareware model along with several other false claims, and all of your beliefs were factually wrong, You indirectly admitted your claims were wrong but still continued the argument by bringing in new excuses yet accuse me of moving off-topic?????

You then tried to downplay the number of FPS's by saying there weren't many, and once you got destroyed on that, you then made a snide remark to the effect of 'I guess there were a couple more than 3' , which you once again got destroyed on.

You then took 4 games that were clearly FPS games, then tried to disqualify them by making up a new argument that they were nothing similar to W3D which was never part of the original debate, in addition two of those games ripped the damn engine from W3D. Then, in a last sorry attempt you tried to switch the excuse from them not being like W3D to only not being like Doom taking W3D out of the post and pretending you were only talking about Doom the entire time, which was not even relevant to the discussion.

There was no aside, you're just full of crap, you no position to debate from, and are now pretending that poor little Zefah was some innocent poster that was attacked by the big bad Freedom Gate. We are done with this conversation stop replying.

Even with this quote you still try to disqualify the above 4 games as FPS by saying they aren't like W3D, which not only was never the point, but its still wrong because two of them basically use the same or similar engine based on the engine used in W3D. You have nothing to contribute here and have already shown your lack of knowledge of the FPS scene in the early 90's.

You're clearly discussing a subject you know zero to very little about, so I think it's time for you to just move on and admit you have not made a single valid point in this entire discussion.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

You have never had point, you lost the original argument, changed your argument, and still lost. Stop replying and wasting time, you're very dishonest, I've never seen someone spend so much time making stuff up about something they know nothing about, fail to back up their broad statements, than change the argument by making another broad statement that is still wrong. You make the same mistake over and over again ad nauseam.

If you don't want people to respond to you, you probably shouldn't respond to them in the first place. I think I see why you're coming across as so abrasive: you're here to win an argument, but I'm just her to have a discussion. That's what I like to get out of message boards, personally.

Why are you still trying to have a conversation? You originally said that W3D wasn't meaningful and disqualified it because YOU ignorantly believed that there weren't clones, there weren't several FPS games before Doom, and implied W3D didn't have a shareware model along with several other false claims, and all of your beliefs were factually wrong, You indirectly admitted your claims were wrong but still continued the argument by bringing in new excuses yet accuse me of moving off-topic?????

My argument was always that the FPS genre as we know it today began with Doom. Wolfenstein 3D may have been the grandfather, but Doom was the father. I listed reasons as to why I believe that. I also disputed that the term "FPS" was even used all that much before "Doom Clone" transitioned into "FPS" for most people. Maybe you saw "FPS" used a lot in your circles, but "Doom Clone" was the common parlance for years after Doom came out and defined the genre.

I don't believe I ever said that Wolfenstein 3D received no clones, either. It's just that Doom was the one that was widely copied and also lead to many other huge successes in the genre.

You then tried to downplay the number of FPS's by saying there weren't many, and once you got destroyed on that, you then made a snide remark to the effect of 'I guess there were a couple more than 3' , which you once again got destroyed on.

Destroyed? I said there weren't "plenty" in 1993 and I still feel that is true, but we're just arguing semantics at this point. I'm happy to concede that point.

You then took 4 games that were clearly FPS games, then tried to disqualify them by making up a new argument that they were nothing similar to W3D which was never part of the original debate, in addition two of those games ripped the damn engine from W3D. Then, in a last sorry attempt you tried to switch the excuse from them not being like W3D to only not being like Doom taking W3D out of the post and pretending you were only talking about Doom the entire time, which was not even relevant to the discussion.

I used the Star Wars 1983 arcade example as a way to explain why I think those 4 games don't appear to play similarly to what we typically define as an FPS.

There was no aside, you're just full of crap, you no position to debate from, and are now pretending that poor little Zefah was some innocent poster that was attacked by the big bad Freedom Gate. We are done with this conversation stop replying.

No, I don't think I'm playing the victim like you're implying at all... Not sure why you have that impression. Is it because I keep pointing out your overly aggressive manner?

Even with this quote you still try to disqualify the above 4 games as FPS by saying they aren't like W3D, which not only was never the point, but its still wrong because two of them basically use the same or similar engine based on the engine used in W3D. You have nothing to contribute here and have already shown your lack of knowledge of the FPS scene in the early 90's.

You're clearly discussing a subject you know zero to very little about, so I think it's time for you to just move on and admit you have not made a single valid point in this entire discussion.

For me, this entire discussion was about whether or not Doom deserves the title of starting the FPS genre. I think it does, because I don't believe that credit should go to games that came before simply for being the first to deliver on superficial elements (shooting, first-person perspective). There are key elements in Doom that led to its success and the explosion of the genre that were not present in what came before it.

 

[Freedom Gate Co.]

