Beautiful difficulty options open out a game of beautiful difficulty. This game casts a spell. A very particular spell. It is hard as they come, punishing, brutal, unforgiving in its challenge. And yet I love it still. It’s not just difficult. It has a perspective on difficulty. It makes its sheer level of horribleness first endearing and then thrilling. You know Ghosts ‘n Goblins by now. 2D action-platformers with a horror vibe. You know the dark of the series’ scrolling night. The creep and shudder of the monsters rising from its graveyards. You are a knight, powerful but also delicate, the merest hit shedding you of your armour and leaving you scampering around in your underwear. It is a gothic world, devils and skeletons, but it’s also quietly funny: that underwear, but also huge hands descending from the sky to grab you, and there’s something charming and comedic about the fist-pumping, knees-up run of yours, somehow so little of the expressed energy channeled into useful speed. I love this world. It’s so wretched, but so inventive. Even before you get to the difficulty, just look at it, and listen too: the classic video game graveyard, with the yawning, dancing, Addams…