Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

[toro]

therefore I still believe this fight is bullshit. I did not enjoy winning. Owl (Father) is a better fight than this.

I lied on utube.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Ok so I did finish the game after 14 hours and have been reflecting on it here and there for the past weeks. Really, my only thoughts are that, while ninjas are cool, the game feels like a dumbed down fighting game and totally lacks replayability.

The combat mechanics, while clean, are too limited and simplistic. The game is very short and much too easy to 'master'. While playing, I couldn't help but compare it to something like street fighter, except street fighter has about 100000x higher skill ceiling and is infinitely replayable.

Anyway I spent the full $60 on this when it released and feel ripped off. I don't think the game is worth any more than $20 if anyone's considering it, and at that price you could get a full fighting game which will last you way longer. This is the last time I buy a from game unless they drastically change up their formula.

 

[Hassar]

Ok so I did finish the game after 14 hours and have been reflecting on it here and there for the past weeks. Really, my only thoughts are that, while ninjas are cool, the game feels like a dumbed down fighting game and totally lacks replayability.

The combat mechanics, while clean, are too limited and simplistic. The game is very short and much too easy to 'master'. While playing, I couldn't help but compare it to something like street fighter, except street fighter has about 100000x higher skill ceiling and is infinitely replayable.

Anyway I spent the full $60 on this when it released and feel ripped off. I don't think the game is worth any more than $20 if anyone's considering it, and at that price you could get a full fighting game which will last you way longer. This is the last time I buy a from game unless they drastically change up their formula.

I think $40-50 for it is reasonable. I think you should consider the type of From game that is being made. They are making an effort not to become the “Dark Souls/Bloodborne”-RPG company and this game is very much a different game type compared to those.

 

[Agame]

I think $40-50 for it is reasonable. I think you should consider the type of From game that is being made. They are making an effort not to become the “Dark Souls/Bloodborne”-RPG company and this game is very much a different game type compared to those.

The problem is they could end up just making "Souls-lite" style games, and in some ways Sekiro comes dangerously close to that.

 

[toro]

I think $40-50 for it is reasonable. I think you should consider the type of From game that is being made. They are making an effort not to become the “Dark Souls/Bloodborne”-RPG company and this game is very much a different game type compared to those.

The problem is they could end up just making "Souls-lite" style games, and in some ways Sekiro comes dangerously close to that.

But not on important aspects. The combat mechanics are probably the best from all of their games. The boss fights are great (including Isshin with indulgence). Game-world design is awesome. The only aspect of the game which is really bad is replayability (NG or otherwise). Overall is significantly different from the rest of Souls games.

Basically Sekiro is a return to form for From Software (better than DS3) and I can only hope they end up making more games like this

 

[Parabalus]

Sekiro is great because it cuts out a lot of superfluous DS shit.

Only MP is a real loss, but removing the option of farming your way to victory is worth it.

 

[Jasede]

The game is also a lot more fair / streamlined in a good way. Other than well ninja I've never died to bad camera. Everything dies very quickly once you get it. Yes, people here complained about HP bloat but it's just that they weren't fighting right. I'm watching a streamer I like play this for the first time and he's killing about every boss at 75 percent HP thanks to posture. How does he stop it from regenerating? He stays on them.
There's also no unfair instant death pits. I just finished Bloodborne and by now the cheap From Software enemy placement is really getting on my nerves. It's so predictable: every dead corner, every pillar, every niche will have an enemy that attacks you unless you move like a snail. Fun the first few times, but tedious and predictable after a while.

Sekiro doesn't waste my time. Normal enemies die quickly, and while I wasn't decent, killed me fast.

I love the lethality in this. Feels like a bullet hell SHMUP: sure you die in one or two hits but you do a lot of damage and have extra lives making learning bosses much easier.

