I was a bit spooked by the disclaimer about how challenging it was but I've cleared the first level on "More Pain" very easily. I think I lost a minion in the second or third battle, but other than that I've never lost one and I haven't had any use for the level 6 and 7 brains because there hasn't been a need to replace my minions. I have a couple of secondaries that I can swap in if one of my minions is badly hurt and use distillation to move them up while they're "convalescing". Even the keymaster combat wasn't difficult once I realized I should focus on him rather than the others.

So is the game really hard only on the higher difficulty levels or does it get progressively harder as you go? I don't really feel like I've done anything particularly clever to this point.

The second floor is a lot harder than the first. I found it does get a little easier after that but you really have to pay attention to your unit comp because the AI likes to throw some pretty nasty combos at you.

Overall though Darkest Dungeon is a little more unforgiving due to the affliction mechanic.

When I first played this game, I started on 'More Pain' after the obligatory tutorial (which I found helpful) and did not ever really have much difficulty except maybe for a battle or two when encountering a new type of enemy. For the most part I could freely swap minions in and out for each other and it really did not matter too much.

'Good Always Wins' is another story. On that mode, the game got challenging enough quickly enough that I really started to learn-by-necessity how to put together a synergistic team of four minions, and it gets tougher as you climb the floors. Depending on how you like your challenge, this may be what you prefer.

As the Darkest Dungeon comparison (a good one) was invoked, I find 'More Pain' to be like Standard mode or even Radiant mode on DD, but 'Good Always Wins' brings it closer to Stygian/Blood Moon-type difficulty. Effective combos will still be effective, but enemies will hit harder, act a bit smarter, and how you assign your stat points will matter a lot more.

On "More Pain!" (the 2nd level of difficulty) I sailed through it. But then came the very final battle at the end with the "Archmagister". That's just proving well, IMPOSSIBRU!

So I'll not be unlocking that "Unfrozen" minion type any time soon huh?