CharlesGrey: You have to keep in mind that they are vastly different games. I've only played Blade of Darkness/Severance a little, but I got the impression it was much more old school in terms of game design, with levels and linear progression... ? The Dark Souls games have open, persistent game worlds, and your actions within those worlds have consequences. Consequences which would be meaningless, if you could just reload your last save game. Generally speaking, it's part of the game concept that the player has a lot of freedom and power, but also has to deal with the consequences of their actions. In example, you have the ability to attack and kill most NPCs, and some of them will drop useful items upon death, but then you may be missing an important trader, or won't be able to complete certain side-quests. In many ways the series break with standards of the RPG genre, or video games in general. Due to that it may be confusing or frustrating at first, but once you get into it, you realize the devs put a lot of thought into every element of the game design, and that includes the save game and checkpoint design.

As for "hardcore gamer badges", achievements, bragging rights or whatever... *shrug* I play those games because I love the world design, atmosphere and combat system, among other things. Not because they're the "hardest games evur herp-derp!!1". A certain amount of challenge is part of the game design, but they're not actually that hard. I suspect Blade of Darkness, or various other old-school games are just as hard, or more so.

Cavalary: Raised an eyebrow at that too. But then again, my definition of an AAA title was A-class game by A-class developer and with A-class publisher, so it'd be absolutely impossible to have an independent AAA title, that 3rd A can't be there, period.
But that's not a bad thing, considering how much of an issue I take with big publishers. So rather a bad thing that they market it as such really.

Lifthrasil: Looks interesting. But this 'independent AAA' contradiction makes me skeptical. That is either a meaningless PR drivel or it means, as others have pointed out, HQ graphics with hardly any game behind it. So I'll wait for it to drop to much, much lower prices before buying it.

Ancient-Red-Dragon: The footage in that review constantly shows the game pausing when a blade hits; it looks like the kind of stuttering that happens when V-Sync is on.

But the commentary doesn't mention those glaring problems in the footage. Therefore I'm confused about why the game is stuttering in the footage. Is the reviewer using weak hardware? Or does the game always stutter regardless of how strong the user's hardware is?

RadonGOG: Well, Graphics are definitly on AAA-level, but assets do look a little bit stocky some times. My overall impression is that it´s a cool game for folks who liked AlanWake, the 2008 PrinceOfPersia, WalkingSims like MIND or so...
...which I did. Oh yes, I liked the first hours.

NuffCatnip: Game looks interesting, but all these 1-2 hour 'best game evah' reviews on Steam and gog are kind of a turn off. :/

groze: But TotalBiscuit told us the game is bad and Jim Sterling found a game-breaking bug, so that *must* mean the game is truly awful and everyone will come across the same bug, right? /sarcasm

Yeah, the GOG Forum has always been a place full of people who mostly complain about everything in the announcement/release threads of games, this has happened since the "good old days" of the Forum, it's kind of a staple. Even if it's a game in a genre they don't like or they haven't bought -- and never will -- something urges them to come in these threads and "warn" potential buyers that a game is bad because they don't like it.

Fortunately, most GOG customers couldn't care less about the forums and just vote with their wallets by buying or not buying the games. Senua's Sacrifice is the second most popular game on GOG, right now, following Tacoma, according to the "Popular" list on the front page, so I guess all the crap we talk about in here doesn't really matter much.

Themken: Not the first game with a mad protagonist but there are not that many I know of.

bongboy: My coffee tells me that Francis York Morgan is one of them. What do you think, Zach? Also, Daniel Lamb.

Mafwek: As somebody who finished both games, you pretty much nailed it; except for Blade of Darkness being harder than Dark Souls. It's slightly easier. It definitively needs it's multiple saves, because it's pretty glitchy game though.

Digital_CHE:

Cavalary: I remember one glitch in BoD, when doing one thing I knew (from glancing at a guide) was likely to cause one, namely saving in view of a trap. Fun glitch though: My character became invincible. With me playing so defensively, actually took me a while to realize it, then went ahead to explore the level while I was at it, then reloaded an earlier non-glitched save. But yeah, interesting glitch to have :))

Cavalary: Pricing scheme:
33.83$ +13% regCZ, regDE, DK, regIT, PL, regRO, regRS
33.79$ +13% SE
32.19$ +7% GB
30.14$ +1% CH
**29.99$ base
25.29$ -16% AU, NZ
24.47$ -18% CA
23.80$ -21% NO
17.28$ -42% regAR, BR
13.57$ -55% RU, UA, regUZ
12.99$ -57% CN

Prah: Seems like the perma death is a bluff after all. Prah:

Themken: Interesting as I have not played any of those. Maybe there are many more than I at first tought.