Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,454
Location
Romania
I beat all the bosses (save for the demon one, which I didn't bother with) in NG+3 without Kuro's charm. With most the chip damage doesn't make much difference. If you have your health maxed out and are reasonably good at deflection, taking chip damage now and then doesn't matter a whole lot. The only difficult ones are: Owl Father (part 1) and Sword Saint. I spent ages trying to beat Owl Father part 1, before realizing that you can back step through one of his lunges, at which point he became easy. Sword Saint sucks, so I ended up cheesing his final 2 stages using red eyes + rice and red eyes + rice ball. Owl Father 2 has never been terribly hard for me. His attacks are easy to avoid and there are tons of pillars you can hide behind to heal. The other benefit of NG+ and beyond is that Resurrection items are plentiful, which makes many of the boss fights much more forgiving.

What is the point of NG+/NG++ on Sekiro? There are no unique weapons like MLGS or unique spells like Great Chaos fireball to adquire like DkS 2, no new enemies ,is same katana swinging guy fighting enemies with much cooler weapons unable to obtain cooler weapons...
Upgrading your prosthetic tools and boss rushing basically. Also challenge runs. Unfortunately this game doesn't have the replayability of the previous games. But still it's a really cool game.
 
Self-Ejected

Alphard

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
Messages
1,487
Location
Draghistan ( former Italy)
I beat all the bosses (save for the demon one, which I didn't bother with) in NG+3 without Kuro's charm. With most the chip damage doesn't make much difference. If you have your health maxed out and are reasonably good at deflection, taking chip damage now and then doesn't matter a whole lot. The only difficult ones are: Owl Father (part 1) and Sword Saint. I spent ages trying to beat Owl Father part 1, before realizing that you can back step through one of his lunges, at which point he became easy. Sword Saint sucks, so I ended up cheesing his final 2 stages using red eyes + rice and red eyes + rice ball. Owl Father 2 has never been terribly hard for me. His attacks are easy to avoid and there are tons of pillars you can hide behind to heal. The other benefit of NG+ and beyond is that Resurrection items are plentiful, which makes many of the boss fights much more forgiving.

That said, some of the mini bosses are wickedly difficult (Especially the spear generals). I beat them all, with some difficulty, save for that final ninja boss (Ashina Elite - Ujinari Mizuo) that appears in the basement dojo under Ishin Ashina's house once Ashina is on fire.
I 'm ng+ charmless and i'm now stuck at emma + isshin. The problem i have is that unlike ng where enemies have reasonable posture, in ng+ they have much more. Add to that chip damage and some bosses like emma +isshon require almost perfection for 10 minutes straight. That's a bit too much imo, even for me that i like challenging games and enjoyed my ng run
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,031
I beat all the bosses (save for the demon one, which I didn't bother with) in NG+3 without Kuro's charm. With most the chip damage doesn't make much difference. If you have your health maxed out and are reasonably good at deflection, taking chip damage now and then doesn't matter a whole lot. The only difficult ones are: Owl Father (part 1) and Sword Saint. I spent ages trying to beat Owl Father part 1, before realizing that you can back step through one of his lunges, at which point he became easy. Sword Saint sucks, so I ended up cheesing his final 2 stages using red eyes + rice and red eyes + rice ball. Owl Father 2 has never been terribly hard for me. His attacks are easy to avoid and there are tons of pillars you can hide behind to heal. The other benefit of NG+ and beyond is that Resurrection items are plentiful, which makes many of the boss fights much more forgiving.

That said, some of the mini bosses are wickedly difficult (Especially the spear generals). I beat them all, with some difficulty, save for that final ninja boss (Ashina Elite - Ujinari Mizuo) that appears in the basement dojo under Ishin Ashina's house once Ashina is on fire.
I 'm ng+ charmless and i'm now stuck at emma + isshin. The problem i have is that unlike ng where enemies have reasonable posture, in ng+ they have much more. Add to that chip damage and some bosses like emma +isshon require almost perfection for 10 minutes straight. That's a bit too much imo, even for me that i like challenging games and enjoyed my ng run

Even with no Kuro's charm you don't take chip damage for perfects parries therefore exercise more.
 
