***Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice***

[Amatsubu]

Had a chance to play today and got to the Princes, six tries.

Second phase was dreadful, I got distracted by a family member once and the rest of my tries roflstomped by all the stuff happening around.

Great atmosphere, would've enjoyed it a lot more had the second phase been different but dealing with homing magic particles while a giant behemoth disengages my lock-on and teleports around to attack outside my field of vision was more annoying than fun.

These two took me one try more than Ludwig the Accursed but Ludwig was extremely satisfying, hard and fair wherease the Princes were a bit cheap.

 

[strumpusplunket]

That's good going. I didn't think that fight was cheap, tbf. There can be a lot going on and the teleport can be very disorienting, but you have time to react and there are strategies to mitigate all of the incoming damage. I felt my deaths were my fault, even the teleport-related ones. Although teleporting bosses always do my head in. Friede being the worst. There was one in Code Vein, too, which most people seem to consider an easier boss but who I had my most deaths to because he kept zapping around the place.

And, as I see this thread being called out for being the Sekiro thread that no longer discusses Sekiro...

I don't recall any of this teleporting shenanigans from Sekiro bosses. IIRC, the Headless and Shichimen Warriors did some teleporting, but no main bosses. And to be honest, I ended up just using the lilac umbrella against the Headless because I found them frustrating, especially when they can teleport and inflict huge terror build up which is instntly fatal. The Shichimen dudes didn't bother me too much, except for the one in Fountainhead Palace, who I found a real pain in the posterior (especially the time he teleported too close to those lightningt lizard things who decided to join the fight...)

 

[Amatsubu]

Yeah, maybe cheap wasn't the right word, it's probably just my dislike for projectiles and teleporting bosses.

The patterns aren't hard to dodge and actually quite fun. It's just that during the second phase Lothric spammed me hard with magic and Lorian teleported just outside my fov so I couldn't really see which patterns he was going for, the teleporting beam also didn't help. I was forced to run and time rolls on instinct sometimes.

Well, at least it was pretty challenging and epic but phase one was too easy IMO and phase two a bit too chaotic.

Yes, bosses in Sekiro rarely use such shenanigans and that's why I love the game. It's 99% close combat and I don't have to feel like a turtling prey, I go in and fight. There's timing and pattern recognition and there's challenge but it feels better than Dark Souls.
Bloodborne is somewhere in between but the first real boss you fight is better designed and gives you a bigger rush and feel of the combat than most stuff I've fought in DS3 so far.

Don't really know what to make of this game, it's both good when it comes to lore/atmosphere and pretty naff when it comes to bosses and some locations, also the most annoying out of the three rather than truly challenging. Overreliance on mimics and ambushes gets old really fast. You always expect it and it almost always happens. I'd prefer less but more challenging enemies.

 

[Amatsubu]

Beat Nameless King today second try (died in first phase, lol) after being smacked around for easily more than ten tries yesterday, getting three good runs interrupted by family (than you for no pause, From, because DS is clearly more of a MP game) and generally getting a bit annoyed

The first phase is pretty easy but awful and takes longer than it should sometimes due to the camera. I also died to the fire a few times because I couldn't see anything.
Second phase I kept making mistakes and was thrown off by his geriatric timings paired with insane damage.


Very nice boss visually but I'm honesrly getting a bit tired of the game might just do Soul of Cinder and give it a rest without touching the DLC. It was promising but most of the areas were pretty generic, some were tedious like Farron and only a few bosses were somewhat compelling and fun to fight. I didn't get any serious rush out of fighting them like in Sekiro and BB, even the more challenging ones I was just glad were over.

I might actually wait on Elden Ring as I've heard it's a lot closer to DS than to Sekiro and BB. I can feel they tried to copy BB mechanics and speed for DS3 but it just doesn't work too well here, nor is it as unique or atmospheric.

Well, I gave it a try at least but now I know why it took me three attempts to get into Not a bad game, just not for me. People who played previous ones probably appreciate it more.

