***Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice***

Amatsubu said:
I couldn't put it down after the first playthrough TBH, immediately went for another one and all the way till I got all the achievements:D It's too addicting:p
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I was exactly the same, could not put it down until I got my platinum and all the boss gauntlets.
strumpusplunket said:
Pretty sure I will be leaving it installed once I finish to come back to for another run through every so often.
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Make sure to try "charmless" mode - it's the way Sekiro was meant to be played. On your second/third etc playthrough Kuro will ask you if you want to take his charm (in the first playthrough he just gives it, no question asked), say "no" and enjoy :) You can always take it later on whenever you feel like - I've lasted until the Roof Dad :) But it does change the game in a fundamental way, beyond the usual "enemies will have more HP" of the DS3 new game+.
 
Borsch said:
I was exactly the same, could not put it down until I got my platinum and all the boss gauntlets.
Make sure to try "charmless" mode - it's the way Sekiro was meant to be played. On your second/third etc playthrough Kuro will ask you if you want to take his charm (in the first playthrough he just gives it, no question asked), say "no" and enjoy :) You can always take it later on whenever you feel like - I've lasted until the Roof Dad :) But it does change the game in a fundamental way, beyond the usual "enemies will have more HP" of the DS3 new game+.
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Huh? It doesn't need to be *harder*!! :)

Anyway, I thought I was en route to the final boss last night, but I ended up finding a spear mini-boss insead, who (rather unreasonably) had samurai general backup and together they roflstomped me like five times in a row before a rather obvious strategy suddenly suggested itself to me, which I will go back to try hopefully later on today...
 
Amatsubu said:
Do charmless and ring the Demon Bell:D
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200.webp
 
strumpusplunket said:
Huh? It doesn't need to be *harder*!! :)
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Harder is too simple a word, it makes the mechanics more fun :) By that stage I was playing the game on autopilot and it made everything exciting again, even the ordinary samurai mob fights. Not a fan of the Demon Bell/fatter enemy health bars though. Never did a NG+ run in DS3 for that reason too.

I'll also plug this sheath-unsheath mod again as it adds more style and pathos to freshen up a new walkthrough. (why sheathing is not part of Sekiro or DS I will never know). This video also reminds me that a huddles playthrough is still on my bucket list

Anyway, not to distract you from the final boss - he is an awesome adversary and my favorite fight in the game (together with the roof Genichiro, the generals and various Ashina and Ministry samurai).
 
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That looks cool. Actually, it makes me think it would have been great to have an iaijutsu move for Sekiro. Two mini-bosses I can think of seemed to have one. I remember Nioh had one too, and it was kind of OP if you could work a window for it - kind of a high-risk/high-reward IIRC.

I am kind of dreading the final boss, since one thing I do know about him from seeing stills is that he is a spear-user, and I suck at fighting spear-users more than any other adversary in the game. Really can't get the deflect timings (assuming you can even deflect spears when the attacks aren't perilous?). I just know a super beefed-up spear-wielder is going to give me conniptions!
 
strumpusplunket said:
I ended up finding a spear mini-boss insead, who (rather unreasonably) had samurai general backup and together they roflstomped me like five times in a row before a rather obvious strategy suddenly suggested itself to me, which I will go back to try hopefully later on today...
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Ha, yes that worked first time. So obvious when I think about it.

I'd only used puppeteer twice before, and both for non-combat purposes that the game had quite clearly signposted. I think the same old woman told Sekiro to do it both times, in fact. But here, it really turned the fight and the sword general guy helped me whittle down about 2/3 of the spear boss's first health bar before keeling over and I could take it from there. Not without getting swiped a few too many times for my liking, but at least I got him!

Then I remembered I still needed some scales, so chased down some elusive fishies.,

Now, this could give the impression I was just delaying meeting the final boss, but nuh-uh. I'm not in the least bit scared. Tomorrow! For sure...
 
