***Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice***

I'm really looking forward to Ghost of Tsushima (must be PC though, PS4 graphics - even with PS5 framerate - would diminish it), but I suspect that it is a very different game - gorgeous vistas, customisable costumes, etc etc.

Sekiro is also cool, stylish and what have you, but its main draw is the heart pounding combat. In short, it's fights induce zen... or panic, greed and hesitation. There was a post on Steam discussions from a guy who does real life rapier fencing and how Sekiro captures the feel of it - despite obvious mass simplifications with no quadrant guards etc etc due to the joypad control method. On the surface, you only have block/parry, slash, stab, dodge, jump and mikiri-step-on-blade counter. But, it stirs up my real emotions that affect my real timing and decision making. Yes, any lowly grunt samurai can kill you in 2-3 shots, same for the (90% humanoid) bosses and this cost is what makes the fights emotional and heartfelt :)

Also, the ingame buffs and crutches are minimal, its an rpg where YOU level up. Having spent hours on the first walkthrough up to Genichiro, I've blazed through it/him second time round, and its a warm feeling (new game, so the same attack levels etc). The enemies that were panic inducing just two weeks ago, are pure zen now.

Looking back on my Sekiro journey, I would stress two things:
1. Do not rush through the game. Savour each encounter. Train with the Hunbei the sparring partner, initiate duels with samurai. Each one is fun.
2. In a fight, straight away learn to dictate, to be aggressive. Boss fights that can take 30 minutes if played overcautiously, but can also be blazed in 1 minute of focused aggression (and no, you do not need to be always perfect with timing).
3. In a pinch follow this guy's guide. He is my zen guru, and like me, he also rated the game 10/10 :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp4wYsGU78M&list=PL7RtZMiaOk8i_vKhswYLM-3-swaEd9Cft

PS My fighting game history is about 15 minutes of Demon Souls 2 or 3 (hated it), so not a From Software fanboi by any means:)
 
I beat every boss character going, and got to the final boss fight and gave up - That was about 6 months ago.

I fear I've lost every skill I would have learned, so I don't know if I'll ever finish it now :(

Edit - It was actually 11 months ago!
 
My first ever platinum'ed game. Finished the last of the three boss run Gauntlets yesterday too. Still indifferent to other From Software games, but Sekiro has touched me deeper that I thought was possible :)
I'm a pretty jaded gamer with the mental age of a 148 year old and have all but stopped playing ("seen it all before, been there done that", etc). Came into this for the usual 30 mins-1 hour of forgettable samurai gaming thrills, but how wrong was I :D

Sekiro does so many things right, but its game mechanics are the heart of the game. I've studied cognitive science, but I'm still puzzled behind my Shinoobie to ShinOP transformation - real life me! not my character leveling up. In the beginning, countless satisfying deaths to the very first miniboss Naomori Kawarada, over two hours on the Chained Ogre... And now death is in my wake, with even the boss rush gauntlets being a (heart pounding) easy clap. Puzzling! And no, the answer is not as simple as "enemy move memorization". Demon of Hatred alone has 26 moves and combos- multiplying by 40 different bosses and enemy types... There is no way I remember them all, tight timings and all.

So, yes - an epiphany-like experience. Arigato, Miyazaki-san :)

sekiro-plat.jpg
 
dont think i would like this type of game, is it similar to dark souls 3 ? i tried that, got to the first boss gundyr and gave up, rolling around trying to time everything is not for me, is this similar ? would love to get into it, but i dont see the hype
 
Subzero85 said:
dont think i would like this type of game, is it similar to dark souls 3 ? i tried that, got to the first boss gundyr and gave up, rolling around trying to time everything is not for me, is this similar ? would love to get into it, but i dont see the hype
Click to expand...

Yeah similar, harder in some ways tbh
 
VincentHanna said:
I beat every boss character going, and got to the final boss fight and gave up - That was about 6 months ago.

I fear I've lost every skill I would have learned, so I don't know if I'll ever finish it now :(

Edit - It was actually 11 months ago!
Click to expand...

