Normal was basically as difficult as any given metroidvania style Castlevania, save for a few optional bosses where I turned Miriam into Devil May Cry-esque pizza eating dirt bag as if "Featuring Dante From The Devil May Cry Series" was printed on the box somewhere.

Honestly it depends on how you play imo. If you play mainly a weapon wielder I can see it being a little tough. But the moment you let Miriam be the badass mage/sorceress she's portrayed as, the game becomes a joke and most bosses can literally be face tanked because of the damage you put out.

It's pretty average for the first few bosses, after that it kinda becomes a joke, just like SotN. Hard is much better, but again you can easily become overpowered because you have already played through the game once (unless you entered the cheat code).

The beginning is kind of challenging when you have limited resource to work with, but after a while it is just a matter of gathering enough to hop from one save room to the next. Then you get ridiculously powerful as shards, gear, and levels roll in.

I think the game kind of needs that for a game that encourages player to explore and return to previous areas.

A few of the boss fights can still be somewhat challenging I think.

It's on the easy side but no more than I would expect from any other game of this style.

It also feels rather intentionally unbalanced with a lot of the weapons and abilities so if you find the one's that are especially fucked up then nothing can ever really challenge you.

You can unlock hard mode from the beginning by naming your save file nightmare.

Normal is roughly on par with Dawn of Sorrow, meaning easy but not play blindfolded easy. Some bosses, particularly Zangetsu, are pretty tough on Normal.

However, I have almost finished the game on Hard and that's where the game really shines. It's perhaps a little too much in the first few hours, but for most of the game it's just right. But I'm about to enter the penultimate area of the game and at this point I've far surpassed most everything in power. You can make Greatswords swing really fast in this game and that just breaks almost all balance. Combine that with some spells and, well, the endgame seems to be a cakewalk no matter what.

At the start i thought it was a bit to difficult but after a few unlocks and some OP spells you litterally become invincible. Favorite combo atm is a rapier style stabby thing those flying paintings and those throwing daggers.

And yeah as someone mentioned Zangetsu was a bit too hard at the start had to try him around 10 times kinda felt likes a Dark Souls boss :P.

It was kind of hard at the beginning (the first couple bosses were harder than anticipated), because you are pretty limited in terms of magic spells, but once you get your hands on leveled up True Arrow and Welcome Company, and you make a point of using every save point and teleport that comes across you, the game became drastically easier, to the point you can beat almost every boss by standing next to it and spamming attack and WC, or TA if they get away.

I think it's tuned really well. At this point SotN feels too easy since I know it inside out, but this rekindles some of the challenge I felt when I first played that all those years ago.

This is why some games should just have one difficulty. Takes a committee to determine which of a half dozen levels is the correct one for someone to choose. And then 2 hours in you realize it is too hard or too easy but at that point why pick a different one.

@cmblasko: I think multiple difficulties works really well here, though. Some people aren't going to want to play this game on Hard or Nightmare at all, others will be bored to tears by Normal but will love it on Hard or Nightmare. No reason why we can't have options.