The 'Dark Souls' Series Is Not The Pinnacle Of Gaming Difficulty, So Stop With All The Comparisons

There is an increasing trend in gaming to reference the Dark Souls games whenever a game exhibits a degree of challenge to the player. This is not at all helpful, as it is both confusing and misrepresentative.

[Gustertote]

I agree that certain people need to stop being ultra-lazy and just comparing everything that they find just a smidge difficult to Dark Souls, but I think why Dark Souls is so oft-referenced is because of how finely balanced the difficulty is. Obviously there are more difficult games out there, where enemies can just one-hit-kill you, but that's not enjoyable. Dark Souls manages to expertly tread the line between throw-your-controller-across-t he-room rage, and "OH GO ON THEN JUST ONE MORE TRY" addictiveness.

[Nitrowolf2]

Yeah, im tired of seeing stuff like this "its like dark souls except its with cars!!"

I saw one for crash bandicoot the other day, its such a silly comparison IMO. Hard games have always existed, but saying its hard like dark souls is a pretty bad representation

[zeal0us]

Crash is like dark souls but with bandicoot and boxes.

[TXIDarkAvenger]

Yea but anyone who plays games has heard of or played Dark Souls and knows it for being hard.

[UltraNova]

I think it has everything to do with the timing of when DemonS/Dark S were released. Back then gaming was heading into a perpetual path of hand-holding AAA games that were easier to pick up and play (meaning more sales). Add the advent of console online play, another way for devs to lure us into their games. It was all about go there, do that directions, buy that weapon pack shortcut, endless hud prompts, markers pointing you to where you need to go and offering to auto-reduce difficulty when you died a couple of times in a row. Yeah it was and still kinda is pretty bad.

Then From Soft released their nuke. It was so disruptive back then that people who actually tried them and persevered, including me, found themselves lost in those brutally unforgiving, beautiful unforgettable worlds... even when we were not playing the damn game!

So in essence it offered people an alternative in the age of shameless hand-holding and it stuck with them, so it's totally understandable that people are now using it as a dificulty exspression constant even when it seems out of place.

[TWB]

I would still wager that its a spin on the meme "Its like Skyrim with guns".

[madforaday]

@trumpwonstopcrying

That is the point, there is no difficulty in Demon/Dark Souls games. It is one game and if it is too hard for someone, they can't go into settings and change it, they can either quit or keep playing. That is why it gets talked so much, it is one difficulty (Unless you join a certain covenant in some games). Everybody who played those games as played the same game and can talk about it together. For an example, Horizon Zero Dawn, you have 3 different difficulties now 4 and you can have auto-aim or have it off. If someone played the game on easy with auto-aim on they had such a different experience to that game compared to me. We could talk about the story but our combat stories would be different.

[Nacho_Z]

Spot on, there are loads of harder games out there but none that make balancing difficulty an art form to the levels that From games do. All those games, all those deaths and barely a solitary cheap one among them.

[Vegamyster]

Dark Souls is a game of patience, once you understand your move set & the windup/speed of the enemy it's pretty straight forward. If you just play it like a high pace hack & slash game you're going to have bad time, which i noticed is how a lot of people try and play it as when they first start.

[TWB]

I think one of the reasons why people use Dark Souls as a comparison, is because the series is actually pretty popular and many have had at least some contact with it. Its just easy to use something so relatively widely known for comparison.

[EddieNX]

Souls is just getting past the learning curve and the odd hyper active enemy/boss. Other than that, its an extremely enjoyable bunch of games. Zelda on master mode is too difficult to enjoy. I dont know if I can be bothered to struggle through it.

[NapalmSanctuary]

Its usually when you really REALLY enjoy a game's mechanics to the point you play it so much and get so good at it that you need extremely exaggerated difficulty just to remain engaged with the experience.

[EddieNX]

Very true, certain games highest difficulties are just not enjoyable though. I might give Mastermode a real go , but its taking me ages to get through a group of Moblins, like damage sponges. I can do Forza on ultimate, I think thats one of my best achievements difficulty wise.

[Uken12]

EddieNX

I'm going through Master Mode right now. I'm at like 48 shrines and am doing the Trial of the Sword. It starts off really hard but usually just avoid enemies until I got good weapons. I feel like bombs are stronger now too.
Anyways the difficulty gets real noticeable in Trials of the Sword. Stage 10 of the Trials 1 is absolutely cheap hard. Like almost impossible because of the setup. I actually beat it last night, barely. It's 2 silver lazafos and 1 blue one. And they just stay in the water recharging. It's stupid and I almost quit.