 

[Borsch]

I think I downed Sekiro (platinum+gauntlets) in one gulp. DS3 I did take breaks, not sure if that means anything or not. I think I tried Star Wars: Fallen Order, dropped it and came back to DS3 as I could see nothing else on the market to fill the void that was left by my beloved Sekiro DS3 did fill it very well for me, but I agree with all of your points. No need to force yourself into the game, come back to it in your fourth attempt
Do you have any other games in the pipeline? I have not managed to get into any game after completing DS3. I was planning to get RDR2 after my upgrade to RTX3080, but ended up dropping it. It's beautiful to look at, but mind numbingly simple gameplay mechanics wise. The hand holding, the tutorials on everything, the spoon feeding of the penny-fiction plot just insults my intelligence and make me want to replay DS3 even

I might actually wait on Elden Ring

I am definitely waiting and not feeling the hype. As I already said, I can't believe Miyazaki can keep the bar this high without any slip ups (DS2 was done without him). And from what I've seen, ER's style is too fantasy and generally off, and the game is it's too much of the same old DS3. Sekiro was incredible as I've never played anything like it, but ER already feels stale and it's not even out yet. Also graphically, the little I saw of ER, it appears to have been made for PS4. Demon Souls remake looks better than ER footage to my eyes.

 

[strumpusplunket]

I love the DS games and I love Sekiro. I think it's fairly indisputable that Sekiro streamlined and honed the combat superbly in a way that made it feel so much more responsive and reactive that any of the DS games. It's a momumental achievement in that respect.

I took a break near the end of DS3 too, but then came back to it, finished NG, took another break for nearly a year before finishing the DLCs and NG+, but now I have almost 200 hours in the game. Some of that is co-op, some is multiple NG+ runs. As much as I think the combat in Sekiro is superior I can't imagine putting 200 hours into it. I am a sucker for RPG options and I do like the different playstyles, skills and weapons you can put together in the DS games. I actually think DS2 may have done this part the best despite being the weakest of the series in many other ways.

However, I think @Amatsubu may be right, in that I am not sure I would have loved the later DS series so much if I hadn't started with the first one years back. Very few gaming moments for me compare with finding my feet in the desolatation of Lordran. It totally blew my mind many times over and still evokes those feelings of dread and wonder when I think back to it. DS3 doesn't do that at all. It's just more of the same, honed in some ways but lacking in others - most notably the level design. But DS had already got under my skin by then.

If I'd not fallen for Dark Souls so much all those years ago, I doubt I would have so many hours in DS3. But I probably would still have found Sekiro totally gripping.

If I were to rank the games in terms of how much they impressed me, I would put Sekiro second to Dark Souls 1, but ahead of DS3 for sure.

I, though, am totally, ridiculously hyped for Elden Ring! I've read a few previews and I can't wait to play it. It's top of my wishlist right now. I also really badly want Demon's Souls and BB to come to PC...

 

[Amatsubu]

I think I downed Sekiro (platinum+gauntlets) in one gulp. DS3 I did take breaks, not sure if that means anything or not. I think I tried Star Wars: Fallen Order, dropped it and came back to DS3 as I could see nothing else on the market to fill the void that was left by my beloved Sekiro DS3 did fill it very well for me, but I agree with all of your points. No need to force yourself into the game, come back to it in your fourth attempt
Do you have any other games in the pipeline? I have not managed to get into any game after completing DS3. I was planning to get RDR2 after my upgrade to RTX3080, but ended up dropping it. It's beautiful to look at, but mind numbingly simple gameplay mechanics wise. The hand holding, the tutorials on everything, the spoon feeding of the penny-fiction plot just insults my intelligence and make me want to replay DS3 even

I am definitely waiting and not feeling the hype. As I already said, I can't believe Miyazaki can keep the bar this high without any slip ups (DS2 was done without him). And from what I've seen, ER's style is too fantasy and generally off, and the game is it's too much of the same old DS3. Sekiro was incredible as I've never played anything like it, but ER already feels stale and it's not even out yet. Also graphically, the little I saw of ER, it appears to have been made for PS4. Demon Souls remake looks better than ER footage to my eyes.