 

[Child of Malkav]

The game is also a lot more fair / streamlined in a good way. Other than well ninja I've never died to bad camera. Everything dies very quickly once you get it. Yes, people here complained about HP bloat but it's just that they weren't fighting right. I'm watching a streamer I like play this for the first time and he's killing about every boss at 75 percent HP thanks to posture. How does he stop it from regenerating? He stays on them.
There's also no unfair instant death pits. I just finished Bloodborne and by now the cheap From Software enemy placement is really getting on my nerves. It's so predictable: every dead corner, every pillar, every niche will have an enemy that attacks you unless you move like a snail. Fun the first few times, but tedious and predictable after a while.

Sekiro doesn't waste my time. Normal enemies die quickly, and while I wasn't decent, killed me fast.

I love the lethality in this. Feels like a bullet hell SHMUP: sure you die in one or two hits but you do a lot of damage and have extra lives making learning bosses much easier.

Bosses have 3-4 health bars dude. Only with confetti, sugar and playing perfectly you manage to drop them in a few minutes. Most bosses don't go down that easy or fast. And streamers.......yeah, they're paid to play theses games and some are very good at them too: Lobos, Distortion2, Faraz Khan, Gino machino and others.
Show me someone who plays this for the first time fantastically well.
I'm on playthrough 6 and I still can't do Isshin first try, as well as other bosses, although the rest take me 2 or 3 tries, mostly because I'm rushing and making stupid mistakes.
The point is that if you don't do vitality damage first to slow down the posture regen on bosses, you better engage the boss and play perfectly in order to build that posture up, which for most players simply doesn't happen.
And again, some bosses have 3-4 health bars. That's a lot of bloat if you ask me. In the DLC they're gonna have 6-7 health bars.
You start a fight with such a boss, you better take something to eat and drink because you're going to be there for a while. After I've beaten DoH I felt like I came from work.

 

[Jasede]

My steamer is notoriously clumsy. He's just figured this game out quickly. He's not one of those "I play games well" guys, just a banter guy.

Anyway, sure, there's multiple bars. So what? You can posture kill them just like the first bars. Yes, you need to do HP damage but even just getting it down to 80, 70 percent is enough to eke out posture wins against many bosses. Probably most.

Look, I played the game too, you know! This is how I killed the bosses, too. It's not really a question of skill, you just need to play like the game wants you to. Just always stay on them, get a little chip damage in, block.

Note I'm only talking about New Game. I don't have time to replay games.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[Silva]

I don't think we'll remember much of this in a few years. If Demon's Souls is a strange, rare food you often think back on, Sekiro is a perfectly made Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant in Las Vegas Hamburger: technically flawless, delicious as you eat it, but are you gonna remember it in ten years? In the end, even if it was a great one, it was just a hamburger.

That's because this game lacks elán. It's just a soulless shell with no memorable story, environments, characters, music, nothing. It's an electronic cup noodles.

Into the Breach is a mobile game and a worthier effort than this shit.

 

[toro]

My steamer is notoriously clumsy. He's just figured this game out quickly. He's not one of those "I play games well" guys, just a banter guy.

Anyway, sure, there's multiple bars. So what? You can posture kill them just like the first bars. Yes, you need to do HP damage but even just getting it down to 80, 70 percent is enough to eke out posture wins against many bosses. Probably most.

Look, I played the game too, you know! This is how I killed the bosses, too. It's not really a question of skill, you just need to play like the game wants you to. Just always stay on them, get a little chip damage in, block.

Note I'm only talking about New Game. I don't have time to replay games.

I don't know. Play with Demon Bell and No Kuro's Charm and tell me more about posture kill.

 

[Durandal]

Controversial opinion: I've come to value gimmick bosses much more highly after playing Dark Souls 2 and 3. They're not the bosses you remember fondly, like Artorias and O&S (I have no examples from Demon's because I haven't played it), and there have been some real stinkers (Bed of Chaos, duh). But what gimmick bosses do, as well as bosses with gimmicky elements such as the tiny room in the Capra fight, is to create a sense of unease and make you feel unprepared in a way that no dude with sword in a featureless arena could, no matter how fast he swings. The best Souls levels are as much obstacle courses or puzzles to be figured out as they are homes to dangerous foes, and while it's true that From kind of sucks at gimmick bosses, I appreciate them as natural obstacles to be overcome rather than yet more entertaining but predictable tests of my twitch skills.

