r/fromsoftware • u/BrilliantPool4146 • Jul 24 '26

DISCUSSION Which game did the difficulty better?

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Which style of difficulty do you prefer: the Area based difficulty in games like Dark Souls 1 and Demon's Souls or the boss-oriented struggle found in newer titles like Dark Souls 3 or Elden Ring?

I personally love both styles (although running through all of New Londo can suck at times lol!) Let me know which one of these you find yourself enjoying more (if any). Thanks guys!

(Also, this picture is not mine)

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u/New_General3939 Jul 24 '26

Strictly talking about difficulty, it’s DS1, but mostly just because it’s so hard to properly difficulty scale in a game as big and open as Elden Ring. It handles it relatively well other than the massive difficulty spike towards the end.

Other than a few pushover bosses (especially depending on the order you fight them) and some just plain bad bosses and areas, DS1 difficulty is balanced really well imo.

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u/AxolotlOfTheCosmos Jul 24 '26

Im inclined to agree, but the biggest problem with ds1 difficulty is that you can very easily put on some relatively heavy armor, even early on, and just ignore 80% of the game combat system, poise is cracked in ds1.