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This is mostly a result of the perception some people have that Dark Souls is just about being hard, which means that any game that is marketed as difficult is "the Dark Souls of ???". It misses the point of what Dark Souls is, and honestly does no favours to those other games either.

A couple of those titles were obviously inspired by Dark Souls gameplay.
Just cause 'souls-like' is an overused tag, doesn't mean it's never applicable.

You could end up going too far in the other direction and indiscriminately mock anyone for mentioning it, even if it's the best example/comparison.

NioH is a Souls-like, though.

There was a time when very high difficulty was called Nintendo hard. I feel old.

Yep, I agree that the "Dark Souls-hard" tag is getting tiresome. What I think not only gaming reviewers are to blame, I mean, even the first Dark Souls game has a "Prepare to Die" edition. I think that devalues the game as a whole. It's not just hard. Everybody talks about how hard Dark Souls game are. But what about the astonishing level design of the first DS? The atmosphere? The RPG elements?

That moment when Demons Souls is the Dark Souls of Souls games