I think the best balance is found inbetween a 'regular' boss and a gimmick boss. The regular bosses in Sekiro (e.g. a good 80% of all of them, not counting reused mini-bosses) all demand very identical gameplans and thus tend to blur together. Gimmicks go a long way to make a boss stand out by virtue of giving you some special shit to deal with that shakes up your regular gameplan and leaves you trying to figure out how to deal w/ it. A boss should stand out from all the regular mooks you've been fighting up until now.

A problem arises if you step so far into gimmick territory that it almost completely turns into a puzzle because the required gameplan is so far removed from how you're accostumed to playing the game. Case in point, Bed of Chaos. You're playing a swordfighting game, and suddenly you're expected to be a platformer expert??? The sheer dissonance makes it memorable, sure, but it's a boss where the entire challenge is figuring out what the hell it is the devs want you to do, a single puzzle so to speak. Problem is that once you know the answer, the boss loses its value on repeat playthroughs. The fun behind puzzles is the process of figuring them out, not the process of inputting the answer, which becomes especially grating in action games. The 4monkey and Dragon fight would fall under this, but they're easy enough that trying to figure out what's expected of you doesn't become too frustrating.

I remember Furi was good at doing this, being a boss rush game with a simple unchanging moveset, where each boss required you to use your moveset in different ways. This guy can shield himself and repel your bullets back at you, this guy can clone himself, this one is set in an arena with destructible cover, this guy can stop time and freeze bullets in the air, this one has a sniper rifle and cloaks herself, this one is melee-only, etc. It gets a lot more experimental than just 'swordsman in square arena'. I don't believe the problem with Sekiro is that the combat itself is too shallow, but rather that the game itself doesn't fully realize its potential.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn GT-I9301I met Tapatalk

 

[Jasede]

My steamer is notoriously clumsy. He's just figured this game out quickly. He's not one of those "I play games well" guys, just a banter guy.

Anyway, sure, there's multiple bars. So what? You can posture kill them just like the first bars. Yes, you need to do HP damage but even just getting it down to 80, 70 percent is enough to eke out posture wins against many bosses. Probably most.

Look, I played the game too, you know! This is how I killed the bosses, too. It's not really a question of skill, you just need to play like the game wants you to. Just always stay on them, get a little chip damage in, block.

Note I'm only talking about New Game. I don't have time to replay games.

I don't know. Play with Demon Bell and No Kuro's Charm and tell me more about posture kill.

I don't replay games.

 

[toro]

I don't know. I whine and lament about the game but it's addictive as fuck.

I've uninstalled the game otherwise 2-3 days I'm out for another run.

 

[Hassar]

I don't know. I whine and lament about the game but it's addictive as fuck.

I've uninstalled the game otherwise 2-3 days I'm out for another run.

Yep, getting your dopamine release played like this is unhealthy.

 

[Kruno]

I finished Sekiro with zero deaths, on my first try, 100%, and under 1 minute.

You are all noobs who need to git gud.

 

[toro]

Someone was complaining that Sekiro has not deep lore.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/comments/bi8eoy/unpopular_opinion_sekiro_is_about_shinto_vs/

Let me know your thoughts and explain. thanks!



My Dad is Buddhist (西本願寺) and my Mom is Shinto (practices everyday). I'm not religious at all.

It clicked when I first heard the Buddhist monk in Ashina say "If the old lord falls...will we still get paid?" and then after the siege he says: "namu amida butsu...nobody would put their life on the line for free".



