Anyone who played any beloved third-party NES game:
Oh, that's cute! 😏
Edit: Just so we're clear, I'm poking fun here, I like Demon/Dark Souls just fine.
but waay too many games get compared to them as though they're the first game with ball-retracting difficulty, lmao.
Its a problem with a lot of games, in which eventually the difficulty turns it from a game you play into a game you memorize. So you often just bash your head against it until muscle memory makes you do the moves exactly in the only way that could possibly get you through.
Its almost like turning the game into a speedrunner strategy, but its the required play.
Which is the point where I do think that Souls game's difficulty usually hits the correct level, wherein you have a solid chance to one shot most bosses when you see them simply by being careful and thoughtful to your timing. Most people won't, but its something a lot of "uber difficult" and even Soulslike games lack.
Elden Ring is the only odd on in that regard, as its delayed attack and insane tracking means you can't really recover without prior knowledge on the boss and his attacks. Its almost Dark Souls 2 level at times.
I'd argue the opposite for NG. It's a stylish action game with an expressive combo system and excellent player mobility. Given that, and the dynamism of combat, no two instances of the same encounter play out the same. That's my point. In addition to having hugely satisfying combat, it plays a little like a spatial puzzle.
Sure, higher difficulties (which are reserved for subsequent playthroughs) require a lot of muscle memory in regards to actual input. Intuition is required for moves that require precise spacing and to exploit attack i-frames and not be murdered during longer recoveries. The closest it comes to prescriptive play is reducing your moveset to an optimal subset, but only when dealing with extreme pressure.
Just watch this, it'll do a better job of explaining than words ever will.
I've never played a Ninja Gaiden before (its reputation of "HARDEST GAME EVER" killed any desire to try), but all I got out of the first few minutes of that video was iFrames being the cornerstone of everything. Like, numerous attacks that clearly should have landed just not registering because he was in a combo or in the middle of a cinematic attack.
Which relying on is usually a symptom of what I was trying to describe, wherein the game is too punishing to do anything but that optimal subset of abilities.
Its the opposite but much the same of the prescriptive play issue, except instead of treating the encounter as a "solved" thing you have to work through, you instead treat your character as a "solved" thing where you memorize the moves that Power Armor or iFrame through attacks and constantly use it to get through each problem. The original God of War games were infamous for this, where you usually can use only 1-2 combos the entire game at the top difficulty.
Again, maybe I got the wrong bead on NG as I've not actually played it, seemingly as its fans want by how much they treated it as an impossible to play difficulty fest for most of its life, but that is a problem with a lot of other similar games regardless like the aforementioned GoW.
The Sigma release on PC (1, 2 has a lot of problems) adjusted the difficulty, making it less ridiculous and a great place to jump into the series. Harder difficulties are still there for people who either enjoy working to master complex mechanics or have reaction times sufficiently far outside of the mean. Very much a personal preference, but few games cater to that niche these days. Personally, the appeal isn't in the difficulty but in the attainable high skill-ceiling and the exhilarating gameplay that comes from it.
To a degree, and more so in NG2. NG1 is less permissive, and therefore more decisive. That said, essence (the orbs) are automatically absorbed when not blocking or attacking, so the player was blocking a lot. Some of those i-frames are the result of counters - no different to ripostes in FromSoft games albeit more fluid. Others require use of essence and good setup. In that regard I consider NG a better solution than its derivatives (God of War, notably), since that optimal subset is still fairly large and the "cinematic attacks" require quite a bit of thought to use effectively. That was largely my point - it's not just mindless action or rote input.
Soulslikes (Elden Ring in particular) fall apart quite quickly if you're outside of the intended skill bracket. All of the artificial challenge runs speak to this. Given the relatively small number of combat options, without sufficient challenge the game is essentially reduced to alternating 2-3 inputs with exact timing.
As someone working on a challenging combat system, I'd be very interested in hearing if you have any proposed solutions. You're clearly quite analytical when it comes to gameplay.
Unfortunately age has made complex mechanics involving reaction time well beyond me. Even games I used to be rather good at I am slowly losing my ability with, so the time to pick up such a series is long past.
Right, I'd never call it mindless by any stretch. Only restrictive to a point where its almost indistinguishable at times from something like a Tool-Assisted run because you truly can't do anything else and approach success. But again, that's my completely ill-informed opinion so its worth little.
As we spoke of earlier, they are more RPG than Action game. Which means the challenge level and the options are more diversified by your build rather than baked into the game itself. I'm a 1h sword and shield heavy armor guy by default so, as you said, something like Malenia completely crushed me and was highly difficult (mostly because of her heal on hit), wherein most bosses were just patience matches as I blocked my way through until an opening came. Something a mage or dex build would find the opposite of.
Which I think is the correct way for them to build their games. Most of the times all builds feel viable enough to beat the entire game with, sans a few that can't do early stuff due to lack of equipment. Some of them are overpowered for sure, but the bosses all feel doable by wildly different character types and playstyles with sufficient experience.
Its why Sekiro and to a lesser extent Bloodborne are so much less popular than Dark Souls/Elden Ring. They have limited playstyles that reward only one true type of fighter, so if it doesn't mesh with you then you just can't play it.
That's a broad question, so if you could narrow it down I'd be happy to give more useful thoughts rather than ramble aimlessly.
But I think really at the end of the day a lot of it comes down to "all games shouldn't be for everyone" and their difficulty level often reflects that. I've found certain games do scaling difficulty extremely well (Against the Storm is probably the best I've ever seen), and others that make me fucking hate the game ("Dynamic Difficulty" in Capcom games comes to mind).
Action games are hard to speak on as much because their "skill base" varies wildly across games, as does the intention. Like, I find DMC's focus on style to be incredibly unfun and ruins the game for me, but without it the game loses a considerable amount of difficulty or even reason to play.