Whenever you die, you leave a bloodstain containing your souls in the place you were killed. The problem is, that if you get killed again, before getting your souls back, you lose them forever. 

Sometimes, if you're lucky, whenever you die in a boss fight, the bloodstain will be located just before the boss room, but most of the times, it will be located right inside the room next to the boss.

I have lost 2M souls that way, but not with the Flamelurker. I was farming souls of Black Phantom Black Skeletons in Pure Black Tendency on world 4-2, when a frigging Manta sniped me from afar, without giving the sound hint that they were attacking. 

When I got back to that area, I blocked the sniping attack, but the block drained my whole Stamina and put me in the FOV of the BP Black Skeleton which destroyed me in one blow. 

My frustration was so huge, I couldn't pick up the game that day.

1 ff 13
2. crisis core
3. lost odyssey
4. pokemon platinum
5. heart gold

1.Mass effect 2

2.TES: Oblivion

3. Demon Souls

4.Tales of Vesperia

5.Final fantasy XIII

Haven't played a whole lot, but from what I've played:

1. Oblivion
2. Fallout 3
3. Tales of Vesperia
4. Dragon Age: Origins
5. Muramasa

Puzzle Quest !!!!
Fallout 3
FFXIII
Valkyria Chronicles

fifth would probably go to Mass Effect or Demon Souls, but i havent touched them so far

lol

Sounds exciting, this game. Good examples of how challenging it is. Im have to get it eventually.

1. Dragon Age Origins

2. Mass Effect 2

3. Fallou 3

4. Mass Effect

5. Oblivion

Pretty much every single RPG has been dissapointing. Oblivion was no Morrowind, Fallout 3 was no Fallout 1/2, Mass effect had huge bugs and Mass Effect 2 wasn't as open as I wanted it to be. Fable had a shit final boss and FF 13 was so terrible I wanted to rip my own ears out to stop the pain some of the characters in that game caused me.

Dragon Age origins wins because its reletively old-school and doesn't have any huge flaws outside of the fact that it had a limited budget.

If you ever get to play it, be prepared to be frustrated for the first hours of the game, if you can't evolve your techinque to fit the game.

I've seen people stuck on world 1-1 for days, others have passed it in a couple of minutes. It all boils down to individual skills. 

From minutes to days eh...?

Looking at videos the game doesn't seem hard and I've watched a lot of videos. I know it is very very hard, just saying. Are the controls responsive? I am afraid that the controls will feel sloppy and that being a reason why it's hard to hit or avoid opponents.

Actually, the controls are pretty responsive. You dodge, block, parry and attack in an instant. The problem is not with the controls, is to time each motion so that it won't come back to bite you.

You can play defensively the entire game, but blocking each single attack will drain you of your stamina, leaving you wide open for extremely damaging attacks and with no means of attacking yourself

If you play offensively the entire game, then you'll have to master the timming for dodges, and even then you're bound to be hit sometimes.

The game is just as hard as each person individual skill (or lack of). I breezed through NG+, NG++ and NG+++ which all have over twice the difficulty of the first playthrough, while I had some troubles on the first playthrough.