Practice. I too beat every boss. I think it took me about 40+ goes to beat the final boss.

There is a way to 'cheat' if you need help.

Keep grinding experience points and upgrading until your strong enough to beat him.
 
Subzero85 said:
dont think i would like this type of game, is it similar to dark souls 3 ? i tried that, got to the first boss gundyr and gave up, rolling around trying to time everything is not for me, is this similar ? would love to get into it, but i dont see the hype
Click to expand...

I was not prepared for this at all having never played any DS games.

I bought it as it was GOTY for 2019.

Played it for about 2hrs and hated every second of it. Far too hard and the controls where not optimised for PC.

I gave up on it and went back to playing AC Odyssey for about 6 months.

Decided to give Sekiro another go just to get my moneys worth as I hate buying stuff and not getting any use out of it and eventually I started to get in to the game and and cope with the difficulty.

I then spent another 165hrs completing the game and can see why it was GOTY 2019. It's an excellent game with a very steep learning curve.

I am looking forward to Elden Ring now just thinking of all the challenging bosses lying in wait.

Sekiro is a masterpiece you just have to cope with the steep learning curve until your skills start to improve.

Honestly it's a wonderful game.
 
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Borsch said:
My first ever platinum'ed game. Finished the last of the three boss run Gauntlets yesterday too. Still indifferent to other From Software games, but Sekiro has touched me deeper that I thought was possible :)
I'm a pretty jaded gamer with the mental age of a 148 year old and have all but stopped playing ("seen it all before, been there done that", etc). Came into this for the usual 30 mins-1 hour of forgettable samurai gaming thrills, but how wrong was I :D

Sekiro does so many things right, but its game mechanics are the heart of the game. I've studied cognitive science, but I'm still puzzled behind my Shinoobie to ShinOP transformation - real life me! not my character leveling up. In the beginning, countless satisfying deaths to the very first miniboss Naomori Kawarada, over two hours on the Chained Ogre... And now death is in my wake, with even the boss rush gauntlets being a (heart pounding) easy clap. Puzzling! And no, the answer is not as simple as "enemy move memorization". Demon of Hatred alone has 26 moves and combos- multiplying by 40 different bosses and enemy types... There is no way I remember them all, tight timings and all.

So, yes - an epiphany-like experience. Arigato, Miyazaki-san :)

sekiro-plat.jpg
Click to expand...

I remember dying countless times to that Chained Ogre. :D:mad:
 
Paul_cz said:
How is the story in this, anything worthwhile, or just an excuse to murder monsters and bosses?
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Mostly the same as DS and Bloodborne, lore scattered about and you have to connect the dots yourself. The story is more direct this time but there's a lot implied and that's the strength of those games.

Bloodborne, for example, had fantastic lore and atmosphere, more elaborate and fascinating than many RPGs actual storylines + it was an amazing game on top of that.

Sekiro is the same, maybe a bit worse, but not every game needs an elaborate storyline anyways, it's worth it for the gameplay and atmosphere alone. The difficulty is also just right.

It requires some knowledge about Japanese mythology to fully appreciate and it's hard to get all the endings without looking stuff up but no biggie.
 
Just started playing this as it was sat in my library since last year.

Still in early game; stuck on General Tenzen Yamauchi. I manage to kill everyone around him in stealth, apart from the last guy stood just behind me. I can mostly get a free deathblow on him, but I need to improve my timing on the mikiri counter as I am failing it mostly, and die in two hits.

Been farming in Hirata Estate to get some more skills in, so might pursue that path for a while; defeated the Shinobi Hunter just fine.

I think I did something though; killed the looter in Hirata, who is a vendor before the ogre (didn't realise :().

Should I restart the game or is he not vital to game progression?
 
The looter is not vital, but a cool character and also sells some useful stuff. I'd say, since you've not progressed far, restart the game and, as an added motivation, install this atmospheric sheath-unsheath mod to make the restart more worthwhile. Don't know why it was not made to be part of the original game as it adds so much more more pathos to combat


https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mods/502?tab=description

The quickest way of dealing with General Yamauchi is to use shurikens on his arquebus equipped soldiers, run away, stealth him from behind and then finish him off with normal combat. Throwing ash in his face is also a useful strategy to get free hits in.
 
