Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - From Software and Hidetaka Miyazaki's new game for PS4, XBone, PC

Out on March 22. Samurai Dark Souls maybe? I am incautiously excited.

https://www.sekirothegame.com/
https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/6/18253125/sekiro-shadows-die-twice-preview-impressions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoWI1LazLtQ

Things to know:

- No PVP, no multiplayer
- YOU CAN PAUSE!!!!!!1!!!
- Activision is publishing but there's no monetization in the works
- Stab a giant rooster in the head

- Stab a giant rooster in the head

preordered btw

That game looks ... awesome. And fast. And hard. Be great if that was the real music.

does it have dynamic horse testicles

- YOU CAN PAUSE!!!!!!1!!!

Not only that, you can SWIM.

Which boats well for aquatic duels in the next Soulslike game.

boats = "bodes", but lol

I'm excited for this, despite the multiplayer having become my favorite part of From (or pretty much any) games.

Speaking of the music, I thought this was really cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9NpbnBaDPE

i am okay and maybe even more than okay with this being single player only. i will miss the interactive qualities of messages and ghosts but i dunno how they would program combat with the water/grappling hook to not be buggy as fuck and HEY pausing!

apparently, no falling damage too!
I'm appreciative of the suggestion that there's an immense amount of nuance and difference from stage to stage; was a bit afeared it was all gonna be japanese villages. the verticality of it all looks superdope.

glad there's grains

There's still fall damage iirc, it's just minimal

These motherfuckers...so apparently there's the resurrection mechanic to instantly come back from a death, but it's balanced out by a GUILT mechanic where using it makes your npc buddies get sick (and probably die).

https://youtu.be/SWIgpuVA2-U?t=846

lol i am into this though i will likely kill all my in game guys on my first run through
"Please for the love of god GIT GUD"

so i am getting pretty excited about this now
this is inessential viewing but it has a great bit at the end that hit my sweet spot: "every game by from software arrives like a sort of birthday present just for you"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4V8HAvZcS4

Heh, that's pretty good. I am excited enough that when my partner said "I won't be home on Sunday, I have an all day continuing education seminar", um, I wasn't exactly dismayed.

having seen more footage now this looks very much not like dark souls other than being difficult. it's a stealth action game

Seems like a riff on Souls concepts, playing against things they've done before? Like getting rid of the stamina bar but adding the 'posture' mechanic that forces you to parry.

most reviews seem to think this is significantly harder than dark souls

my copy is waiting for me at home

i am psyched

mine is en route; I'm busy all weekend but will need to do some late night exploration. super psyched, may need to cancel some plans tbh!

the whole "Spider Souls" vibe i'm getting has me confounded and crazy curious

Psyched for the difficulty curve and to be bad at a new game.

this seems v promising after the first hour of play - feels good to be blowing the dust off my parrying muscle memory

where's my game mr azmazong mang

not cool amazon, get it fuckin sorted

I got the digital this time (mostly so I never have to take the DS3 disc out, lol), all downloaded and ready to go. My terrible internet appreciates the relatively small file size.

sorted! Loading! Won't be able to play until late night but making sure it's installed and updated so i can actually have a go at it.

i suppose a 2.5 gig patch day of release is sort of standard these days? this is why nintendo makes money you guys: plug and play.

a lot of Nintendo games have patches now though it's mostly to add dlc or improve performance and not to fix game breaking bugs

I picked myself up off the ground and rushed at him. He began an onslaught of attacks and, after six hours of learning his style and developing the muscle memory, I just started parrying on instinct. Each one of his swings and each arrow he fired was met with a perfectly timed raise of my sword. Every unblockable attack he lunged at me with was sidestepped or hopped immaculately. I watched as his Posture deplete, edging closer to the breaking point, and at the same time I could feel my breathing become more rapid, my thumbs beginning to tremble. I wore him down and delivered a Deathblow, backed away, and did it all over again, and a third time. In that final moment when I pierced through him with my katana, I was completely overcome with emotion. After six gruelling hours of failure, the winning battle lasted just six minutes. I'm not too proud to admit that I cried, and I'd do it all over again.

I will never play this game lol

It's not a deathblow if you have to do it three times imo

death-edging

on a scale of 0 - 450, how important is parrying in this game?

420

Only had time to go through the tutorial section, but it feels good so far! I like the new parry (deflect) mechanic. Died once.

first mini boss killed me 25 times then suddenly i figured it out and slaughtered him w/out even needing a flask/gourd. resigned myself to an unstoppable dragonrot epidemic

That guy took me awhile too. Seems like you need to be very aggressive and stay close, but also learn their attacks. I also realized that you can interrupt his special attacks, but I'm sure that's not true of all bosses.

Now I'm sword-fishing for carp.

yeah kiting him did and trying to chip away with shurikens did me no good.

also if you throw a fistful of ash in his face you can get a few hits in, enough to trigger his posture-healing routine (which can be interrupted and punished).

tenchu vibes are strong here with the rooftops and the grappling hook and raining death upon unsuspecting mooks.

Got through a lot of mini-bosses (bosses?) yesteday! I feel like I'm juuust starting to get the hang of the combat. Although, most of the bosses that seem impossible at first are much easier with the right prosthetic/skill/upgrade/stealth approach. There's probably a 'hardcore' way to do them with straight up combat. Two little things that I didn't realize until a friend told me:

1) You can do a charged thrust attack by holding down R1 (I had no idea)

2) For the secret doors in this game, you have to hug the wall

This is a pretty good characterization of the combat system (shows a couple mini-bosses from later on) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PekhBmZOd1Q

So, did you all give up, or

lol, i got nailed with work and haven't touched this beyond the introduction of the grappling hook! Likely gonna need to wait until mid-summer before i can dig in.
whats the general takeaway from y'all who are playing?

Everyone took the game back to the shop because they can't beat the Chained Ogre and consider his grab attacks to be "bullshit". Lots of soul-searching going on about how we raised such a disappointing generation of people

Ha. That's probably the easiest, most Souls-friendly miniboss so far!

Honestly I'm loving this game. It's been relatively linear so far but seems to be just starting to open up.

not had as much time to play this as i’d hoped but it’s an intriguing new twist on soulsborne so far - finding it a bit of a challenge to get a handle on but it’s a rewarding one

honestly tempted to either say fuck it to everything else in my life and disappear down a GIT GUD rabbithole or else just watch minimized youtube/twitch of playthroughs
being a grown up is not cool

I feel you, I've really only been playing on the weekends when my partner is working. A friend of mine, who is a professor and "on spring break", has been texting my constantly about playing it. We are very mature adults.

OK the boss fight at the top of the castle is fucking amazing

Like if Ornstein and Smough were fun

"mid-air lightning parry" is a bit of a fkn heavy duty mechanic to introduce during the third stage of a gruelling boss fight though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7Ofgpfxoc

OK the boss fight at the top of the castle is fucking amazing

Definitely a highlight so far. I got to the third phase on the first try, then died many times trying to get back to it (classic!). It felt like a real leap of faith to let yourself get hit with by the lightning w/o dodging, and then reverse it.

I'm just finishing up the temple, and it seems like there are some real branching paths at this point in the game, or at least it seems like you can do big areas in any order (and also get to them through very different routes?).

Also I am really bad at exploration sometimes, I entirely missed the way to get to one area because I didn't look to the left.

The boss in the temple that wandered in from Dark Souls is pretty funny all around

Give me a DLC where I kill Genichiro over and over forever

Also, this game shouldn't have had a block function. Parry perfectly every single time or die imo

Have people getting routinely sliced to pieces by mooks in the tutorial area, smashing up the game disc, baying for blood, it's the right thing to do

Bushido Blade 2019

Getting into the endgame now. The rhythm of throwing yourself at a boss until you learn all their moves + how to respond to each might not be for everyone, but this is an an excellent game for me.

Kinda wish there were more areas after the point where they can guarantee that you have all the abilities/prosthetics, it makes for more interesting level design possibilities.

This dork beat the game in 27 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Mt6YRSlHQ

Joke's on him, that's the "bad" ending

This is easier than Souls and Bloodborne, right? Every souls game I've got stuck somewhere after a frenzied two weeks of play at release and then come back to it months later. I've made pretty much constant progress through this and I've never been stuck on a boss for more than an evening, without being able to summon anybody. I mean it gives you a looot of other powerful tools as you progress

It's brilliant anyway, like a more breezily paced, easier on the eye Hollywood souls. The sword fights are really visually entertaining. There's nothing like the mounting despair of thinking you're going to be stuck on a boss for an Ornstein and Smough amount of time, and then the next thing you know the deathblow icon's appeared on screen because you got the rhythm down and obliterated his posture in a scandalously short amount of time. And it's 1am, sure

The one flaw is the lack of replay value, I'm not replaying a game with no character customisation just to get a different inscrutable souls game ending

finding it very difficult to wait for this to come down to a sensible price /skinflint

i am bad at this, and definitely find it harder than bloodborne due to how aggressive the boss AI is - the speed is way higher and i guess i've got old man hands. irritating thing i've been banging my head against Lady Butterfly because now i've finally got her timing down to a no-damage 45 second first phase, i've run out of snap seeds and phase 2 is a bitch without them.

the great thing about this game is you don't get quite as locked out of game exploration as you do in bloodborne/souls - i've been stuck on a combo of being beaten by Lady / Seven Spears for a few days and i've just gone and explored a shit ton of other areas

Feel like a lot of the human-sized enemies require sprinting towards them to close the distance and prevent posture damaging/non-interruptible mid-range attacks. There's a major later game boss where it's surprisingly easy to interrupt most of his close range moves if you hold your nerve and keep attacking until he parries or jumps away

Lady Butterfly is kinda bullshit though. I used up three snap seeds in unrelated areas when I meant to heal cos the default item switch controls are stupid

It just sucks that you can't farm for them like you can most other items - unless i'm just being unlucky/missing something obvious

I didn't use snap seeds tbh, just ran around until she dispels the illusions (or turns them into butterflies that she shoots at you, and you need to keep running or stand behind a pillar).

