One mechanic that people tend to hate but I really loved at the time was Word Tendency in Demons Souls. If you died repeatedly in body form the game got harder

One mechanic that people tend to hate but I really loved at the time was Word Tendency in Demons Souls. If you died repeatedly in body form the game got harder as tendency tended to black (dying is frequent in souls games and if you are in body form you have more HP, dying in body form put you at 50% Max Hp and uou had to use a consumable item or kill a boss or invade another player and kill them to get your body back). Killing bosses moved it toward white. Tougher enemies would appear in black tendencies, but you’d get more experience points. The game was slightly easier in white tendency. Different paths would close or open depending on your tendency. Trying to figure this stuff out in 2009 before the ubiquity of internet wikis was something else, as this mechanic was not explained very well (souls games are obtuse in general, really by design). There was also a separate “character tendency” mechanic that affected quest lines and other things. It made completionist runs annoying and it was just a pain to manipulate it in certain ways to get the outcome you wanted - would have loved a rework in the later souls games but they just abandoned it. Demons Souls is probably still my favourite Souls title for just all of the weird, quirky, unpolished/jank things about it it made it quite a unique experience.