Yeah, same as me, didn't let myself get distracted by other games until I finished Sekiro.

I have RE8 pending and will probably go back to Yakuza (bought 7 as well) because I have another Japanese exam coming and l like to use the series as training material. Also some Tekken probably to shake off some rust.

Maybe I'll go back to DS3 after that.

Too bad you didn't gel with RDR2, it's amazing and goes way deeper than that in terms of world, story and details. The problem is, it's also slow-burning and requires some patience and exploration from you. The story and chars are very well written but the world is the star of the show, I have never seen so many details and realism in a gameworld. Lots of great side stories dialogues as well etc. Shootouts and brawls were fun, along with hunting and stuff

I understand the sentiment through, it is pretty slow and the controls aren't too great sometimes.

 

[Borsch]

I would put Sekiro second to Dark Souls 1, but ahead of DS3 for sure.

I've put DS1 on my bucket list I've heard superlatives about it before, but chose DS3 purely because of the graphics.

Too bad you didn't gel with RDR2

I've not refunded it, so will definitely give it another go. However today I found an unlikely interest in Nioh1. I was never going to spend a penny on it - don't like the bright&colorful visual special effects diarrhea every time the main character moves a muscle - but its free on Epic store, so I thought what the hell First impressions - it's combat is miles better than Star War: Fallen Order, feels like DS3 stamina system with a samurai sword. I doubt I will go far in it, but it IS pretty good. Love its Sekiro/Ninja Gaiden style music too. Only seen its first level though.

 

[Amatsubu]

Completed DS3 today with the End of Fire ending, Soul of Cinder went down second try but the fight looked pretty epic.

Can't see myself going for all achievements because I don't feel like replaying, I'm some way into Ariandel but not sure I'll stick with it. Good game but not Sekiro or Bloodborne good.

However today I found an unlikely interest in Nioh1. I was never going to spend a penny on it - don't like the bright&colorful visual special effects diarrhea every time the main character moves a muscle - but its free on Epic store, so I thought what the hell First impressions - it's combat is miles better than Star War: Fallen Order, feels like DS3 stamina system with a samurai sword. I doubt I will go far in it, but it IS pretty good. Love its Sekiro/Ninja Gaiden style music too. Only seen its first level though.

It's free on Epic now, I might give it a try as I've been meaning to for a while but there's something that puts me off when I look at the gameplay, can't quite put my finger on it.

 

[Borsch]

Nioh has me a little bit hooked now. I've done several levels, defeated Heno-Emma and the lightning lion bosses - its hard, its fair, its fun. I cannot believe this is me talking about it as

there's something that puts me off when I look at the gameplay, can't quite put my finger on it.

was my perspective on Nioh all along. Poor man's Sekiro etc. I don't mean to say that it's Sekiro equal - no way, but its a bloody good samurai game still. I play with a single normal katana sword, so bypass a lot of gimmicky-arcadey rubbish part of Nioh this way. Especially with all the floating damage numbers turned off, it looks nice and plays nice. Still want a mod that turns off most of the glowy visual effects though, will need to search nexusmods...

I have another Japanese exam coming and l like to use the series as training material.

Nioh is very Japanese too Not as many dialogs as Yakuza of course, but combat is miles better - not that the latter matters for your exam (good luck btw!)

 

[opethdisciple]

Elden Ring is my most anticipated game.

 

[Amatsubu]

Nioh has me a little bit hooked now. I've done several levels, defeated Heno-Emma and the lightning lion bosses - its hard, its fair, its fun. I cannot believe this is me talking about it as

was my perspective on Nioh all along. Poor man's Sekiro etc. I don't mean to say that it's Sekiro equal - no way, but its a bloody good samurai game still. I play with a single normal katana sword, so bypass a lot of gimmicky-arcadey rubbish part of Nioh this way. Especially with all the floating damage numbers turned off, it looks nice and plays nice. Still want a mod that turns off most of the glowy visual effects though, will need to search nexusmods...
Nioh is very Japanese too Not as many dialogs as Yakuza of course, but combat is miles better - not that the latter matters for your exam (good luck btw!)

