>>718753365
>but games can provide different kinds of challenges and being different isn't inherently less valuable.
Nor would I want to imply that. No one complains about taking damage in a turn based game for example. Like chess, those are a battle of attrition. Sure it's neat when games find ways around it, like the Mario RPG games, but game design is never a rule written in stone. Arguably the only rule I'd live by is "Make the player blame himself for failure, not the game".
Even within the From games there's plenty of moments of needing to take damage. Falling down to Nito's boss arena, general platforming, the Moon Presence's attack in Bloodborne, and so on.