I wrote my perspective on this on jeffs tumblr, and I will rewrite that here.

I don't think people have been talking seriously about these games' difficulty since the first dark souls. I think demon souls is the only game in the series that can be characterized as brutally difficult (which might still be an overstatement). The consensus, for some time, has been that these games bring back a classic sort of difficulty and punish idiocy, not that they are mythical in how hard they are. I think Jeff hasn't really followed the souls community enough to have an accurate opinion about it and is, probably, recalling news reaction to these games around the time of demons souls and dark souls.

This seems like another debate that boils down to what a word means more than anything to do with Bloodbourne. File "difficulty" along with "ethics", "feminism", "privilege", "casual" and the rest that nobody can agree on.

If that's a direct synonym then I used the wrong word to describe it. What I mean is, the first time I played it, I ran through the early area's of Dark Souls which was my first blind Souls game. I only slowed down because I had no idea how leveling worked and was massacred in area's I wasn't supposed to be in yet with my underleveled character that didn't have proper gear. That is the difference I'm talking about. How I see it: a hard game is a game that is hard to play. The unforgiving nature of Souls is different in what I just described: I was in area's I wasn't 'supposed to be in' yet. That doesn't exist in games that are forgiving. They guide you, they hold your hand, they tell you what to do. It makes it a challenge (as in, go and figure this thing out. You'll have to figure it out, because it won't tell you how to win), it doesn't make it hard (as in, it is difficult to win these combat scenario's period. Whether you know how the game works or not).

@urnack: What? In an area with that dragon and Manus, Arturias really paled in difficulty even with a melee build. I used a claymore and while I can't remember if my 2 handed swings would stagger him, it seemed particularly easy to just roll then hit. It's just a faster fight than usual.

@artisanbreads: The thing is, a lot of the games we consider very "standard" are actually pretty hard. Games like CoD, Mario, Street Fighter etc. The reason we don't consider them especially challenging is because we're so used to how they play. I remember back when I just got back into console gaming again and tried to play Uncharted for the first time. Even though I was pretty competent with PC shooters, playing through Uncharted on normal was quite the challenge.

It's the same thing with the Souls games. They are hard because you haven't played games like them before. And they can get even more challenging because it's easy to assume they're like other RPGs or action-games you have experience with, which makes you play in very detrimental ways (sorta like being used to Quake and trying to play Rainbow Six).

Possibly one of the worst picks to direct this criticism at. The thing that makes character action games like Rising, Bayo, W101 or DMC (the older ones especially) compelling is the fact that they rank you for what you do. If you don't care about that and just mash your way through, then yes, you'll eventually finish them but the game will tell you that you suck, basically. If you do want to do well and get S-ranks then you'll have to do a lot of the stuff that you have to do in Souls games too. Learn patterns, enemy placements, which attacks/combos are effective in different situations and so on. The gameplay is usually faster and you can cancel most attacks, so it's more about reflexes than in the Souls games. Contrary to games like Modern Warfare the good character action games are designed to be played on their different difficulty modes (again, similar to the NG+ mode in the Souls games) because enemy placements are switched up, modifiers come into play, new moves are added to attack repertoires and it is generally harder to get you combo score up. I really enjoy the Souls gameplay but if there is one genre that is more rewarding to me when it comes to combat, it's character action games and Rising is a really good one of those.

I think it's interesting that you went for racing games in that analogy, because there is something similar about the design philosophy I think. Like, the mechanics are that simple, but the fun is about reacting and learning.

Souls difficulty is a meme at this point, been since Dark Souls.

They aren't very hard, they are punishing but not very challenging. You can grind them trivial as well. Its just the standards of difficulty these days

Reading back my response, it seems like I was coming off kind of harsh, which was unintentional. To me a game that is unforgiving is pretty much synonymous with being hard, and Souls games are some of the most unforgiving games out there. They don't explain concepts, items or pretty much anything other then basic controls and then dump you into a world where the enemies can potentially murder you for one wrong move. They force you to learn patterns and react quickly, and punish you for making mistakes. If you don't think the Souls games are "hard" then what would you classify as hard exactly?