Yeah, I might try Nioh in the end since we won't get Sekiro 2 for a while, if ever

I love Yakuza combat because of all the heat actions and old-school brawler vibe But the best thing is they always have very solid storylines, hilarious side content and realistic districts. And the language is more up-to-date as well, hence better for practice

Playing DS3 in Japanese would be weird but I played Sekiro in Japanese

 

[Borsch]

This picture looks familiar, right? What fights these are, both in Sekiro and now in Nioh. Officially in love with Nioh now, and give it my full seal of approval I think its combat is better than DS3, as despite the shared stamina bar, Nioh encourages aggressive fights with it's clever "ki pulse" that theoretically allows for infinite combos- just like in Sekiro, but harder. Really beginning to enjoy this.

I played Sekiro in Japanese

Nice, your Japanese is quite advanced then! I've heard that the translations missed out on a lot of nuances, I really envy you

 

[Amatsubu]

This picture looks familiar, right? What fights these are, both in Sekiro and now in Nioh. Officially in love with Nioh now, and give it my full seal of approval I think its combat is better than DS3, as despite the shared stamina bar, Nioh encourages aggressive fights with it's clever "ki pulse" that theoretically allows for infinite combos- just like in Sekiro, but harder. Really beginning to enjoy this.

Nice, your Japanese is quite advanced then! I've heard that the translations missed out on a lot of nuances, I really envy you

That good, huh? It's free so won't hurt to try but I generally dislike samurai and ninja games (don't kill me), especially the fantasy ones, even though I love Japan and its mythology Sekiro is the exception to the rule because it has that special something and the use of mythology in its lore is great.

TBH, Sekiro isn't extremely hard to get through in Japanese, except sometimes obscure descriptions (rarely used vocab) of fictional items and archaisms and some pesky kanji. I went through a couple of Yakuza titles and Nier Replicant with good understanding, looking up rarer stuff along the way and I'd say those were harder. More story-heavy and especially Yakuza uses lots of rarer expressions, slang, yakuza slur and some chars speak in Kansai-Ben or Hakata-Ben (Hakata was in Yakuza 5 and pretty hard to follow initially) They also speak faster. Like, a lot faster However, Sekiro does have lore stuff that's hard to understand in Japanese. I'm a self-learner and I'm still not at a level where I can understand absolutely everything, I'd put myself at around JLPT N1 (the level I want to pass) in reading and listening comprehension, my knowledge has holes though.

I'm not really sure about all the translation differences in Sekiro as I haven't seen that much of the English version but there are quite a few for sure. One notable difference is the Folding Screen Monkeys, which in Japanese are called Miruzaru, Kikuzaru and Iuzaru, it's a wordplay on a proverb "mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru" - "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" and directly alludes to the Three Wise Monkeys. "Saru" means monkey - "seeing monkey", "hearing monkey" and "speaking monkey". The Three Wise Monkeys were Mizaru - "see not", Kikazaru- "hear not" and Iwazaru- "speak not". When you think about the qualities of each monkey, it makes sense There's even a comma after Iuzaru, implying there's one more which... is invisible

Other than that, Divine Dragon is Sakura Dragon, Lady Butterfly is Phantom Butterfly (which is an actual species like Wolf, Owl etc.) and Fountainhead could've been translated as Minamoto Palace, referencing a famous noble clan that had fallen out of power by Sengoku, would explain the soldiers' attire.

Also stuff like translating Ema as Emma... Ema is an actual Japanese name but they went with it because it was written in Katakana. There are also other names and dialogues with questionable translation but it can't be helped. Japanese is hard to translate accurately.

 

[Rhaos]

Completed Sekiro over the weekend

Such a great game, now in my top 10 best games of all time with DS3, both are as good as each other and special in their own ways. Absolutely loved the boss fights in Sekiro and all that is involved in order to beat them.

Hopefully their will be a sequel/prequel in the near future or some DLC.

