Which is the hardest "Souls/Souls-like" series? [Sekiro Excluded]

[Sanctuary]

Honestly extremely surprised by the votes for Nioh. I love both games, but as an overall package they are sorely lacking compared to Dark Souls. It has better melee focused combat, but that's literally the only thing it does better. It has much worse level designs, boring boss designs, not enough enemy variety and not enough build variety until you hit NG+ and beyond. Nioh might be a better straight up action game, but it's definitely not the best Souls game.

edit: Weird. I completely misread the title. Changing my vote to Nioh. 😊

 

[Sinatar]

Nioh by a massive margin. Like it's not even close.

Honestly extremely surprised by the votes for Nioh. I love both games, but as an overall package they are sorely lacking compared to Dark Souls. It has better melee focused combat, but that's literally the only thing it does better. It has much worse level designs, boring boss designs, not enough enemy variety and not enough build variety until you hit NG+ and beyond.

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Hardest. Not best. Hard != Good.

 

[Kalentan]

Honestly extremely surprised by the votes for Nioh. I love both games, but as an overall package they are sorely lacking compared to Dark Souls. It has better melee focused combat, but that's literally the only thing it does better. It has much worse level designs, boring boss designs, not enough enemy variety and not enough build variety until you hit NG+ and beyond.

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"Which is the hardest" isn't the same as: "Which you like the most".

 

[DevilPuncher]

Demon's gets my vote, but it was also my first one so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Although, I do feel like World Tendency and halving your health in Soul Form are pretty punishing mechanics. Also, one of the skills that a late game boss has (won't get into details because I know lots of folks are playing it for the first time with the remake and all) is low-key kind of ridiculous.

 

[Nimby]

Bloodborne base game is kinda easy. DS3 is consistently harder. Demon's Souls is easier apart from a few bosses.

Sekiro is hard, but I think replays of Sekiro tend to be easier once you grasp the combat and bosses.

 

[TradedHats]

Nioh 1 and Dark Souls 1 were the hardest for me. Surprisingly found Nioh 2 to be a lot easier, outside of the first few bosses.

 

[Sanctuary]

"Which is the hardest" isn't the same as: "Which you like the most".

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Yes, I know. I somehow read it as which is the "best", not hardest.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Several of those aren't series though. A single game does not make a series.

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True, but most are and it just leads to a better title than Series/Game

 

[Arsic]

If you don't include the Bloodborne DLC, it's not the hardest. But Solo DLC of Bloodborne trumps everything.

 

[WhoaIsThatMars]

I think it's easily Nioh. I only played the first one, but I remember the bosses being absolutely painful. Fair most of the time, but incredibly difficult.

 

[Hixx]

Played all of them in the poll except the Surge and for me it's comfortably Nioh 2 which I ended up just giving up on. I constantly felt underlevelled even though the game was telling me I wasn't.

I had absolutely no trouble at all finishing Nioh 1 but Nioh 2 is one of the very few games I've had to dump due to difficulty. I was making progress but I just didn't feel like it was worth it.

Feel like I should say that I've not bothered with any DLC of DS3/BB/Nioh/CV.

 

[Reckheim]

yeh, nioh, that is one challenging ass souls like game.

Bloodborne DLC second place.

 

[Deleted member 54073]

Nioh for me. That shit is HARD.

 

[Sanctuary]

If you don't include the Bloodborne DLC, it's not the hardest. But Solo DLC of Bloodborne trumps everything.

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The Old Hunters was easily the hardest of the bunch for me.

 

[jaymzi]

Nioh can be the hardest or easiest on the list depending on your build and gear.

So many hilariously broken builds where you melt bosses in seconds.

 

[G_O]

The nioh games are just a slog. I like them but don't love them, at times they are just a chore. So for me they are the hardest

 

[Deleted member 864]

Honestly extremely surprised by the votes for Nioh. I love both games, but as an overall package they are sorely lacking compared to Dark Souls. It has better melee focused combat, but that's literally the only thing it does better. It has much worse level designs, boring boss designs, not enough enemy variety and not enough build variety until you hit NG+ and beyond. Nioh might be a better straight up action game, but it's definitely not the best Souls game.

edit: Weird. I completely misread the title. Changing my vote to Nioh. 😊

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I actually feel like Nioh 2 has done a lot to help with those. Playing through most of the content in the game (though I haven't touched the DLC's yet) I found the level design to be more interesting than the first game, the bosses I found to be more compelling and fun to fight than those in the first game, and there are a lot of new Yokai enemies to fight and more have been added with the DLC's. In terms of variety, I definitely noticed that as a weak point for the first game, but hardly noticed it for the sequel.