I'm not going to directly acknowledge your because post it's a lie, you never had anything to start a discussion with, you started with false claims, indirectly agreed they were false but still continue the argument by adding up more made up nonsense about a subject you knew nothing about and tried to cover up that admission to make it seem like you were always neutral. Now you are changing your original defense and pretending like you had a sound argument, this is dictionary definition of a coward, when you admit you're wrong but don't want other people to see it so you try to cover it up and make it seem like the person who is more knowledgeable on the subject is wrong. You're debate style is the lowest you can go.

This time I'm going to do what you tried to pull before what and avoid directly quoting you. After this i'm not even going to pretend to acknowledge you're there anbymore. Pretty much anyone who gamed on PC's back n the day can see you are someone that has no idea what they are talking about and can't be taken seriously. A person who is a coward, flip flops, and tries to cover things up to make people believe they said something other than what they really said is someone not worth having a discussion with. But it's not even that, you never had a valid point of discussion, so now out of desperation you are trying to make it seems like you were a neutral guy looking for a discussion and that I'm the big bad guy

Question, are you so thick in the head that you think people can't read all the posts in this conversation and see where you made your original false claims and what your original positions were? Apparently you think the average person on this forum is an idiot. Stop trying to play like a victim, I hope to never have any future discussions with you after this post. I've never seen anyone go this low on this forum since the redesign and that's saying something about your character.

 

[bobone]

Ummm, no.

Its ironic to me that every subsequent Souls game basically resurrects the same spoke system for its third act, you know the whole soul vessel jigalig. The only difference is that the archstones in Demon's only connect to each other via the nexus, which remains the best classical hub-area in the series.

The Tower of Latria has never been topped for atmosphere despite repeated attempts to duplicate its claustrophobic terrors, Old Monk is still the best player summon boss-fight, nothing has the pathos of Astreia and Vinland, and it has the best and most well voiced cast in the series with the most behavioral interplay between them in the nexus.

The Maiden in Black and Stockpile Thomas have the most iconic dialogue in the entire series. Its also the only game in the series with a genuine climax to its core campaign with the final summoning of the Old One.

Talking about fleshed out, the character and world tendency systems make Demon's World far more interesting and interactive than anything in Dark Souls, and in truth was only arguably topped in Dark Souls 2.

The sad truth is that in many ways Miyazaki has been treading water since Demon's, rehashing and repackaging the same tropes and setups whilst adding precious little apart from minor revamps to the core combat systems whilst retaining the same core philosophy of stamina control as the key element.

Well I 100% disagree with everything you've said here.

Almost nothing stuck with me from Demons Souls. Not the characters, locations, weapons, nothing.
I can almost walk through all of Dark Souls in my head it had such an impact on me.

I think the concepts from Demons Souls were great, but I think every single one was improved upon in Dark Souls.

The world tendencys did absolutley nothing to the gameplay. I didn't even notice they were there till I heard about it later.
The hub with instanced zones is in no way better than a seamless connected world. I don't know how you can even argue for that.
The voice acting is top notch in all of their games. Its a huge plus for the series in general.

I think Dark Souls 2 is where there was clear treading of water. That didn't advance much, or anything in the series.
Dark Souls 3 was fantastic, and Bloodborne is the best of them all. But it took alot of iteration to get there. So I wouldnt consider it best of the decade.

 

[Virex]

Just explain to me what new genre was created? Action RPGs have been around for a long long long time. But because an arpg that's a little bit more difficult than it's peer it magically created a new genre. This is some of the most ridiculous shit I've ever seen. Whoever at pushsquare wrote that is a retard.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I'm not going to directly acknowledge your because post it's a lie, you never had anything to start a discussion with, you started with false claims, indirectly agreed they were false but still continue the argument by adding up more made up nonsense about a subject you knew nothing about and tried to cover up that admission to make it seem like you were always neutral. Now you are changing your original defense and pretending like you had a sound argument, this is dictionary definition of a coward, when you admit you're wrong but don't want other people to see it so you try to cover it up and make it seem like the person who is more knowledgeable on the subject is wrong. You're debate style is the lowest you can go.

This time I'm going to do what you tried to pull before what and avoid directly quoting you. After this i'm not even going to pretend to acknowledge you're there anbymore. Pretty much anyone who gamed on PC's back n the day can see you are someone that has no idea what they are talking about and can't be taken seriously. A person who is a coward, flip flops, and tries to cover things up to make people believe they said something other than what they really said is someone not worth having a discussion with. But it's not even that, you never had a valid point of discussion, so now out of desperation you are trying to make it seems like you were a neutral guy looking for a discussion and that I'm the big bad guy

Question, are you so thick in the head that you think people can't read all the posts in this conversation and see where you made your original false claims and what your original positions were? Apparently you think the average person on this forum is an idiot. Stop trying to play like a victim, I hope to never have any future discussions with you after this post. I've never seen anyone go this low on this forum since the redesign and that's saying something about your character.

