Building comparison
head to head
DarksidersvsStreets of Rage
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Darksiders
Execution · Practiced Mastery
Zelda-meets-God-of-War action adventure starring the horseman War.
Streets of Rage
Execution · Practiced Mastery
Crowd-control execution against memorised enemy patterns, stage by stage.
Darksiders leans Execution (Practiced Mastery); Streets of Rage leans Execution (Practiced Mastery).
DarksidersStreets of Rage
Axis by axis
Execution6 vs 7
Streets of Rage leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Darksiders
combo-driven combat with dodge timing
Streets of Rage
Spacing, crowd control and throw timing carry every stage
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Darksiders
enemies are scripted
Streets of Rage
Enemy gangs attack from fixed arcade patterns
Variance1 vs 1
Same score on variance - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
Darksiders
world and bosses are fixed
Streets of Rage
Spawns are essentially deterministic per stage
Optimization6 vs 5
Darksiders leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
Darksiders
Zelda-style dungeons and upgrade routing
Streets of Rage
One-credit clears come from learned positioning and patterns
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.