Now I wouldn't say it's the "only" theme, there's so many different obvious themes and lore including Immortality, Greed, Stagnation, Bushido, Tawara toda (俵藤太) (...giant centipede), Tale of the Heike, etc etc but I don't see a lot of discussion of Shinto vs Buddhism as the overarching theme. I saw a lot of Buddhist teachings that integrates with Shinto but also divides them through out the game. The shrines and Torii gates were the biggest factors that I noticed. You'll notice the divide when you enter the Torii gate when you enter the Ashina Depths and also before you go to Sunken Valley along with the wedding cave.



Let's begin with Ashina Castle/Hirata: Usually samurai armor or drawings of Samurais are in their shrines. When Ashina runs out of "salt", it really means they're straying away from 祓い "Harae". An important ritual used in Shinto. Before we go to a funeral, my mom uses salt to ward off unwelcome spirits.



Senpou temple, Gun Fort, Bodhisattva Valley, Poison pool: Usually have Buddhist statues placed outside or in their shrines, some are broken, forgotten about, covered in cobwebs.



After you enter a Torii gate to the divine palanquin known as a Mikoshi at the wedding cave and "pray" and go up the giant rope shimenawa, there's no more Buddhism after that point. Although, you still have to defeat the "True" corrupted monk and last centipede of the game. The giant waterfall is pouring "pure" water to the ground.



Fountainhead palace is where the 神 "kami" spirits and purification in Shinto exist without Buddhism. Of course there's enemies in that area cause it would be pointless to have him wander around and do nothing but they're elements of nature, lightning, fishes, enemies are alien shinto kannushi priest or Onna-bugeisha (女武芸者) from Japanese history/folklore.



On the other end of Shinto, The worst place to be was Mibu Village. It was basically a representation of land of the dead or Yomi. The difference from Buddhism and going to hell and a chance of reincarnating, You never reincarnate in Shinto if you have too much impurity but end up here for good and decompose. While the Torii gate separates the normal world from the sacred, it's all on the same surface except for the Gods, they live at Takamagahara.



Some shared ideas of Buddhism into Japanese lore, the Big white snake was originally a Hindu story adapted to Japanese shinto and mythology called Benzaitennyo (弁才天女) regarding fertility. Lots of little Shinto shrines appear before the snake at Underbridge Valley, and also there's Torii-looking gates in the cave after the gun fort along the cave to the bridge that will collapse and also noted in the Herb Catalog regarding a bride.

The monks worshiping Buddha is like the Dried Serpennt Viscera sitting idle on the Goddess shrine while Shinto (God of the Land) is the Fresh Serpent Viscera looks like a beating heart of a living spirit.

The divide and connection becomes clear when it's only a locked door that divides the Infested Buddhist monks that can't enter the temple of the Divine Child. Although the monks have a larger temple with massive Buddhist statues vs the small Shinto shrine (no buddhist statues, painting of deities/goddess) that the divine child resides in, example of shinto shrine. To me it means, you can't enter from an infested or corrupt mind set. The only way to get to her is through the mindset of Shinto. You need to know the basics of "hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil" but the 4th one exemplifies Shinto, as it is invisible messenger or "kami" exist and noted wearing a white cloth on their head similar to what the divine child wears when you finish the return ending . Like Shinto, there is no founder, religious texts, or doctrine but it exist. Once you are able to acknowledge that, then you can speak to the Divine child.

Demon of Hatred (Resentment) was a classic example of what is known as (怨み) Urami in Shinto, holding a grudge and its considered impurity later turns into a god of fire (Buddhist).