I really love the moments where you've learned all the boss's moves, but then the key is to relax so you just react and don't anticipate (like dodging too early or jumping when you should be using the mikiri counter). When I finally beat (redacted), I kinda tranced out and felt like I wasn't even paying attention. I think this is the closest I get to meditation?

i definitely start a fight cool and patient, but as soon as i get progress and smell some blood, i turn into sweaty handed hack and slash man - and mistakes start - and its hard to get the heart rate down once that happens.

Oh yeah that is real, "this could be the one!" It's hard but I try not to look at the boss health bar, just keep reacting.

Btw I switched the controls so that up on the d-pad changes prosthetics, and triangle heals (so you can keep moving while healing), that helped a lot.

Oh, One Finger Death Punch 2 is out, forget this

ah shit. got home last night, took down Lady Butterfly in less than a minute, then Ashina Elite Jinsuke and Lone Shadow Swordsman in a row. holy shit.

still, fuck seven spears dude. Genichiro next i guess....

I like to be a completist but don't know if I can bother with the Dark Souls/Bloodborne boss they stuck in at the end here.

Seven Spears took me forever the first time, I think being aggressive helps, but it's another one where they make you read the sweep vs thrust attack (and either double jump on him or mikiri counter).

I literally spent something like 10+ hours spread over a few days taking down lighting boi Genichiro. Dozens and dozens of attempts. I was dumb and stubborn though, there were routes I could’ve taken to beef myself up a bit beforehand, but for whatever reason I was determined to do it as is.

The twitch muscle memory I built up for that dude is something else. After all that pain I want to fight him again. Could probably pull off a no hit take down.

I’ve scoured the lands and mini-bosses since and am pretty well leveled. It’s honestly been pretty painless after that. So far.

Definitely rolling through some areas thinking “oh, I guess I should’ve done this earlier” because they’re weirdly easy.

The sound and animations for deathblows should be noted as being one of the most satisfying things ever in a video game.

SHUUUNG *arterial spray*

Totally.

I spent a beautiful spring day obsessively throwing myself at the demon boss, definitely the hardest thing I've done in this game (and it really is more like a Souls fight).

Just couldn't get through the last phase after learning the first two, I was about to write it off as not worth it when it finally clicked, got him just before I had to leave the house.

Just the last boss now, and I can get back to my non-Sekiro pursuits!

I lost my husband to this game. I understand. Watching it is even fun. Lol

I just did the Demon of Hotrod too. I died a bunch of times on the first two phases then did the third one in one try ¯\(°_o)/¯

It's a shame, what happened to him, but toxic masculinity is what it is I guess

There have been like three times on this game where I've given myself til midnight to beat a boss before going to bed, then got the worst case secenario of doing it at 11:59 and having too much fkn adrenaline to sleep

It's a shame, what happened to him, but toxic masculinity is what it is I guess

lol, exactly right.

The last boss is really fun, only gave him 1/2 an hour so far but it's feeling doable.

Give me a DLC where I kill Genichiro over and over forever

well I sure got my wish

I got last boss down to half health in his last phase, then fucked up a dodge, then got impatient and tired and started dying on the gimme first phase

I'm just sitting down with my coffee to do this. I feel comfortable enough with Genichiro and the first phase that it feels like my fault if I die. Still figuring out phase 2 (and I hope that the lightning will carry phase 3,only made it to that one or twice).

Or maybe I'll just die on phase 1 over and over. One mistake and his posture goes back to zero.

Just gottim. I'm a very ungracious winner in this game, lots of screaming and taunting at fictional Japanese men as they bleed out

The lightning almost doesn't come out as often as you want it to in phase 3, I found it more nerve wracking to run around trying to bait it instead of just keeping up the pressure

Think the key freebies in the spear phase are his jumping stab and also when he does the backwards jump spear swing, he'll usually follow it up with three blockable gunshots and then a mikiri counterable thrust

Didn't use many prosthetics etc, just the occasional mortal draw for quicker damage and the umbrella as an emergency block if I couldn't sprint away from an AoE

I did iiiiit (too).

It took three hours to get to phase 3 today, but luckily I got it in one (thank you based lightning).

Played around in NG+ after giving Kuro his charm back, which makes you take chip damage if you don't block perfectly. It's almost a whole different game, much more exacting (made me realize how much I was spamming block).

Fantastic game, but I think I'm done forever.

Congrats, good going one-shotting the last bit

I'm done too, 63 good hours logged, uninstalled it, may my blade ever be slick with the blood of the despicable failson Ashina Genichiro

shout out to Pot Noble Harunaga, you really pulled it off you crazy bastard

It's sad, he was a fish

Here I am half-hoping they won't do dlc this time

Whenever I see clips of this I keep thinking it's "Ghost of Tsushima," which reminds me to look forward to "Ghost of Tsushima."

holy shit i am slow at this game / i guess am better at not letting it take over my life like Bloodborne did when i was living by myself?

its so weird how I must have done the Genichiro fight maybe 50 or 60 times - the first time it seemed impossible but every single time i could feel a tiny bit of improvement, until the time i killed him i took almost no damage, first and second phases done in about 90 seconds each, then did the lightning reverse 3 times in a row on phase 3. holy shit thats a fun fight.

got the monkeys done last night and excited to see the next areas.

^Sekiro in a nutshell. There were definitely certain bosses in Souls that I never learned 'properly', because you could switch to a different weapon/setup to make things easier, or because they were weak to a certain type of build. Here they made sure that there's no way around learning the whole moveset.

(even certain prosthetics or buffs might make things easier, you're still probably going to get killed if you don't know when to use them)

i think that becomes very clear the first time you get a deathblow without even taking off half a bosses health. 99% of the time its not about cheesing damage.

i've been sort of lowkey sneaking playtime with this game and holy fuck i COMPLETELY missed a whole area because i never went across a bridge at one point.
love you so much from software

this got into my head in a big way. Stuck on Genichiro in lightning mode, all these fucking headless ghosts (they scare me), and the corrupted monk illusion.

took out true corrupted monk last night even without getting the second phase aerial deathblow everyone seems to do - surprised myself but he can go down pretty quick with a lot of deflecting. trying to do all 4 endings in one playthrough - Shura is done, doing the rest now. still loving it.

I got to the final boss two weeks ago, attempted for a few hours, put it down and haven’t picked it back up again. :/

Hopefully get back to it, but won’t have time for at least another week. Will be a little rusty.

trying to do all 4 endings in one playthrough

Oh, I didn't know this was possible. So it doesn't actually, y'know, end after you get an ending?

I did the Isshin one and I never experienced Owl pt. 2.

i am soooooooo bad at this. chances of reaching an ending: 2-3%

i'm stuck at the damn boss right after the ogre (general tenzen), even though i can now reliably start the fight with all of his henchmen eliminated and 1 deathblow down due to stealth.

i think it clicks? at some point the combat clicks? or you just throw it down in rage, misery and frustration and never go back to it idk.

I'm... okay? at this game, I've done p much all there is to do including most of the quest lines, and I can't see myself ever beating that final boss. Has anyone here managed that?

oh and

*SPOILERS*

that big red demon seems like no fun to grind away at, so I've not killed him either

no, i screwed up because i didn’t listen to so and so whispering to someone else which meant although i’d closed off i think two of the remaining paths. never fought the fire demon or the last boss. enjoyed it a lot but i’m not *really* sure why. it lacks the strange and fragmentary mythos and metaphysics of dark souls and bloodborne. and the environments aren’t that potent. but the combat is v pure once you get the hang of it. and the boss fights are *intense*, in the way the combat system forces you to remain persistently engaged and make incredibly quick judgments.

it's definitely more explicit in terms of its storyline. I found it very atmospheric, and I think the environment is as ingenious as that in DS1, possibly more so as it changes over the course of the game as the plot pushes on. I agree about the combat, it's an absolute joy to take out a boss that you had previously thought was invincible, even more so than the Souls games as there's no recourse to outside help and little scope for cheesing.

I did the last boss and the fire demon, both of which were worthwhile and my most memorable parts of the game. That could just be because they were at the end, but it's probably because they took the longest to learn.

(I think I did use the flame umbrella on the demon, which protects you from the move where he jumps into the sky)

Also this series is essential viewing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mmP5jOWemI

scrub dojo - this sounds like my dojo

xxp okay I will go back and give it another go (or 100 goes!), does that vide provide some useful hints?

video!

enter the dojo

I don't think he's made videos about those last bosses yet, but lots of good info about the mechanics and entertainment value is high imo. There are plenty of other videos of other people doing it if you're into that.

Looking upthread apparently it took me at least three hours to learn the final boss. :) I'm sure if I started Sekiro again today it would take me quite awhile to get back into the rhythm of it.

I suspect this is next in my queue ...

And I'm in! Just did the intro stuff, more or less. It's going to take some getting used to how fast this game is, even compared to "Bloodborne." It's a huge relief (at least for now) that all the arcane RPG stats n stuff doesn't seem to play a huge role, because that always made me anxious.

Bookmarked.

It's now been awhile since I've played this (never went back to it), but yeah iirc the special skills and tools aren't really required (with a couple of basic exceptions), but just make things easier.

The current top Any% speedrun for Sekiro is 19m 55s, so if you take longer than that you're doing it wrong imo

Oh, I'm totally doing it wrong.

i think i made it to the TWO MONKEYS stage and that did it

Hmm, maybe I spoke too soon. I'm in the first village and the first mini boss, or at least tougher soldier, is giving me a little bit of trouble, because I was being impatient, thinking there were fewer repercussions than in a Souls game. But I think I'm wrong. You lose half your accumulated HP, it seems, and there must be a catch to resurrections, because why would it give me the option? I'm assuming the HP you get from enemies is how you level up, but I suspect there are some malignant mechanics are work that I am as of yet unaware of. Hopefully reversible!

did you check out one of those "10 things you should know the first time you play Sekiro" kind of guides or are you going in cold? i'm trying to remember if there was some deal with death that had irreversible consequences (though not gamebreaking ones), but i never played this one. maybe it the system in Mortal Shell (which i didn't finish).

anyway, might be worth taking a look at one just in case!