There are different reasons a game can be 'hard,' whether it be because it is mechanically challenging to play, it is punishing/unforgiving, it purposefully obfuscates its gameplay systems and mechanics, or whatever else.

I thought Jeff was pretty fair, especially for a guy who doesn't like the kind of combat systems these kinds of games have.

I like the Souls games a lot, but the hype and mystique surrounding them has kinda gotten a bit overblown. Not surprised an outsider like Jeff comes into these games and wonders what the fuss is about.

People will always and HAVE always identified and used the word 'hard' in the incorrect way. From's games are unforgiving, at time give you cheap deaths if you didn't know something was ahead, and sometimes, the first time you run into a certain enemy or boss since you don't know the pattern, you MAY die.

It's all just learning, and thats all its ever been. That, and patience, that you know you will have to redo things at points. It's mechanics and nothing but, that's what I love about them, and its mainly your responsibility for improving on it.

@thomasnash: yep. And also theres a world of difference between cars and drivingstyles wich only shows itself if you are invested. Very much like every weapon is described to be a game in itself By experienced souls/monsterhunter players.

So many upset people because someone doesn't have as bad of a time as you did at a game, lmao

Someone is always going to be better than you at something, deal with it and accept it, don't get mad and petty.

1. Jeffs generally good at action games

2. Jeff has probably listen to hundreds of hours of Demon/Dark Souls related conversations (during podcasts, and around the office), so he defininitly didnt go in "blind"

And he's tried the previous games but mechanically didn't get on with them.

Don't worry, I came off as harsh when I didn't intend to a fair amount of times. Writing is just not the optimal way of conveying emotion. I didn't take it harsh.

A hard game to me, is a game that I am having trouble with completing in the first place. When I finish it, it gives me this feeling of: 'Damn... I did it. I wasn't too sure I was able to do it at all'. When I played Souls for the first time, it was more like: 'Huh... I'm not sure how this works, I need to figure this out more. But once I do, I'll roll through it'. A game where I actively had to restart the campaign.. several times.. because I couldn't beat it was XCOM on Impossible Ironman. I'm just not a star at strategy/tactics games, even though I think they are a ton of fun. I think it took me like 16 tries to be able to beat it for the first time, and even today when I start a new campaign, I'm not convinced at all I'm going to beat it. Of course it's a little different, because you can actually fail the game in that game. But I feel in control and comfortable playing Souls, I feel much more gracious playing XCOM. Another example would be Ninja Gaiden on Master Ninja. You can't fail the game like XCOM, but I'm still not 100% sure I'm going to finish every section clean. It may take retries, retries and retries because I can't pull it off. Not because I don't know what to do. I think there is a difference between not fully knowing what to do, and not always being able to actually do it.

To speak of my own hardship with the DS series and why I consider them hard games, even if eventually immensely gratifying, I'll do a writeup here that may not shine any new light. To note upfront, my prowess with a controller is not as high as that with a keyboard and mouse, so some of the hardships may be attached to my perhaps not-up-to-standard controller dexterity (that improved on the way). Even if I finished Spelunky through and through with a controller a month before tackling the Souls-games. So possibly some of the difficulty is more specifically a 3rd-person-lockon-camera-with-a-controller -thing.

My personal journey a year ago in Dark Soul nearly ended preemptively on two separate occasions that seemed too arduous to overcome. Something that very rarely, if ever, happens when playing games; new or old design wise. Now, I had plenty of pure technical trouble fighting the first couple of bosses - Gargoyles and Kappa at the forefront - in a timing sense of reading their attacks and rolling at the right time and to the right direction, both requiring dozens of retries. Even had some problems with the regular mobs at times, but the true trials started when I entered Blighttown and managed to enter a certain big tree through a secret wall with the help of player messages. This was before knowing where Quelaag actually is. (Funnily enough, I beat her first try.)

