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.
I think a lot of people confuse tedium with difficulty, and don't realize it.
Its ironically one of the strengths the Souls games have. The interconnected world is fun and neat, but it also cuts out huge amounts of wasted time and tedium of getting back to where you died once you get far enough. Dark Souls 2 even made the controversial idea of just removing enemies if you die enough times and Elden Ring just puts checkpoints before some bosses.
Heck its one of the reasons that despite being a Fire Emblem oldfag who hates a lot of the easiness of the newer games, I enjoy the Turnwheel system. Because 99% of players just restarted a chapter if their character died anyway, so just cut the time loss and let them have a short rewind with the same seed.