This isn't a debate. You may be approaching it as some serious business, but I'm just here to shoot the shit. What "false claims" are you even referring to? That I didn't acknowledge up front that Wolfenstein 3D had a shareware version? That I didn't think the number of games released in 1993 that could be considered the same genre as Doom was "plenty?" I'll give you those two, but what other claims have I even made? How about how "Doom Clone" was used more than "FPS" for years after Doom's release, indicating that it was very much what people pointed to as a reference point to describe similar games (i.e. genre). That is how this whole argument began, and while I only had that Usenet data point as evidence, I don't believe you ever bothered to respond to it. Regardless, my whole throughout this entire exchange has been that Doom deserves the credit for pioneering the FPS genre and that it is the game that really got it started in earnest.

I do not know why you think I'm playing the victim. Just because I'm calling out your abrasive posting style does not mean I'm acting like I'm under assault. It's odd to me why you're taking this scorched earth approach towards me in a topic about video game genres, but that's your prerogative.

Also, not quoting something in a fast moving conversation is not "pulling something." I think you should really should stop assuming the worst in people.

 

[Stefan.North]

It wouldn't be my pick, but I don't mind DS getting that title. It's an awesome and very influencing game.

 

[Clear]

Well I 100% disagree with everything you've said here.

Almost nothing stuck with me from Demons Souls. Not the characters, locations, weapons, nothing.
I can almost walk through all of Dark Souls in my head it had such an impact on me.

I think the concepts from Demons Souls were great, but I think every single one was improved upon in Dark Souls.

The world tendencys did absolutley nothing to the gameplay. I didn't even notice they were there till I heard about it later.
The hub with instanced zones is in no way better than a seamless connected world. I don't know how you can even argue for that.
The voice acting is top notch in all of their games. Its a huge plus for the series in general.

I think Dark Souls 2 is where there was clear treading of water. That didn't advance much, or anything in the series.
Dark Souls 3 was fantastic, and Bloodborne is the best of them all. But it took alot of iteration to get there. So I wouldnt consider it best of the decade.

Obviously you are entitled to your views, but I have to say I just don't understand the basis for most of your arguments.

World and Character tendencies had numerous effects on gameplay in Demon's. Tendency affects difficulty, droprates, soul rewards and causes special phantoms and Primeval Demons to spawn, which was very important as they often had unique loot. What's more Tendency was driven by player actions as well as server state, so not only did it allow for it to work as a kind of individual and community morality, system but also facilitated special annual events giving players a chance to see stuff they normally wouldn't.

Demon's Structure isn't actually all that different, it just breaks the world down into regional chunks each of which had their own tendency states. The Dark games may be more open, but in the end you invariably ended up warping point-to-point making the connected nature somewhat moot. You say Bloodborne is the best of them all despite that like Demon's it forces you to shuttle back and forth to the central hub every time you want to level up! BB is by far the entry most similar structurally to Demon's and has the most direct callbacks to it also.

Lastly, I have to say that I felt that Dark Souls 2 at least tried a bunch of new ideas, and is the only game in the series to offer more player agency in controlling overall difficulty/experience than Demon's. Its also the only game that shows any real variation between game cycles, Dark Souls 3 by comparison offers virtually nothing in either respect. Truthfully it kinda soured me that past NG, it offers incredibly little, as if the realization that all of its variant endings turn out to be brief, unimpressive and samey wasn't disappointing enough.

 

[manuels]

It really should be Demons Souls it laid the groundwork in basically everything from combat, to enemies, to bosses, to level design, really to the point that darksouls basically lifts 80% of its bioms/levels and leveldesign ideas and quirks more or less directly from demons. And demons souls has the benefit of actually being good all the way through while dark souls second half felt a bit weaker. But demons or dark eh doesnt really matter its bascially from soft getting recognition so good enough lol

 

[Contica]

We have had many similar games to Dark Souls in the past with different settings, I don't understand why people think Dark Souls invented something new, at best it popularized something that didn't used to be popular.

We've reached peak stupidity quite a while ago. I recently saw some news article say Platinum's Babylon's Fall look like an action oriented Dark Souls.

It's like, wha?

For fucks sake people, comparing everything with a sword to Dark Souls makes you look like you've never played a game before. It's ridiculous.

 

[Kharnivore2099]

FROM games are tough but they never had crushing difficulty like old games, I would say SMT Nocturne on hardest difficulty is harder than any FROM game.

The way i see it is, there are a lot of older games from the 80's and 90's that i haven't managed to finish, yet i've played throuhg numerous souls games multiple times. Sure there were hard areas, but the overall game wasn't ever out of my grasp. There are dozens if not hundreds of much harder games in the world, just not in todays landscape.