 

[alpha]

Nioh by a lot.

 

[nanskee]

Ni-oh 2 looks absolutely dreadful

 

[Sanctuary]

I actually feel like Nioh 2 has done a lot to help with those. Playing through most of the content in the game (though I haven't touched the DLC's yet) I found the level design to be more interesting than the first game, the bosses I found to be more compelling and fun to fight than those in the first game, and there are a lot of new Yokai enemies to fight and more have been added with the DLC's. In terms of variety, I definitely noticed that as a weak point for the first game, but hardly noticed it for the sequel.

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I just never found the new level designs to be compelling in the slightest. They often seemed like they were designed to be more maze like just as a counter to the criticism of the original game, yet never felt organic in that regard. Couple that with the samey looking texturework and geometry throughout each individual level and it was just Zzz to me. The enemy variety in Nioh 2 also is pretty much where it should have been in the original. In the sequel, they basically brought back all of the same enemies from the first, but then added a few more and called it a day. Like I said, I love both games, and they are also the only games I've invested 200+ hours into that aren't a FromSoftware game, but solely because they did action so well. To me, they're basically Ninja Gaiden with a slight Souls influence, not an actual "Souls like".

Edit: I have yet to play the DLC though. I was actually wanting to wait for the (then unannounced) PC version for that. I'll be going through the game again though next year when it hits PC.

 

[DvdGzz]

Nioh because it mixes the Souls difficulty with more of a need to have quick reflexes. A recipe for frustration.

 

[Aniki]

Nioh for sure.

 

[Kill3r7]

Nioh is closer to Sekiro in difficulty but there were several ways to cheese the more difficult encounters.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

The responses here are so contradictory. Some say Nioh, but only Nioh 1 because 2 is easy, then others say 2 was harder. Some say Nioh is easy. Then some say definitely not The Surge because that gets very easy, then someone says the Surge is harder than Nioh 1....

 

[MonadL]

Nioh games have easy bosses but stupidly hard trash mobs. Souls games the opposite imo.

 

[Diogo Arez]

Nioh because it mixes the Souls difficulty with more of a need to have quick reflexes. A recipe for frustration.

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That's my main problem with Nioh, it mixes 2 styles that don't mesh together and the experience feels more frustrating than it should. Sekiro for example at least dropped builds and all that in favor of Hack and Slash, Nioh tried both at the same time and the end result is ungodly frustrating

 

[SunBroDave]

Sekiro, should be included, and is the hardest

 

[Sanctuary]

The responses here are so contradictory. Some say Nioh, but only Nioh 1 because 2 is easy, then others say 2 was harder. Some say Nioh is easy. Then some say definitely not The Surge because that gets very easy, then someone says the Surge is harder than Nioh 1....

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I found The Surge to be harder than either of the Nioh games. Harder to continue playing that is. After beating the first boss, and going through the second area a bit, I dropped that game really fast. I liked Lords of the Fallen well enough (it was rather mediocre), and gave the team a second chance, but instead of getting better, they somehow made an even worse game. Their level design was something awful, and they had some horrendous hitboxes.

 

[XxLeonV]

Every Souls game I own I've beaten. Can not say the same for Nioh. There's your answer lol.

 

[Deleted member 44122]

That's my main problem with Nioh, it mixes 2 styles that don't mesh together and the experience feels more frustrating than it should. Sekiro for example at least dropped builds and all that in favor of Hack and Slash, Nioh tried both at the same time and the end result is ungodly frustrating

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its the opposite for me. sekiro restricts you way too much and if an important mechanic doesnt click for you youre basically fucked for the rest of the game

 

[Lozlink]

The responses here are so contradictory. Some say Nioh, but only Nioh 1 because 2 is easy, then others say 2 was harder. Some say Nioh is easy. Then some say definitely not The Surge because that gets very easy, then someone says the Surge is harder than Nioh 1....

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It's almost like people might have different opinions on difficultly

 

[NediarPT88]

I didn't find any of the Nioh games hard, except for some side missions near end game. The first one was actually surprisingly easy.

