Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

[Wunderbar]

Just got to the second Owl fight. Honestly, i think it's the best fight in the game.

 

[Lord Romulus]

You need 2 beads, there's 10 necklaces and max vitality/posture should be 20

 

[Wunderbar]

You need 2 beads

you mean 5

 

[cvv]

You need 2 beads, there's 10 necklaces and max vitality/posture should be 20

The last 2 beads can be only gotten on NG+, with a different ending.

 

[Lord Romulus]

You need 2 beads

you mean 5

Oops, meant 2 necklaces. But yeah, some easy to miss ones include one in a pond underwater in Senpou Temple, there's one at the top of a mountain in a little tent in sunken valley, there's one around the graves on your way to fight the sunken valley headless, the second Ashina elite underneath Isshin's room after you beat the divine dragon, and one at the top of a statue head from where you fought the depth Snake Eyes that you have to reach by grappling from where the gunner that's injured by the ape.

 

[Child of Malkav]

You need 2 beads

you mean 5

Oops, meant 2 necklaces. But yeah, some easy to miss ones include one in a pond underwater in Senpou Temple, there's one at the top of a mountain in a little tent in sunken valley, there's one around the graves on your way to fight the sunken valley headless, the second Ashina elite underneath Isshin's room after you beat the divine dragon, and one at the top of a statue head from where you fought the depth Snake Eyes that you have to reach by grappling from where the gunner that's injured by the ape.

Senpou Temple, where you find the Holy Tome Infected? Immediately after the Armored Warrior fight?

 

[Lord Romulus]

It's in the same pond as that tome, yeah. Also there's false walls in case some of you guys don't know, one in Hirata, and one in the castle that you need to hug to get behind, there's beads behind both of them.

 

[Ivan]

There was a miniboss I only found in my 2nd playthrough. There's a re-skinned bull in the Fountainhead Palace. Awkwardly placed though, IMO.

 

[Child of Malkav]

There was a miniboss I only found in my 2nd playthrough. There's a re-skinned bull in the Fountainhead Palace. Awkwardly placed though, IMO.

The white one, yeah I know. Sakura great bull or sth.

 

[Rivmusique]

The ones behind the secret "hug wall" doors are the worst. Didn't like illusory walls in souls, either.

 

[toro]

The ones behind the secret "hug wall" doors are the worst. Didn't like illusory walls in souls, either.

They did an exquisite job with the secret areas. They are always indicated. You can take a peek and then figure out a way to reach them.

 

[toro]

Go to where Isshin was sitting in the Castle and go downstairs in the room below him. That's the only mini-boss I missed.

Got my last bead from this guy.

Spoiler

And once again I'm at the last boss. I can beat Genichiro without damage, even 1st phase of Isshin but then everything goes to shit when the spear appears on the field.

I need to learn his second phase. But not today.

 

[Ivan]

You can do it toro ! And it will feel great

 

[Dexter]

Forbes (Dave Thier) - 'Sekiro: Shadows Dies Twice' Needs To Respect Its Players And Add An Easy Mode: http://archive.is/NdeSJ

It’s time, once again, to revisit an old saw. It was true of Dark Souls 3, it was true of Bloodborne, it was true of all the other From Software games and will keep being true until the only acceptable conclusion: one of these games finally puts in an easy mode. That hasn’t happened yet, and so here we are. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice needs an easy mode. Hello, old saw. I’ll be honest, it’s not that nice to see you again.

But most people, even most people that might like to see that sort of thing, will never see any of that. Maybe they have limited gaming time and don’t want to spend that time fighting Lady Butterfly 100 times in a row. Maybe they’re just not that good at timing their parries, maybe they get frustrated and don’t feel like being frustrated, just now. Maybe they have a physical ailment makes this sort of precision just a little too difficult to pull off. An easy mode would allow an order of magnitude more players to see what From has built, and yet these experiences remained walled off for those millions of people for reasons that I just can’t parse.

There’s a lot of talk about “respecting the player” when it comes to not including an easy mode, an idea that all players can and should play this game in this particular, punishing way. And yet I think the lack of an easy mode showcases the exact opposite. It shows an almost stunning lack of respect for players with the idea that they cannot be trusted with their own gameplay experience, that even those who want a challenging game would somehow be lured by the siren song of lower difficulties and destroy their own experience because they’re too impatient or immature to know what they actually want.

And this is what I’ll never understand about From’s fanboys and their continual, aggressive insistence that the mere presence of an easy mode would somehow compromise a special experience. It’s worth saying, time and time again: an easy mode does not have to change the core experience in any way, at all, period. Playing a version of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that had an easy mode would, theoretically, be completely identical to playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice now. The continued insistence that an easy mode would somehow affect the normal mode seems to represent a players lack of respect for themselves, an idea that they would not be able to play the game that they want without ruining it for themselves.

PCGamer - I am never going to finish Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: http://archive.li/uEwmT

But it’s definitely a game about learning how to play games again, and it’s widely agreed that From Software is deliberately punishing Souls veterans for their muscle memories. I played The Division 2 and it sometimes kicked my arse but I never had to learn about it. I had to point and shoot but I didn’t have to do it especially well, and besides, other games have taught me how to point and shoot—I’ve been pointing and shooting all my life. But I don’t really know how to play Sekiro. I know how to navigate the world and look for stuff, I know how to loot. But I never know how I’m going to beat the next boss. I just don’t. There are fourteen relevant buttons on my controller and Sekiro wants me to use all of them in constantly varying orders.