Otherwise the rest of the game isn't as hard once you get good stuff. I fought Wind Blight Ganon and that was easy still.

[shammgod]

It's where difficulty meets fun meets good gameplay, controls and environment. Still the Pinnacle in my eyes

[PhoenixUp]

Ninja Gaiden was my barometer of a hard game

[Gemmol]

i agree

[nRicosS]

Ninja gaiden & vanquish, the hardest platinum to obtain for me

[Vanfernal]

Me too... For the NES... which makes the Xbox game look like a cake walk. XD

[WelkinCole]

Yeah I remember NG2 on the NES. Just Nuts

[WPX]

Agreed. Specially stage 6-2
*AAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHH!!*

[Rangerman1208]

I agree 100%. While I'm a huge fan of the Souls games, all of these comparisons are just annoying. From comparing games takes elements from the Souls games like Code Vein, Nioh and Lords of the Fallen, to comparing games that are nowhere near as similar as the Souls games like Crash, Shovel Knight and Zelda.

[Psychotica]

The toughest game that I know of is computer chess. The top programs at full strength such as Stockfish and Komodo can consistently beat everyone including the top human players.

[Thatguy-310]

Am I the only one that took those comparisons as a joke?? I don't think they did it to be taken literal. I mean the hard difficulty is something that's attach to that series name so people bring that game up for the narrative they're trying to express.

[morganfell]

When it comes to game journalism, forbes.com doesn't even rank high enough to reach the bottom of the barrel so please stop with the lame attempts at game reporting. Your history of articles on this site is atrocious. Please go back to advising people on how to lose money.

[Kiknyonutz]

I disagree with this article in that Dark Souls is a great comparison for difficult games. Like Gustertote said, it's balanced and more importantly... it's fair. I didn't like Nioh because of all of the one shot kills. Dark Souls gave you an opportunity to learn but you paid heavily for your mistakes. Sorry but if people compare a lot of games to the series... it's probably for a reason. A lot of people hold this series close and you're article isn't going to change the minds of those who are making these comparisons. It's subjective and click bait.

[Asuka]

Found most Armored Core titles to be much more difficult than any souls games. The level of depth that you can tweak your AC can make the biggest difference in an AC battle. Still remember the 1 vs 3 boss battle in AC4 and holy was that hard on Hard mode.

[NapalmSanctuary]

I remember that one. Did it like 5 mil times on hard mode before I finally beat it. I think I did it with dual Kurasawas. Pretty much the go to weapon set up for any boss in AC4/For Answer, as long you didn't need to fly or they weren't flyers. It may have been dual shoulder energy cannons. Its been a while. I remember the challenge was getting the shots to connect.

[ifrit_caress]

The Souls series is on a league of its own.

[the_massive]

It's the pinnacle of difficulty because its hard, and rewards learning, and is in the end, fair within its ruleset. Thats the kind of pinnacle I want.

Crash is difficult because honestly, the game is old, and it was ok to be hard because of bad game design back then. But it's not en enjoyable difficulty, because its not always fair or learnable.

Go back and try to play Ninja Gaiden, good luck to you.

[bluefox755]

Souls games are only really hard when you're first learning how to play them. Once you get over the initial learning curve, they're not that big of a deal.

[NapalmSanctuary]

As long as you don't get over confident after the fact. I had to learn to stop saying "I got this".

[DragonKnight]

Well try playing them, then stop for awhile, then come back to it. Rust is also a hurdle with the Souls games more than most other genres.

That said, Souls is also made way easier if you play certain games too. I found this out by coming back to Bloodborne. Hadn't played it in quite some time but found it to be so much easier when I came back to it.

[deathtok]

TMNT on my NES is like Dark Souls with turtles.

[TheOttomatic91]

Perhaps so but I personally believe it is for gaming difficulty balance few games can be as difficult as Souls games and yet still be refreshing.

[consolez_FTW]

this article is the dark souls of gaming journalism
/s

[TheColbertinator]

I somewhat remember the days when Ninja Gaiden 2 was considered the standard of difficulty and people didn't quite understand its structure and learning curve.

