Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah, dude, you have the completely wrong impression of Sekiro. Sekiro's bossfights are like nothing in any other Souls-like. They are all about focus, concentration, and timing.

Well, according to some people that doesn't mean they are necessarely harder, just different:



Video also mentions you can cheese some bosses with items, so there's some of that too.

All in all i'm not seeing how this game is all that much harder. The lack of stamina bar means you can just spam attacks as you see fit. As someone pointed out to me what this does is that while Soul games encourage patience, Sekiro rewards aggression. Whether this makes Sekiro harder is entirely dependent on what kind of person you are. In Souls you must keep a cool head even when fighting trash mobs. Haste is your number one enemy. In Sekiro, you can actually cheese through some things by spamming some attacks as the video points out.

My hunch is that people have been playing Souls games for so long now they have completely internalized that style of gameplay and don't remember all the times they died due to impatience. They then move to Sekiro having trained themselves to take it slow and are now forced to change gears completely. I think that's what accounts for the sudden jump in difficulty more than anything.

BTW, even though i'm not a fun of jumping ninja shit i'm glad this game retains some of the visual somberness of Souls. I was checking out some DMC5 videos and man i just have an aversion for overly flashy shit. It may be a good game but next to animu crap the visual hypetrophy of a lot of Japanese games irritates me as well.

 

[Multidirectional]

At this rate you'll have looked up every every boss strategy before you even start to play the damn game. Then you can play and tell us that game is too ez. That video is correct though, Sekiro ain't harder than Souls, it just punishes you if you play it like Souls. Once you git gud the game becomes significantly more forgiving than Souls. I personally find DS III to be much harder than Sekiro, but it might just be because I don't like it enough to git gud at it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I didn't look anything. Video kept things general and if it spoiled something i didn't notice as i don't know the game.

 

[Hassar]

Yeah, dude, you have the completely wrong impression of Sekiro. Sekiro's bossfights are like nothing in any other Souls-like. They are all about focus, concentration, and timing.

Well, according to some people that doesn't mean they are necessarely harder, just different:



Video also mentions you can cheese some bosses with items, so there's some of that too.

All in all i'm not seeing how this game is all that much harder. The lack of stamina bar means you can just spam attacks as you see fit. As someone pointed out to me what this does is that while Soul games encourage patience, Sekiro rewards aggression. Whether this makes Sekiro harder is entirely dependent on what kind of person you are. In Souls you must keep a cool head even when fighting trash mobs. Haste is your number one enemy. In Sekiro, you can actually cheese through some things by spamming some attacks as the video points out.

My hunch is that people have been playing Souls games for so long now they have completely internalized that style of gameplay and don't remember all the times they died due to impatience. They then move to Sekiro having trained themselves to take it slow and are now forced to change gears completely. I think that's what accounts for the sudden jump in difficulty more than anything.

BTW, even though i'm not a fun of jumping ninja shit i'm glad this game retains some of the visual somberness of Souls. I was checking out some DMC5 videos and man i just have an aversion for overly flashy shit. It may be a good game but next to animu crap the visual hypetrophy of a lot of Japanese games irritates me as well.

Sekiro is definitely not harder. I didn’t like the game much - probably because I am biased towards games that make combat and the adventure feel more weighty and strategic compared to games where you are able to swing a sword for hundreds of blows without tiring - but my beating it was very much a result of treating it like a rhythm game instead of Dark Souls or anything more substantial. From tried something different from Dark Souls, which is fine.

 

[Matador]

Yeah, dude, you have the completely wrong impression of Sekiro. Sekiro's bossfights are like nothing in any other Souls-like. They are all about focus, concentration, and timing.

Well, according to some people that doesn't mean they are necessarely harder, just different:



Video also mentions you can cheese some bosses with items, so there's some of that too.

All in all i'm not seeing how this game is all that much harder. The lack of stamina bar means you can just spam attacks as you see fit. As someone pointed out to me what this does is that while Soul games encourage patience, Sekiro rewards aggression. Whether this makes Sekiro harder is entirely dependent on what kind of person you are. In Souls you must keep a cool head even when fighting trash mobs. Haste is your number one enemy. In Sekiro, you can actually cheese through some things by spamming some attacks as the video points out.

My hunch is that people have been playing Souls games for so long now they have completely internalized that style of gameplay and don't remember all the times they died due to impatience. They then move to Sekiro having trained themselves to take it slow and are now forced to change gears completely. I think that's what accounts for the sudden jump in difficulty more than anything.