I glanced at one, and my big takeaway was "use your items" and "be aggressive." But yeah, I think there was a downside to coming back from the dead? Though I suppose it might be worth it to come back from the dead if it means keeping your Souls or whatever they are here (XP). Like a Devil's bargain. I'll look into it.

You don't need to worry about it too much. There's an item you can get to deal with it.

https://www.polygon.com/sekiro-guide/2019/3/25/18281289/sekiro-rot-essence-dragonrot-cure-item

Yeah, I think I need to follow a walkthrough. I was hoping to try it relatively on my own, but I'm barely into it and I'm already knee deep in esoteric lore, the statue carver is sick because of me, I keep getting items with mysterious uses, and praying to a statue of Buddha sent me back in time three years. Plus I'm going to have to get a lot better at fighting, though at least the first mini boss stays dead!

Don't worry about resurrecting, it's part of the game (and plot).

And yeah it takes time to get used to the combat, that's the whole thing. Iirc hp is a red herring (for bosses), it's all about breaking their posture.

The trickiest thing so far is that in a lot of ways the combat is the *opposite* of Dark Souls. There are shields in DS but they are rarely useful, and Bloodborne gets rid of the shield entirely; in Sekiro, it actually benefits you to keep your block up all the time. In DS, rushing in at an enemy is a surefire way to get killed; in Sekiro, keeping up the pressure and pounding away seems to be a better strategy than giving the enemy time to regain their composure. In DS, you are more or less immune when you roll; in Sekiro, dodging and rolling and getting out of the way allows the enemy to regenerate posture. In DS, parrying was a helpful skill that makes certain specific fights and enemies easier; in Sekiro, parrying is essentially key to combat, even at the most basic level. In DS, your stats give you an upper hand, and you can farm to improve your power; in Sekiro, you're at the mercy of your mastery of timing. I suppose in this one it's balanced out a bit by giving you a grappling hook hand and dispensing with stamina.

So yeah, gonna take a bit to get used to this.

Well, I'll say this much: at least I know what I'm in for. I've been fighting the chained ogre mini boss for a while now and my impatience has been my downfall. The first ten times it killed me with one hit I should have gotten the message that I should not let him touch me, but he's well within reach.

So, the dragon rot that everyone has (because of me), does that have a negative impact aside from lowering my odds of getting some stuff back after death?

https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Dragonrot

Yeah, that's the site I'm going to have to start using. The thing about these From games, even with guides and help it's still super challenging!

Yesterday I made my first I think irreversible mistake. I was in the area three years in the past and killed a looter NPC (while I was on a panic-mode kill everything spree), and after realizing what I did learned he becomes a vendor "later" (that is, present-day) in the game. The thing is, I think I met him already. So if I met him first, *then* killed him in the flashback (or whatever it is), is he gone? I guess I can check and if so may possibly just start over. Now that I am a little more confident I think I can speed through what I've done so far relatively quickly, and then by the time I get back to the Chained Ogre have the patience to just kick his ass properly.

Yeah I think he's gone for good, but you could get by without him if you didn't want to start over. Or, you're right that I'm sure you could get back to that spot very quickly if you really don't want to miss out on anything.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of killing NPCs, at least not accidentally. I think I did it on purpose a few times in the first Dark Souls, killing the vendor to get the fancy sword and pushing a knight off a cliff much later to get ... something, I can't remember. But killing them for no good reason seems like stabbing yourself in the foot, especially so early in the game. No benefit, only pain. Plus, they're fun to interact with in otherwise lonely games.

Looking at my posts upthread, here are some random things that I apparently learned at some point:

1) You can do a charged thrust attack by holding down R1 (I had no idea)

2) For the secret doors in this game, you have to hug the wall

3) Btw I switched the controls so that up on the d-pad changes prosthetics, and triangle heals (so you can keep moving while healing), that helped a lot.

It's going to crazy if Elden Ring introduces Sekiro-style counters and jumping over low attacks, which it sounds like it does.

I ended up starting over, and it wasn't too bad. Still had trouble with the chained ogre, whose reach was insane, but after I learned to keep my distance it went better. As always, battling the camera is half the, er, battle. Also, did more of the flashback and got two more prosthetics, which helped. Definitely going to swap the d-pad and triangle, though, that's a great idea.

I actually figured out charged attack on my own, for once, but goddam ... more secret doors!?

I've seen some debate over which From game is the hardest, but at least as far as early game goes this one is *significantly* more challenging than the others. For every little tweak that makes things a little easier (the ability, even encouragement, to zip away fast and hide from enemies, for example) there are some serious offsets (enemies so aggro and strong and numerous you *need* to run away and hide, for example). The early game feels a bit like the Old Hunters DLC in Bloodborne, where the game is just not messing around, and you have to deal with sharper AI and more aggressive tactics. Except that here you are pretty unpowered and, er, underarmed, compared to the time you reach that DLC, which calls for a completely novel approach to tactics and strategy. It's pretty neat that they were able to reinvent everything, but boy it can be tricky. So far of the three or four mini bosses I've faced each has had a specific weakness that 1) wasn't always obvious 2) needed exploration to figure out and 3) didn't always help all that much. And all could more or less one or two shot me.

And the Dragonrot stuff is mostly annoying (so far). I was able to cure it once, so it looks like every time it builds up I need to find one of the infected NPCs, get a blood sample, bring it back to Emma, and then get a dragon's blood droplet. But at the rate I'm dying it's pretty inevitable that all of these NPCs will eventually be suffering from Dragonrot.

Yeah I would agree with that, all the other games give you so many different ways to do it (magic, ranged, poise, shields, dodge, summon friends, etc). You pretty much have to meet Sekiro on its own terms.

This might help if you're stuck on a boss or section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCUGQbM4UVA

y'all are gonna make me go back to this game aren't you

xpost I don't think I'm quite ready for that insanity, and hopefully it is relatively far off.

Made some modest progress, by my similarly modest standards. Killed the shinobi hunter on my first try, which was satisfying, killed General Tenzen Yamauchi after a few tries that taught me patience above all else. Made some more progress in Hirata Estate (to the fire and my father to get a key), explored some caves near the General's compound, where there was also an optional enemy I was tipped off by a guide to avoid. Managed my first prayer bead upgrade, too, which should help for a minute or two.

Another observation: this game seems designed *not* to reward farming, or at least to reward it much less than the other From games. It takes a while to get even one skill point, and of course if you die (which is easy enough) you lose half your progress.

OK, now we're cooking with gas. Got past the giant snake (it never killed me, but leaping to my death did), and just took down my first boss! Maybe ... three or four tries? So far the best strategy on mini bosses and bosses seems to be keeping your distance, but then finding windows of opportunity to be hyper, hyper aggressive. In this case, I used the firecracker trick and the grappling hook, which ... yeah, if I didn't check out a guide this fight would have been dire, like one of the tougher DS bosses. Looks like it unlocked a bunch of abilities to explore, so I'll do that next time I play.

BTW, not sure I like the titular "die twice" mechanic, which I'm sure will turn out to be a plot point but for now is just kind of weird to deal with. You kill the enemy, but then have to kill them ... again. Why not just give it two phases? Also, dragonrot: I've cured it once, so it doesn't seem like it for sure be a huge problem the next time it comes up, but I was wondering how many times you have to resurrect or die or whatever for dragonrot to spread. Like, if you go a long time without dying and resurrecting, is there an invisible counter somewhere that resets? Or is it kind of a cumulative effect that you can't impede? Could you be, say, 5/6 on the invisible dragonrot meter, go a long stretch without resurrecting, and then once you hit number 6, bam, dragonrot?

I really loved that snake part the first time I saw it. I thought the game was just going to be a bunch of dudes fighting each other until then.

I do like that you only seem to incur modest fall damage here, and only in egregious circumstances, and that you can swim, too. Those are some nice changes from previous From games. I hope there are some perma-buff items coming up that will boost my power and give me at least a little more of an advantage over at least smaller dudes. I know I unlocked a latent skill that I *think* helps me heal a little with every deathblow? I should test that out. For all I could tell that helped me with the boss on a a horse, these fights are so fast and frantic.

OK, I killed the Giant Drunkard, then I backtracked to the Bull, which is ... pretty energetic, to say the least. I have a feeling it will take me some time, but I think if I went the other way, back to Hirata, the next (only?) boss there is apparently another roadblock for many, so I have to pick my punishment, I guess.

God I fuckin loved this game

I take it back, the bull wasn't too bad, or at least I got really lucky. I was playing not locked on and I kind of got trapped in a corner with it, so for most of the fight it was, in true Dark Souls fashion, slash at its butt, pivot, slash at its butt, pivot, etc. Went on for that long enough that I started to get a little freaked out, honestly, until I finally got nudged from my magic spot and almost killed. Backed off, healed, dove in and finished it off! Explored a tiny bit further, unlocked I think three (!) more idols, and suddenly there are lots of routes to go.

Yeah the bull felt weirdly like a Dark Souls boss, I remember playing unlocked and running around in a ridiculous manner. Apparently you can deflect/parry the bull, but that's too scary.

I'm sure I deflected it once or twice by spamming the button, but the bull is such a spazz it's hard to know what to do with any fleeting window of opportunity. I did almost die to the enemies that immediately showed up after before I realized what was going on.

Like, someone yells "the enemy is not dead!" or something like that, and my immediate thought was that the bull was coming back to life. Then I realized, wait, *I'm* the enemy, and guys with swords were trying to kill me.

OK, getting stronger now. Took out the next general at the castle, fought a bunch of PIA roof ninjas while hopping from house to house. Unlocking more skills and got some more gourds. Explored a dungeon and fought zombies, this game's version of DS skeletons, I guess, because they come back unless you do extra kill stuff (that I had to look up).

I do find this game pretty manic at times, which is very different from the long spooky stretches in DS and Bloodborne. Everything is just so aggro that I feel a bit like a human pinball.

