It seems to me that the most distinctive feature is the save mechanic that essentially splits the game into levels where you can only save your progress when you reach a campfire.
By this definition, Demon’s Souls is not a soulslike.
I never played that, but according to its Wikipedia page “When a player is killed during a level, they are sent to the beginning of the level with all non-boss enemies re-spawned, while the player returns in soul form with lower maximum health and the loss of all unused souls.”
The real question is whether this makes Super Mario a souls-like.
By this definition, Demon’s Souls is not a soulslike.
I never played that, but according to its Wikipedia page “When a player is killed during a level, they are sent to the beginning of the level with all non-boss enemies re-spawned, while the player returns in soul form with lower maximum health and the loss of all unused souls.”
The real question is whether this makes Super Mario a souls-like.
It’s almost as if the Souls series was a deliberate throwback inspired by classic games and used mechanics copied from them.
By this definition, Super Mario World is a souls-like
If it’s hard, it’s a soulslike