It helps that the character in Nioh is super mobile and you have so many attack options.

I'm definitely more cautious when playing From games, which one is the hardest I can't say.

 

[Slammin_Hammon]

Surprised to see Nioh in the lead. It's not easy by any means, but the sheer amount of options at your disposal keep it from being the hardest in my opinion.

 

[Mathieran]

I know we are not supposed to include Sekiro but I started playing it a few days ago and it's definitely more difficult than at least Bloodborne and DS3. Those are the only souls games I've played this far.

overall I feel like Bloodborne was easier than DS3. I might have accidentally overleveled in BB though. In the back half of the game I was dispatching most bosses with ease aside from Ebrietas and maybe the last boss. Blood starved beast was the most difficult fight for me. I struggled for so long on that one. Everything after that was pretty easy in comparison. BB was my first souls game.

Dark Souls 3 was more of a struggle for me, and the last boss in the DLC took me many many attempts to defeat. So based on my limited experience I would consider dark souls the more difficult franchise.

 

[SoulsHunt]

Bloodborne, as Sekiro is excluded. But yeah, it's actually expected when you just beat all Souls games before, the next Souls is easier as you are better.

Nioh was pretty easy for me. The game is not really fair, you die in a few hits and mostly get OS at your back, but the gameplay is fluid and allows you to play as you wish. Still managed to beat the first one at lvl 55 (30h / katana / 13M amritas on me lol) second one at level 40 (61h / katana). But I think level that much on those, I haven't tried at high lvl, sadly.

 

[Arsic]

The Old Hunters was easily the hardest of the bunch for me.

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Ludwig and Orphan of Kos are just next level fights that no one first tries.

I think there's plenty of encounters people can do first try in the other games, heck probably everything else is first tryable, but these two? Nope.

 

[Last Jon Standing]

Nioh was evil.

 

[KORNdog]

Nioh. I just couldn't wrap my head around the stances on top of the "souls-like" difficulty. I also found The Surge pretty tough in places.

 

[kamineko]

in my experience, nioh

 

[Rebel777]

Ninja Gaiden Black.

 

[MatrixMan.exe]

Nioh 1 and 2 will fuck you up something fierce if you're not careful, and they have a steeper learning curve than From's games. Definitely going with that.

Edit: Sekiro isn't that difficult in my opinion. Learn the 3 types of perilous attacks - their cues are kind of obvious, and learn how to counter them (jump, mikiri counter, side step).

Speaking of mikiri counter, the i-frames are generous af.

 

[Lord Fanny]

Ninja Gaiden Black.

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Unless your definition of a Souls-like is just "hard," NG:B isn't even remotely like these games. Not to mention it predates any form of a Souls game as we know it by 5 years

 

[catpurrcat]

Nioh 1 made me good enough to progress meaningfully in Souls

 

[Rebel777]

Unless your definition of a Souls-like is just "hard," NG:B isn't even remotely like these games. Not to mention it predates any form of a Souls game as we know it by 5 years

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[Minthara]

Nioh is definitely the most difficult. I feel like some of that difficulty comes at the cost of good game design, cheapness, and some mechanical obtuseness.

 

[Lord Fanny]

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Ninja Gaiden Black came out way before Souls and is nothing like Souls. Nioh obviously takes a lot of the same structures and cues of Souls games and is very much in the Souls-like category. NG and Nioh are little alike outside sharing a lot of the same weapons and stuff of that nature

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By this logic, Cookies and Cream is the ultimate Souls-like experience.

 

[NuclearDistortion]

Should Ninja Gaiden Black be there if Nioh is?

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This.

NGB on master ninja the first time is brutally difficult, Very Hard on NG04 is controller breaking, and we haven't talked about NG2 on Path of the Master Ninja.

As for the poll, only ever played Nioh 1 and Demon's Souls remake - Nioh was infinitely harder, so Nioh. Demon's Souls wasn't what I consider hard....more frustrating because of the mechanics then anything else.

 

[Kalik]

Sekiro...period.

 

[Lord Fanny]

I'm...starting to think at this point Ninja Gaiden has become one of those games people always hear about but maybe have never actually played or only played a little enough to get a very vague impression of.

 

[Fhtagn]

Nioh is simultaneously the hardest and the most breakable, where leveraging the systems can make your character absurdly powerful. The speedruns are ridiculous.