This dragonrot mechanic is total bullshit. It's bad enough that when you die you lose half your (non-banked) XP and money, but then after x number of deaths everyone gets dragonrot, and until you cure it (which is admittedly easy enough) you can't advance their quests or make them do the thing you want/need them to do. It's just an annoying roadblock, an irritant. Related, I was losing to my first of those blue samurais, which are pretty tough and fast and force you to focus on your parry, and given the choice to revive or just die I figured, eh, I'll just die. I'm right by the idol and don't have much stuff, anyway, and besides, I don't want to add to the dragonrot meter. So I choose "die" and immediately, blam, like five people get dragonrot anyway. wtf? If dying a lot alone is enough to spread dragonrot, then there's going to be a lot of dragonrot.

Just beat the Ashina Elite mini-boss, who was my first double red dot I took down without a a free stealth-kill gimme first. Some of these more frenetic fighters almost reward spamming, since they're so fast you're bound to deflect a chunk of their attacks. Or maybe not. Either way, this dude's attack rhythm was slightly easier to time than I expected.

And *now* I think I'm on the cusp of a couple of tough legit bosses.

Just fought Lady Butterfly for the first time. I died (of course), but I did almost make it through the second phase. Granted, I had no more estus and was out of spirit emblems, but still! A good start.

Lady Butterfly is down! Wasn't *too* bad, all things considered. I was worried I would use up all my snap seeds, but I ended up killing her without needing them. Took about ... 8 tries? (Seems pretty early in the game for such cut-scene *drama*, too.) Anyway, my early (I assume) take is that this might be my least favorite of the From games I've played, but it's still fun.

Another early game qualm I have with this game: On one hand, "Sekiro" actively encourages stealth play with grappling points, tall grass, resetting enemies, stealth deathblows, eavesdropping, etc. On the other hand, mastering the parry mechanism is really the only way to progress, and the only way to master the parry is to fight enemies, not to avoid them or sneak up on them. Sure, the game gives you the zombie sparring partner for practice, but I find him pretty tedious. The flipside is that actual enemies, while much more challenging and productive, are also, you know, very potentially lethal, so while you might get better dying to them over and over again to get better at parrying, there is the downside of dragonrot, losing money, reloading, starting an area all over again, and so on, which is also kinda tedious. It forces a frustrating trade off: speed vs. skill. The easier way is also often the faster way, so you're rewarded in expediency but punished for skipping much needed parry practice. The hard way helps you hone your skills, but it's also sometimes a little boring to fight the same scrubs over and over again when you know there may be an easier alternative.

Compare that to Dark Souls, where the parry, while unnecessary, makes things much easier, a reward for learning to fight better, though even in the faster DS3 and Bloodborne the parry is just one of many options. Here the parry more or less is *necessary,* which makes even the basic enemies tougher, but that also risks turning "Sekiro" into (as others have pointed out) something of a rhythm game. Which Dark Souls et al. sometimes had going on as well, but it was never *key* to the combat to totally memorize slash-slash-parry-slash-parry-parry. Those aforementioned "so many different ways to do it (magic, ranged, poise, shields, dodge, summon friends, etc)" makes things a bit easier, sure, but they also make things a bit more varied and interesting.

you got me playing again

Right now I'm dealing with the Armored Knight, who might be the biggest troll of any of these games so far. Not long after eavesdropping and getting the information that there is a super soldier somewhere whose armor can't be pierced, not long after getting a weapon whose description specifically says something like "will strip the armor from enemies whose armor otherwise can't be pierced, making them vulnerable," they give you a mini-boss that is literally invulnerable, that can't be injured, whose armor can't be pierced or stripped, even with the weapon designed to do that, where beating down its poise is the only way to get a deathblow ... and then the deathblow doesn't even kill it! You have to time the deathblow near a ledge, in essence putting in a bunch of work just to get a built-in cheese. I guess that's pretty funny.

Meanwhile, I think I just messed up a quest, too (somehow). There is a bug crying guy that wants a pinwheel. I offered him the red and white pinwheel, having read that it upgrades a merchant. He said, essentially, thanks but no thanks, what about the white pinwheel? So I give that to him (rather than send him to the dungeon, which seems cruel), and it seems to have progressed his white pinwheel quest. Does that mean I can no longer upgrade a merchant? What did I do wrong? Right now he's asking me to magic him away somewhere, which obviously I can't do. Guess I need to do so more googling.

Hmm, maybe the NPC has dragonrot, which dragonrot-blocked me? Fuck dragonrot.

The Armored Knight is hilarious, definitely an in-joke about a Dark Souls character wandering into the wrong game. But yeah the clue about the loaded spear is just weird, it doesn't even feel like a From troll to deliberately mislead like that, it just seems like a mistake?

I think you're on the right track with the crying NPC, I think he shows up later and you need to use a prosthetic to send him on his way (which I'm sure I wouldn't have known without looking it up).

I think it turns out that I gave him the red and white pinwheel and then, on prompting, the white one, before I went back to that vendor NPC, so I'm out of luck as far as upgrading the vendor goes, afaict. The vendor keeps asking me to send him a big guy, and the big guy keeps asking me to spirit him away, but there is no longer a way to send the big guy to the vendor.

I killed the giant centipede giraffe (wtf?) after a few tries. It felt kind of like a troll, too. It's so fast that there really is no deflection, per se, just spamming the deflect button, which inevitably wears down its poise and lets you kill it in, like 20 seconds.

Least favorite OP common enemies so far might be those little, well, trolls, with the armored hats, that either throw knives at you or poison you, and also evade a lot of your mostly fruitless attacks, often including the ax, which is their mortal foe but which forces you to burn through spirit emblems. That's another contradiction in this game I don't appreciate. The only way to build up stats is to kill enemies for gold and XP, but some of these enemies are such a pain in the ass that you're better off avoiding them entirely, since there is a good chance they'll kill you (these mushroom guys, a couple of those roof ninjas or other spazzing spinning blade enemies), halving whatever gains you hoped to achieve. Literally one step forward, two steps back.

Can't you still use the Divine Abduction prosthetic on him to send him away

Also I remember the main use of the spear being the centipede inside of the giant ape boss, which I never would have figured out on my own

I just took out a couple of other mini bosses, some ninja in a pit and the guy with a spear (who was a huge PIA). I believe next up I have a proper big boss to face, which makes me nervous. I've now upgraded my power with four prayer necklaces, but I have no real clear idea what that means, and while I've been accumulating skills, they're getting so expensive the only way I can imagine going much further is by not dying, and ... yeah, I'm going to keep dying, over and over again. Reminded today of how much more fun Bloodborne was, as this one feels so much more tedious and one-note. Be aggressive! Keep slashing! Fingers crossed you deflect accurately, because it's the only way to beat them! Etc.

Wow at Genichiro. This mid-game boss is pretty much as hard as any end game boss in the other From games, imo. If he was half as fast I'd probably have just as many problems. That said, I've managed to make it through his first red dot and almost the second red dot, so I guess that's some progress. I suppose it really is just a matter of identifying and timing the counters just right, almost to a mathematical degree, which ... well, let's just say math is hard and can be a drag. But again: progress. Gotta love how From offered a few helpful quality of life changes in this game (endless stamina, no weapon degrading, blocking) and then threw in a few things just to fuck with you (like the whole idea of the enemy posture bar, which regenerates, as if to mock you, and making perfect parries the *default* mode of play).

I spent... so many hours on that Genichiro fight. Like more than any boss in any game ever. I will say by the time I beat him, I had the fight down like clockwork and felt pretty badass. But yeah, it was a humbling journey getting there.

I think I've been using Mikiri wrong. I thought I just had to press O but you have to dash toward him at the same time. I hope that helps me!

Oh really? I don't remember that at all, I thought it was just pressing O when you're in range. I wonder if I was pressing forward instinctively the whole time. Seems like it works either way?

I thought it was pressing O, but I've also seen push (dash) forward L while pressing O (that's what the pop up instructions I've seen a hundred times while I'm waiting for him to reload have said), and I also saw someone say you have to first deflect (not block) his attack after he jumps to earn the mikiri, but I have no idea. I've tried a few different strategies so far. One is to get in his face and just attack away, blocking as able/needed, but inevitably he'll do an unblockable grab and more or less kill me, or at least undo any momentum. The other is the death from a thousand cuts strategy, waiting him out and whittling away at his health to make his posture regain slower, but so far I haven't been patient enough. At least it finally occurred to me that you can block pretty much everything he does save for the (er) unblockable attacks, but that rewards patience, too, since eventually you have to let down your guard and get a few hits in.

This was one of my favorite fights, and I remember it being a matter of needing a certain response to every one of his attacks. And there are enough different attacks that it had a sense of depth, and transcended the parry/counter rhythm game.

At least this dumbass is right next to an idol. I need to rest my fingers for a while, but in the meantime, having watched a few guides, I always find it odd that when I fight these assholes their moves are soooo much more seemingly unpredictable than for the dudes who can take them out without breaking a sweat. Granted, they've probably played the games a hundred hours more than I have, but at the same time, I can't even mikiri this boss and they make it look so easy, and, in this specific instance, where they say "first phase is almost always a stab," I get a mix of grabs, stabs and sweeps that make it hard to get to phase two without almost all my estus.

I think some of his moves have to do with how close you are, so maybe staying in his face vs keeping your distance dictates how it plays out to some extent. But obviously there's some rng too.

I just made it to the third round for the first time. What kind of stupid system makes you kill an enemy twice and then ... makes you kill it *again*, a third time? Like, why give him two life bars if he essentially has three? Annoying. Anyway, not going to beat this guy if I can't figure out why my mikiri is not countering, but he's so fast and so lethal it doesn't give me more than a couple of times to even practice before he takes me out.

That being said, I have gotten him to his third phase a few times now, so I know it's doable. Now it's just a matter of the same aforementioned BS, figuring out how to properly (in this case) time the lightning deflection in the few seconds I have, before he kills me and send me back to the start again. Which, yeah, that's pretty tedious.

