I've finished it last week, too, for the first time, and man, what can I say? It was an amazingly satisfying experience and journey. It's been a long time since I've felt challenged by a game (although I must admit, my first RE:CV playthrough a few months ago was also quite stressful on low ammo/health at some parts where it was dying and reloading for an hour straight just to manage to run around a tyrant and some other dangerous corridors afterwards without getting hit).
The most frustrating parts that immediately come to mind were getting to Pinwheel, who fortunately was a joke of a boss when reached finally, the effin' Anor Londo archers part and the last boss (2h Trial & Error
).
Took me around 2 months of playing on and off every few days and some weeks even without playing at all because I had a lot of uni work to do after I was half-way through.
Had a melee build (VIT, END, STR, DEX) but I sometimes wished I had some simple, sufficient spells, too, for a solid long range.
Weapon was a Claymore +14 and I LOVED it. Used the Drake Sword for nearly the first half of the game.
As much as I enjoyed DS, after beating it I honestly didn't feel the urge to play the rest of the series because I felt that I proved to myself that I'm able to do it and the sequels wouldn't be that much different from DS, anyway, BUT then I started DeS just for fun two days ago and I must say I'm already thinking about playing it all the time, haha. I can't really explain why but I enjoy DeS' more janky gameplay. It feels very similiar, yet so different.
Still, I don't know if I really will commit myself again for another 50-70 hours. I have to start studying again next week and rather wanted to use some of my free time for coding a bit for my small flash game. We'll see
then beat the game in under 10 hours, more than enough imo.