In that tree I lit a bonfire shortsightedly. While journeying down the branches I managed to get cursed, thus temporally losing half my health, and eventually pummeled repeatedly by mushroom men at the bottom. "OK", I thought, "guess I'm not strong enough to be here yet. Let's make it back to the previous section instead and maybe get something to cure this curse thing." I suddenly realized that lighting that bonfire was not such a good idea after all. What follows were numerous upon numerous attempts to get back to the upper bonfire on the scaffolding whence I came. (I was not aware at the time of the bonfire in the middle bottom section which was a nice surprise a bit later on.) The trek up always started by first trying to clear some of the bottom swamp section with half health, limited crossbow bolts against endless mosquitoes while drudging slowly through poisoning pools of crap - again with plenty but limited antipoison consumables. Getting to the bottom of the scaffolding was always a cause of celebration in itself. Once there, the firespiderbeasts were mostly harmless, while the wall-clipping and hard to autotarget mosquitoes merely annoying. Once at the top, every one of those regular rabid loonies felt like a tense miniboss on the path between me and my dear bonfire that I missed so so bad. One or two clubbing ogres also always managed to greet me with love (yo shorty, it's yo' birthday), and mauled me a few times to death. But it was not until the last firebreathing dogs that the tension was thicker than an uncuttable super Smough. I probably died to them a couple of times right at the finish line forcing me to quit the game and contemplate whether I should start a new game circa 15-20 hours in or if I truly am interested in finishing the game at all. After a good night's sleep and plenty of attempts later I finally lit that bonfire and felt even more like a champ/(chump) than before. I had forgotten that there was still the hike back to the seller in the aqueduct to hopefully remove the curse. But I felt newfound vigor that if I could make it up here, the upcoming ogres and slimemonsters better watch out - after killing me several times. One Depths bonfire, one sight of Firelink shrine, and some soul farming later, I was able to remove the curse with a few extra ones bought just in case. All in all, that journey was frustrating beyond belief but all the more satisfying because of it, and truly a story worth passing onto grandchildren one day, nahmean. (Nope.)

The second big roadblock that required at least one night between the failures and the eventual success was the regular story of Ornstein and Smough, so I won't get into that for long. I guess those two were easy for some people who have a long history with 3rd person action games with a controller, but those two drained me a second time of any will to continue for a good while. Alas, the skinny and the fatty fell and I got to read some in-game messages about amazing chests, and I gained the ability to travel between bonfires. Gee, that would've been kind of handy, especially considering the situation I was in earlier.

After the first incident I decided to, at times, rely on the fantastic maps of where potential bonfires were, just to save myself from some of the excessive and exhausting backtracking that was inevitable. Even if the backtracks would not nearly match the one before neither in length nor repetition, the bonfire maps made the whole 'running from A to B' -experience more palatable without taking away the mystique and wonder of the great interconnected world. Running again and again to Bed of Chaos from a bit closer certainly was a nicer jog than from the previous bonfire.

In conclusion, I've had trouble with the Souls series so I consider them hard games: mostly from a pure gameplay perspective but also in their information stingyness. I completed DS2 shortly after in the next month and the experience was not as grueling but still very difficult on multiple occasions. I've yet to buy and try the second game's DLC. Currently playing through my fresh copy of Demon's Souls that came by mail yesterday. Can't wait to run across the bridge all the way back to Tower Knight after getting whupped twice yesterday learning his possible attacks.

the souls games are hard, learning the patterns and rythms take time and patience. I can't think of many games that are harder really. Megaman 2 maybe? Even though that was all about learning the level designs rather than enemy behavior.

But all games are games, they're programs. Enemies and levels will have patterns, an inherent predictability, so if the souls games aren't hard. What games are?