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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
After hearing how bad Demon of Hatred was supposed to be, I was expecting for the fight to go a little bit like the first phase of the Guardian Ape. Nah, Demon of Hatred was super manageable outside of 1-2 moves that are hard to evade/dodge. It's just a matter of trying to consistently evade his attacks.

He also didn't feel like he had HP bloat in comparison to the 2nd Owl fight. I liked the 2nd Owl fight, but I swear it felt like I had hit him at least a dozen times for his bar the only be down by 1/16th.
 
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Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,208
After hearing how bad Demon of Hatred was supposed to be, I was expecting for the fight to go a little bit like the first phase of the Guardian Ape. Nah, Demon of Hatred was super manageable outside of 1-2 moves that are hard to evade/dodge. It's just a matter of trying to consistently evading his attacks.

I fought Demon of Hatred for about an hour and then I realized you could jump over the unblockable move he does where he runs at you really fast and then I killed him on the very next attempt with an ample supply of potions and talismans left :lol:
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,024
So yesterday I killed the last boss after reading how some people complained how unfair he was (somebody mentioned teleporting, what? lmao) and I feel like some of yall are just one step removed from those retardo easy mode journalists.

I beat Sekiro's final boss with cheats and I feel fine

No shame.

Sekiro's final boss is some bullshit, honestly.

If it wasn't obvious, it's bigtime spoiler territory from here on out.

First up is Genichiro, who I already bested in the early hours of Sekiro. He's not so bad, but a simple mistake or two can suck down a couple health gourds, and I'll need all my gourds to even get practice in with the next bit, which is just three more phases of a mad grandpa decked out with some of the quickest, deadliest moves in the game.

Die and you start with Genichiro again. No checkpoint, even though he's set up as a bluff. Beat him and Isshin the Sword Saint, aka Sword Grandpa, bursts out of his skin and says hello. It's a four phase boss fight and I hate it. I know. It was easy for you. Cool! I spent hours on some of Sekiro's bosses. I just don't have the time or impetus to prove I can do the sword thing well again. The blade and I get along just fine. I'm looking for a different kind of payoff from Sekiro at this point.

So after spending a few mornings trying to take the Sword Saint, Isshin Ashina, down, I figure, fuck it! Let's give that slowdown mod tool a try.


What a godsend. I can adjust the speed of the game as I play it because it patches the active memory, live. Sekiro should've had this built in, Celeste-style, or as part of Hanbei's training set. Sekiro doesn't give much opportunity for in-depth, focused practice to the player. To learn a boss requires throwing yourself at it time and time again, which works eventually. I have patience. I wouldn't have reached the end of the game without it. But to stretch it out like this?

Take it easy
I can get into Isshin's 2nd and 3rd phases without the tool on occasion, but it's so easy to slip up unless I'm on the entire time. Considering it takes 5-10 minutes, and more as I progress, of near perfect execution and concentration to reach a new sticking point, the point where I get a split-second opportunity to observe and practice against a new move or special attack, learning the final boss is a hell of a time sink.

The lightning attacks don't help things, which aren't too difficult to dodge after spending a few hours getting to the third phase and dying to them over and over. It wouldn't be a FromSoft game without a frustrating elemental damage type.

Sure, there's a return mechanic, but it's rarely practiced outside of boss battles until the very last stage, and even then, timing your jumps with swift lightning returns against a set of lightning attacks with different release timings—nah, I'm good. This isn't fun, it's just four stages of fuck-you-prove-yourself difficulty.

Difficulty is one axis of Sekiro, not the orbital center.

I admire FromSoft games for much more than the challenge. The small, sad stories; the conversational level design; the idiosyncratic design touches. Sekiro’s difficulty is much more prescriptive than the Souls games, too. Bosses are lock and key challenges that require the gradual build up of instinct and intuition in response to their particular attack patterns.

It works most of the time. Sekiro's best bosses are great teachers. I really liked the second bout with the Corrupted Monk. With a few hours of space and practice between meetings and a moveset consisting of clearly telegraphed, but swift and strange attack rhythms, the Monk feels designed to show off your own muscle memory to you. Those slow burn epiphanies are one Sekiro's greatest assets.


And there's the ape, who teaches two different playstyles and attitudes. Phase one: matching the aggression of a big beast even if the odds feel tipped against you. Phase two, the great inversion: cautious and distant play against an otherworldly creature with uncanny, fluid movements. It's a flexibility test. Once you get how you're supposed to play, each stage is a cinch. But sometimes bosses are straight up tests of endurance and reflex and difficulty for the sake of difficulty. The final boss is one of them.