Less gamers from the SNES/Genesis days still playing to this day however recognized that tough games were quite common. Everything from Castlevania,Chakan the Forever Man,Prince of Persia and a particularly unforgiving RPG called 7th Saga.

Dark Souls isn't relentless to cater to snobs,its pushing a learning curve to allow the player to overcome trials and obstacles. You build confidence to play better but never feel like you've become too powerful.

[Nucler100]

The pinnacle of gaming difficulty done right

[DVAcme]

The reason why the Souls series' difficulty works so well is that they're games that you get from them as much as you put into them. If you try to breeze through the game, it will fudge you sideways, but if you're willing to tackle it with patience, persistent and the occasional jolly cooperation, it's very much achievable. It's not a game for complacent players.

That being said, it's absolutely true that comparing difficult games to the Souls series is an apples-and-oranges comparison. For example, the Ninja Gaiden games are hard, but they involve a lot of cheap deaths and twitch gameplay, which is a completely different type of difficulty than the Souls games. That's hard for hard's sake, while the Souls games are as hard as you make them.

[Max-Zorin]

Dark Souls not that hard. Try Chakan the Forever Man. That game was hard as hell.

[greywolf39]

I want a game like Onimusha or New DMC. Action game where I Dont have to care about stamina and dont die from one hit. Remeber those games?! You didnt die from one hit, but games were hard and challenging

[Kurdishcurse]

For some reason, the article isnt opening. Anyway, i would say dark souls is the pinnacle of difficulty design in games. But it is in no way, shape or form, the pinnacle of game difficulty. The amount of games, both modern and classic, that are harder than the souls series is staggering.

Alas, the influence this series had and still has on game creators and developers, fans and the industry alike speaks for its self really. Because they know the challenge is only one of many aspects that makes the souls games great.

[TheOptimist]

Anyone who loves it knows that. It's the casuals and the media who want to hype up because most people can't play basic combat games and want everything to be 'press one button for counter'. It's not hard, it's challenging and it's highly atmospheric and immersive. The labyrinthine level design is also a plus.

[DVAcme]

"The labyrinthine level design is also a plus."

On point. It's like Yathzee said on his Zero Punctuation review of the first Dark Souls, "That's Symphony Of The Night thinking!" The Souls games ALWAYS give you the chance to go somewhere else in the game for a while if an area is particularly too hard for you at any given moment.

[SyWolf]

Gears of War didn't invent cover based shooters, so stop with all the comparisons.

[Hotabang]

Journalists focused on the hard only part of dark souls, and Namco Bandai banked on that by naming shit like prepare to die. A lot of people got pushed away because they assumed it's hard. Dark souls is not hard. Anyone who played dark souls knows the game for its atmosphere and lore more than anything.

Of course u could also blame the spam games like asscreed and such. But I blame western media for hyping pansy shit. Now that more people are enjoying challenging games I feel like the balance is slowly coming back

[TargusX]

It's fair to use DS series as a reasonable benchmark of difficulty. I did think Dark Souls 3 was the easiest of the series.

[drunkenspy007]

Was going to check this out, but forbes is a business magazine with crappy articles that go over opinions about games, but never over games themselves. Waste of time.

[Chaos_Order]

Agreed. There are hundreds of other "hard" games out there but for some reason nobody remembers them. And anyway, Dark Souls can't be that hard if (going by trophies) more than 50% of players have completed it, and a fair number have platinumed it. Compare that to Trackmania Turbo where less than 0.2% have even unlocked the final series, and way, way less than 0.1% have managed to get gold on all events. (And that's not even the end of it as to you need Trackmaster rank in all 200 events to unlock Super Solo, a harder version of the campaign) But sure, Dark Souls is the hardest game ever...

[Bebedora]

I would all to try PS3 version of original Crash Bandicoot. Not able to save a game, and controllers not possible to be worse than they are in this game. DS what?

[thehitman1398]

Ohhhhh Forbes..... Oh forbes.... 😂 stick to doing what you know best... #fakenews ;-)

[SquareBurgers]

Dragon's Lair

[GamePeace]

Monster Hunter is the brighter Dark Souls in difficulty. Practically Dark Souls with sunny vistas ...

[The_Kills]

Ninja Gaiden 1/2, tell me how you fair with that one souls fans.