Feel a bit empty now though. Contemplating playing DS remastered or DS2. I have a PS4 (non pro) will that play BloodBourne Ok or is it ? As I hear the game is really hindered by the 30fps cap.

 

[strumpusplunket]

That good, huh? It's free so won't hurt to try but I generally dislike samurai and ninja games (don't kill me), especially the fantasy ones, even though I love Japan and its mythology Sekiro is the exception to the rule because it has that special something and the use of mythology in its lore is great.

I also loved the setting of Sekiro, and I also am a huge Nioh fan. Nioh has a supernatrual, yokai-infested Sengoku timeline where you see real historical events and settings with these supernatural elements woven into the plot. It's a jarring twisting of the history, but I still found it intersting both for the historical characters, battles and settings and for the Japanese folklore. It actually inspired me to pick up my lapsed study of Japanese again when I started looking up some of the folklore, demons and people in the story.

If you are not a fan of samurai and ninja fantasy stuff there're plenty of red flags here to turn you off. Though equally, if you have an interest in Japanese folklore it might be intriguing.

TBH, Sekiro isn't extremely hard to get through in Japanese, except sometimes obscure descriptions (rarely used vocab) of fictional items and archaisms and some pesky kanji. I went through a couple of Yakuza titles and Nier Replicant with good understanding, looking up rarer stuff along the way and I'd say those were harder. More story-heavy and especially Yakuza uses lots of rarer expressions, slang, yakuza slur and some chars speak in Kansai-Ben or Hakata-Ben (Hakata was in Yakuza 5 and pretty hard to follow initially) They also speak faster. Like, a lot faster However, Sekiro does have lore stuff that's hard to understand in Japanese. I'm a self-learner and I'm still not at a level where I can understand absolutely everything, I'd put myself at around JLPT N1 (the level I want to pass) in reading and listening comprehension, my knowledge has holes though.

That is impressive. I guess I am only around N3 from the online tests I've played with, but I enjoyed hearing the Japanese in the game, even if I would have been lost without English subs. I could make out some clauses and sentences in most dialogues, but not whole conversations. I did like being able to understand the part where we learnt the reason for the character's name, though (sekiwan no ookami --> sekiro).

Completed Sekiro over the weekend

Such a great game, now in my top 10 best games of all time with DS3, both are as good as each other and special in their own ways. Absolutely loved the boss fights in Sekiro and all that is involved in order to beat them.

Hopefully their will be a sequel/prequel in the near future or some DLC.

Feel a bit empty now though. Contemplating playing DS remastered or DS2. I have a PS4 (non pro) will that play BloodBourne Ok or is it ? As I hear the game is really hindered by the 30fps cap.

It is really amazing. I thought the combat in Nioh was the best I'd experienced, but Sekiro takes it to another level. The best swordfighting mechanics ever, imo. I tried another Souls-like (Code Vein) after Sekiro and it was probably a mistake as coming from that it just made the rough edges of CV's combat seem even rougher. It was easier when I moved onto another genre of game entirely.

 

[Amatsubu]

That is impressive. I guess I am only around N3 from the online tests I've played with, but I enjoyed hearing the Japanese in the game, even if I would have been lost without English subs. I could make out some clauses and sentences in most dialogues, but not whole conversations. I did like being able to understand the part where we learnt the reason for the character's name, though (sekiwan no ookami --> sekiro).

That's still pretty good, it's definitely a hard language, especially when it comes to understanding nuances of conversations and some of the grammar peculiarities are rather counter-intuitive, sometimes even on a basic level, for example when you learn that you can't connect verbs and adjectives using the particle "and" or the mere fact that the language follows the SOV sentence pattern.

Then again, English isn't my mother tongue either and has its fair share of quirks, I'm just way more used to them at this point

Yeah, the reason why Isshin calls Wolf "Sekiro" isn't too clear in the English translation, you need to know kanji readings, specific vocab and basic compound rules to understand how Isshin arrives at the name. I don't know how I'd tackle it myself, I don't envy the translators TBH.