OK, this third round seems a little more forgiving, but will still take some time. I really don't get how ... I dunno, how *off* this otherwise well-tuned game is? Like, you fight the world's toughest dude, then he ... for no reason takes off his armor? And *then* he introduces lightning attacks? Why does he take off his gear? Why doesn't he just start with lightning? Not complaining, because it should make things easier. Just sayin'.

I killed him. The fucker. Having honed my skills enough to take him out in his first form both times several times (before quickly panic-dying to his next phase) I got really impatient and sloppy being made to fight him again and again, but then more or less fortunately stumbled onto a way to speed up the fight. The first few times I fought him I had the ichimonji combat art armed, yet given how much I was spamming block/deflect I kept accidentally ichimonjing him, which made me vulnerable to getting killed. Instead I switched to the spinning attack for most of my fights, which was less punishing to me when I accidentally used it, since I usually at least got a few hits in on him in the process. After still dying a bunch, albeit with more regular wins over at least his first round and a good number of wins over his second round, I figured I should change my fight style up a little, since it wasn't working consistently. Instead, I re-armed ichimonji (double ichimonji, as a matter of fact) and found that while it doesn't quite stunlock him you can still get several overhead hits in a row before he regroups and gathers strength again and you have to defend a bit. Yet all along those overhead hits (and other strikes you get in) have been lowering his vitality, which keeps his posture meter high, so I was able to get a rhythm down and get past both parts of that fight with most of my estus left over for his next phase. And as I noted, the next phase this toughest of tough bosses basically turns into a big pussy. "Beware my wrath! I will now ... strip off my armor, making me easier to stagger, and throw in an AOE lightning attack that not only is pretty easy to reverse, but it turns out that I, Genichiro, can be stunned by my own lightning!" And the rest is pretty fast and simple, thank goodness.

If there is one silver lining it's that dying to him a million times only got me one unit of Dragonrot, like the game was taking pity on me. Though the dickhead of course comes back to life *again* at the end, so fuck you, From. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. But sometimes three times. And sometimes not at all.

Now I'm going to rest my cramped trigger fingers.

Nice! Yeah 'phase 3' in this game is usually just trying to psyche you out with a new flashy attack, but should be shorter & easier iirc. Unlike Friede in DS3, where phase 3 was by far the most dangerous.

Watching this, it's definitely not how I remember fighting him, but sure makes it look easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg73iVitFM0

(also the next bit mentions that the spear clue references "ill-fitting armor", which ok, sure, wouldn't apply to the big dumb Dark Souls knight, his armor fit very nicely)

lol, so the giant babies with diapers are the ones with "ill-fitting armor?" Whatever, From. I assume like this guy did that that's just one of a few translation errors in this game. The first time I was fighting that guy with the bell, btw, I killed his dogs and ran to hide, and as I waited for him to chill he went over and got sad about the dogs. And then later there's another guy like him who is sad about his dead monkey. What's up with that, From? Making me feel bad about these ruthless, relentless monsters.

Anyway, I don't trust shit like that video. Is he in NG+? What are the icons under his vitality? How is using something like mist raven not a cheese, but any other advantage apparently is a cheese?

Regardless, sure, if you can always do perfect deflections then you'll wear down any enemies to nothing. But perfect deflections all the time are like perfect parries all the time are like those people that beat Dark Souls with no armor and a broken sword at skill level one with bongos. Sure, you did it, guys, good for you, but some of us can't dedicate our lives to gitting so gud we've got every last second of the game timed out. We do the best we can with what we've got.

I found that deflections weren't that bad because the game is quite forgiving about letting you re-guard and try again soon after you attempt a parry too early, I spent a lot of time holding, releasing and reholding the button

I wondered if PC 60fps was somehow making the game mechanically way easier than console tho, as I am not amazing at these games and found Sekiro to be some distance easier than every other From game

You might be onto something. I generally follow the fighting cowboy walkthroughs, and he stated at the start of this one that he's playing on a PC. Maybe that explains why some of these folks have no problem mikiri countering certain enemies that seem impossible to time on my PlayStation. Genericho, for example, I was never able to consistently get the counter in on his armored form. I would go back to the tutoring dummy and try again and again on him, with no problems. But the boss himself, rarely. And yet in his final form, no problem getting to counter.

Yeah it's NG+, which gives you an option to get take damage whenever you don't do a perfectly timed deflection. Makes the game way harder obv, but also teaches you proper parry timing I guess.

I think the Mist Raven thing is because people considered it a useless skill when the game came out, and he was trying to find applications for it.

Of course, the big downside of having beat a mid-game boss that felt almost like a late-game boss is that I have no desire right now to move forward, and I suspect once I do it will be with some some serious trepidation of what's to come.

Holy shit at the rooftop monkeys in kimonos! I love not only that this "fight" exists, but that it exists as a *boss fight.* So silly. I wish From did more stuff like this, just to lighten the mood a little.

Yeah there are some more varied, gimmicky fights and set pieces coming up I think, nothing as exacting as Genichiro for awhile.

I hate the XP system in this game. In order to advance your skill trees you need XP, but every time you die (for good) you lose half your XP. And of course the amount of XP needed keeps getting bigger and bigger, too. So any time I find myself with even half my XP meter filled I feel compelled to go waste some time farming, because dying (even accidentally) to a tough enemy will undo all that work I did to even fill the meter half way. And of course just about any time you go up against more than a couple of enemies, at least at this point in the game, you run the risk of dying, so any farming you do has to be more of the easing pickings type, which is ... slow work. Why they decided to go this route is beyond me. It's a game designed to kill you a lot that also punishes you for dying.

thing is, XP are secondary to Prayer Beads, you don't really need many of the skills unlocked by gaining XP to get far in the game, whereas Prayer Beads are pretty essential

Well, you really never *need* anything, as a hundred youtubers have demonstrated with these games. Prayer Beads you do need to get stronger, gourds you need to get more estus, but XP you definitely need for skills to make things a little easier in some circumstances. Case in point: were it not for ichimonji I would have gotten even more bored fighting Genericho over and over again and possibly set the game aside a while. Though, fair enough, I can see not needing to go past a certain point in skills.

Regarding prayer beads, weird, then, that for being essential the prayer beads are generally gleaned by fighting often *optional* mini-bosses. Just another aspect of From perversity. (One of my favorite From FU moves is making you face singular tough enemies early game, then throwing in situations with several of them later. I'm at the gun fort part now.)

Pretty standard in these games to be rewarded for exploration/playing more of the game, but hardcore speedrunners (or just people who have played the game before) don't necessarily need the extra stats/gear

For sure. Though it's tricky with these games, because you don't *need* to do anything ... if you don't ever die. But if you do die, a lot, then you need to level up if you want to have a fighting chance. In the case of this game specifically, the fastest way to level up, or at least gain some advantage, is not to die, because dying halves your XP and money. But of course if you're not dying all the time then you don't really need the advantages. On the other hand, the more you play the better you get, dying or not, which in turn once again negates the need for stat advantages, because you have gotten gud. It's kind of a vicious cycle of contradictions, with the emphasis on vicious.

I do appreciate how this is in essence a Souls game, but one that changes things up in subtle and not so subtle ways, with new mechanics, old tricks, new tricks, old mechanics, and so on. There's a lot more platforming, there's more (overt) strategy, there seems to be even more risk/reward management. Tons of idols, tons of reasons to have more idols. It kind of makes me even more curious about Elden Ring, since on one hand it seems like a return to a fantasy world, but on the other it comes after this and Bloodborne. And, of course, because it's Miyazaki, who clearly has his go-tos. "In a dark world blighted with decay and cloaked in mystery, an undying hero must battle his way through legions of enemies whose diseased blood has infected the realm and sent its residents into a cursed frenzy." Etc.

Poking right along here. I'm in the spooky PIA Village straddling two bosses, Orin of the Will O'Wisps (or whatever) and ... Corrupted Monk? Still discovering all sorts of kind of random choices made by the designers, akin to the prosthetic that pierces armor but not the armor you think it's introduced to pierce. For example, the first snake eyes can be poisoned with the sabimaru, but the second snake eyes didn't seem as (or at all?) affected. And yet, the second one was the first boss I've managed to actually cheese (thank goodness) in this game, since it turns out she *is* susceptible to poison ... when she's standing in a big pool of it, like a moron. Then there's the mist monster boss in the house that you need to kill to get rid of the fog, which has two red dots but is a cakewalk, but corrupted monk has just one red dot and is a huge pain. And some other bosses so far have two red dots but come back for a third round, anyway. I know the enigmatic mythology is a big part of the appeal of Souls games, but at a certain point these games are just fucking with you.

Like, did Miyazaki sit down one day and say, you know, I'm actually going to make poison build up slower and less lethal than players are used to. But terror! That shit is going to build up fast and kill you almost instantly, like curse did. It's shit like that that doesn't make me feel bad for trying to find alternative routes and fighting methods. I'm happy to try and cheese an enemy when the "right" way is to slash them once, run away, wait, run in, slash twice, run away, etc., for a few concentration-filled minutes, all while avoiding various unblockable attacks, their ability to turn ethereal, needing to use up limited resources like divine confetti or snap seeds, and so on. Even the cheesing, sometimes I wonder if *that* is supposed to be the right way.

OK, well timed case in point. I first stumbled on Orin of the Water completely by accident. I had made it through the particularly manic Mibu Village to another idol, rested up, and figured, well, I have a couple of minutes, let's see what's around the corner. Oh, it's the NPC I didn't send to be experimented on! (Miyazaki has a thing for tricking players into sending NPCs to their doom.) He still hears the music, only this time, so do I. I go a little further and see what appears to be a lady playing music, with an interaction button by her. It looks like an arena space, but she seems chill, so I interact. And she freaks the fuck out and attacks me! I panic and race around, then realize I can get back to the idol, which means she's an optional double red dot enemy boss. I look her up, learn her name, and learn she's one of the harder optional bosses, at least at this stage of the game (and aside from the headless enemies). I really want another prayer bead, though, so I keep googling for strategies and ... yeah, she seems tough.

