This is so real, Dark Souls has helped me immensely in keeping my concentration up for work and other things in life. It's very good at teaching you lessons that translate to real life.

I’d argue that souls-likes build perseverance which helps with IRL success.

80s/90s kids dealt with this with almost all their games

Sekiro was so good at engendering this feeling. The first time you fight Genichiro you will probably die within seconds. The next fight it might take you 20+ tries to beat him. And then the last time you fight him you can basically no-hit him.

Silksong starts very difficult compared to Hollow Knight, largely because there are many early foes that will deal 2 masks of damage. Those sorts of big attacks were generally reserved for mid to late bosses in Hollow Knight, and it caught even skilled players off guard. Hornet has a lot of mobility though, and a much easier time dodging out of the way, so once you adapt to her playstyle (be patient, dodge, and punish only when you know it's safe) the difficulty settles down and the game feels pretty fair.

As usual, you're gaining all sorts of tools and abilities along the way, and a few areas you can technically access early are best saved for later, when you have better gear. Some players aren't super thrilled with arena challenges, which this game has more of: suddenly 3-4 enemies in a small room all at once. I enjoy the meta challenge though: which tools can thin the crowd? Which minions should I focus to make the rest of the group manageable? If I can avoid taking damage, I can cast spells to thin the crowd much more effectively, etc etc.

I found both HK and Silksong roughly similar to Dark Souls in much the same way.

Above all, all three games demand and reward precision and timing, and to some extent figuring out enemy movement and attack patterns. None of the games demand much in terms of speed or reaction time.

In many ways it's much more forgiving than your traditional "hard" platformers.

I find Silksong to be easier than at least Cuphead and Super Meat Boy, but I could totally see how one who isn't experienced with platformers may find it frustratingly challenging.

I think my hardest gaming achievements have been Pantheon of Hallownest, Malenia in Elden Ring, and 106% Super Meat Boy. Silksong is nowhere near as hard as any of those… but I think I’m about 2/3 of the way through, so who knows what’s in store for the true endgame.

Have yet to run into a truly brutal boss like the last few Pantheon participants in HK.

Silksong is infinitely more forgiving then Spelunky 2. The game just doesn't stop you from going into the harder areas of the map early in your playthrough.

Regarding controls, I have to play precise 2D games with a d-pad or I get immediately frustrated— that said, it was odd playing most of Celeste that way and then having to switch back to the thumbstick for the section at the end with the bubble comets.

I was just wondering about control setup and latency as a major factor in a game with very strict timing requirements. Last time I played was on a TV (over HDMI in game mode though), with a wireless Xbox controller. I wonder how much easier I'd have found it on a 240Hz monitor with a wired controller?

I somehow missed Malenia. I'm level 125 (not doing the PVP meta, just happen to be this level) and was pounding my face against Radagon and the Elden Beast. I downed Radagon on my first attempt, then after like 10 more tries couldn't get him again.

I avoided reading the Elden Ring wiki as much as possible. I decided to open it up and found how to get to Malenia, so I'll be fighting my way over there and gaining a few more levels before trying Radagon and Elden Beast again.

> The music and feints are absolutely diabolical for playing with your emotions and heightening your stress.

The feints are what really get me. Some of the wind-ups for attacks feel like an eternity, or at the very least, extremely unnatural, making it very hard to time a dodge.

>One meta lesson I like about Souls is it provides a safe environment to learn what performing under pressure is like

They used to give you unlimited time to deal with difficulty and always gave the alternative of rolling back and getting more levels. That's until Nightreign -- you are almost always under time pressure.

Forget Malenia -- everdark Libra is the current standard of the most diabolical Souls experience. The time is against you, the music is maddening. You either clear the summons in under 20 seconds or you get another stacked debuff and the goat is casting.

Can't wait for the Depth version to be released this Thursday.

> So whatever makes Edlin Ring so special, it's appearently really hard to describe in a way that separates it from lesser games.

Actually, there is:

Knowing the difference between a game being difficult versus punishing. Here's a 12 year old, 7-minute video that talks about it: https://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs

(EDIT: If it helps, consider changing "punishing" to "unfair")

The TL;DW is that punishing games are not fun because they often rely on cheap things like unavoidable damage, actions not being telegraphed, inconsistency of rules, long iteration times (ie, unskippable cutscenes, excessively long boss fights where you're redoing the same first 10 minutes over again). Punishing games are poorly designed by people that want to defeat the player, rather than allowing the player to overcome the challenge.

In Elden Ring, all damage is avoidable. Every attack is telegraphed. Boss fights aren't really that long, and if you die, the walk back to try again is always short and doesn't rely on fighting through waves of enemies. Some fights have cutscenes either at the start of the fight or during a transition to a second phase, but they're skippable.

It's still a challenging game. Some boss hits will eliminate over 60% of your HP in a single hit, but those attacks are telegraphed and you're supposed to dodge them.

But to a certain extent, ER is a "choose-your-own-difficulty" game. You can grind out higher levels to get your stats up if you want to give yourself more of an edge. The people complaining about Margit (A very early boss) being super hard were probably under-leveled. I got him to 1% HP on my second try (Seriously, his health bar was a single pixel wide), and got him down on my 5th.

Elden Ring, and Dark Souls before it are hard but fair. That separates it from lesser games.

Each boss has a moveset puzzle, where you have to figure out how to beat it, and to win it's not just enough to find the solution; the execution matters as well.

Other games usually just add boss HP or damage, instead of interesting movesets.