Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - Dark Souls with Narutofaggotry and bosses meaner than a Souls fan on prom night

[BrunoMattei]

Game is interesting but holy fuck will mini-bosses be a complete bitch. Couldn't cheese the 2nd one proper without using the stairs while he was on the high ground. And I'm still wondering if its really a good idea to attack and block while jumping and dodging his shit. Other than that, I may as well re-do the game and its tutorials. It'll be no different than when redoing Dark Souls when I was new to it.


Until Miyazaki makes an Armored Core, we'll be stuck with Not-Souls involving ninjas. I honestly wouldn't mind an Armored Core on PC, especially if they threw in a 9-Ball.

What if we get an Armored Souls?

?

 

[An Ghost]

That's the problem. Even if you are a seasoned Souls player, your instincts are going to be wrong. The game is close enough to a souls game that you get complacent, and just different enough that that complacentcy gets you killed quickly. I can't tell you how many times I've been punished for muscle memory trying to use i-frames with dodge roll on an attack.

Unless somebody played Butcher Blade and parry dagger with no armor in each souls game, nobody’s instincts were ready.

Ni-Oh

I loved Ni-oh because it was fast and complicated but when you get into it is simple. But the game had 8 enemies. I genuinely missed the weird mobs that appear in one area only from souls games.

How's the story/lore in this game ? I have to say I'm a big fan of the mystical obscure bullshit of DS/Bloodborne, is Sekiro a lot more down to earth or are there still weird lovecraftian forces that I will know almost nothing about at play ?

Down to earth, but because there’s no armor they actually have to tell you the story instead of spoon feeding it through item descriptions.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I loved Ni-oh because it was fast and complicated but when you get into it is simple. But the game had 8 enemies. I genuinely missed the weird mobs that appear in one area only from souls games.

I hated the mission system. That killed all interest for me. I was like "Oh, this is cool. Oh wait, I have to re-play the same area instead of opening the world and exploring it? Lame."

Sekiro has started to click for me. It also helps that I grinded a tiny bit and upgraded my heals to the max, have 5 Gourds, and now have the Firecracker. The Firecracker is almost essential to surviving and it's really funny when you think about it: they make damn sure that you know that you have access to all these abilities and you get this and you get that. But the Firecracker, one of the most universally useful of ALL of your Shinobi arts, is insanely easy to overlook.

With the Firecracker I beat Lady Butterfly (cheesed the shit out of her in her 2nd form and kept hitting her with the firecracker, no regrets), the dude with the lightning (you know the one), Shichiman, and I think, I think I'm at Guardian Ape. I'm tempted to grind to 2000 just to grab another Prayer Bead from a merchant.

It's basically the opposite of Souls when it comes to the combat. In Soul you wait, you time your strikes, you don't get greedy, you pause and wait. In Sekiro you go the fuck in and don't let up. At least that's my take.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

In Sekiro you go the fuck in and don't let up. At least that's my take.

This is what finally got me over the initial "WTF" factor of the combat. I spent all the way up to getting the flame vent and beating the Chained Ogre trying to play like Souls. Being patient, timing things, darting in and out. It works kind of, but not really effective.

Out of frustration, I just got in enemy faces and went aggro with parries and constant attacks. Way more effective and way more intense. Combat is a way faster dance in this game than the slug fest that Souls games are. Souls games asked you to be focused and pay attention but didn't really require it. Sekiro demands it.

I only get an hour or so to play in a given day so I left off working on the Horseriding asshole last night after trying not to become snek food.

 

[BarberFerdinand]

Took a while for the combat to click, but loving the game. The only thing I'd ask for at this point is for money to auto collect off corpses.

 

[WrenchWring]

I had my own DarkSydePhil moment. I got to the Chained Ogre, and I bet you know where this is going. It took me about an hour or more to beat this fucker. I had two gourds and unlocked the shuriken attack with the arm. The whole grapple mechanic with that boss is a little confusing. Maybe I missed the ability I need to get something out of that? I have no idea. I even had to look up the fight on YT just to reaffirm if I was playing correctly or not. Turns out I was.

Basically any time you're really struggling in Sekiro, you're supposed to leave and come back later. If you had gone exploring a bit more, you would have found an NPC that gives you a bell, which is used to unlock a new area. In that area you'll get two new prosthetic tools, an axe and a flame vent; the flame vent can set the ogre on fire if you hit him with oil first, which will stun him and let you get a bunch of free hits in. Adding the axe and flame vent will bring you up to three prosthetic tools, which unlocks the prosthetic skill tree, which includes an attack you can do after a grapple; you were indeed missing the ability you needed to get something out of that.

