The eternal struggle
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Nearly any game that has difficulty settings is going to be numbers, so that rules a fair amount out.
Well the meme was specifically if it was simply difficult, not if it had sliders.
The difference is somewhat like the difference between Oblivion and Sekiro let's say.
Oblivion can be hard if you don't spreadsheet out your skill leveling and end up with zero higher level combat skills on your way up. Now the Numbers have fucked you.
Sekiro is mechanics. You either get it or you don't, skill issue or skill display.
Sekiro feels like an outlier, even among Fromsoft games. The mechanics are so simple and pure that its kind of difficulty is closer to an indie platformer or racing game. I happen to be in the camp that thinks Sekiro's difficulty is overstated, but since there is no way to outlevel or RNG-hack its challenge, it developed a reputation as one of the toughest games ever. The masses really aren't comfortable with a game that doesn't adapt to their natural level of play and forces them to learn, react and rise to its level.
I'm playing through the Nioh games for the first time lately and I love them - maybe as much as I love Sekiro - but I can't help the nagging feeling that despite a similar reputation to Sekiro, they are... easy. And I'm not the type of person to use easy as a pejorative, I'm fine with not struggling in a game. I do die a fair amount in Nioh, sure, but there is such an absolute glut of ways to overwhelm, outlevel, out-equip and out-maths the enemies, that it makes the ways the devs have cooked up to make the game 'difficult' - mostly cynical and sadistic enemy placement, combined with high incoming damage - come across as comedic more than serious. There is such an abundance of options at your disposal at any given moment that the biggest difficulty is being spoilt for choice. Thankfully the gameplay, as deep as it is, is also incredibly fun as a result. But any challenge you fail to live up to in skill terms in Nioh, you'll soon compensate for and beat with the help of maths, it feels. That isn't as satisfying a feeling as I got from Sekiro... although mastery of the complex combat comes with a different sense of satisfaction to Sekiro.
Most people who beat Sekiro didn't do it charmless, let alone with the demon mode active. This isn't to brag, as I didn't get very far charmless alone, but its unironically turning the game into what its intended to be difficulty wise.
Regular Sekiro you can spam the parry button and fish for hits and do pretty well. Timing isn't super strict and you lose little from doing so. And you still feel really fucking good mastering it regardless, because it is still very hard to do.
But it is a great example of a "Mechanical" Difficulty change that is purely skill based. All it does is take off training wheels you didn't know you had, and makes the game absolutely miles harder.
Agreed, Charmless is where the game becomes a real test, but it's also a natural and harmonious upgrade from the first run difficulty. There was a point somewhere in NG+ (going for the Shura ending) that I thought I'd hit my ceiling and that Charmless/Bell was too much for me and I'd have to throw in the towel. But I pushed through, tried to raise my game and then started enjoying the game even more in NG+2 Charmless (going for the finicky ending with the sakura branch stuff) - and even started having an easier time, despite the fact that you more or less hit a hard limit on attack dmg at that stage (besides expensive upgrades via dragon mask). I sometimes revisit the game for the boss gauntlets these days but never play it in anything less than charmless, since it feels like the most natural difficulty now.
Still, I have a tendency to talk about Sekiro in terms of its first run difficulty, because I know that's what everyone else tends to be talking about. A bizarrely low number of people ever seem to have tried or are talking about Charmless, even when they talk about Sekiro as if they've played it inside out. To me that just cements how unaccustomed most players are to real mechanical difficulty challenges. They just write Charmless off as some bonus mode, whereas what its really doing is kicking off the training wheels, as you say.
But imo rather than parry spam, the real training wheels in first run difficulty is ... blocking. When blocking you're immune from all damage from everything that isn't a rare piercing attack or telegraphed unblockable. Enemies are mostly quite bad at punishing a broken posture bar, as long as you recovery roll asap. And from block, a quick release and re-tap in response to an enemy attack becomes a successful deflect. Once you realise this it reveals itself as a massive safety blanket. I've thought about going back through Seki on NG and timing how long it takes for certain bosses to kill me if I just stand still, hold block, recovery roll after posture break and sprint away from unblockables, no attacking or healing. I suspect multiple bosses will find it literally impossible to kill me. Charmless takes all this away, as it should, but it's weird how so few players ever learn how safe they are in vanilla Sekiro if they just engage with the mechanics, plus the fact that the real learning experience is discovering how to fill every empty moment with pro-active attacking.