 

[Mega Man]

What Qualifies Game of the Decade? Was it popular? Did it do something NEW? Did it have an influential message?

This sounds like some kind of SGA election where Brady with the good hair wins president... Dudes got natural highlights.

So you're telling me Wii Sports was game of the decade from 2000-2010? Def changed the game! Probably the most POPULAR game in that time span!

Or was it WoW? Subscription models have revolutionized how companies monetize!

I love Dark Souls, don't get me wrong... But to say a game (that is a spiritual successor) is Game of the Decade seems a little far fetched. "Souls-Like" games are hardly a new thing or the most popular genre in the current-gen. The narrative certainly did not influence other devs to be ambiguous with their storytelling.

SO what makes it earn this honor? Eye test?

 

[kraspkibble]

Poor Demon's Souls....

that is the game that started it all. Not Dark Souls.

 

[Rodolink]

I wont say it is not the game of the decade but the reasons that guy gave I think are not that correct he mentions:

-the maps: laid by super metroid
-bonfires have been there also: castlevania sotn, metroid again, etc any game with a hub to "refresh"
-changing bosses: zelda and many others. hitting parts for weapons seen in monster hunter.

What I see as truly innovative in these series and what make these games special are:
-The Estus Flasks (constrained amount of heals (lifes))
-One unifying currency (EXP & money are the same)
-Breakin narrative rules at the time (not overexplaining things, no useless cinematics etc)
-And lastly the best one is how well intertwined the game design is in terms of ludonarrative.

 

[Rodolink]

What Qualifies Game of the Decade? Was it popular? Did it do something NEW? Did it have an influential message?

This sounds like some kind of SGA election where Brady with the good hair wins president... Dudes got natural highlights.

So you're telling me Wii Sports was game of the decade from 2000-2010? Def changed the game! Probably the most POPULAR game in that time span!

Or was it WoW? Subscription models have revolutionized how companies monetize!

I love Dark Souls, don't get me wrong... But to say a game (that is a spiritual successor) is Game of the Decade seems a little far fetched. "Souls-Like" games are hardly a new thing or the most popular genre in the current-gen. The narrative certainly did not influence other devs to be ambiguous with their storytelling.

SO what makes it earn this honor? Eye test?

Yeah Ive seen these things more often in recent years, journalists seem to forget history, and only recall the latest 5 or so years (in this case 10 but applies the same)
But I guess its normal with how memory works.

 

[Belmonte]

I could talk all day about how the Souls games are incredible and the best thing that happened in gaming in years. But it is not a new genre.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Wow didnt know demon souls didnt exist

 

[bobone]

Obviously you are entitled to your views, but I have to say I just don't understand the basis for most of your arguments.

World and Character tendencies had numerous effects on gameplay in Demon's. Tendency affects difficulty, droprates, soul rewards and causes special phantoms and Primeval Demons to spawn, which was very important as they often had unique loot. What's more Tendency was driven by player actions as well as server state, so not only did it allow for it to work as a kind of individual and community morality, system but also facilitated special annual events giving players a chance to see stuff they normally wouldn't.

Demon's Structure isn't actually all that different, it just breaks the world down into regional chunks each of which had their own tendency states. The Dark games may be more open, but in the end you invariably ended up warping point-to-point making the connected nature somewhat moot. You say Bloodborne is the best of them all despite that like Demon's it forces you to shuttle back and forth to the central hub every time you want to level up! BB is by far the entry most similar structurally to Demon's and has the most direct callbacks to it also.

Lastly, I have to say that I felt that Dark Souls 2 at least tried a bunch of new ideas, and is the only game in the series to offer more player agency in controlling overall difficulty/experience than Demon's. Its also the only game that shows any real variation between game cycles, Dark Souls 3 by comparison offers virtually nothing in either respect. Truthfully it kinda soured me that past NG, it offers incredibly little, as if the realization that all of its variant endings turn out to be brief, unimpressive and samey wasn't disappointing enough.

Understood.
I think all of these games are in the very top of their generation. So picking them apart may give the wrong impression.

I put Bloodborne on top simply because the story elevated it beyond the others; for me personally. I think the atmosphere and narrative are the absolute best in any game I've played. To me this overcame the downsides of the game, like the smaller amount of gear and weapons and magic, the warping system, or the more restrictive playstyle.

The Souls games encourage you to play anyway you want. Bloodborne pretty much forces you to play 1 particular way, like it or not.
The variety of weapons, the weight system, magic, accessories, etc allow for almost unlimited playstyles in the Souls games. I think this feature was only improved on between Demons and Dark Souls. The reason I played into so many new game+'s is because of the fact that you can change your character so easily and it has such a massive impact on how you experience the game.
I vastly prefer the Dark Souls spell charge system over the Demons mana bar style. I'm not positive, but I think there are quite a bit more spells in the Dark games vs Demons also.