Ask for the shape of the challenge.

You choose which limb to cut off, which means every fight is a decision about what you want to be wearing afterwards rather than only about surviving it.

The mage hunts turn every boss into a chase across the map, which trades the first game’s clean duels for something closer to attrition.

Enormous and completely indifferent — most of its walls are optional, and it will never tell you which ones.

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

Everything the 3D games do, minus a camera and plus a pit — the second axis of movement is gone, so a mistimed roll usually means falling somewhere worse.

A directional parry replaces the roll as the answer to almost everything, and the game is markedly better once it clicks and markedly worse until it does.

The one that attacks your resources rather than your reflexes — your maximum health falls every time you die, and the ambushes are designed around you not knowing they are there.

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

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

The gentlest soulslike on the shelf, largely because the AI companion it gives you will happily solo a boss you cannot beat.