Finally (for now), the Lotus Flower is strongly tied to Enlightenment and Buddhism but leads into Shinto. The Lotus flower and Ape can survive in the impure waters because it survives from the water drops coming from Fountainhead Palace. The story of the "Malcontent" is a Shinto belief or vengeful spirit that lives in both in Guardian Ape and the Sculptor (onryo or 御霊信仰 ) Even if the ape or sculptor reincarnates a million times to try and do good karma, the onryo will never go away, even if you kill the centipede, the headless ape returns to life. We know that the sculptor's partner King Fisher dies to the Ape but at what cost? Only the Shichimen warriors knows as they carry the evil spirits with them. It's when you kill the evil spirits, you can get the malcontent ring and put an end to the Ape. When the sculptor turns into Demon, it's caused by carving the Buddha's and seeing rage. It's coming from an internal spirit "onryo" and not necessarily the Buddha. The sculptor mentions that as you "go on killing, will eventually become Shura" assuming that the onyro can get into the mind or spirit of anyone and the statues of Buddha in this case are acting more as vessels for spirits to transfer in and out of. In Shinto, spirits "kami" can manifest in people, rocks, rivers, animals, and even the Buddha. They can possess more than one thing and all things must be purified.



(DS3 Spoilers)

In Dark Souls 3. I thought the ending in DLC when Filianore was about fertility and the large egg was cracked as it was an end to life or faith. There was also a good insight by Vaati. I thought it had to do more with life or fertility. In Sekiro, she offers rice to Kuro and at end the "return ending" gets pregnant, from a Shinto perspective, Sekiro was just a messenger of rice/fertility (稲荷大神).



Another element that I thought might have had elements of Shinto in DS3 was te Chloranthy ring but might have been lost in translation with the Sakaki plant and Chloranthy but that's for another time.



Thanks for reading, it's kinda long and still doing a lot of research and editing on this post but the game was a lot fun and hope you enjoyed it.



*edit Thanks for the Gold! Praise the Sun \[T]/ - ありがとうございました (Arigatou-Gozaimashita - Thank you!)

 

[toro]

I could not help myself and started a NG+ run but the game really drops the ball (even with Demon Bell and No Kuro's Charm).

Prayer Beads from bosses were replaced with money bags, prayer beads from chests were replaced with Buddha statues. And that's it. Nothing else is new in NG+

I've reached Genichiro in 1 and 1/2 hours. Beat Gyobu, BlazingBull, Butterfly and Jouzu on 1st try. Also I needed like 3 tries for the Headless asshole.

Genichiro still took me like 5 tries because of camera and retardation (did not want to consume Gourds) but there was no challenge anymore.

I don't feel like continuing. I guess I will wait for the DLC

At least I've finished the Great Carp quest before starting this run:

Spoiler

And one clusterfuck screenshot:

 

[Ivan]

Agree w/ toro . My first two playthroughs were my favorite, the next 2 felt pretty hollow.

 

[Lutte]

I don't feel like continuing. I guess I will wait for the DLC

See you tomorrow.

 

[Multidirectional]

Owl was the first one to give me a proper challenge on second run, because I kept being impatient during his second phase. Took around 10 tries. No doubt I will get raped by Isshin again at the end. Lady Butterfly, Genichiro, Owl and Isshin are overall my favorite fights and they all serve as difficulty thresholds. I never liked NG+ in any of the Souls games, not even in II, so I don't think I wanna do it in this one for now as well. Although that one ending that shortens the game seems to only make sense to do in NG+, so I might yet get to it. First I wanna do a fresh run with Demon's Bell effect.

 

[cvv]

Gyobu rulez.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Gyobu rulez.

Elite ninja combat right there. Owl would be proud.

 

[toro]

Owl was the first one to give me a proper challenge on second run, because I kept being impatient during his second phase. Took around 10 tries. No doubt I will get raped by Isshin again at the end. Lady Butterfly, Genichiro, Owl and Isshin are overall my favorite fights and they all serve as difficulty thresholds. I never liked NG+ in any of the Souls games, not even in II, so I don't think I'm gonna do it in this one as well. Although that one ending that shortens the game seems to only make sense to do in NG+, so I might yet get to it. I also wanna do a fresh run with Demon's Bell effect eventually.

Do it. Also No Kuro's Charm. It's worth it.