Great summary of your experience WyldRage :)
What class where you throughout the game? Since you said that you passed it mostly with Sword and Shield, did you pick either Soldier or Knight?
Tower Knight's fight is pretty epic going head-to-head with him, but it's also pretty hard as well, his attacks are almost all OHKO, especially if you are in soul form, like you did.
I also Hate both the Valley of Defilement (especially 5-2) and the Giant Depraved Ones, especially when three of them rush you on 5-2, it was one of the most haunting experiences in the game.
Are you going to try NG+ now?
Current PC Build
CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"