Nothing is lost
An hour or so in, I slow the action down by 50 percent with the intent to study Isshin's moveset. I plan on leaping off the cliff once I get cozy, and then juicing up the speed back to normal. But it feels too good to stop. So I finish the guy off in slow motion, watch a predictably brief From ending (I got the 'good' one too) and let the credits roll. The adrenal high, the sense of accomplishment, the themes and motifs and memories are still flowing through me. Nothing is lost. I love this damn game.

Some might say I missed out on the intended catharsis, sidestepping the 'artist's intent.' So what? There’s nothing to preserve for the greater good in Sekiro’s design. I'll get what I can from it. And I got a lot from Sekiro.

What a (gross) sad story.

Feeling good about what I play and why I play it is ultimately up to me.

Sekiro is certainly a game about overcoming challenges, and I’ve felt that from it quite often. I've felt solidarity and sadness in seeing our modern conflicts echoed in set pieces that depict the cyclical nature of violence, all directed by a select few in power. I laughed—alone, manically—after meeting Kite Guy. I saw anger dissolve into pity and coalesce into regret after bumping into the headless ape a second time, only for a perfectly healthy family member or friend or lover stand in the way, just to get cut down defending an animated corpse.

Sekiro is a game about specific moments, not a game entirely about making players do the sword good. Difficulty is one axis of Sekiro, not the orbital center. I feel no shame putting that last guy down in slow mo. It looked cool. I felt empowered. It was an appropriate time to flip the table and be the FromSoftware boss myself.

‘I did it’ is an exclamation I’ll still hunt for and achieve in games, but it’s so much less important to me than it once was. Feeling good about what I play and why I play it is ultimately up to me. That’s what PC mods, the spirit of the PC overall, has always been: openness and inclusivity. Kick a boss's ass if you wanna. Clip through a wall. Turn off gravity. Or play along with the designer and beat Sword Grandpa on their terms. Do what you want, it's a personal computer.
 

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
If he felt fine he wouldnt feel the need to repent by telling us about how ok this is. Feels the ramblings of a guy whose woman just got it up the ass from jamal.
 

Matador

Arcane
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Joined
Jun 14, 2016
Messages
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Beaten Owl in Hirata State. Amazing fight, but it would have been better with 20% less HP and without the camera fucking you.

If From make another game with frantic enemies jumping around they need to tweak the camera. I understand some issues with the walls, but Every pillar in that room has been culprit of one death at least.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,024
Beaten Owl in Hirata State. Amazing fight, but it would have been better with 20% less HP and without the camera fucking you.

If From make another game with frantic enemies jumping around they need to tweak the camera. I understand some issues with the walls, but Every pillar in that room has been culprit of one death at least.

Just FYI: I've killed the Centipede by running around him in that close space :)
 
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Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
It is done.

D3lG89sXkAEMwk2.jpg


As you can tell, I spent every tool that I had. Hah.

D3lGlbcWsAEOLwm.jpg


D3lG8wgWsAU35Xc.jpg


D3lGt3LXoAAHELf.jpg
 

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
So I went baxck to Hirata and got into a fight with a hooded homie when I was assaulted by his dogs. So I killed his furry friends and then killed him and went further. Now I have normal one shot enemies before me, a few more purple dudes, jinzou again (shouldnt he be dead since that shit is after the first hirata?) and now he has a poison ninja with him. Why From why.
 

Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
You can still stealth kill everyone and then get a deathblow on drunk dude. Just as annoying as last time, but still.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,024
So I went baxck to Hirata and got into a fight with a hooded homie when I was assaulted by his dogs. So I killed his furry friends and then killed him and went further. Now I have normal one shot enemies before me, a few more purple dudes, jinzou again (shouldnt he be dead since that shit is after the first hirata?) and now he has a poison ninja with him. Why From why.

Because more enemies is Miyazaki's way of storytelling.
 

Lutte

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
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Messages
1,967
Location
DU's mom
So I went baxck to Hirata and got into a fight with a hooded homie when I was assaulted by his dogs. So I killed his furry friends and then killed him and went further. Now I have normal one shot enemies before me, a few more purple dudes, jinzou again (shouldnt he be dead since that shit is after the first hirata?) and now he has a poison ninja with him. Why From why.
I believe Sekiro must have been the most profitable game release they've ever made. Sold like DS3, even less dev effort than it. Reused assets and whole areas galore while not having to produce the variety of assets like models of weapons and armors the souls are known for, not having to test multiplayer stuff etc. Cheap investment, high return.
 