Another game I wanted to love but was useless at.

Got to the first chained Ogre and gave up after many attempts. looked at a number of guides but just couldnt seem to pull off the moves suggested - and I agree the control scheme on PC was a nightmare.

Just have to accept I am rubbish at Souls like games - even though they always seem right up my street.
 
Borsch said:
Grinding (luckily!) is largely useless. Your attack power is only increased after defeating bosses and thus can not be farmed for the final boss.
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This is incorrect as I did just that to increase my powers until I was strong enough to kill the final boss.

You know where the chained ogre is at the start of the game? Well at the end of the game I just did that sequence from the meditation idol to across the bridge over and over and over again to level up. I think I farmed about 11 levels until I was strong enough to kill not just the final boss but the demon of hatred as well. (I killed the demon of hatred first)
 
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Mint8 said:
Another game I wanted to love but was useless at.

Got to the first chained Ogre and gave up after many attempts. looked at a number of guides but just couldnt seem to pull off the moves suggested - and I agree the control scheme on PC was a nightmare.

Just have to accept I am rubbish at Souls like games - even though they always seem right up my street.
Click to expand...
The early game Chained Ogre was mentally the hardest part of the game for me. I've never played anything like Sekiro before and for a game to be this challenging this early in... I couldn't believe it for a while :) For a bit of context to the uninitiated here is a typical first time encounter @22:35 https://youtu.be/fsbZZT6dZIA?t=1355

These memories made me record a video yesterday on how to defat the Chained Ogre in three ways (I owed it to the beast and to myself :)). In the end, the most important advice is forget about the jump and the rope hook buttons. Sidestep, sidestep, and sidestep some more. The first fight in the video is defeating it with nothing but a katana and some ash to the face, the second is using the flame vent+ oil (I save it until the second phase), the third fight is using stealth:



opethdisciple said:
This is incorrect as I did just that to increase my powers until I was strong enough to kill the final boss.

You know where the chained ogre is at the start of the game? Well at the end of the game I just did that sequence from the meditation idol to across the bridge over and over and over again to level up. I think I farmed about 11 levels until I was strong enough to kill not just the final boss but the demon of hatred as well. (I killed the demon of hatred first)
Click to expand...
Did you buy the "Dancing Dragon Mask" parts? I forgot about them. With the Dragon Mask one CAN farm and upgrade attack power, but at 5 skill levels per 1 attack power level it would take some dedication to do :) Each subsequent skill level costs much more than the previous as well, farming 11*5 = 55 levels... Wow :)
https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Attack+Power

I've wasted 5 skill levels on the Dragon mask in some NewGame+ and was kicking myself when working towards platinum as those 5 levels were needed elsewhere and became super-duper expensive. Advice to all new players - do not buy the Dragon Mask parts and do not waste skill levels on increasing attack power. I don't think attack power makes much/any difference with bosses (beyond what you get normally without farming). Most boss fights are stamina fights and can be won (and lost) in just a couple of minutes of controlled aggression. Slicing at their healthbar would take 10 times longer regardless of attack power. In a pinch, just use Ako Sugars and the like.
 
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I am hovering over the "buy" button on the Sekiro page on Steam, but I am a bit hesitant despite loving the Souls games.

The issue giving me pause is the discussions I've read about what makes this game difficult. The consensus seems to be that it is the speed of decision-making and reaction required that genreate the biggest challenge.

Now, I alwasy struggle horribly with fast bosses. There aren't too many super-quick ones in the DS games, but Nioh had a few (Maria, Okatsu, Jin Hayabusa) that gave me real conniptions due basically to being too damned fast. A whole game of those I just couldn't have coped with. I am a middle-aged gamer now and I guess my reactions are slowing down. I can deal with most boss mechanics, but speed merchants are my kryptonite.

How real is the need for speed in this game?
 
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