Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Individually the easiest execution in the genre and the most reading: strings are simple, but every one of them is a decision about whether the assist you also picked is available.

The inputs were made easy so the system could be hard. Roman Cancel is four mechanics behind one button, and every match above the low floors is decided by who used it correctly.

The friendliest the series has been — focus strikes, a mount that finds the monster for you — and the tempered fights at the end still ask for the matchup knowledge Monster Hunter always did.

The single-player is genuinely welcoming; ranked is a decade of other people’s practice delivered eight frames at a time.

Parry-first combat with windows tight enough that blocking on reflex fails and blocking on rhythm works.

A hero shooter that lets you fly and climb walls, so the sightlines are three-dimensional in a way that punishes shooter habits learned on flat maps.

The demons are a resource puzzle solved at a hundred and twenty beats per minute; stop moving to think and you are already dead.

One hit kills, restarts land in under a second, and momentum is mandatory — stopping to think is usually the thing that kills you.

Aggressive rather than punishing — dying costs you almost nothing, so the walls are boss-shaped and the rest is spectacle.

Instant death in both directions and an instant restart. The difficulty is entirely in how quickly you commit to a floor plan you have already memorised.