BTW, even though i'm not a fun of jumping ninja shit i'm glad this game retains some of the visual somberness of Souls. I was checking out some DMC5 videos and man i just have an aversion for overly flashy shit. It may be a good game but next to animu crap the visual hypetrophy of a lot of Japanese games irritates me as well.

You are writing essays about Sekiro without having played a single minute of it.

If you feel like you won't like it it's fine. But don't try to sell your opinion about the game as relevant without having played it.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Well, according to some people that doesn't mean they are necessarely harder, just different:

It was way harder for me. I'm awesome at dodging in Dark Souls (I always play light armor dodgers), but I really suck at Sekiro's gameplay. The boss fights are really long and you have to wear down their stamina to do real damage. The only way to do that is to get into their faces and time your blocks perfectly to both (1) wear down their stamina and (2) not take damage.

Also, only NG has endless blocking. NG+ requires perfectly timed blocking or you take damage. I played the game up to NG+++, and the final boss as well as a few others (like the 2 boss series in the alternate ending) are among the hardest (non-optional) bosses I've ever played in a Souls-like.

Video also mentions you can cheese some bosses with items, so there's some of that too.

There's one really powerful item, but you only get like 1 per game, it will only help you for one boss round, and if you fuck it up it's gone. All the other items you have to use, but they only help marginally.

 

[Lyric Suite]

If you feel like you won't like it it's fine.

I didn't say i won't like it. In fact, i expressively said i probably will.

I'm just dickscussing for the sake of it. People say Sekiro is harder. SOME people seem to think that is a sign of things to come, I.E., that From is going to start making games of this type from now on.

My investigation into the matter as led me to believe Sekiro is not an evolution and just something different From wanted to try that isn't meant to replace anything or set their direction for all their future games, but it seems there's some people who actually believe Sekiro left the Souls games behind and that From shouldn't come back.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It was way harder for me. I'm awesome at dodging in Dark Souls (I always play light armor dodgers), but I really suck at Sekiro's gameplay.

Well, see, i was never a light roller in the Souls games so maybe that makes a difference here. In all the Souls games i played, i essentially mixed rolling with blocking and parrying if the boss allowed it (like Champion Gundyr, which i killed by baiting him for parriable attacks). Some, like Artorias, i had to kill with staggering because at medium roll i couldn't get past all of his attacks.

So because i never relied on i-frames exclusively and always used different tactics i'm not concerned with having to learn to do that for Sekiro.

 

[Multidirectional]

Also, only NG has endless blocking. NG+ requires perfectly timed blocking or you take damage.

Incorrect, Carlo. It's not NG+, it's giving Kuro the charm at the beginning of the game is what enables this increased difficulty mode. After finishing the game once you can do that even in NG.

There's one really powerful item, but you only get like 1 per game, it will only help you for one boss round, and if you fuck it up it's gone.

What item are you talking about?

 

[Wunderbar]

Also, only NG has endless blocking. NG+ requires perfectly timed blocking or you take damage.

Incorrect, Carlo. It's not NG+, it's giving Kuro the charm at the beginning of the game that enables this increased difficulty mode. After finishing the game once you can do that even in NG.

There's one really powerful item, but you only get like 1 per game, it will only help you for one boss round, and if you fuck it up it's gone.

What item are you talking about?

sounds like a Bundled Jizo statue, though there's many of them.

 

[XenomorphII]

I tried this when it first came out and did not like it. I just tried it again and I still do not like it. I think it is the flow of combat that bothers me the most. The rest of the Souls/Bloodborne stuff I cannot get enough of. This just feels like button mashing, and I've always been shit at parrying, which probably doesn't help as it is necessary in this.

 

[ADL]

Same just gave it another chance and I'm fine at parrying but it feels like parry: the game and your sword is just a deflection stick until you build up enough posture damage so you can do the instakill thing. Also I don't like the way the character controls, it plays just like it looks, best word I can use to describe it is floaty. You can watch the best person in the world play Sekiro and it'll look like that so I know it's not just me.

This would've been infinitely better if it remained a Tenchu reboot like it was supposed to be.

 

[Cyberarmy]

a Tenchu reboot

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Same just gave it another chance and I'm fine at parrying but it feels like parry: the game and your sword is just a deflection stick until you build up enough posture damage so you can do the instakill thing.

Which, aside for being a bit dismissive as a description, when you think about it in abstract, is a far better simulation of how sword fighting would actually work than most games came up with.