Adon

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2015
Messages
667
You can still stealth kill everyone and then get a deathblow on drunk dude. Just as annoying as last time, but still.

how do you stealthkill the ninja that stands right next to him?

Just sprint towards him to his back. You can kind of dash in and do it before you're unable to kill him. At worst use Gachiin's Sugar to make you less noticeable.
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,208
Beaten Owl in Hirata State. Amazing fight, but it would have been better with 20% less HP and without the camera fucking you.

If From make another game with frantic enemies jumping around they need to tweak the camera. I understand some issues with the walls, but Every pillar in that room has been culprit of one death at least.

Gotta say the 2nd Owl fight in the estate (yeah, I fucking googled about him, don't care about the cryptic point and click adventure style bullshit you need to do to make the option to fight him available) was probably my favorite boss in the game, and I'm not sure why.

Isshin was supposed to be the designated epic climactic boss what's with all the LoTR style music and the nighttime flowery area with the burning castle in the background, but the Owl fight just felt better for me and I think I liked his mechanics more.
 

Jenkem

その目、だれの目?
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An oasis of love and friendship.
Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
Started New Game+ and whizzed past the ogre/general/bull very easily it was actually kind of boring.. not sure what the purpose of doing new game+ is since everything is more or less the same... Also the amount of skill points needed to unlock everything seems like a total grind and I've got a grand total of 1.5 so far on this journey...

not really seeing much incentive to keep going on since it's not even that interesting a 2nd time through.. maybe when revisiting in a few months or a year...
 

Rivmusique

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Kangarooland
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Hirata Owl does not have that much HP. More than the average "human" boss, but not on the level of "beast" bosses and certainly nowhere near Hatred level. I guess with the beasts they tend to open themselves up to long combos, whereas Owl will only be open to 1 or 2 hits at a time. But he does so with such frequency that you can get through him pretty quickly.
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Playing Bloodborne now (for the first time) and parrying everything, then get hit because I didn't roll. Sekiro!
 

cvv

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Mar 30, 2013
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Kingdom of Bohemia
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You can still stealth kill everyone and then get a deathblow on drunk dude. Just as annoying as last time, but still.

how do you stealthkill the ninja that stands right next to him?
The Divine something something fan is great, just turn him around and blam. It's not spammable since it's expensive but it's grate for situations like that.
 

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
The Divine something something fan is great, just turn him around and blam. It's not spammable since it's expensive but it's grate for situations like that.

I also will try to pupeteer him so that he fucks over the drunk
 

Lutte

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
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Aug 24, 2017
Messages
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DU's mom
The ninja aggroes further than juzou. I wasn't as creative thinking as cvv and I just separated them a little while running around the arena, then made the ninja follow me into the waters that separate the drunk fag area from the burning shit area. After which I came back to deathblow the drunky first bar. Juzou deaggroed but the ninja followed up till there.
 

Serious_Business

Best Poster on the Codex
Joined
Aug 21, 2007
Messages
3,909
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Frown Town
Playing Bloodborne now (for the first time) and parrying everything, then get hit because I didn't roll. Sekiro!

Come here boy, you need a good wiping. In order to accomplish this, I will use this mighty fine cane, given to me by my old friend that resides in a grim and lofty castle ; truly a treasure - marvel at the designs of the pommel - you can see the gargoyle's pain, it expresses something primal, something you will recognize intimately very soon
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,024
Some info from twitch.

https://www.twitch.tv/ninja was getting rekt by the Corrupted Monk. Now he managed to pass him. I cannot wait for this retard to reach Isshin.

https://www.twitch.tv/quin69 took the stupid decision "NO SLEEP until Sekiro is complete". Isshin is pushing his shit with a shovel.

https://www.twitch.tv/chariseh has reached end game. She is the perfect example of how a normal gamer would react to Isshin. Stuck for 2 hours, she decided to continue tomorrow.

Meanwhile ...
 

Matador

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Codex+ Now Streaming!
Won the demon fight after several hours. The boss I have struggled with the most. Honestly I didn't enjoy it, but it had to be done.

Never again.

Only Isshin Saint left.
 
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Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
What's the problem with Demon?
It's almost as if all of you never played dark souls or bloodborne :troll:
 

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