Self-Ejected

Alphard

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
Messages
1,487
Location
Draghistan ( former Italy)
I beat all the bosses (save for the demon one, which I didn't bother with) in NG+3 without Kuro's charm. With most the chip damage doesn't make much difference. If you have your health maxed out and are reasonably good at deflection, taking chip damage now and then doesn't matter a whole lot. The only difficult ones are: Owl Father (part 1) and Sword Saint. I spent ages trying to beat Owl Father part 1, before realizing that you can back step through one of his lunges, at which point he became easy. Sword Saint sucks, so I ended up cheesing his final 2 stages using red eyes + rice and red eyes + rice ball. Owl Father 2 has never been terribly hard for me. His attacks are easy to avoid and there are tons of pillars you can hide behind to heal. The other benefit of NG+ and beyond is that Resurrection items are plentiful, which makes many of the boss fights much more forgiving.

That said, some of the mini bosses are wickedly difficult (Especially the spear generals). I beat them all, with some difficulty, save for that final ninja boss (Ashina Elite - Ujinari Mizuo) that appears in the basement dojo under Ishin Ashina's house once Ashina is on fire.
I 'm ng+ charmless and i'm now stuck at emma + isshin. The problem i have is that unlike ng where enemies have reasonable posture, in ng+ they have much more. Add to that chip damage and some bosses like emma +isshon require almost perfection for 10 minutes straight. That's a bit too much imo, even for me that i like challenging games and enjoyed my ng run

Even with no Kuro's charm you don't take chip damage for perfects parries therefore exercise more.
Yeah i already beat old isshin. It was a very punishing fight, too much i'd say. You cannot do 2 consecutive mistakes because you are 2 shotted. You can't heal unless you go to the opposide side of the arena, because cheater bosses read your input and when you heal and are in adequate distance from them they gap-close hit you.
Speaking about arena it is too small for phase 2 isshin. You need to keep him at center or he fucks you with fire attack.
Not a fan of this fight for these reasons.
I enjoyed Sword saint much more
 

Correct_Carlo

Arcane
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Messages
8,469
Location
Pronouns: He/Him/His
What is the point of NG+/NG++ on Sekiro? There are no unique weapons like MLGS or unique spells like Great Chaos fireball to adquire like DkS 2, no new enemies ,is same katana swinging guy fighting enemies with much cooler weapons unable to obtain cooler weapons...

Everything is slightly harder, but it's not as dramatic as NG+ in Dark Souls. I just am doing it because I like the game, so getting 100% achievements is an excuse to play it longer (you need to play 4x to get all endings.....although you can also just back up your save and only play once).

Other than that, however, you are right that there isn't much new introduced into NG+. It's a disappointment. They really should have added some sort of NG+ game system or leveling scheme beyond just using the mask to increase your attack power.

Alphard

I hated Emma + Ishin as well, and they are the fights I know least, as I only did them once (NG+ without Kuro's Charm). They really do suck. I'd almost recommend people do their ending on NG, as I think Owl Father + Sword Saint are easier to do on NG+.
 
Last edited:

Black Angel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
2,910
Location
Wonderland
No stat affects when your character can dodge or attack just how much you can do before you have to recoup lost stamina.
This is true for Sekiro, but not entirely for Soulsborne in general. You have STR which dictates if your character can even properly wield STR-based weapons, you have Endurance which dictates how much stamina your character has and, therefore, how many attacks/dodging/blocking a character can do before exhausting their stamina, there's an equipment load stat which dictates how fast your character can do roll-dodging, and there's even a dedicated stat in Dark Souls 2 that dictates how well your character can dodge in conjunction to equipment load. And then you also have INT and Faith stat where the more you invest in them, the better spells and miracles your character can use, respectively. It's not what I prefer to see in proper RPGs, but it's good enough for an Action-RPGs like the Soulsborne games.

