Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Momentum platforming with hitboxes that reward commitment and punish hesitation. Funky Mode exists because the late levels ask for a great deal.

NES difficulty with modern checkpoints — and you can smash the checkpoints for gold, which is the game’s whole attitude in one mechanic.

The EMMI zones are one-hit deaths with a counter window measured in frames, and the bosses expect dodges on reaction rather than pattern.

Sekiro’s deflection on a 2D plane. Chip damage means blocking is not a plan, and every boss is a rhythm you learn on frames rather than a health bar you widdle down.

You can save anywhere for a resource cost, which turns the escape sequences into a planning problem: no soul links means no checkpoints, and the game does not hand them back.

Kinder than the first in every way that matters — the instant-death platforming is gone — and the map is still built to be read rather than followed.

Two hits and you are in your underwear, three and the level restarts, and the game expects a second full loop before it will show you an ending.

Each boss is a fixed piece of choreography that you learn by dying to its second phase forty consecutive times.

Steady, honest pressure plus a map that makes you earn the right to know where you are standing.

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