As a gamer that has too many games on the go at any moment, I couldn't find time in my schedule to tackle a game that would politely be described as bloody hard. While I am familiar with the original from hearsay, I didn't play any of it. From the time that I've put into Dark Souls II, I can wholeheartedly agree with the assessment of the previous game: Dark Souls II is infuriatingly hard.
Most games will have their difficulty established by asking the gamer to accomplish a nearly flawless series of commands, or use a weak control structure to unfairly limit the gamer against an unencumbered opponent. Dark Souls II does neither, it gives you the tools to succeed right from the beginning, but does so little hand-holding that you are thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. With such a brutal difficulty curve, I found the praise to be a little surprising.