However! Some folks note a few potential cheese strategies, so planning for the worst, I looked into them. One involved sneaking in a backstab after sort of prematurely getting her to aggro, for 50% off her health. Another involved getting her stuck behind some rocks en route back to the idol, another involved luring her across the bridge coming up and fighting her over there. Now, I knew about the bridge, because once I learned she was optional I zipped past her, fought some other enemies and explored a bit more, but also learned there is *another* boss, this one not-optional, coming right up, and figured I might as well give her a shot before dying to the next dude a lot. I had fifteen minutes this morning so figured I would at least see if any of those tricks worked. I sneak up behind her to try the 50% off trick, and no dice. She's onto me, and I run back to the idol. Googling, I learned this cheese was apparently patched. Next I run past her across the bridge, turn around, and see her slowly making her way to me. I figure why not, keep luring her across the bridge (which takes no time, thanks to her teleporting attack)... and more or less kick her butt, a total cheese. I guess the AI doesn't quite know what to do in the tighter confines across the bridge?

Actually, it took me three times to kill her, because the first time I accidentally aggroed another nearby enemy I forgot to dispatch, and the second time I think she fell into the water (?) and vanished, to respawn again after I rested. But the third time the bait-and-kill strategy worked like a charm. Now, why would From fix the first cheese (taking off a dot of her health) but *not* this one? Why would they keep her AI designed to slowly follow me well outside of the arena to a place where I have the advantage? And then there's the matter of the sabibaru. I saw somewhere that while she was hard to damage she could be worn down a little by an initial sabibaru attack, so I tried that. And it *worked*. The poison took off some of her health, but more importantly the sabibaru took out *a lot* of her poise, which similarly means that From designed it to do that, too, just like letting her wander across the bridge. These were no oversights, they must have been left in as sort of back-door strategies for those having trouble.

Which I assume I will have with Corrupted Monk, which seems like another war of attrition type fight. Stab, run away, wait, repeat. They give you a divine confetti right before the fight so I assume I'm supposed to use that, but I'm wary, since they don't really show up that often in the game so far, and I have a hunch it will take me more attempts than I have divine confetti.

O'Rin was fun, I don't remember her being too hard to fight straight up.

I don't think I did all the Headless fights though. Or maybe I did later, using the prosthetic that protects against terror. Seems like a pretty classic From thing, optional bosses that are accessible early on to strike fear into your heart, but you're not really supposed to tackle them until late game.

I knew better than to skip the giant monkey for now, even though I know it's possible.

Hmm, I guess Corrupted Monk wasn't quite as bad as I expected. Don't get me wrong, everyone had dragonrot now, again, but still, for a big spooky ghost samurai it's relatively slow and easy to parry/avoid. Plus, while I tried a few times with snap seeds, which are effective, those things are so hard to come by I decided on a different approach and followed a suggestion to throw ash at it, and that worked like a charm to disrupt its attacks.

Tried the ape once or twice, looks like another one that reward patience. And keeping your distance.

Famous last words and all that, but I think this might be my favorite fight so far. A grotesque monster monkey that farts and flings its poop? More of that. I managed to beat its first phase, and got about halfway through the second, even crazier phase. Shouldn't be too bad, though, because at least it's kind of fun and definitely ott in the best way.

Wait until you meet his monkey life partner

Holy shit, I used up all my spirit emblems!

Ha, I just noticed you can buy them at the idols. Funny one, From. I assume I'm 2/3rds or so through this game and I stand by my assessment that it my least favorite of the Froms I've played so far. Just so much bullshit for the sake of bullshit. In Dark Souls you can reclaim your souls after dying. In Bloodborne you can seek out the blue eyed baddie to retrieve all (some?) of your souls. But in this annoying game losing half your souls *and* money when you die just makes busy work, which is super annoying, since the game is essentially designed to *be* busywork already. That is, trial and error is once again the name of the game. Which combat art? Which items? Which prosthetic? But then dying over and over while you trial and error just sets your upgrade progress back further and further, more or less forcing you to farm, not for any real advantage, but just to at least get back to where you *were*, which is stupid. The only way around that is to not die, but not only does it take all that trial and error to learn how to not die, dying is the *whole point* of these games.

I feel like this game really overdoes the grabbing bosses trick, too, though I concede it's funny to watch the giant monkey throw me across the arena.

You know what? I take it back, fuck this giant monkey. I do OK with the first phase, but the second phase, especially the all but insta-kill terror attack, is just tedious bullshit. I read something about using the spear to pull out the centipede (?) in the second phase, but in the opportunities I've had to use it it hasn't retracted shit from the monkey (which is ironic, given this particular fight). And of course you only have a couple of shots to use it, anyway, because you run out of spirit emblems you can use. Anyway, I can totally see the monkey as a wall I don't feel like making it past. I've liked the From games so far, but maybe it's because I just played the gentle by comparison Red Dead 2 or maybe it's just the stress of it, but I'm finding this kind of boring.

Noooo, the monkey's not that bad. You just need to be super cautious about that scream. I remember mostly attacking him when he does that body dive that puts him past you. You can parry the sword too iirc.

We'll see. I can make it past the first stage pretty easily (Night Jar seems to help a lot), using maybe just one or two gourds if I'm being sloppy. But the second phase my impatience is an even bigger obstacle. I've already spent several tedious minutes running around the arena, dodging poop and whittling away at the monkey. Now I have to do it again? Only this time I can't stun it or get in as many hits? And even if I could the terror attack more or less limits you to one or two hits before you have to take cover? That's even more tedious. I've blocked or parried many of the attacks, but I'm not sure to what end.

It's such a weird boss to throw at you. After the game has trained you to be aggressive and get in their face, bam, here's comes a hyper aggressive enemy that you're meant to stay away from and get shots when you can.

Ooh, apparently the scream can be blocked with any umbrella prosthetic? Didn't know that.

Takes more spirit emblems! I use firecrackers the first round to speed things up, which leaves me with maybe ... 8 left over?

lol I think I finally figured it out. Don't fret about the first half of the fight, because I have that one down. But for the second one just play it like a dum-dum. Keep my far distance, slash once or twice when able. It takes a while but should be doable. in fact I almost did it a little bit ago but I had to take my daughter somewhere. lesson learned, when the enemy has an attack that can kill you instantly, better to just stay as far away from that attack as possible.

Well, this monkey's finally gone to heaven. In the end the way it played out (or at least the way I played it) was like an old school Nintendo game. Race around the arena evading or avoiding attacks, then when the opportunity arrises bounce on his head two times and run away. It took forever, but I guess it worked. I did not grab the white flower yet, though, because as I understand it once you do that then everything changes. Kind of like the blood moon (or whatever) in Bloodborne.

well done! I've started playing this through again, it takes a while to get back into the swing of parrying, but when it goes well it is so satisfying, this game has THE best combat

I guess? I'm getting pretty tired of clashing swords, which is a bummer, since at some point I wanted to dive into my copy of Ghosts of Tsushima, but thanks to this one (whether or not I totally finish it) it may be a bit. I might have to let the pendulum swim back to something less stressful and violent first, like Last of Us 2.

That was a joke.

It's been a while, but at least as I remember it I think I really prefer the risk/reward system of Bloodborne a lot more. There's no shield, but you're still trained from the start to be aggressive. You have lots of weapons to choose from, and they all have pros and cons, but nowhere near the number or options of Dark Souls. You can retrieve your echoes by racing in and killing the glowing baddie. Similarly, you can reclaim some health by quickly getting back at the baddie that got you. You don't have to parry (riposte/shoot) all the time if you don't want to, but it can help if you're good at it.

This one I think there are many more annoyances, and even a few missed opportunities, like the grappling hook, which where I am so far is more or less just another hoop to jump through, with the exception (so far) of one boss fight. Compared to how integral the similar mechanic is in Spider-man (for obvious reasons).

I do wonder, though, when they're developing these things, how they choose just what works where, and when. Like, they have a hundred different enemies. Do they just spin a wheel and say "this one is vulnerable to poison," or "this one doesn't like fire" or "this one you can take down with this particular combat skill or prosthetic?" Sometimes seems kind of arbitrary, especially compared to certain enemies that require a certain item or specific weapon. Like, headless you *need* divine confetti; otherwise there's really no reason for it to exist. Others can be hurt by snap seeds, but so far snap seeds are even harder to come by than divine confetti. Or the guys with shields, you *need* to use the prosthetic ax, but it's not hard to use, just an extra step.

Interesting to me that this one is the first of these games to more or less abandon the RPG elements (at least some of them), and also to skip both DLC and PVP. It's a lot shorter, too, isn't it? And feels really boss-heavy.

I think there are usually *lore reasons* for enemy placement and weaknesses, but it can arbitrary if you don't pay attention to that, which I often don't. And obscure mechanics are hallmark of these games obv.

It makes sense that losing the pvp is what let them commit to this combat system, it's hard to imagine no endurance + all the deflect/posture stuff working for online pvp (plus the non-customizable character, it just wouldn't make sense). But it's going to be real interesting to see what Elden Ring does as far as taking parts of all the games (like it sounds like the jumping to avoid attacks, some of the weapon blocking, etc are going to make it in along with all the traditional Souls stuff).

I mean, if you aren't feeling it by now it just may not be your game. I doubt the last parts of the game will suddenly change your mind. Ghosts might be more up your alley.

tbf, it's basically 75% like the other games, so there's a lot to like. It's just that the 25% that's different I don't think makes things better, especially after Bloodborne.

I does seem like a bad game to put away and come back to later.

It*

Yeah, muscle memory and momentum seem key. I don't hate it, I just don't like all of it, and a lot of the stuff I like the least seems least essential to the game. I could be wrong, but I don't encounter a lot of online clamoring for another Sekiro.

