Depends on your skill. This game is inspired by Nier Automata, but you're not fighting colossal bosses (most of the time). The damage isn't souls-like, but on the intended difficulty, you can't exactly face-tank either. The first boss fight is divided into checkpoints between phases, but the others aren't. Bullet hell sequences can chip you down pretty quickly if you are timing your jumps or dashes poorly.

It's not Elden Ring, but it's not a peace of cake either.

If you want to play on “Normal” you can equip the omamori that gives you health back when you parry and the one that increases the amount you get back. You might even want to use Cheat Engine to have them early. If you want to play on “Hard” then don’t use those ones.

Hey, so this is an action game. The challenge is not to beat it, it's to beat it with style: get the highest ranking in fights.

If you don't play for rankings, it's not gonna be difficult.

Originally posted by The nameless Gamer:

Depends on your skill. This game is inspired by Nier Automata, but you're not fighting colossal bosses (most of the time). The damage isn't souls-like, but on the intended difficulty, you can't exactly face-tank either. The first boss fight is divided into checkpoints between phases, but the others aren't. Bullet hell sequences can chip you down pretty quickly if you are timing your jumps or dashes poorly.

It's not Elden Ring, but it's not a peace of cake either.

Considering how cheap and artifical Elden Ring's difficulty is at times, and how it devolves into dodge-rolling and daft I-frame exploiting for a franchise that was supposed to be about grounded combat and danger-traversal (doubly so on Shadow of the Erdtree), I'd say that's a good thing.

But yeah, the combat and getting Perfect rank (this game's version of S-ranks and Platinums) is where the fun and challenge comes in.

Originally posted by Bufudyne Dan:

Originally posted by The nameless Gamer:

Depends on your skill. This game is inspired by Nier Automata, but you're not fighting colossal bosses (most of the time). The damage isn't souls-like, but on the intended difficulty, you can't exactly face-tank either. The first boss fight is divided into checkpoints between phases, but the others aren't. Bullet hell sequences can chip you down pretty quickly if you are timing your jumps or dashes poorly.

It's not Elden Ring, but it's not a peace of cake either.

Considering how cheap and artifical Elden Ring's difficulty is at times, and how it devolves into dodge-rolling and daft I-frame exploiting for a franchise that was supposed to be about grounded combat and danger-traversal (doubly so on Shadow of the Erdtree), I'd say that's a good thing.

But yeah, the combat and getting Perfect rank (this game's version of S-ranks and Platinums) is where the fun and challenge comes in.

I won pretty much every boss fight in this game by the skin of my teeth in two playthroughs and can't beat Mimiko without one use of Hanami dango (Shrine Maiden difficulty). Still had a lot of fun.

Originally posted by Bufudyne Dan:

Considering how cheap and artifical Elden Ring's difficulty is at times, and how it devolves into dodge-rolling and daft I-frame exploiting for a franchise that was supposed to be about grounded combat and danger-traversal (doubly so on Shadow of the Erdtree), I'd say that's a good thing.

But yeah, the combat and getting Perfect rank (this game's version of S-ranks and Platinums) is where the fun and challenge comes in.

Highly disagree with you there, for me the franchise is about fighting bosses that require you to know their patterns and how the game works. The combat have never reallly been "grounded" and instead it has always have clear limitations and expected players to know how to best use the tools they have, specially since the entire franchise can be played by i-framing everything.

The only "artificial" difficulty is the fact that enemy attacks take a huge chunk of your health, but this was there since base game (to the point of the soreseals being a huge plus to any build since the extra damage you too was negligible as you were being two or three shot anyway). And even still, I don't find it as bad as people make it out to be, just requires you to be more precise or use something to negate damage (like the 'easy mode' build of using a greatshield and a poking weapon on the Promised consort).

And for me getting the perfect rank isn't something I really care about as much as having a challenge to complete the fights. "styling" on easy enemies isn't my idea of fun

Originally posted by Sire:

Originally posted by Bufudyne Dan:

Considering how cheap and artifical Elden Ring's difficulty is at times, and how it devolves into dodge-rolling and daft I-frame exploiting for a franchise that was supposed to be about grounded combat and danger-traversal (doubly so on Shadow of the Erdtree), I'd say that's a good thing.

But yeah, the combat and getting Perfect rank (this game's version of S-ranks and Platinums) is where the fun and challenge comes in.

Highly disagree with you there, for me the franchise is about fighting bosses that require you to know their patterns and how the game works. The combat have never reallly been "grounded" and instead it has always have clear limitations and expected players to know how to best use the tools they have, specially since the entire franchise can be played by i-framing everything.

The only "artificial" difficulty is the fact that enemy attacks take a huge chunk of your health, but this was there since base game (to the point of the soreseals being a huge plus to any build since the extra damage you too was negligible as you were being two or three shot anyway). And even still, I don't find it as bad as people make it out to be, just requires you to be more precise or use something to negate damage (like the 'easy mode' build of using a greatshield and a poking weapon on the Promised consort).

And for me getting the perfect rank isn't something I really care about as much as having a challenge to complete the fights. "styling" on easy enemies isn't my idea of fun

It sounds like you're looking for more souls-like games. This ain't it then.

Maybe consider looking at Ultra Age if you're after an action/souls-like hybrid.

FYI though: you seem to have the wrong idea about playing for ranks. You're not gonna be styling on "easy enemies" We highlighted playing for ranks as the true challenge because… it's challenging. You will struggle to no-hit fights, let alone get a good combo score while doing it.

Originally posted by The nameless Gamer:

Depends on your skill. This game is inspired by Nier Automata, but you're not fighting colossal bosses (most of the time). The damage isn't souls-like, but on the intended difficulty, you can't exactly face-tank either. The first boss fight is divided into checkpoints between phases, but the others aren't. Bullet hell sequences can chip you down pretty quickly if you are timing your jumps or dashes poorly.

It's not Elden Ring, but it's not a peace of cake either.

idk, elden ring i found easier than homura on normal...

edit: uh... my bad, i figured i can spam parry any time and i can actually just spam it.. even mid-combo.. this makes it about 10x easier

took me 3rd act to realize skills dont share any cooldowns or anything.. was playing with just the starting skill cause that skill felt so bad and ithough it will be underwhelming.. my god, you can smh cast all 4 skills each 3 seconds.