| Machiavellian said: YES it would make the game easier and its definitely not what the devs wanted. |
And that's the issue. Many parts of the game don't look designed around "this will be fun" but rather "this should be the hardest and most annoying possible." Shellwood comes to mind. Mobs are slow, dumb, with uninteresting movesets but they fly away from you all the time. Killing them is purely a matter of patience because you need to hit them 5–6 times. I simply don't have that much patience, which leads me to fail more and die more. It's just not a fun gameplay loop for me
Sometimes, more difficulty doesn't improve the experience and that's the case of many areas here. I like to be constantly tested against a boss with a difficult moveset to learn and react to, like, for instance, Last Judge. Died for like a whole night against him and still found the fight fun. But I absolutely hate bosses that summon minions (flying minions, to make it worse) and turn the combat into something more RNG-based like, let's say, Sister Splinter
You can make a game harder and still satisfying somehow, with better mechanics. One area that is a good example of difficulty, while also a bad example of difficulty, is Sinner's Road. I like the fact that you can’t simply heal if you touch the putrid water it gives you a fair punishment for making a mistake without ruining your run, and gives you the opportunity to heal again if you beat enough enemies
What does this area do wrong? It locks you out of a bench (a bench you paid rosaries to get) with a hidden platforming section. Okay, you want to increase difficulty by making me earn the bench? Fine, even with the annoying runback from Greymour, I'd still think that's fair. What isn't fair, however, is making it extremely hard to even find the platforming section. I totally missed it until my second playtrough and I needed to look for a guide, which means you're locked out of a bench during Sinner's Road and need to always go back to Greymour. And… for what reason? To make the playtime longer? More stressful?