It's definitely more of a niche fandom but I see some people say it's their favorite. It's my favorite to watch for sure.

it's not their best but its biggest weakness is probably the way it reuses a lot of content more than anything else, a lot of minibosses you fight again & again, some areas get reused a few times etc. the core combat is as great as always with their games, even if it's faster-paced here and probably the most difficult it's ever been, i'd be very excited for a sequel. my only complaint with the core systems is spirit emblems should just be always re-stocked upon death instead of you having a finite stash that you can run out of and have to grind for - bloodborne's blood vials are similarly frustrating.

with the ape i find it's definitely worth saving spirit emblems to use the umbrella just for the scream, it's the most dangerous attack without it by far, & not having to worry about it lets you play more aggressively. there are some bosses where you do really have to play very cautiously in a more dark souls-esque manner, but with the ape you can actually just deflect a lot of stuff. there's a lot of pattern recognition as always & i think the increased difficulty in sekiro comes from there being a lot more options in-the-moment in combat than in dark souls.

Case in point re: (imo) needless bullshit. Beating the Guardian Ape took me many, many tries. I know I am not unique here, and that doesn't even include the poor fools that attempted it earlier in the game, let alone wherever/whenever I am in the game. Losing a million times to the monkey means 1) burning through my spirit emblems 2) giving everyone dragonrot 3) emerging out the other side with no XP and no gold. First, re: the gold, spirit emblems are not so easily farmed that banking them that way is better than just buying them, so if you want to restock you have to shell out gold (at an apparently inflating rate), which means farming for money (since they apparently limit the number of money bags you can buy, for some dumb reason). But second, the ape gave me 4000 or so XP, which sounds like a lot but really isn't, as the next big skill point costs some 9000 or so XP. And yet, because I expect to die many more times, so as not to waste all that effort on the ape the game more or less forced me to farm for XP, too, to bank my next skill point before losing half on the next death. Even then, there seems to be soooooooo many skill points/trees I'll be unable to unlock short of never dying, since it takes so long to save up thousands of them, let alone doing so with no setbacks. That just adds an air of unnecessary tedium, assuming I'm even able to unlock then at all before the end of the game. And if the point is to unlock them before playing the game *again*, no thanks.

It's weird, I don't remember worrying about XP or emblems this game, but maybe I just forgot.

And I never had a problem with the equivalent in Dark Souls or Bloodborne. I think it's the whole "lose half your shit" system that makes it such a strain here. Also, most enemies don't really give that much XP, so it's hard (for me) to save up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmDYUXitwMQ

My brain is so warped from watching speedruns like that one. Dude takes the ape down in like no time.

But how many hours did he play to get to that skill level? A billion?

assuming I'm even able to unlock then at all before the end of the game

you are not expected to complete the skill tree before the end of the game & a lot of the skills don't particularly matter at all. they're far less important than just levelling up from previous games. my recommendation is don't force yourself to grind out of some fear of losing out on the skill points, you're just making everything more unpleasant for yourself. unlike in previous games where levelling up can significantly make a difference, most of the skills just offer playstyle variations or some marginal benefits.

It's weird, I don't remember worrying about XP or emblems this game, but maybe I just forgot.

i don't think the XP change is a real issue at all - unlike in souls/bb you keep a skill point after death if you gain it, so it's not a total loss. however if you die a lot on a boss that you're heavily using the prosthetic against then you can completely run out of emblems, which is frustrating, but this is just a minor frustration in the same way as blood vials in bloodborne being finite was.

Oh yeah, definitely don't try to unlock the entire skill tree! That would be like trying to build a level 800 character that can use every weapon and spell in a Souls play through.

The blood vials thing is what always stops me from replaying BB tbh. It's fine the first time, when you're exploring and killing every enemy. But if you're trying to cruise through and get stuck on a boss, it's annoying to have to stop and grind. But emblems aren't as essential as vials, generally.

unlike in souls/bb you keep a skill point after death if you gain it, so it's not a total loss.

You don't lose the actual point, but if you are, say, 4500 points toward the next skill point at 10000, and you die, then suddenly you are only 2250 points toward your next skill point. And then if you die again you're down to 1100 or whatever. And so on. But if getting skill points is indeed not that important, then I guess yeah, it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I just beat the double apes, which thankfully were not as hard as the single ape. It helped that I learned/realized too late that I can drink from my purple gourd *before* he uses his terror, not as a heal but as inoculation! So as he roars I just swing away. And to that end, I also learned that the headless ape is weak to divine confetti, for whatever reason, so that made it that much easier. The other brown monkey, fwiw, thankfully does not grab, does not fart and does not throw poo, among other downgrades, and it doesn't have too much health, either. So all it took was some firecrackers and quick ass kicking to get it out of the way. One thing that happened that surprised me, though, was that after I killed the headless ape (for, what, the fourth time?) the red deathblow icon flashed *again*, so I instinctively hit R1, just in case I hadn't closed the deal. (Which has happened before, I panic in shock that I've finally "killed" it and actually miss my cue and basically have to hit it again to get the deathblow cue back.) Only this time when I hit R1 I somehow used my mortal blade, which I literally forgot I had (even though it has been on my back for most of the game), killing the ape/centipede/whatever for the fifth or sixth time and getting me another ninja skill! That was pretty cool.

OK, I can tell these last few bits are going to be a pain, but I do appreciate this game's endgame. Ghost enemies have started to appear here and there, I think it's getting darker outside (?) and now I suppose I need to fight my way through the castle again, with new, tougher enemies? I guess I don't mind, it's kind of like having a DLC built in. It's also kind of a relief to realize that skill points are not that important, and certainly not as important as prosthetics can be. It would have been really frustrating to get this game a couple of years ago and dive in blind thinking it was even possible, or at least practical, to get all those skill points and combat arts. I suppose only letting you use one combat art at a time is a hint they're not really necessary, even if the ability to pause for once does let you switch things around on the fly, however awkwardly.

Something else novel (for From) about these games is whereas past games of its ilk encouraged you to separate and fight groups of enemies, or gives you the option to run past them, here there are a few choke points of ninja gank squads that all but indicate you're supposed to outright skip them if you can/want, like the super aggro nu rooftop ninjas or those annoyingly agile little toadstool guys. They're just not worth the effort, really, especially in groups.

It's happened a couple of times now, but I love it when the NPCs fight. And as cheap as it was, needing to fight another ninja mini boss again ... with a second ninja hiding in the corner, was worth it for me to (after dying a bunch to both of them) learn I needed to puppet the second one and let it take out a hunk of health from the main one before I stood a fighting chance.

Oh, so now I have to fight two more bosses, one after the other, to get the first "bad" ending? Or I have choose a different ending and fight different bosses? And then there are two more potential endings? Yeah, I think I may just call it a day on this game. I really couldn't care less about the "plot," as such, and generally I haven't really been enjoying the boss fights that much, which have been almost exclusively aggro sword fights. This game is fine but I just didn't get much out of it. All the upgrading, the prayer beads, the combat arts, the prosthetic, they never really felt like they gave me much more power or advantage, it was all pretty imperceptible, since so much of the game is built around deflecting/parrying/posture. Which, if that's your thing, I can totally see someone really digging this. But from my perspective - and who knows, coming right after RDR2 might have been the problem - this feels both more difficult and more rote than that Soulsborne games, which makes it less ... fun. All work and no play, etc. It had its moments, though, and I'm glad I made it through as much as I did.

Oh shit, it looks like there is a *ton* more!? Yeah, nah. I can't do it, don't want to do it.

well done! I've started playing this through again, it takes a while to get back into the swing of parrying, but when it goes well it is so satisfying, this game has THE best combat

― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Thursday, 7 October 2021 08:06 bookmarkflaglink

otm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQeeRBtQgzE

What a show off. At least, I assume they're showing off. I watched it blindfolded.

This is the only Fromsoft Soulsbornelike game I don't own. I've badly wanted to check it out for a while now as it seems to polarise opinion - a real Marmite game. But it's always very expesnive (£60 full price, £40 in CEX). It's on sale on PSN at the moment for £30 and I am trying not to spend too much more this month. Do I snap it up? Is it worth it?

fwiw i loved it. as mentioned above, my favourite combat in any fromsoft game.

Do it! It's their tightest game, just know that it's less "play however you want" and more about learning the combat systems as they are. And it has a grappling hook.

People have called it a rhythm game, and I guess if you are a person who really doesn't do well with reacting to cues in a reasonable amount of time, then you might not enjoy it.

Okay I've done it. If I can't afford to eat by the end of the month at least I'll have Sekiro

Oh wow this game is sooo good and sooo funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCoUivFlIU

First impressions:

- a beautiful looking game on the whole. Nice to see after the browns and monochromes of the other Soulsborne games (other than Elden Ring of course)
- Love the whole sneaky stealth getting the drop on enemies part of the game. It takes real tact
- love the combat side of it for the most part but not sure about the unblockable moves. I can't seem to anticipate what the enemies are telegraphing in time. Does the Japanese word that flashes up change according to what move they're going to do?
- those giant roosters should not be underestimated. The number of times I've cleared the last soldier out of an area only to have a chicken kill me from behind...
- pretty as it is, I hope the decor switches up a bit as at the moment it's mostly pagodas and snow
- it seems you can skip while parts of this game? You can run past everything. There was a mini boss dressed in white who did a lot of thrust attacks I just couldn't deflect. I got fed up with him and found some other area that took me up to a cave and now I'm in a whole new place with buildings on fire. I can't tell if I've just snuck past the boss or if I've taken an alternate route
- in conclusion: lots of fun, but tough as old boots even for a FromSoft game

the roosters are assholes.

It wouldn't be a From game if you couldn't run past 99% of enemies.

It's been awhile...I remembered that you don't have the Mikiri counter (for countering thrust attacks) at the start of the game, but had forgotten that you have to get it from the skill tree: https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Mikiri+Counter. It's extremely satisfying to pull off, and for some fights you're trying to read low attacks vs thrust attacks vs normal ones.

That mini-boss is probably optional, and I think there are some parts of the game that can be done in a different order?

I seem to have no problem doing things like the mikiri counter on the practice zombie. Bosses feel different

Without question, the "Sekiro" bosses are harder than anything in the other From games. So many of the fights are about timing, with no room for error, and the imposed limitations of the game make it hard to steamroll anything through cheese or OP technique.

