Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

[GreenGoo]

I've easily died twice as many times to the Lone Shadow Longswordsman than I did to Lady Butterfly despite him only being a mini-boss AND taking his first life through stealth.

It's getting ridiculous at this point. I clearly need to take a break, but my stubbornness says otherwise. This would actually be a fun fight if I wasn't stuffed in a tiny box and then have the camera point at the wall half the time.

I remember feeling like I was in a box in Nioh, but this is much worse. Eventually in Nioh I just learned the boss' moveset so when I could just stand around moving slightly when necessary, but in Sekiro 95% of enemy attacks track you wherever you are or wherever you go. Time your dodges or deflects or die, essentially. Positioning can work on some, but not with this guy.

It's fun when the kanji symbol shows up but you literally can't see the guy to figure out if it's a sweep or a thrust. I was *way* more frustrated with Nioh in my first play through than I am now, but I don't want to cheese this guy to death. Still, I might have to do it. That feels like failure.

edit: Fuck it, I cheesed it. Just firecrackered his ass down to 50% then deflected until his posture bar was full. Lame. Still, I'm done with this guy and his box of camera destruction, and that's a good thing.

edit: For the record, this is exactly how the game expects you to play it. You need to do health damage before your posture damage can really win it for you, and one of the ways is to create your own openings to hit the enemy vitality bar. Firecrackers do this for you. It just feels spammy and doesn't require as much skill as just fighting the enemy straight up without gimmicks.

[GreenGoo]

it turns out I do have the skills after all.

I watched a speedrunner last night (not sure why) and she cheesed the first 2 phases. It's kind of ridiculous, but you can trap him (and yourself) between a statue and open door, which allows you to strike him repeatedly without fear, although you do need to jump if he decides to use his bow, so a tiny bit of fear I guess. So...that's broken and exploitative. In a speedrunning situation, anything is viable so I don't care about that, but I won't be doing it, that's for sure.

[GreenGoo]

Meh. Coop, did you go Ashina reservoir or rooftops first? I'm not on an adventure here, I want my souls-like more linear than this (it's very linear).

edit: Me, along with half the universe, agree that the Nightjars on the rooftops can go fuck themselves. Once I knew where they all were I could stealth kill most of them but before that AND not knowing their moveset, ugh.

The kite dudes are both hilarious and awful at the same time. Like having a dead fall pit at the beginning of Tomb of Horrors. you ARE going to get hurt unless you are incredibly timid, overly cautious and willing to run away the moment you don't know what's happening.

Still though. WOOOoooo!

[GreenGoo]

Holy ginsu blade on that ashina elite samurai Jinsuke Saze in the tower. Once you know what's coming it's fairly straightforward, but your first or second attempt, yikes. There's no escape either. once you go in one of you isn't leaving. Thank goodness he's so easily postured.

These samurais suck in general. I'm starting to wonder if I can handle this even with dedication and focus. In Nioh I eventually learned every single mob's moveset intimately, and only then did a lot of the game become, well, not easy, but not so difficult. I don't know that I can that here, or want to spend the time and frustration.

edit: Went back and killed ol' seven spears. I'm mildly afraid of that genichiro fight.

edit: Went and found the spear and poison blade prosthetics. Missed them both somehow.

[coopasonic]

Meh. Coop, did you go Ashina reservoir or rooftops first? I'm not on an adventure here, I want my souls-like more linear than this (it's very linear).

No idea whatsoever. Does that help?

[GreenGoo]

Absolutely not at all.

The "problem" with exploring in a game like this is every little thing can kill you, so wandering aimlessly without making progress is taxing, as the tension and "on point" aspect is constant. That said, this is how the game makes you train so you can handle your enemies. Games like the surge are almost trivial if you know where to go, but then you don't gather money/experience points because you only fight a handful of enemies once.

So this is how Souls-like force you to fight the same minion types over and over again until you get better. This is clearly a design decision, and that's fine. I prefer to simply find a convenient location and train/farm in a controlled environment. Those "WOOoooo" nightjars are a good example. They are black nightjars, so a little more powerful, but you can fight them without having them dive bomb you out of the sky, surprising and often killing you, but wandering aimlessly means you run into stuff like that all the time.

I prefer to know where I'm going in games like this. Unfortunately I haven't watched an actual playthrough (just lots and lots of videos on specific encounters and the occasion hidden item. I had to backtrack for the spear attachment, for example).

None of this is a problem, exactly, I'm just trying to bypass some of the design that requires you to wandering around exploring, as these games are all about the combat for me. The exploring is still cool though.

[coopasonic]

The "problem" with exploring in a game like this is every little thing can kill you, so wandering aimlessly without making progress is taxing, as the tension and "on point" aspect is constant.

This is pretty much why I stopped playing the game. I took out one big bad guy and I was faced with the prospect of more exploration and I just wasn't up to the stress that involves. I never, ever felt like that in Nioh, The Surge or Bloodborne. In those games, I just didn't feel as punished for exploration as I do in Sekiro.

[GreenGoo]

Hmmm, up until the blue Samurai I never felt like it was *that* much more difficult than Nioh (the Surge is much easier. I haven't played Bloodbourne. PS4 only).