The altered death mechanics and dragonrot also encourage leaving and coming back later; you lose your exp and gold immediately on death and you can't recover them by returning to where you were, and continuing to die over and over will make NPCs sick.

 

[Graffiti canvas]

Basically any time you're really struggling in Sekiro, you're supposed to leave and come back later.

I didn't figure that out for a very long time when I found Lady Butterfly. I think I racked up a good 20 deaths before I remembered there was other shit to go do.

 

[Zero0]

I loved bloodborne, it’s my favorite souls game by far. How does this game compare in terms of difficulty, learning curve, and parrying difficulty?

I played the Nioh demo and didn’t enjoy it and I don’t really like stealth games. I found it really easy to parry in bloodborne. I wish there was a sequel to that.

I found the game easier than the others, since the game is mostly about fighting the mini bosses and bosses most mobs are just trash, but I've seen a lot of people struggling so idk.
The parry timing is extremely generous, and since its the same button as your block you won't take damage even if you fuck it up, in the souls series parrying was a risk reward thing, here is just the default, on the other hand the dodge becomes the risk reward move(The iframes are atrocious), you can still use it to get out of the way but against bosses especially dodging can be super rewarding, some attack will stager you even if you parry, if you manage to dodge instead you get the oportunity to slap the idiot instead.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Jesus H. Christ this is a long-ass game. I'm at the Buddhist part and thinking "Okay, I know the Ape is somewhere." And I still have yet to find this boss. Managed to beat the armored mini-boss easily. He seemed a little rushed. Either that or he was a patented Japanese-style parody/homage to Souls.

 

[Islamic Creampie]

Fuck the Guardian Ape. The thing attacks by throwing tantrums and literal shit at you. Get in a few pot shots, run away, try not to get grabbed. You finally take down it's one bar, decapitate it and the fucker comes back to life and starts swinging a big ass sword all over the place.

Few other rough bosses I can work on, but this seems to be a story progression one.

 

[I-chi]

Fuck the Guardian Ape. The thing attacks by throwing tantrums and literal shit at you. Get in a few pot shots, run away, try not to get grabbed. You finally take down it's one bar, decapitate it and the fucker comes back to life and starts swinging a big ass sword all over the place.

Few other rough bosses I can work on, but this seems to be a story progression one.

Literally just got there tonight. He is. Haven't beaten him yet though.

 

[BrunoMattei]

This is fucking weird because I just beat the Guardian Ape... Only to find out you face the fucker again! FUCK!

I'm taking a break. I think I played this for 10 hours today and I meant to play it for just an hour.

 

[GeorgeDaMoose]

After playing it for awhile Sekiro is okay. It's not nearly as captivating as any of the Souls games and I think I'm not going to bother playing it again because I assume NG+ is going to be standard From trash with no real changes to keep me interested. I guess it has the best combat so far, but honestly that praise feels mostly empty when you realize that Sekiro gave up so much in return. The tutorial/early game of Sekiro is probably the worst I've ever played in a From Software game and it definitely makes me upset once I got further and realized how bad it was. I have no fucking clue how anyone in their right mind thought any of that was acceptable.

 

[BroccoliBrain]

Still playing, I’m improving and I want to love this game but I can’t say that I am. Every time I kill a boss there’s no rush, just relief that it’s over and paranoia if they put mooks behind the door on the way out. I love the medieval Japanese aesthetic though, this game has my inner web in Stockholm syndrome and no same person can deny this game is polished.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I've gotten to the part where you have to choose to side with Kuro or not. I've done some grinding to level up. Overall, so far, my thoughts are kind of mixed:

Disclosure: I am a Souls weirdo. I've never played Demons or Bloodborne. Just the trilogy. My least favorite of the trilogy is 1 and I could write an autistic essay as to why. My favorite is actually a tie between 2 and 3. 2 for it's open world and 3 for it's combat. I don't like PvP. And as I mentioned earlier I am a strength nerd that never parries. Just to compare dicks, I've played up to NG+3 on all 3 games. I think I got up to NG+5 for 1 and 2 and NG+2 for 3 (it would've been NG+3 but a hard drive crash fucked that up).