What is the point of NG+/NG++ on Sekiro? There are no unique weapons like MLGS or unique spells like Great Chaos fireball to adquire like DkS 2, no new enemies ,is same katana swinging guy fighting enemies with much cooler weapons unable to obtain cooler weapons...
Upgrading your prosthetic tools and boss rushing basically. Also challenge runs. Unfortunately this game doesn't have the replayability of the previous games. But still it's a really cool game.
While I agree with your first part of upgrading prosthetic tools and boss rushing, I disagree that this game doesn't have the replayability of the previous games. I actually completed Sekiro 5 times now, all the way to NG+3 and also another completed fresh NG because I want to see all the endings + I want to see how it feels like to fight against Emma + Isshin in a fresh NG and NG+, the difference there not having as much upgrades and having all the upgrades when fighting either of them. I still have another NG+, the continuation from that very fresh NG, in progress but because of Expedition release for Underrail I'm not playing Sekiro for now.

I don't know, maybe I don't really care about playing different builds in an Action-RPG, maybe I don't really care of experiencing new content in NG+ cycles like in Dark Souls 2, maybe I don't care much for PVP and co-op, but the overall gameplay of Sekiro, heck even its combat gameplay alone, managed to carry it for me, enough to replay it several times more than I'd normally would. In comparison, the rest of the Soulsborne games, with the exception of Demon's Souls since I haven't the opportunity to actually play it, I only replayed them all like.... twice.
 

Squid

Arbiter
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
536
This is true for Sekiro, but not entirely for Soulsborne in general. You have STR which dictates if your character can even properly wield STR-based weapons, you have Endurance which dictates how much stamina your character has and, therefore, how many attacks/dodging/blocking a character can do before exhausting their stamina, there's an equipment load stat which dictates how fast your character can do roll-dodging, and there's even a dedicated stat in Dark Souls 2 that dictates how well your character can dodge in conjunction to equipment load. And then you also have INT and Faith stat where the more you invest in them, the better spells and miracles your character can use, respectively. It's not what I prefer to see in proper RPGs, but it's good enough for an Action-RPGs like the Soulsborne games.
Yeah, yeah I know. I should have elaborated on what I meant. In RPGs you as the player do not press a button during combat and the timing of that button being insanely crucial to your success. You don't have to space out how you attack and when to dodge, you have stats and rolls that determine that. I know how the stats work, and that's why I said the Soulsborne games have better "RPG elements" than other games that claim to have them. They have stats that actually do matter which makes them a more suitable action-RPG than most other games that get the whole "yeah there's some shallow as fuck RPG influence in this and it's open world, just like a RPG right? 60 dolla please :)"
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,454
Location
Romania
Upgrading your prosthetic tools and boss rushing basically. Also challenge runs. Unfortunately this game doesn't have the replayability of the previous games. But still it's a really cool game.
While I agree with your first part of upgrading prosthetic tools and boss rushing, I disagree that this game doesn't have the replayability of the previous games. I actually completed Sekiro 5 times now, all the way to NG+3 and also another completed fresh NG because I want to see all the endings + I want to see how it feels like to fight against Emma + Isshin in a fresh NG and NG+, the difference there not having as much upgrades and having all the upgrades when fighting either of them. I still have another NG+, the continuation from that very fresh NG, in progress but because of Expedition release for Underrail I'm not playing Sekiro for now.

I don't know, maybe I don't really care about playing different builds in an Action-RPG, maybe I don't really care of experiencing new content in NG+ cycles like in Dark Souls 2, maybe I don't care much for PVP and co-op, but the overall gameplay of Sekiro, heck even its combat gameplay alone, managed to carry it for me, enough to replay it several times more than I'd normally would. In comparison, the rest of the Soulsborne games, with the exception of Demon's Souls since I haven't the opportunity to actually play it, I only replayed them all like.... twice.[/QUOTE]

I'm on playthrough 10 now on Sekiro. The combat system is addicting, period. The level of polish, the music, the mobility, the counters, especially the Mikiri (seriously how awesome is it that you side step the attack and then place your foot on the blade pushing it down?), the sound of the blades clashing, the bosses, I could go on. The level of quality of this game is through the roof, off the charts, no question about it. I think I might like even more than DkS 2, even though it's lacking many things. However it just goes to show that even if a game that doesn't have the vast amount of content DkS 2 has if it's done well it can surpass others eventually.
There are some seriously talented people at From Software.
But unfortunately it has almost 0 replay value. I mean, the love for the combat system can only carry you so far.
There is however a boss rush mode that contains some QoL upgrades besides boss replay so there's that. Watched LobosJr. play through it and it was awesome. Going to try it later.

