I finished my second playthrough of Dark Souls with a no shield 2H Zweihander character and I had a blast.

I've started up Demon's Souls again and I want to do something similar. I've already got the bastard sword to start me off, but I want something bigger. I want a giant thing to smash enemies to pieces with. I've seen the Dragon Bone Smasher, but that seems like it's a while away. Is there anything (relatively) early on that will satiate my lust for a giant weapon? The great sword seems pretty good, and that's in 1-3, so I suppose it's not too far away.

You'll probably want to check out the Flamberge. You'll have to switch to a dexterity build though, and focus on the sharp or tearing upgrade paths. Alternatively, you go down the quality path and balance your stats. This would be preferable if you want the strength to switch over to the Dragon Bone Smasher later on.

Thanks, I restarted so I have room to fiddle with stats before I stick with a weapon. I'll get the Flamberge asap.

@melvargh: I was assuming you wanted to go with a sword. If you're willing to try a blunt weapon, then the Great Club is also a good choice, and attainable very early in the game.

Get pure white world tendency in world 2, and then get the Dragon Bone Crusher sword from 2-3. It's basically the Dragon's Tooth of Demon's Souls.

@turambar: He has his eye on it but honestly that sword is quite an investment, has limited use and is tricky to get - maybe things changed since release but pure white tendency used to be hard to get.

The greatsword (http://demonssouls.wikidot.com/great-sword) is basically identical to the zweihander, if you want that. The flamberge is fun too though.;

It certainly does need offline play to get reliably, but it's not too hard to obtain if you do so. Just kill a boss, and suicide in the Nexus.

There's the Flamberg in 3-2 near Yurt.

The Dragon Bone Smasher in 2-3 (As mention above) But it's attack animations are kinda weird in my opinion.

And then there is the Claymore. (1-1 Blue eye Knight. 1-2 Merchant and 1-3 Merchant) The Claymore is stronger than the Flamberg, has basically the same attack animations as Dark Souls Zwiehander and can be obtained really early in the game. I'm doing a play through with it right now and it's doing a butt load of damage at just +3.

I started a new character in Demon's Souls recently too. Rediscovering that game has been weird, but fun.

I'm doing a Strength build and bought the Claymore for 6000 souls from the Dregling in 1-2, it's basically a larger version of the Bastard Sword that I used before that, just finished farming Greystone Chunks in 2-2 for it too. I wish there was some way to fuse shards into chunks, even if it took like 40 of them, cause I had over a hundred before I got the 6 chunks I needed. Ironically the effort I put into obtaining a Pure Greystone from Scirvir was kinda for naught 'cause one dropped when I was farming chunks.

IT does have an awesome backstab animation and the overhead strike is also kinda crazy.

It's also one of the very few ultra-great class weapons in the game. Demon's Souls has a general lack of those, really.

Meat cleaver is the weapon you want to work to. Its got S in strength, S in dex and A in faith.

The easiest and probably most effective weapon you will want to go for is the Meat Cleaver

Oh yeah the meat cleaver is one of the best weapons in the game and it's a big slow weapon. Only Weapon with double S scaling.

The meat cleaver sounds awesome, that's next on the hit list. The Flamberge is good, but it feels almost identical to the bastard sword, so I'm gonna check out the MC.

Yeah, I just watched a video of the meat cleaver, that's exactly what I want. Slow, heavy, and devastating.

The Dragon Bone Smasher is gated behind by far the hardest boss in the game so dunno if that's the one to start with.

ahhh for early game i dont know, maybe flameberg as everyone else says
i use a +5 dragon tooth, its does amazing dmg, but its so slow
or you can use Greatsword Of Artorias (Cursed) or Black Knight Great Axe

The lack of poise in Demon's Souls makes things like the Greatsword of the Dragon Bone Smasher kind of terrible. Weather or not your attack animation can be interrupted depends on the weapon class, and I think the only class of weapon with uninterrupted attacks are large hammers (like the Meat Cleaver). I have a Greatsword, no shield build now and it's sucks fighting faster enemies because you can't stack some poise and tank hits. Their move-sets are also terrible, nothing like in Dark Souls, if that's what you are after.

Also, the Dragon Bone Smasher can be gotten very early. It all depends on when you can take the Flamelurker, as you don't have to engage the Dragon God to get it.

Large swords are very much doable, however. The combat in Demon's Souls is so much faster that the large swords like the Claymore and Flamberge swing about as fast as the regular straight swords in Dark Souls.

Also, for reference, the sword classes in Demon's Souls are: Straight, Large, Very Large, Curved, Katana.

I just forged the Meat Cleaver, and it's awesome. Huge and slow as fuck: forces me to wear light armor and encourages rolling/dodging/positioning.