The original strict dodge timings are now present only on the hardest difficulty (Reckoning) along with increased health and enemy damage. You can pick any other difficulty (that's why they are there) and they are much more forgiving and the Story difficulty should be a breeze for pretty much anyone.

Just invest the first levels into health and you should be fine.

cool, thanks

I'm almost at the end of the game, playing with "standard" combat system and "Equilibrate" difficulty, so these are my impressions:

First of all, the difficulty and the combat system can be changed on the go, they just need a reload of the game (or area) to become effective.
I didn't tried the "Classic" combat system, so I don't know exactly in what differs, I just know that in the previous games I was able to counter 100% of the time, while here the time window is really short, and miss a lot of times.

It is not so clear, for every enemy, when you have to hit the evasion to start a proper counter... some enemies have a colored highlight on the weapon, while others just adopt a particular position.
Also the same enemy could have different moves that require a different timing, but the blade is highlighted with the same color... so their position is really important to know what they are starting to do.

When an evasion is not exactly accurate, you will go back, but can be hit, while if the timing is right, a cinematic slow-down happens, making you invulnerable, and during this time-frame, you can issue a powerful counter, with area damage, while still invulnerable.
You can really beat a group of enemies without being hit if you evade perfectly every attack... but the camera view is not so helpfull when you are circled... at least there there are arrows that will point at the direction of the enemies that you can't see, and those will become red if an attack outside the view is coming.

The game is really designed with counter moves in mind... most of the bosses are too fast to be evaded normally, and get a too low damage from normal attacks... you just have to stay calm... wait... and EVADE+COUNTER !!
If this is done right, you can beat every boss standing still, without taking damage at all.

But as I told before, the time-window for the right evasion is really short.
There is anyway, later in the game, an artifact that can boost this time-frame.

In the worst case, just leveling up make you super strong... so the enemies you struggled to beat at the beginning, will die with just one hit at some point... and this is actually good, because you have to return to many previously visited areas during the story.

Well. 1 tried to be a Zelda clone. 2 tried to be something like a 3D diablo 2 clone. 3 tried to be a Dark Souls clone, that is why it sucks hard. I cannot even beat Envy and i play on the Balanced difficulty, the one right next to story mode. Yes, 1 had combo on combat and platforming on bosses as well (Straga), but only 2 mistakes/missteps wouldn't cost you your life).

Had i known it is a Dark Souls wannabe, i wouldn't have purchased it, either. I liked the concept of Blasphemous, as well, but i am going to skip it for the very same reason, i'm afraid; even though i am diehard for metroidvanias.

This is not my cap of tea at all, in videogames. 1 was VERY enjoable. 2 was very OKAY. 3 sucks hard. I really liked the female protagonist, but in all due honesty, she isn't a badass. What she is, is actually a suckass.

3 is the first Darksiders than can getdifficult at times. 1 was a breeze even on Apocalyptic and 2 was also pretty easy (with the added annoyance of having to re-gear every few levels due to the scaling loot, hated that).

DS 1 was indeed the best. 2 sucked (didn't even finish the NG+ because it was just annoying and tedious due to the loot and vast but ultimately empty outside areas) and 3 sits in the middle. Enjoyed it much more than 2.

Also, when it comes to dodge windows in DS3, they get even smaller on the Reckoning difficulty :P.

Abraxis is my game stopper for now... damn too fast, I can't even find the time to cure myself, I had to take a pause from the game after too many deaths with him :(

After a pause from the game, yesterday I continued, and not only I beated Abraxis at the first shot, but I also finished all the other remaining bosses in 2/3 trials and ended the game :)
I remember it as more difficult, but the setting was still the same...
Only a patch has been released in the mean time, but it only mention a fix for damages, while my main issue was to keep distance from bosses... so I'm not sure if it was just me too sleepy when playing at the time, or the patch changed also the behaviour of some bosses...

I restarted the game with all my obtained levels/artifatcts and with the same difficulty setting... but now seems really more difficult than before !!

Anyway, great game !! And good ending cinematic !!

I was playing through balanced difficulty on the PS4 version and it sure did get hard. After struggling forward, I hit a wall at the fight with Lust and ended up dropping down to story. When I was close to the end, I noticed I had somehow managed to skip Sloth. When I headed to his location to finish him off, the scattering of adversaries proved little hindrance.

Perhaps if I had dealt with him at the expected point in the game, I might have found the going less tough for the rest of it. Then again, maybe not. There does seem to be quite a sizable step between story and balanced. I liked the game though. It was my first encounter with the Darksiders series, and I bought the collection from GOG during the holiday sale.