It’s one of the best game I’ve ever played. Besides Demon’s Soul, this was the second souls I had ever finished.
My first character was a pure mage with summons, then halfway through the game I picked up Moonveil. I also used Darkmoon Greatsword and Death’s Poker when I got bored of the katana. DMG made a lot of bosses trivial as I could fire the charged R2 a few times and staggered the enemies.
Instead of magic, for the second character I went for pure strength build with colossal swords. At the beginning, I hold Greatsword and Grafted Blade Greatsword, then I 2-handed Starscourge Greatsword. After defeating Rykard, I respeced my stats to strength and faith. I finished the game with Blasphemous Blade and Gargoyle’s Blackblade. For this character, I only needed to use Mimic to fight Malenia.