Edit: well, looks like my quoting skills aren't exactly on point. Still learning how to quote properly, but damn.
 

Black Angel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
2,910
Location
Wonderland
I'm on playthrough 10 now on Sekiro. The combat system is addicting, period. The level of polish, the music, the mobility, the counters, especially the Mikiri (seriously how awesome is it that you side step the attack and then place your foot on the blade pushing it down?), the sound of the blades clashing, the bosses, I could go on. The level of quality of this game is through the roof, off the charts, no question about it. I think I might like even more than DkS 2, even though it's lacking many things. However it just goes to show that even if a game that doesn't have the vast amount of content DkS 2 has if it's done well it can surpass others eventually.
There are some seriously talented people at From Software.
But unfortunately it has almost 0 replay value. I mean, the love for the combat system can only carry you so far.
I agree with you in general, but, again, I still don't understand the notion that this game has (almost) 0 replay values. Maybe because we have different point of view of what constitute 'replay value'.

To me, if a game is so good, either because it has good gameplay, good content, or both, that I want to replay it over and over again, it means the game has replay value. The fact that a game makes me *want* to replay a game is more than enough replay value for me, tbh.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,454
Location
Romania
I'm on playthrough 10 now on Sekiro. The combat system is addicting, period. The level of polish, the music, the mobility, the counters, especially the Mikiri (seriously how awesome is it that you side step the attack and then place your foot on the blade pushing it down?), the sound of the blades clashing, the bosses, I could go on. The level of quality of this game is through the roof, off the charts, no question about it. I think I might like even more than DkS 2, even though it's lacking many things. However it just goes to show that even if a game that doesn't have the vast amount of content DkS 2 has if it's done well it can surpass others eventually.
There are some seriously talented people at From Software.
But unfortunately it has almost 0 replay value. I mean, the love for the combat system can only carry you so far.
I agree with you in general, but, again, I still don't understand the notion that this game has (almost) 0 replay values. Maybe because we have different point of view of what constitute 'replay value'.

To me, if a game is so good, either because it has good gameplay, good content, or both, that I want to replay it over and over again, it means the game has replay value. The fact that a game makes me *want* to replay a game is more than enough replay value for me, tbh.
I would just like some variety. Something. Anything. Customization. IDK.
The game is fantastic but its main pull is the combat system and that can only carry you so far. Like I said I'm on playthrough 10 and around May - June I stopped playing and haven't touched it since (burnt out), but I plan to at some point.
It also doesn't bode well that the guy who previously correctly leaked info about From Software games also said that there's no planned DLC for Sekiro.
 

TheHeroOfTime

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2014
Messages
2,879
Location
S-pain
The armored warrior in Sekiro:

robertosdad_(1).jpg


- Is Large
- Wields a Zweihander
- Wears Heavy Armor
- Wears a mask
- Is a father

.....Could it be?

 

Correct_Carlo

Arcane
Joined
Jul 19, 2012
Messages
8,469
Location
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Put this aside for a while, but finally picked it back up and finished it (100% achievements after beating NG+4). I really ended up loving this game, but my love was purely about the bosses, most of which were superb and far better than anything in the Souls series. My NG+ runs mostly involved me rushing through everything, then spending 5-6 hours trying to beat Owl Father and Sword Saint. I loathed Sword Saint in NG, but he ended up being my favorite boss from any From Soft game once I got to know him in subsequent play throughs. Very well done fight that's excellently paced, difficult, yet entirely fair. While I do not want all of their games to have Sekiro style combat moving forward, I do hope they incorporate some of the philosophy of boss combat into their future games.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,454
Location
Romania
I'm on playthrough 10 now on Sekiro. The combat system is addicting, period.

But unfortunately it has almost 0 replay value. I mean, the love for the combat system can only carry you so far.