The tutorial is annoying. The constant text boxes were unwelcomed and reminded me of Mega Man X5. The constant interruptions of the story I didn't like. Once again, I'm weird, I don't care about the story in games. Just let me play. Let me skip through the bullshit. That's another reason why I like Souls because there's very little of it but if you care enough you can find it in the game's world.

Most of the Shinobi arts are completely worthless. The Ax you use a handful of times. Same with the Shurikan. Same with the Flame Vent. The Spear looks cool and I've heard it's good but... Almost every single enemy, especially bosses, just blocks or tanks through your bullshit. The Firecracker is maybe the only great Shinobi art because it can stun nearly every single boss and is great for mobs.

Compare that to Souls where you're given a lot of options as to how to play: you can use magic, you can go shield-less, you can do the traditional sword + shield, or find some weird build.

The whole posture-breaking gets kind of old after a while. 99% of the enemies including bosses have to block EVERYTHING? Ommitting the Ogres you can only hit someone if you do a perfect deflect (sometimes) or if they whiff an attack. That's it. Otherwise you break posture, death blow them (no homo) and rinse and repeat.

The whole customization element of Souls is gone too.

I have 8 Gourds and I'm one Prayer Bead away from another upgrade.

Edit: I made the wrong choice with Kuro and the game doesn't let you reneg on your choice. Great game design...

Also, the targeting system sucks. It was a thing since at least Dark Souls 1 (and probably Demons too) that a giant enemy or an enemy jumps over you will occasionally get un-targeted. But this happens all the time in Sekiro and enemies randomly get un-targeted. Especially when you're up against a wall.

I've also held down block when I had plenty of Posture and my character just doesn't block the attack and it wasn't a Deathblow. This happened in particular with the 2nd phase of Guardian Ape and Corrupted Monk.

One last thing: what fucking moron at FROM thought it was a good idea that when you resurrect that you un-target enemies? If there's a mob of enemies then it makes sense that you un-target but against a single boss? Having to target them sometimes leads to them getting a free hit because sometimes when you block/deflect and you're not targeting the enemy they get a free hit on you.

2nd edit: I would overall rank it below the Souls trilogy. I don't hate 1 but I just find aspects of it very annoying. I have an ISO of Demons and I think the PS3 emulator can run it at glorious 30 FPS. I don't know if you can hack it to run at 60 or not.

 

[MrTroll]

Man I'm sick of multi-phase boss fights. Not only in this game but in general (I recently finished playing the remake of RE2 recently for point of reference). Is it too much to ask for a boss to just lay all his cards on the table and be up-front about exactly what it takes to beat him? If I have to hit him with 2 deathblows before finishing that's fine, but show me that from the get-go. None of this "just beat the giant farting ape down to a single deathblow, OH WAIT now beat him again but without his head" stuff.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I think Souls 3 was the first one to pull the old "Surprise! There's 2 phases!" Trick with boss fights. DS 3 even had a 3 phaser with the first DLC.

But now it's gotten a little obnoxious.

 

[BroccoliBrain]

I got curious about the character’s names in Japanese and decided to read it up in case it gave insight on the lore (and that shit’s always interesting trivia to me). For example, Genichiro’s first name is written with the characters for string (of a bow or instrument), the number one and son, so it’s a straightforward reference to his signature weapon.

And idk about the arts being useless, I’ll throw shuriken at anything that jumps but the firecrackers only stun enough for me to get negligible hits in while breaking my own rhythm which is why I use the axe more, for more posture damage and also the spacing it gives.

 

[MrTroll]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidt...ts-players-and-add-an-easy-mode/#7ad957a01639

It begins. Now to wait and see if Sekiro can rack up more "game" "journalist" crybabies whining about the difficulty than Cuphead did.

 

[GeorgeDaMoose]

I got curious about the character’s names in Japanese and decided to read it up in case it gave insight on the lore (and that shit’s always interesting trivia to me). For example, Genichiro’s first name is written with the characters for string (of a bow or instrument), the number one and son, so it’s a straightforward reference to his signature weapon.

And idk about the arts being useless, I’ll throw shuriken at anything that jumps but the firecrackers only stun enough for me to get negligible hits in while breaking my own rhythm which is why I use the axe more, for more posture damage and also the spacing it gives.

Firecrackers are borderline broken and make some bosses jokes.