1. Chests are not a guaranteed 1HKO, they do a lot of damage, sure, but if you have enough health/hammer the triggers hard enough they'll let you go. I'm not exactly sure why it's such a problem anyway, you get eaten once and then you are aware that chests exist and you don't get eaten anymore.
2. Seath the scaleless? He is only resistant to magic attacks, he's weak to lightning, fire and bleeding and other weapons do normal damage... The only way to not have any tool to beat him is to play a pure mage with absolutely no other weapon. And every other enemy in this area is resistant to magic attacks, so it's not like there weren't any hints as to what he was going to be resistant to.
3. You were facing the wrong way if blocking arrows killed you. The physics behind blocking is a bit fucked up in this game (you'll get knocked away from where you were facing, not from where you got hit).
1. I know they don't OHKO you if you were high in Vitality, but I didn't put any points into it. I'm fine with things OHKOing IF they have some sort of clear warning. Demons's Souls was special because it does. I don't mind dying, it's just not the same. And if it's "my fault" for not levelling up the right thing, then there's another big difference. The only thing that made SL1 in Demons's Souls hard, regardless if you were melee or magic user, was how little damage you did. Nothing OHKO'd me in the whole game, and that's a good thing.
2. I don't entirely remember, but it was the last thing I did before giving up. I was pretty much maxed out for Pyromancy and had this weapon, not sure which element, but dexterity based that pretty much killed anything leading up to it in like 4 fast hits. I understand I'm unlucky, as I found when I went online, but I throw it up in the air to say either Dark Souls has a different focus, or that was a silly design choice. The prior enemies did nor have the same damage nullifying BS the boss had. I wasn't even sure if it was optional or not.
3. Absolutely not, my shield using stat was so low that I staggered hard and either I fell or the other arrow hit me and I fell, or I died. Either way, unlike the entire game before it, it wasn't a case of me knowing what was ahead. Even after it beat me horribly I went back to try and get a better shield or use a bow etc. Either way I could get past the arrows without getting hit to fail at the top. If something was this hard in Demons's, it would have been because I was careless or my fault for not noticing the easier way. Clearly you're meant to be able to carry a good shield. The rest of Anor Lando and it's boss was cake, including the fake world etc. The balcony area is popular for being hard with no fool proof strategy other than reloading the save from the menu.
The best way I can explain how different the game felt is probably that Dark Souls is a death obstacle course. It felt like the game expected you to use a guide or talk with others.
Try not to take the above differences the wrong way. Dark Souls is not a bad game. It just isn't as simple as ones "better" than the other.
