Souls: Consume Your Soul!

Demon's Souls. Dark Souls. Dark Souls 2. And potentially soon, Bloodbourne. These are games that have certainly re-defined the term difficulty in video games. These games can literally consume your soul, and make you become the abused character that you play as. It is a unique attribute that encourages people to play more, literally making people like being abused. But why? What does it feel so good dying over and over? For many games, this would be a something horrible.

The whole concept surrounding its difficulty is 'trial and error'. Fail helps you understand, and helps you learn more about the game. Playing one of these games, you will fail. You will fail a lot. Therefore, you will learn a lot. Whether it be how to approach a kind of enemy, or being wary of hazards, it can feel very educating whenever you fail in a Souls game. It makes you see it as taking a step back, but puts you ahead two steps in the game.

If the game wasn't so hard, then there shouldn't be a game to begin with. Every enemy spawn, every placement in the environment, feels like a puzzle. As educating as it is dying, the whole game itself keeps you thinking and encourages risk. This risk brings many deaths. But it constantly gets you learning about the game itself. This concept interacts with the trial and error concept. The whole game acts like a perfectly made puzzle, where a majority of your attempts make you die.

What if you do not like to think a lot in your games? This difficulty certainly keeps you thinking quickly. But the actual gameplay, the central combat, is exhilarating. The thrill of confronting a mysterious new boss or being surrounded by enemies is a feeling that happens over and over again. And this feeling would not be possible if it wasn't for its difficulty. The hardcore difficulty that this game has makes the game exciting. It makes the game worth playing as a whole and makes its gameplay enjoyable. Even when you die, you have a sense of enjoyment. 

This satisfaction goes even further. There are many, many parts in these games that feel impossible to achieve. Once you do overcome the odds, it feels really satisfying. This even furthers once you get your character as strong as you want, with weapons you cannot imagine at the start. You develop as you play the game. The game makes you tough, and helps build character. The hardcore difficulty can literally make you feel hardcore, and make you feel better as a player.

Difficulty can certainly be frustrating. Some games can be so hard that you just give up. But the whole Souls series has mastered how you should implement hard difficulty if that game should be hard overall. It has came to the extent that you want the game to throw new things at your character. That is because you want that goodness that comes with the challenge. The challenge brings success that makes the difficulty worth the journey. With an RPG series like the Souls series, the journey certainly is rewarding.