i really am not having a good time with this game. i even enjoyed dark souls 2, but i am forcing myself to get trough it, and eventually dropping it.
i got to genichiro, beat him, then several other mini bosses like the guy with the gun spear thing, the monkeys, etc. i am at the temple with kung-fu monks. i really not feeling this for whatever reason i can't figure out. it just won't click. i find the difficulty okay, it's exactly like dark souls, you die enough you gotta git gud eventually.
between the mostly useless loot (OH another fucking MIBU BALOONS YAAAAY!) and the levels that is kinda bland compared to dark souls 1 (it looks pretty, i really love the aesthethics and historical setting but the lack of interesting loot really killed whatever good those maps have. ) and the enemies are mostly humanoid one way or another, so are the bosses. like, the system don't add much too the game, the progression is kinda lame (okay so you got experience, skill points, that is used to increase your shinobi arts or whatever. yet those feel trivial. it's not like in dark souls where you level up your stats, and have enough requirement to equip badass weapon you get, et cetera)
you can get trough this game by pretty much gitting gud at parrying, and most of those are easy to pull off. the only skills that i feel matter is the mikiri counter. also the x-slash skill is sometimes useful. the ninja tools are also mostly useless. it can make your life a bit easier, but they feel ultimately trivial and upgrading them is a pain in the ass (either you RNG loot your shit or find occasional treasure chest that isn't mibu baloons or literal garbage ceramic) again, there is alot of creative use for them that i figured out, like abusing oil and the flamethrower, but in the end, there is no incentive because you can pretty much parry counter everything. they are useful for like the first several areas where u don't have prayer beads or memories. once you got 2 or 3 prayer bead chains your poise or whatever it is called is pretty much unbreakable, and honestly the penalty from breaking is too lenient because the enemies usually wait around idly and your bar have recovered, unless it is part of their moveset to barrage you after you break.
there are alot of garbage, small mechanics that amount to nothing. divine blessing or whatever for example. you got 30% of your exp and money saved after dying, then the rot reduce it by *gasp* 10% or whatever. what does it concern me ? nothing. money are mostly useless as upgrading your ninja kit feels useless, and exp is also useless because most of the skills are literal trash. it doesn't really encourage you to care about this shit. unlike souls from dark souls, it doesn't feel like a precious commodity. i feel nothing of value was lost when i die. on paper it seems more complex by separating resources into several categories. items and ninja tools depend on money, skill depend on EXP, while HP/Poise/attack power depend on prayer bead and memory ashes. on practice, they balance these aspect so so badly. the only shit that matter by the time you got basic skills and ninja tool is prayer beads and boss ashes (so you brute force trough everything).
meanwhile dark soul's currency is simple, yet effective in alot of ways, it is a single, unified currency that affect the whole game system. alot of choices to be made mechanically too. do i spend it on skill point or upgrading weapon? do i save it so i can use to upgrade when i get better weapon or spend it immediately so i don't lose it all eventually when i died twice and didn't recover? ) when you die, recovering souls from your corpse feels like a worthy objective. depending on where you are, it can be puzzle of it's own. sekiro don't have these. all you have to do is git gud at parrying. after several hours, the whole thing become stale. you still use the same attacks, strategy, as you did 20 hours ago. the only difference is minor exploits using tools and skills, but it never reach that dark souls feel where you discover a new weapon you like, learning it's style on the go and find yourself a better combinations that you didn't plan. even if you go for a similar weapon style (sword and shield for example) there are alot of variation within. do you use bucklers or big shield? do you use smaller, weaker sword but lighter and faster or big sword that deals big damage?
i dunno, it feels like a bastard between darksouls and ninja gaiden, but it inherit nothing of what make those 2 enjoyable.
