@sunbrozak: I don't think that's quite true. Early game enemies patterns and response time are simpler and easier than late game enemies, though the game is cleverly enough designed that you may not notice just how large the difference is while your skill increases.
I wouldn't make such a clear cut between "early" and "late" game in Dark Souls. The basic structure of the game is: Undead Asylum > Firelink Shrine > Two Bells > Four Bosses > Gwyn. However you decide to tackle those stages is up to you. There is a certain "flow" to the game that will make most people play in a certain order (like doing the Bell Gargoyles before Quelaag), but in the end it's all up to you. The fight with Quelaag is, IMO, a lot simpler than the fight with the Gargoyles, because she's much slower, her attacks are much easier to dodge and there's only one of her, while there are two Gargoyles. And still people usually ring that bell second.
The game throws in and mixes "early" (aka easier) enemies with "late" (aka harder) enemies all the time, too. Look at the Black Knight in Undead Burg or the Undead Parish, the Hellkite Dragon or the Titanite Demon in the entrance to the Darkroot Garden. Or how fucked up Sen's Fortress is the first few times you run through it. Or, hell, even Havel near the entrance to the Darkroot Basin. For a new player, all of those encounters can be potentially harder to a newcomer than the later ones, because they are still learning the ropes. The first time you encounter a Black Knight, it probably kills you. By the time you reach the Kiln of the First Flame, you'll be parrying them to death, if not running past them because fuck those guys.
The same works in reverse: what can be considered "late game enemies" are sometimes "easier" than earlier ones. Look at the fire-breathing statues or the Chaos Eaters in Lost Izalith, a relatively advanced area of the game. Or the Pisacas and the Undead Crystal Soldiers in The Duke's Archives, which hit harder, but are essentially the same as the normal hollows you find in the Undead Burg. The vast majority of enemies in Dark Souls have two or three attacks that they repeat time and time again. Once you know how to tackle each enemy, they are all "easy".
As far as bosses go, I personally found Orstein and Smough to be the bane of my existence, much like many others players before me. No other boss gave me as hard a time as them (maybe the Four Kings in NG+, but you can full-Havel them to death easily). And they are a relatively early boss fight: just right before you get the Lordvessel and the game truly "opens" itself for exploration. The Bed of Chaos, one of the four main bosses of the game, is a total pushover in comparison. You literally kill it with three hits. And Gwyn, the end boss, has a very, VERY basic attack pattern: he either swings his sword at you a couple of times or he tries to grab you and throw you. In comparison to some other bosses, he's smaller (Ceaseless Discharge, the Hydras, the Moonlight Butterfly, Seath the Scaless, etc.), slower (Ornstein, Syf, Gargoyles), easier to dodge (Four Kings, Hellkite Dragon)... and if you ask me, overall much easier than most bosses.
So, yeah, what I'm trying to say is that Dark Souls doesn't have a set difficulty setting. It works the way it works, and you'll probably find some aspects harder than others, depending on how you play the game. IMO, the start is much, much more harder than the later half of the game, simply because you just don't know what to expect, how the game works and how you should react. Once you get the basic, it's a matter of patience and some skill.
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