It confounds me why sometimes in these games certain parts seem a lot easier than others. I struggled so much on most of the mini bosses but I merked Demon Ogyoubu Oniwa (the guy on the horse) first attempt with hardly any damage

For all its emphasis on deflecting and smart counterattacks, I've found that the best strategy for this game so far is generally to attack as aggressively as possible

Piece of piss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYBCpY4D3M

In general, this one and Bloodborne are the two From games that reward aggression the most.

Piece of piss

📹

Oh I struggled so much with even some of the minor minibosses. Chained Ogre took ages

Every one of these games have a couple of bosses that are just absolute pushovers. No idea why. If memory serves, just about every other boss in Sekiro is a huge, imposing challenge, with the exception of one novelty boss level.

the pushover is a delight in sekiro. just a lovely gimmick boss level.

I just googled to remind myself, and man, there are some bosses and mini bosses that gave me sooooo much trouble.

It was the Demons Souls bosses that confounded me the most. I think I only had major trouble with about three of them? And half of them went down first time. Some of them barely put up a fight at all, just stood there letting me wail on them

Stuck between a bull and a butterfly. The procession of bosses and mini-bosses is relentless, which is a shame because I definitely like the stealth/explore parts of these games more than trying to work out the best combination of moves will help to cheese which impossible boss. Drunkard Juzuo took at least 20-30 tries.

It is a weird balance, when I think about it, between stealth and totally aggro relentless fights required to advance.

So far I've either aced a boss or struggled loads and had to rely on semi-cheesing (deaggroing them then backstabbing)

Tbh I don't remember maintaining stealth very often in this game.

This is probably the least cheese-able game out of all the From games, in terms of bosses. It's been awhile but they all use the mechanics in a slightly different way, and force you to fight on their terms (some are more about doing vitality damage, others are more about breaking their posture, etc). I guess the 'cheese' comes in using items or ninja skills that they're weak to.

Highly recommend checking out some of these silly but informative videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMFJMCWtY-w

Ok I think I'm going to have to start another playthrough :)

that fuckin bull tho.

Half the reason I want to play this again is that I now know you can parry the bull.

The stealth stuff, iirc, involved hiding in tall grass, leaping from roof to roof, etc, then zipping down for a kill, stuff like that.

I did forget that you can often use stealth to get rid of one of some (but definitely not all) bosses' life bars.

yeah, so this was the only way I could beat Juzuo the Drunk (the sumo guy on Hirata Estate).

There's a way to sneak through the building on the left hand side, sneak up behind one of his aids, backstab, run behind the building again until they de-aggro, and repeat. You can then get a cheeky stealth backstab on the boss before fighting him properly (with the help of that fella standing in the water to distract him).

If you don't kill all his aids first, it's a really tough fight. Even if you do, it's tricky as anything. I was subsisting on left-hand dodge rolls and then hitting him in the back a few times. Bu the rhythm would be interrupted when he would push me into a corner or against a rock.

I don't know whether things like the "sneak/backstab/de-aggro/repeat" method is the "right" way to do it, or indeed if it counts as cheesing, but it's in the game I guess? If this is how hard the early minibosses are, god knows what to expect for the rest of the game.

I'm really bad at knowing which moves are being telegraphed, and more often than not I just can't parry or do the correct type of riposte anywhere close to in time. There have been points where I SWEAR I've hit the correct button and just watch as the enemy picks me up and stomps me to an inch of my health bar.

i think in that sort of fight you’re certainly expected to pick off the minions, before tackling the big boss, though that back route feels a bit cheesy, as you say. mainly because they do not react as their mates fall to the ground around them.

my general approach is “absolutely do not care how i achieve beating this boss, the easier the better”.

Great general approach. Anything else is insanity tbh

I started a new game and it's feeling great so far.

You're totally right about there being no right way to win - items, backstabs, 'cheese', whatever. But later bosses might be harder to beat by slowly chipping down their vitality and running away, because they have huge health pools or are really good at blocking/deflecting your attacks. So you'll probably be forced at some point to win by breaking their posture, which requires you to keep on top of them (basically deflecting their attacks, and attacking when they stop attacking, and dodging/countering their perilous attacks - the ones telegraphed by those Japanese symbols and some sort of movement tell).

There have been points where I SWEAR I've hit the correct button and just watch as the enemy picks me up and stomps me to an inch of my health bar.

Yeah, you'll never be able to parry/counter a grab attack, those are the ones where you need to get a sense of the telegraph move and just jump back/dodge/run out of the way.

Man, early ogre grab attack, giant monkey grab attack ...

Also tbf I don't think you're supposed to constantly deflect/parry huge enemies with huge swords like Juzou, because they're huge and cause a ton of posture build-up.

And also once an enemy's vitality gets low, their posture doesn't recover as fast, so maybe you can use the hit-and-run strategy for most bosses? But it will probably take way longer and be harder for some of them, and also it's fun to stay in their face and swordfight. It's definitely an adjustment from Souls, which drill dodging and spacing into you. One of those Saint Riot videos makes the point that a lot of early game bosses in Sekiro (Juzou, the bull, maybe even Lady Butterfly) do in fact require a lot of dodging and spacing, and maybe it would have been good to include more deflection-based fights in the early game.

Ok I'm deeply back into this game now, just got past Genichiro on the Ashina Castle rooftop (and whatever comes after this is a bit of a haze in my memory until the end game). Such a fantastic fight.

Stealth is a *much* bigger part than I remembered, I had gotten used to fighting multiple enemies in Souls/Elden Ring but you really really don't want to do it here. Also using a lot more items and skills than in my first playthrough, I think.

Well, the big monkey still took hours of attempts this time around. I was pretty happy with this run though, even got some spear ripostes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-E5PUOxlk8

Beating big monkey is what eventually gave my controller drift.

Man, I kinda want to search for old reactions from the first people that faced this boss blind.

I got to Lady Butterfly and got in the mood for revisiting Dark Souls. So now I'm stuck on her, the Bull and Ornstein & Smough all at the same time!

Haha, I think a lot should open up once you get past those walls.

I managed to first-try the ape couple, aka Sekiro's version of O&S. Same strats basically, run away (unlocked, with the camera pointed behind you), and attack the more aggressive one when you can!

Thanks to a guide, I'm actually trying a different ending this time, the Purification one. I thought I had already broken it somehow and was about to kill the giant divine lightning dragon, but it turns out I just needed to eavesdrop on my crew a bunch.

The alternate Hirata Estate is no joke, just got to Owl pt. 2 after beating the ninja who keeps summoning dogs and Juzuo and friends pt. 2.

This game is so damn good, and I know I'm still missing a bunch of things (like once again not bothering with most of the Headless/undead minibosses).

Does anyone listen to the Bonfireside Chat podcast? I think it's excellent for listening to people discuss the lore of these games.

That said, I was surprised just how cold they were on Sekiro, and especially the reasons they give for not really loving it, many of which could easily be ascribed to Dark Souls anyway.

Strangely, they also dislike DS3 while stanning hard for DS2, neither of which I've played through much, but I understand goes against popular consensus

I haven't but I hate those opinions. Tbh I don't really care much about the lore though, I just let the vibe wash over me and I mostly care about the action/mechanics/pvp etc.

DS3 = best pvp, it's insane to think about the amount of time I spent on it, wish it was still more active

DS2 = I just can't, I'm glad it has its fans but it just doesn't feel good to me (mostly due to the art/animation/mechanics and timing of everything)

DS1 = best world design and atmosphere, always up for a comfort replay

Sekiro = best single-player game maybe?

Bloodborne = amazing game, love it and have fond memories of the main game + dlc + pvp, but for some reason I've never been able to get through a second playthrough. I usually stall out early on for some reason (maybe because I'm impatient and don't want to farm blood vials?).

And Elden Ring is just kind of the summation of everything, although I haven't felt compelled to go back to the pvp in the last few months.

PvP is something I've barely touched in any of these games.

In Elden Ring it seems to take forever for me to get summoned, even at the coliseums, and I think I've won, like, one match in all my time.

I have no idea how covenants work in Dark Souls either. Is it worth looking into while I'm playing the main story, or more of a post-completion thing? No idea what they are or how they work really.

I tried to get pure white tendency for Demon's Souls but that first NPC you're meant to save got himself killed. I might go back and check out black tendency but it sounds tough and the game is already tough enough!

With Elden Ring I really loved getting deep into the lore. It's so rich and well fleshed-out, and you can watch endless YouTubes about it.

Lore for Demon's Souls felt more obfuscated. I played the whole thing through and I'm still not sure what was happening or why I was doing it or what the various NPCs' motives were, despite watching a good few vids.

Dark Souls, Bloodborne - no clue. Any time I try and read or watch some lore stuff they seem to be talking about later-game events I haven't reached yet. So it feels a bit like it's the kind of thing you play through once, then read up about, then play again with a much better knowledge of what's happening.

The Daddy Owl fight is now my favorite, although it definitely took a few hours to get comfortable with. So great to be able to go back and play a new-to-me boss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbFmPCqR4YQ

And with that I think I'm done for this run, at least for awhile. Not particularly interested in learning the Demon of Hatred and Isshin fights again, and I'm still recovering from some tendonitis and this game is making it flare up (so much left hand action with the deflecting).

Just started this and it is sooo much my jam. Don't know why it took me so long. I'm on record as a huge Tenchu stan and this does feel like a worthy successor though I would have liked a bit more stealth. But I won't be greedy. I love anticipating the bosses. I love having to redo little sections and just becoming amazing at them. I love the Japanese. The stances, and how you break break them, reminds me of Bushido Blade. HIGH PRAISE. I even love how the menus etc are sort of nasty and PC-like. It is incredibly responsive. I guess that's.. I dunno frame rate or something, but it's also a decision they made for your guy to be quick.

My only real complaint? The fan on my PS4 sounds like a goddamn AIR CONDITIONER when I'm playing this, even with HDR off. Any tips?? Kinda ruins the atmos

Some people recommend opening it up and cleaning out the dust, but I don't recall my PS4 being that loud when I played this game, or any game, for that matter. I had a Slim.

Huh maybe I'll try that! I also have a slim