Ask for the shape of the challenge.

A game about item literacy: the run is won or lost by whether you recognise a pickup you have never seen before.

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.

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

Driving it is a fraction of it. The car arrives on a setup that is wrong for the conditions, the game does not say so, and a lap that felt fine can be two seconds off because the tyre pressures were.

Short and dense, and almost nothing in it is labelled — you learn what an item does by eating it and finding out.

The combat is the gentlest in the family and the systems are the cruellest — dying moves you to soul form at half health, and the game never says so.

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.

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.

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

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