Is the souls series genuinely challenging, or is it just artifical difficulty?
its artifical difficulty
you choose your level and how if/much you grind
The Souls series is challenging when compared to most other AAA titles, in that it typically requires you to pay attention and not attempt to rush through everything while mashing the attack button.
Bloodborne made things slightly more challenging by introducing enemies that (mostly) don't bother to wait around for you, and require you to be aggressive while dodging into attacks to abuse iFrames, which could be argued to be a difficult thing to do for the 'average gamer.'
Essentially, they're not Ninja Gaiden, but they are challenging.
demon's and dark souls are genuinely challenging I'd say. dark souls 2 on the other hand is very selfaware and sometimes very..... unsportsmanlike, let's say it that way.
The difficulty in the Souls games comes from initially not understanding the mechanics or what the game expects of the player.
Naturally once you're accustomed to how to play them the challenge plateaus.
>>321697017
>Unsportsmanlike
You mean the magnetic enemies they threw in because of the old "Lol just circlestrafe and backstab" tactics?
Pretty artificial. You can grind away and just get levels to win. Souls games are easier than say megaman games. For example, I've never met someone unable to beat a souls game. I've met plenty who can't beat a megaman game.
>>321697167
Artificial difficulty is a stupid fucking term that only means whatever you decide it does.
>>321697531
this is a strange comparison. i've known plenty of people who can beat megaman but cant beat dork souls, usually people who liked games in their teens but dont really fuck with them now. souls gives people of adequate skill far more options to play and beat the game than megaman does. i really dont get this artificial difficulty meme.
>>321698103
Artificial Difficulty is definitely a meme, though some games are absolutely based on it, like I Wanna Be The Guy - which is supposed to be balls-to-the-wall hard due to threats that have no indication that they'll appear, which is nearly everything in the game. Trial and Error and memorisation are your friends.
Souls games typically have a way for you to avoid traps by either listening or observing your surroundings carefully if the area is new to you.
Considering that "artificial difficulty" has no agreed upon definition there's no way to answer that.
The games are somewhat hard with a few bursts of extreme difficulty unless you like to co-op.
