How is this different than a game like Sega Genesis Contra Hard Corps? (Asking with genine curiousity).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzJyBQKDaeQ

In that game, it's basically ~30 boss fights in a row (don't know the exact number). There are 4 paths through the game A->(B or C)->D->(E or F). So if you take path B you fight different bosses than path C. Same for E and F. One of those last paths has 2 endings with one more boss fight on one path.

You have limited lives so making it to the end of the game requires effectively memorizing the boss patterns. So, your description fits.

> You go into a boss fight and die, and then you die again, and then again. Each time you get a bit further, and do a few more hits. And slowly, finally, painfully, you come out on top victorious

But I'm guessing Contra Hard Corps does not stick up to Eldin Ring. So what's Edlin Ring's special sauce?

Contra has a primitive gameplay (like the basic movement/jump design), so the complexity of interaction is lower, and a couple of boss fights I've watched is literally moving the player in 5 different positions and just shooting around, maybe with a couple of jumps in between, so also nothing as complex.

And a sequence of 30 bosses is too spread out to be comparable to a single condensed boss fight.

Besides that, I don't knows how buggy those bosses are, so can't compare how much of the difficulty is positive

But in general, it doesn't have to be different? The author describes a common principle of separating "good/rewarding" difficulty from bad, any game can be improved by removing invisible hitboxes that frustrate you...

The player controller in that Contra game is extremely simple. Movement snaps and stops instantly, and the animation are simple. You stand, run left or right at a constant velocity, jump, and shoot in one of 5 directions.

Giving your character more movement possibilities tickles the brain with the complexity, enables more fluid and aesthetic movements on the screen, and increases the possible difficulty of platforming sections and boss fights.

Silksong has a very complex movement controller. The player has mass, can grab edges and climb up, and unlocks additional abilities as they play. Now they can dash, run, doing a running jump, wall jump, stall a fall with a float, and more. Attacks come in many flavors, with different styles enabling attacks of different speeds and distances and strengths, with different considerations to manage.

More complex controls take more investment for players to learn and are more rewarding. An extreme example of this is found in games like Monster Hunter, where each of a dozen different weapons controls very differently and takes many hours to become proficient in.

Elden Ring does not have an excessively complex movement system. You walk, run, jump, dodge, and have a handful of fast and slow attacks for a given weapon. It finds success through incredible world and level design and its difficult and rewarding bosses. The game loop is exploration, fighting difficult foes, and slowly growing stronger-- both through game mechanics of gear and stats, and through personal mastery of combat.

Soulslike games revolve around players gambling directly with arbitrary amounts of time-- when you die you drop your money, and if you die again before reaching that grave it's gone permanently. They make you bid the only resource that you care about: your hard-won progress over time.

Complexity and stakes deepen the intellectual and emotional enjoyment of a game.