You're on your 10th playthrough of a game with no replay value? How many times do you play games which are actually replayable then?
To your first question: The game is short so there's also that. Playthrough 10 sounds more intimidating than it actually is. The combat is the main attraction really but that's only one aspect and also happens to be the most memorable. Not sure that's enough compared to the other Soulsborne games. Even for the action games that they are they still allowed you to have different playstyles: melee, magic, ranged, dodging, parrying, blocking, large amount of weapons, armors, spells, especially DkS2. But maybe replayability means different things to you than it does to me.
To your second question: Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,454
Location
Romania
After 500 hours I conclude this game is shit.
The number of hours doesn't matter. It's what you do in those hours, how much you get to see of the game and how in depth you go. But yeah, a minimum of 100 hours should be a pretty reasonable amount to be able to attempt a proper(ish) analysis of a game.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,308
I hate this "replay value" bullshit. If a game has fun gameplay it's replayable, period. And not because it offers possibility to unlock some different boring cutscene or a bit of dialogue. That shit is for fags. Max Payne 1/2 are some of my most replayed games ever but dipshits who use expressions like "replay value" would say they have none of it. And if a game has shit gameplay I won't even attempt a second run, maybe not even finish first one, regardless of how much C&C or whatever other faggotry that passes for "replay value" it has.
 
Last edited:

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,075
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Yeah, the standard for replayability seems to be "can I play this game 10x in a row and not get brain hemorrhage".

Pro-tip - you already had brain hemorrhage years ago.
 

Black Angel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
2,910
Location
Wonderland
While I do not want all of their games to have Sekiro style combat moving forward, I do hope they incorporate some of the philosophy of boss combat into their future games.
I'm the opposite, I want to see more of Sekiro combat gameplay style because it's THE best, speaking in terms of action games. But what I want to see more than that, is how From is going to adapt what they implemented in Sekiro, and fit it into more emphasized RPG mechanics. Would be very interesting to see not only From once again tackling on RPG design sensibilities, but also expanding on Sekiro's combat gameplay into the realms of RPG mechanics.

The combat is the main attraction really but that's only one aspect and also happens to be the most memorable. Not sure that's enough compared to the other Soulsborne games.
On the contrary, I think the combat alone is enough to put Sekiro above and beyond any of the Soulsborne games. But only when comparing them as action games, in which Bloodborne is the one closest to Sekiro in terms of action combat gameplay, but still far below what Sekiro achieved. Still, I think it's unfair to bring up RPG aspect of Soulsborne. Of course Sekiro can't compare in that aspect, there's practically zero of that. Though, again, comparing them in terms of action combat gameplay, even if you only essentially playing one 'build' in Sekiro, the options you had when dealing with enemies in just mere seconds time-frame are way, WAY more than you'd usually have in Soulsborne when playing with similar build/playstyle. Regular attacking, blocking, step-dodging, deflecting (and consecutive deflecting), counter-attacking (either after step-dodging or deflecting), jump-stomping, mikiri counter; all that, vs. regular attacking, blocking, dodging, parrying (if possible), riposte/visceral attack (if possible, especially in Bloodborne).... that's it. At most, you're down to only blocking/dodging (side-stepping in Bloodborne), seeking opportunities to attack once in a while, and then starting from Bloodborne you get several opportunities to perform visceral attacks on even bosses (and also be a bit more aggressive in general), and I vaguely remembered that was in Dark Souls 3, too. Even worse, fights often ended up being strafing to the right/left Dark Souls 1, which is rectified by Dark Souls 2 (and I feel like that particular decision botched its PvE experience). And this isn't even considering that Sekiro had prosthetics, combat arts, and other skills like Vault Over that play nicely when paired with Puppeteer Ninjutsu when fighting against groups of enemies, or Mid-Air Combat Arts that allows you to perform, for example, Ichimonji/Ichimonji Double on an enemy after jumping over their Perilous Sweep attacks instead of jump-stomping them.

To your second question: Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.
What does this even mean? DemonKing merely asked you a genuine question.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
2,454
Location
Romania
To your second question: Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.
What does this even mean? DemonKing merely asked you a genuine question.[/QUOTE]
It was meant as a joke. His surprise was that if I got 10 playthroughs out of Sekiro, then how many more I would get from other games.
I replay games quite a lot. If the gameplay is really good, yeah, that game gets abused. For example MGSVTPP, shit story, out-of-this world level of gameplay and smootheness.
Edit: damn this quoting crap. How do you fucking quote?
 
Last edited:

Wirdschowerdn

Ph.D. in World Saving
Patron
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
34,471
Location
Clogging the Multiverse with a Crowbar

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom