Ask for the shape of the challenge.

Every death ages you, and an old master dies in two hits. The run-level economy is what punishes learning a boss the slow way.

Bullet-hell reflexes bolted to roguelike stakes — the two hardest things to hold simultaneously for two uninterrupted hours.

Pace notes, no rewind on the harder settings, and a damage model that ends a rally on one bad corner. The hardest driving in the catalogue by a distance.

The world is kinder than Dark Souls and the bosses are considerably meaner — almost all of the difficulty has moved into the fog gates.

A parry game wearing a Souls coat: dodging alone will carry you for two hours and then stop working entirely.

Faster than Hollow Knight and less forgiving with it. Enemies crowd, healing is a commitment rather than a pause, and the early bosses assume reflexes the first game spent thirty hours building.

It punishes the instinct to retreat — the only way to get your health back is to keep hitting the thing that took it.

Directional swordfighting against two opponents is closer to a fighting game than an RPG, saving costs a drink, and the opening hours hand you a peasant who cannot read, ride or fight.

A bullet hell with a generous dodge roll and completely ungenerous boss patterns. The unlock grind is doing double duty as the difficulty curve.

The difficulty is mostly geography — knowing which door to take is worth more than any weapon in the game.