 

[ExposedBrainMatter]

More like Suckiro lmao. Sengoku era Japan is even staler than generic medieval Euro fantasy at this point. God I hope Elden ring tries to be a little more original.

 

[Haplo]

Same just gave it another chance and I'm fine at parrying but it feels like parry: the game and your sword is just a deflection stick until you build up enough posture damage so you can do the instakill thing.

Which, aside for being a bit dismissive as a description, when you think about it in abstract, is a far better simulation of how sword fighting would actually work than most games came up with.

Maybe so. But it sucks as an only/main way of playing.
Its a game FFS. Its meant to be fun.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Well, the game just has some of the best boss battles I've ever experienced in 30 years of gaming.
But sure, let's listen to autism and whine about how it fails to be fun.

 

[Matador]

Well, the game just has some of the best boss battles I've ever experienced in 30 years of gaming.
But sure, let's listen to autism and whine about how it fails to be fun.

We can't understate how great bosses Sekiro has. I agree they are some of the best boss fights in history.

 

[Atchodas]

Well, the game just has some of the best boss battles I've ever experienced in 30 years of gaming.
But sure, let's listen to autism and whine about how it fails to be fun.

We can't understate how great bosses Sekiro has. I agree they are some of the best boss fights in history.

But you can own any human boss using prety much same tactic?

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Well, the game just has some of the best boss battles I've ever experienced in 30 years of gaming.
But sure, let's listen to autism and whine about how it fails to be fun.

We can't understate how great bosses Sekiro has. I agree they are some of the best boss fights in history.

But you can own any human boss using prety much same tactic?

If by "using the same tactics" you mean "combining pretty much half of your repertory", then yes, sort-of?

Then again "playing the game well" in this context means dispatching the bosses quickly and efficiently, not nibbling at their posture/health bar slowly and awkwardly across a battle of attrition.
The game constantly asks to the player to parry, dodge, jump, counter and eventually make use of the appropriate tool for maximized results.

 

[Haplo]

Definitely it sounds like I'm waaayyyy too old for this.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Well, the game just has some of the best boss battles I've ever experienced in 30 years of gaming.

Cuphead>Sekiro

 

[Hassar]

Same just gave it another chance and I'm fine at parrying but it feels like parry: the game and your sword is just a deflection stick until you build up enough posture damage so you can do the instakill thing.

Which, aside for being a bit dismissive as a description, when you think about it in abstract, is a far better simulation of how sword fighting would actually work than most games came up with.

No. I’ve studied kendo and rapier fencing. That is the opposite of what you want to do because your sword will be damaged by constantly smacking it against another piece of metal. I think Bushido Blade had the closest system to what you’d want to do when dealing with a pointy and/or edged weapon that could slice off your fingers if it hit your hand wrong or result in a fatal stab wound. And I am not even trouncing on the game system as bad per se - it is just not evocative of what you want to do or what you see in fencing or sword duels online. It is just very obviously a gamified approach to making combat more exciting than the cautious and explosive high-stakes combat you see IRL.

https://youtu.be/QV8AxhnLklg

Kind of like how many games tend to forget that getting an arrow to the body is pretty lethal, but game systems abstracts weapons to have some damage range. Game systems in general prefer excitement over more risky, cautious combat. But my point is just that no matter how abstract you want to get, Sekiro doesn’t indicate what you’d want to do.

Sekiro’s posture system is more similar to the shield technology used in Star Trek. I understand what they were doing with the posture system, but I think the lethal punishment from a single error system used in certain From games via certain builds is way closer than what is essentially a damage forcefield that you have to deplete before registering damage to the actual health bar.

I think this is why people who like fighting games like DeS or DaS describing the combat as impactful and weighty, but don’t use those terms to describe Sekiro, describing that system as floaty and strangely unresponsive more akin to a rhythm game than combat system. Nidhogg 1 might be a great example of abstraction, as well.

Ironically, Sekiro has elements of a really good abstraction of the combat system, but only boss characters use it when their punishment of the character knocks an HP bar down super fast. But their HP pool is so large it just becomes an HP sponge, war-of-attrition type deal.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Bosses are trite and unfun. They were already trite and unfun in the old arcade coin-ops.

 

[Atchodas]

If by "using the same tactics" you mean "combining pretty much half of your repertory", then yes, sort-of?

No i mean you just run them towards the wall/corner and keep smacking them until they use their special attack which you either counter dodge or jump over. Rinse and repeat until they are dead.