Remember my first Souls-like was the Surge, and it was much easier than most of them, although it was somewhat unique too, and had it's challenges. I played Dark Souls for a bit and found it much easier than the Surge, mostly because I didn't get very far, although I hear lots of complaints about the Capra Demon, but I don't think it took me more than 2-3 tries. I had much more trouble with the Taurus Demon. Then I played Nioh and tried to hamfist my way through, and that was awful. Bash face on desktop awful. I hadn't yet made the transition to *watching* what the enemy was doing and learning what that meant and was often taken 20-50-100 tries (I am not kidding, 100 tries. In my defense I sort of refuse to use any of the tools the game provides, and fight things straight up) with bosses. I left for awhile and when I came back the game was magically much easier. Part of it was I had learned a lot in my first attempt but most of it was paying attention. I believe I now, finally, understand how these games are played and Sekiro has been much easier than I expected, given all the press. Don't get me wrong, it's hard, but it's not *that* hard, at least not yet. The blue samurai were unbelievably difficult for the first 5-10 of them, but they are fragile, and a couple of perfect deflects will kill them too. As you progress the early minions die to a single defect, so I'm now able to fight 3-5 of them at once, assuming I don't get stunlocked.

So that was just a quick summation of my experience with this genre. Sekiro is rough, but the ability to defect without perfect timing was a great design decision, and I think that the combat is much more forgiving to my old reflexes than something like Nioh because of it. Again, make a mistake and you die, but you can be (a little) slow and live. I like that.

[GreenGoo]

Here's my Genichiro win. Pretty weak showing at first, as I died in the first phase. That's frustrating, as I had beaten the first phase several times without healing prior to this attempt. You can see how little I understood the 3rd phase, or at least how inexperienced I was.

I watched your fight again Coop, and can see how clearly you had the first phase down pat. The second phase seemed a lot more trouble for you, but the truth is that instead of thrusting after his leaping attack (in phase 1) he sweeps (in phase 2). Knowing that would have helped you tremendously, as you could clearly handle it in phase 1, and he's basically the same in phase 2 but with sweeps. You can also bait him with single strikes which he blocks then counter attacks. The timing on the counter attack is pretty straightforward, so you can build up posture pretty safely. I also noticed that he never tried to elbow you in the face. I suspect it has to do with your more aggressive style. I played very passive and that seemed to annoy him enough to elbow stun me then smash my face in. I think I managed to dodge it in this video, but I failed to dodge it a number of times and...ouch.

For context, I had watched Coop's fight AND watched a couple of videos on how to do it, so I was not going in blind. I had more trouble with a couple of mini-bosses because I went in blind and decided to figure it out as I went along.

Oh, and I didn't realize (forgotten?) that you needed 1 last deathblow at the end of a boss's life, so you can see me standing there wondering what the hell was going on only to have him recover and the fight continue because I'm a moron. I'm just lucky his posture meter stayed mostly full.

[GreenGoo]

Nothing like making a fight depend on a limited quantity timed consumable to really up the pressure. It's got all the cons of using up a consumable when by my nature I want to hoard them and never use them, then put it on a timer so you need to rush to finish the fight before the consumable runs out, otherwise you need to use another one. Then, if you die (this is Sekiro) you need to rebuff when you rez.

The Shichimen Warrior, ladies and gentlemen. Actually a pretty fun fight if you had any time to sit back and enjoy it. Not particularly difficult, but I died anyway.

Is anyone interested in reading about this game? I know there aren't a lot of Souls-like fans on the forum, and this one is particularly unfriendly to casual players. Coop is my usual standby but he's taking a break, so that doesn't leave...anyone, I guess?

I have nothing in particular to report, just progressing through, observations, whatever. I continue to be indecisive about which direction to head. Like most of these games, it seems to be open ended, but it's actually pretty linear. The Surge was a lot like that. With that said, you can still push in multiple directions at once, so you can backtrack and revisit areas if you find them too tough or don't want to do it right then.

Next up, Guardian Ape. From what I can tell, this is a more typical Souls-like fight, with lots of running, darting in, darting out, hardly any deflecting etc.
edit: Actually, going to explore the Senpou Temple for a bit, past the armored knight mini-boss.

[Freyland]

I'm reading. Generally skim past spoilery parts.

[GreenGoo]

Sure, and there is a story here and it can be spoiled. Despite my own skills at avoiding spoilers while reading about games and movies, I've had a few things spoiled for me, which is a shame.

If it's the boss fights, well that's the only thing I'm interested in discussing, so that's gonna be a problem.

With that said, I would have guessed the chances of me completing the game at 10% prior to playing it. Now that I'm playing I'd say there's still only about a 50% chance I see the end myself. There are 4 different endings, is my understanding. With such a low chance of getting through it, spoilers have become secondary for me. I'll keep them in mind though, at least storywise.

[GreenGoo]

For those who want the ability to change the difficulty, there actually are two difficulty settings. Unfortunately you need to get about 1/4 of the way through the game to access the other one, and it's MUCH harder than the default setting.

