Adzuken (836) on 5/13/2013 3:20 PM · Permalink · Report

In terms of gameplay mechanics, the games are virtually identical. The combat is practically unchanged, the equipment system is much the same, the enemies use the same basic idiotic AI. Also, the online play is basically the same, though as far as I know there is no equivalent to the covenants of Dark Souls.

Aside from that, though, the games are pretty much their own thing. There's no dual currency system in Demon's Souls (though there is an alive/dead state), nor are there bonfire like safe zones. The world isn't interconnected in the same way, instead it uses a hub-world with checkpointed levels. However, it's still rather non-linear, as there's no defined order that you need to tackle the levels in. Because of the lack of bonfires, healing items are consumable and not replenishable, and magic uses a conventional bar instead of a replenishable number of uses.

So whether or not you should play it depends on how dedicated you are to the series. There's a lot of debate as to which is the superior game. I haven't finished Demon's Souls, but my current view on it is that Dark Souls' deeper and more defined world and backstory makes it the superior iteration. Nonetheless, I personally find it to be worth playing for all the same reasons as Dark Souls.