For the two generals fight, there is also
an unconscious arquebus samurai who can also be puppeteered for that fight
strumpusplunket said:
I still needed some scales,
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Hint: don't waste them on the dragon mask ;) And even more importantly, don't waste experience levels on the mask - if you already bought it.
 
Borsch said:
Hint: don't waste them on the dragon mask ;) And even more importantly, don't waste experience levels on the mask - if you already bought it.
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Ah, I kind of already did (the former but not the latter yet). The only things left to buy were consumables, which I never use anyway, so I got the mask, not being entirely sure what it did. I still have some skills I want to buy with skill points as well, so attack power will be a bit down the priority list (if it even actually makes that much difference?).

So, any hints before I go into the final boss? This time I am assuming I must have left my game saved just outside the final encounter. I know I thought that the other day as well, but this time I feel sure! :)
 
strumpusplunket said:
I still have some skills I want to buy with skill points as well, so attack power will be a bit down the priority list (if it even actually makes that much difference?).
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Some here disagreed, but imo the extra level or two of attack power makes no difference in the game. But the skill levels become super expensive and ever harder to grind, so I'd absolutely recommend spending skill points on the skill tree and not on the attack power.
strumpusplunket said:
So, any hints before I go into the final boss?
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You've reached this far, so you don't need them ;) Controlled aggression, composure under pressure and other such truisms aside (the boss himself will teach you one too), I'd recommend spending your Ako sugars/spiritfalls here. After you get a general understanding of the fight of course. These things up your posture damage by 25%, saving you time and health. Make sure you have rice/snow from the divine child - its a good crutch for the final phase.
 
strumpusplunket said:
I suck at fighting spear-users more than any other adversary in the game. Really can't get the deflect timings (assuming you can even deflect spears when the attacks aren't perilous?)
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Non preilous spear attacks can always be deflected, and as for perilous stuff - mikiri or dodge, the window will be pretty generous. Dodging is actually very useful against the final boss, but then its nothing new as its been useful all game :) Dodging a spear monk (not the final boss, so no spoilers):
 
Borsch said:
Make sure you have rice/snow from the divine child - its a good crutch for the final phase.
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I have all my consumables! I think the only consumables I've ever used is an ako's sugar for the ape, a couple of stealth sugars, some confetti for the spirit bosses and some pellets every now and again.

Glad I saved them. I have snow, rice and a rice ball. I have heard some people saying you can actually tank bosses with the health regen of these, but I am not sure I want to try that! :)

Borsch said:
Non preilous spear attacks can always be deflected, and as for perilous stuff - mikiri or dodge, the window will be pretty generous. Dodging is actually very useful against the final boss, but then its nothing new as its been useful all game :) Dodging a spear monk (not the final boss, so no spoilers):
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Ah yeah, I did a bit of practice on that guy. He ended up being not too bad, but the spear mini-bosses are another matter entirely and seem to whip out a few differnt moves very quickly - spins, slams, jumps, flicks as well as thrusts. My mikiri countering has got much better, but I still struggle when the enemy throws out a sweep rather than a thrust.

I ended up doging rather than countering Genchiro's thrusts in the second phase, actually, because I couldn't be totally sure I would get the sweep/thrust response right in the window available. First phase was no problem, but when the sweeps start getting thrown in liberally as well I was not confident in my rapid-fire decision-making.
 
Yuck! I did not handle the Sword Saint well. One hours and 45 minutes of solid attempts last night. I even lost count of how many, must have been 20-25. He goes down alongside Friede, Fume Knight, Manus and Gael in the dreaded pantheon of bosses who caved my skull in.

I even died to Genchiro a few times in a row in the middle, I was getting so frustrated.

Took me about four attempts to even see his second phase and then the first three times I got to that point I lasted mere seconds. Then I had a good run, got to the last sliver of his posture bar on phase two with gourds aplenty remaining only to miss a deflect, immediately eat some lead and die. Then I fell apart again for a while, and even ran off the cliff two runs in a row. Then I got to the third phase and was so drained I couldn't even do the simple lightning reversals anymore.

