Gonna have to disagree with you there. Dark Souls doesn't really balance it. It drops you into the world and tells you to figure it out for yourself, and then just leaves you there. There are some pretty asinine things you have to do to "progress" the game. Notable instances like that stupid bird behind the secret jump off point on that elevator in DS. It wasn't even remotely hinted at. I know the whole argument is that you should be figuring this out yourself and exploring everything, but when you do that, AND THEN HIDE THE NEXT PART OF THE PATH OVER A JUMP, then it's not fair to the player. Granted a lot of the time you can general idea of where to go by heading forward and just generally exploring, but the game doesn't really give you context to your actions. You just go from boss to boss and key item to key item, picking up tidbits as you go. Why am I fighting the Martyr King in Bloodborne? "Oh, because you need his crown." When was this ever told? "It was kinda hinted at, but you don't realize you need it until after you get it." Then...the whole point of coming here was to get an item to continue the story. An item I didn't know I would need until I got it. I didn't really like the way it did that. The world, to me, was just kind of there and didn't give me any real reason to do anything. I just progressed forward because I wanted to experience the game and the Dark Souls difficulty. You often times don't get context unless you go out of your way to MAKE things makes. Dig into every world tidbit to not only flesh out the world, but actually explain your adventure. I don't really enjoy it when the adventure makes no sense, when the game basically tells me that it will all make sense in the end, and then doesn't make it any more clear. Immersion is broken until I go out of my way to look up all the theories and world info others and I dig up. But by that point, I've already put the game down and cease to care about being immersed in the game world itself.
This is what I could find of Valkyrie Profile: Looks to be Metroid-style world navigation with Final Fantasy-ish combat.
Quelaag is a great example, yeah, but honestly, while I felt bad fighting her, what made me feel worse is that I felt the reasons for having to fight him were a bit weak. That's my problem with it. Until after you beat most of the bosses or get farther in the game or do some digging into the lore, some of these obstacles don't make much sense. Honestly it feels more like games like Dark Souls were meant to be expressed almost as a piece of great literature in video game form. There's nothing wrong with that. Being deep and meaty on the meanings and possible implications of everything. But ya know what also isn't so bad? Being grounded. Having a reason and being given an incentive to be a part of these events. A sense or moral ambiguity is great, but I feel it would have been expressed better if you'd had more input from the narrative as to why you were doing all this aside from lighting that last bonfire and making your choice. Having immediate or obvious implications and meaning to the events we transpire in can be effective as well. In my personal opinion, Dark Souls gives to much open ended storytelling. It doesn't really engage the player on an immediate level. It gives the player the task and then lets them figure out the world and die trying to get to complete that task by whatever means necessary. Sometimes, however, it might just be more effective and immersive to have an active reason to partake in a boss fight. Quelaag is an example that really breaks the mold and stands out thematically and in what she symbolizes, but what exactly does the giant butterfly have ANYTHING to do with your quest? Yes, there's a reason why it exists and is the way it is, but why as an obstacle? The games could have done with a bit more active buildup towards bosses and make them more an active part of the quest instead of just being there as obstacles. Again, Quelaag breaks this and is one of my favorite bosses in the game.