 

[strumpusplunket]

It's devilshily hard! I find listening so difficult due to the limited syllabary and the speed it seems to be spoken (though I guess most language learners feel their target language is spoken too fast by native speakers).

I could at least see how most of the dialogue worked by reading the English and then mentally replaying the Japanese against it. One thing I couldn't make sense of that stuck with me was Gyoubu's battlecry when he kills you. It is translated as "the castle gate remains closed" or something. I can't make out the form he is using, though. It sounded to me like "joumon wa akenmou"? 城門 (or it might have been 大門, they sound not too disimilar and either would make sense) is fine. Ake- from 開く, okay we're alright so far... But then is that some arachaic negative form? Or a contraction of 開けない followed by も or もう? How does that work?

It was the first piece of repeated dialogue I got since he killed me three times, and it was driving me mad that I couldn't get the structure of the sentence.

 

[Amatsubu]

I could at least see how most of the dialogue worked by reading the English and then mentally replaying the Japanese against it. One thing I couldn't make sense of that stuck with me was Gyoubu's battlecry when he kills you. It is translated as "the castle gate remains closed" or something. I can't make out the form he is using, though. It sounded to me like "joumon wa akenmou"? 城門 (or it might have been 大門, they sound not too disimilar and either would make sense) is fine. Ake- from 開く, okay we're alright so far... But then is that some arachaic negative form? Or a contraction of 開けない followed by も or もう? How does that work?

It was the first piece of repeated dialogue I got since he killed me three times, and it was driving me mad that I couldn't get the structure of the sentence.

I had a listen and he definitely says "追手門" or "大手門” which is something similar, a wall with a gate that surrounds a castle, doesn't seem to be in common use:/ For the rest, I suspected it was 開かぬ when you wrote about not being able to make out the negative because that's a more archaic form and he definitely does but he slurs it so much than ん slips in, which might be something period-specific or a phonetic phenomenon I'm not aware of but even if it's the latter, it's still most likely something older.

The entire thing goes : 追手門は開かぬ門、そう心得よ。"

This would roughly translate to "A castle gate is a gate that does not open, understand that." but there are so many better alternatives that I wouldn't go with it. He definitely doesn't say "my work here is done", though The second 門 could also be もん (since both are read the same), a contraction of もの used at the end of an utterance to drive a point home/emphasise something, like for example 食べるもんか？- "Like I'll eat it!", though that's something more likely to be said by kids or teenagers nowadays , like ”いやだもん！”, not sure if the contraction was used as a form of emphasis in that period.
What's interesting is that he uses the written imperative of 心得る instead of the spoken one 心得ろ, maybe that's also something period-related. Archaic Japanese is weird

 

[strumpusplunket]

I had a listen and he definitely says "追手門" or "大手門” which is something similar, a wall with a gate that surrounds a castle, doesn't seem to be in common use:/ For the rest, I suspected it was 開かぬ when you wrote about not being able to make out the negative because that's a more archaic form and he definitely does but he slurs it so much than ん slips in, which might be something period-specific or a phonetic phenomenon I'm not aware of but even if it's the latter, it's still most likely something older.

The entire thing goes : 追手門は開かぬ門、そう心得よ。"

This would roughly translate to "A castle gate is a gate that does not open, understand that." but there are so many better alternatives that I wouldn't go with it. He definitely doesn't say "my work here is done", though The second 門 could also be もん (since both are read the same), a contraction of もの used at the end of an utterance to drive a point home/emphasise something, like for example 食べるもんか？- "Like I'll eat it!", though that's something more likely to be said by kids or teenagers nowadays , like ”いやだもん！”, not sure if the contraction was used as a form of emphasis in that period.
What's interesting is that he uses the written imperative of 心得る instead of the spoken one 心得ろ, maybe that's also something period-related. Archaic Japanese is weird

Ah, thanks! That had been bugging me for ages!

Japanese is hard enough without all the slang, archaic forms, keigo, kenjougo, etc. If I study another 20 years I feel I'll barely scratch the surface.

Still, at least I can stop replaying that phrase in my head now