So...that's amusing, in that they made a hard game and then made a hardcore setting for those who really want to challenge themselves.

I...did not freaking touch the new difficulty setting. No thanks.

Also, perfect deflects can turn otherwise challenging fights into cakewalks. Some enemies take major posture damage on perfect deflects. Others are more incremental, whether perfect or otherwise, but I've fought guys that I had to defend through 5-6 flurries and then fought them again and killed them after a single flurry with some lucky deflects.

[GreenGoo]

Hilariously, From Software, in their infinite, Dark Souls-y wisdom, puts a decision about 75% of the way through the game that literally ends your game if you choose 1 option instead of the other. That's pretty messed up.

In any case, I saw the choice and immediately went and spoiled it on the net before making it, saving me from NG+ and/or restarting to see the last 25% of the game.

Total madness. It's like From Software is not satisfied with a difficult game, but they must find other ways to induce rage in their players.

Anyway, as mentioned, I'm about 75% of the way through the game it seems. There have been a few fights that I've bothered to learn myself through trial and error, but not many. I've also chosen to ignore some advice, as I didn't like it. Also, also, I've avoided all the cheese solutions, such as breaking the ai or getting the boss stuck on something. I've even avoided the intentional game design cheese, like stunlocking a boss with fire crackers. Needless to say, some fights were tougher than they needed to be.

[GreenGoo]

Finished.

[coopasonic]

Finished.

Congrats. I still am feeling no drive to pick it back up. Maybe one day. Still waiting for release dates on Nioh 2 and The Surge 2.

[GreenGoo]

Played through a second time to get the different endings, then started a new game+ without "kuro's charm" which is essentially a more difficult version of NG+. I'm not having much fun though as mistakes are punished so severely that any tougher fight fills me with dread and any easy fight is infuriating if I screw up and die anyway.

I'm not cut out for this.

I will say the second time through was *much* easier. My first playthrough I was too passive. Being aggressive pays huge dividends against some bosses, including Lady Butterfly (her posture builds like crazy) and Genichiro (also builds posture fast). Interesting fact, Genichiro is a speed bump before you enter the final 3 phase boss fight. You get to revisit him as a total badass and whup him good in retribution for all the pain he caused you earlier in the game.

Fun game, combat-centric, but I think I'm done with it. Although...another playthrough at normal difficulty might tempt me. I enjoy the combat a lot, and the progression in combat strength/survivability is appealing. Your health and posture bars don't increase in NG+ (what you have at the end of ng is what you start and finish with in ng+), but your attack power does, albeit slowly. Unfortunately there aren't any more achievements that don't require NG+ to unlock.

[Alefroth]

I haven't even started Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne yet, but this looks great and I'll get it some day.

I was thinking this was Ghost of Tsushima at first, which also looks great.

It was half price so I finally got it. I think it'll be a waste of money since it seems even harder than the others. Some day I'll learn my lesson with these games. The in-between boss gameplay is really fun and engaging, and just about the right level of challenge. Then I get to a boss and get absolutely no where.

Maybe I should just get Elden Ring and call it good.

[Alefroth]

Oh my god why did I buy this?! I'm so bad at these games. If only I had several failed attempts at getting into this series to help me know beforehand that I would be terrible at this.

Soulmate.

[coopasonic]

I haven't even started Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne yet, but this looks great and I'll get it some day.

I was thinking this was Ghost of Tsushima at first, which also looks great.

It was half price so I finally got it. I think it'll be a waste of money since it seems even harder than the others. Some day I'll learn my lesson with these games. The in-between boss gameplay is really fun and engaging, and just about the right level of challenge. Then I get to a boss and get absolutely no where.

Maybe I should just get Elden Ring and call it good.

Yeah, in my opinion, this is the most brutal Fromsoft game and also the hardest souls-like I've played. The world is among their best, but damn man. There are usually mods you can find that lower the difficulty if you want to go that route. I've never done it, I just gave up, but people say it's worthwhile.

Elden Ring is way more approachable and gives you more opportunities to go other ways to make your character stronger and gives you more tools like summons or even other players.

[Scraper]

I haven't even started Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne yet, but this looks great and I'll get it some day.

I was thinking this was Ghost of Tsushima at first, which also looks great.

It was half price so I finally got it. I think it'll be a waste of money since it seems even harder than the others. Some day I'll learn my lesson with these games. The in-between boss gameplay is really fun and engaging, and just about the right level of challenge. Then I get to a boss and get absolutely no where.

Maybe I should just get Elden Ring and call it good.

Yeah, in my opinion, this is the most brutal Fromsoft game and also the hardest souls-like I've played. The world is among their best, but damn man. There are usually mods you can find that lower the difficulty if you want to go that route. I've never done it, I just gave up, but people say it's worthwhile.

Elden Ring is way more approachable and gives you more opportunities to go other ways to make your character stronger and gives you more tools like summons or even other players.

Sekiro is easily my favorite Souls like game, BUT it's also the hardest until you get the combat down. It's all about blocks and parrying. Once you figure out the timing of a proper parry, the combat becomes sublime.

Even with proper timing some of the bosses are extremely hard. I will freely admit that I cheesed more than one of them.