Ask for the shape of the challenge.

The shield parry replaces Eternal’s resource juggling, so the demand moves from managing three meters to reading incoming attacks. The difficulty sliders are unusually granular about which of those you want.

An action game wearing horror, and the resource economy is the horror. Ammunition is the real health bar, and the game quietly adjusts how much of it you find based on how well you are shooting.

A platform fighter with three attack buttons and no movelists to memorise, which makes it the cheapest way to find out whether the genre is for you.

Inventory management doing the work of a difficulty setting. Village of Shadows expects the route knowledge of a second playthrough and does not pretend otherwise.

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

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.

Souls-shaped in its checkpoints and parry windows without souls-shaped stakes. Grandmaster punishes the block-heavy habits the lower difficulties let you keep.

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

Give Me God of War removes the stagger the whole combat loop leans on, and turns the optional Valkyries into the fights people put the controller down over.

Beautiful and forgiving right up to the escape sequences, which convert a gentle metroidvania into a memorisation test with no warning at all.