In the end, in desperation, I did end up just using a tanking/mortal draw strategy for most of phase two and three with rice, red lump and ako's sugar. Cheesy, and not pretty, but it worked. That was brutal and I did not enjoy it to be honest. Left a bit of a sour taste for me that I didn't end up getting a handle on him. I didn't really struggle with any of the other bosses too much, and up to that point I thought the game was notably easier than Dark Souls 3. But, yeah, this guy was my Fume Knight/Friede moment that made me doubt everything.

I had a few runs where I was in the zone, deflecting, counter-attacking, but you really can't slip up even once with a lot of the attacks and with so many phases it was frustrating me. I will come back to him in the reflections to beat him properly at some point. I need a break now, though, I think.

Superb game overall. Last boss needs fewer phases. Or at least not having to fight the other guy first every damn time.
 
I think some other bosses required for the endings are harder than the glock saint, though he's definitely one of the highlights.

As for DS3 being harder, I have no idea but that game has builds and more stuff to exploit from what I've seen.
 
For me, Sekiro minus Isshin didn't feel as difficult as DS3 (I am including the DLCs in my estimation there, DS3 base game is easier definitely). Whether it's easier overall or not... well, Isshin alone pushes Sekiro to God-tier difficulty levels for me! :)

But these are totally subjective. I was really just illustrating the degree to which Isshin stomped my shinobi self-esteem. From "ha yes, I AM a shinobi, all shall fall before me!" to "I should probably try a Lego game instead." :(

The thing that I find interesing about all these games is how different players struggle with different bosses. Sword Saint (though I like Glock Saint better as a name!! :)) just personified everything I struggle with. I know there is an Owl fight that people rate as just as hard or harder, but I didn't find the first Owl fight too bad. It took me eight attempts, but each time I felt I was making progress and getting better. With Saint I was all over the place and had some good runs interpersed with instant deaths with no rhyme or reason. I took a lot of satisfaction from the Owl fight, but almost none from Isshin.

Of course, the red lump and rice combo was defintiely cheesetastic.

I feel like I cheated not only the game, but myself... (etc.) :)

Finding myself somewhat tempted to push a little into NG+ just to test myself against the first Genchiro and that General after the Ogre, who I died to four times the first time around, but tbh I still feel like Isshin wiped me out mentally :)
 
For me, Isshin took around 8 tries because I had been playing this entire game with this basic parry --> counterattack and getting down timings mentality, excluding Demon of Hatred (don't know if you found him) and it was really thrilling but I get why people might not like him. He staggers his attacks a lot and the timings are trickier. It was an epic uhm, sword (and a glock and a halberd:D) duel, I didn't feel like I needed to use much else.

I think the Shura ending boss is overall harder than SS, also because the boss you have to fight before him is not a pushover, unlike Genichiro.

The second Owl fight is much harder than the first, probably harder than Isshin but that depends. I think it easily took me more than an hour of continuous trying, was probably the hardest fight for me because I kept making mistakes that you simply weren't allowed to make.
 
I actually find eight tries for Isshin seriously impressive! I thought I was on-point with my deflecting and counter-attacking too, but I think it's just something about spear-users that throws me off, as I guessed earlier. Something about the way the moves come out that I find much more difficult to time and deflect, and sometimes the spacing seems screwy compared to what I was expecting.

I should probably play through NG+ to one of the Seven Spears minibosses and try forgoing the killing blow to just spend a long time practising dealing with their attacks. I think there's one relatively early on in the reservoir IIRC.

I am very curious to try the second Owl fight now too, and presumably if you can acess him soon after the first it shouldn't take that long to get back there?
 
To get to the second Owl fight you need to defeat him first and then follow very specific steps I don't want to spoil here but I'd just look up an endings guide online just so that you don't miss it. The entire ordeal is needed for one of the endings.

Remember that you have to break the Iron Code to do the above, if you side with Owl, you'll trigger the Shura ending instead and you'll be locked out of anything else so don't get tempted to choose a different dialogue option than the first time:p

It's absolutely worth it to do all the endings, there's quite a bit more to the game still.
 
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