Dark Souls games are hard and people who deny it are either arrogant or lying. But they all have the safety net of its cooperative system, which I used to the point of exploitation. Across all three of those games I never learned to parry, I never did anything fancy, I pretty much just dodgerolled and swiped. I didn’t like fighting bosses in Dark Souls, at least not alone: I liked the atmosphere and the sense of discovery, I liked exploring the world. And I could do that so long as I could dodgeroll and swipe with reasonable effectiveness. That won’t work in Sekiro.

But I’m not going to complete this game, I know it in my bones. And it’s not because life is too short to punish myself so severely. To be honest, life feels very long to me. But Sekiro has forced me to realise that nowadays when I play a videogame I want to be rewarded with numbers and back-pats and superfluous indicators of progress.

WayPoint (Patrick Klepek) - We've Always Made Our Own Easy Modes. 'Sekiro' Is No Exception: https://archive.fo/KcLV3

Spoiler

More people should be able to enjoy cool games. That’s a simple premise, right? Now imagine an incredibly complex, mechanically dense game that requires hours of investment to truly understand, and it’s expected that you're going to lose over and over before it makes sense. Now also imagine the ability to choose between a bunch of difficulty options, and the ability to tweak victory conditions, specifically so you can cater to what you’re good and bad at.

This isn’t a fantasy. I’m literally talking about Civilization VI, a hardcore strategy game that allows you to modify the heck out of its base ruleset to fit what you’re looking for. Players are already finding ways to do things like this on their own, so why not empower them? And if Civilization can, why not Souls?

But nothing causes the Internet to lose its shit faster than suggesting a FromSoftware game could, may the “git gud” gods forgive such transgressions, appeal to more people if there was a way to adjust the difficulty in some way. “Easy mode” discourse around FromSoftware is cyclical, not unlike the stories FromSoftware is fond of telling in its games, and it usually ends in the same place, as summed up by a tweet I received, after suggesting their latest game, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, could be easily tweaked to make it more accessible:

“Let the devs make it how they want.”

It’s frustrating to admit I’m about to spend a thousand words on this when adding such options is, at its core, a basic sign of respect for the tens of thousands of players with disabilities who are regularly prevented from playing and enjoying games that don’t consider them “real” players? But we’re here, so we might as well spend some time figuring it out.

Perhaps some are making this argument in good faith, a sign of respect towards a developer who found success bucking industry trends, only to themselves become a trendsetter. But in reality, it comes across as people who are not using the phrase git gud ironically, but a badge of elitist honor meant to signal their membership in a club where part of the enjoyment comes from knowing other people aren’t—or can’t—be part of it. It’s gatekeeping, a way of keeping something special to themselves, while hiding behind phrases like “artistic integrity."

As a kid, I loved renting games and slamming the cartridge into my Game Genie, a device that allowed you to input codes and mess with the game. I wasn’t interested in playing whatever the designers had “intended,” I was interested in breaking the game apart and screwing around with the parts. Unlimited lives, walking through walls, infinite ammo—let me do what I want! Eventually, I’d take the Game Genie out, and play the game as “intended.”

...

“From my perspective as the game's designer,” he said, “Assist Mode breaks the game. I spent many hours fine-tuning the difficulty of Celeste, so it's easy for me to feel precious about my designs. But ultimately, we want to empower the player and give them a good experience, and sometimes that means letting go.”

Thorson even specifically told me Celeste is “meant to be hard.” Sounds like Sekiro, no?

The final boss in Bloodborne: The Old Hunters, the grotesque Orphan of Kos, is a bastard. Staged in front of a beautifully ugly body of water, a dying sun hanging overhead, Orphan of Kos is big, fast, and brutal. He beat the shit out of me. I died, as one does in these games, over and over and over. Eventually, I’d had enough, and summoned a stranger to help me with the fight, the one and only time I did so while playing Bloodborne, and one of only a handful of times I’ve ever done so while playing a FromSoftware game. The stranger knew what they were doing, and Orphan of Kos quickly fell. The fight, and my journey, was over.

Depending on who you talk to, what I did is cheating. It’s allowed by the game, sure, but again, depending on who you talk to, that’s not how you’re supposed to play Bloodborne. The way you’re supposed to play Bloodborne—or, well, Souls—is fighting them yourself. This shifting of goal posts—remember, Sekiro doesn't include the ability to play co-op or summon strangers—is part of the gatekeeping process. The goal posts are always being moved in favor of the gatekeepers.

The question of Sekiro, or games like it, getting an “easy mode” is itself a vindication of FromSoftware’s original mission statement; they’ve made something more people want to enjoy. For years, though, a select group of players who’d felt seen and heard by that mission statement are worried it’ll be taken away.

But no one wants to take it away, and if people experiencing joy on terms different than your own brings pain and anxiety, maybe the place to start looking for changes is actually within.

Kotaku - An Easy Mode Has Never Ruined A Game: http://archive.is/pMniu

 

[Sentinel]

NG is the easy mode though.

 

[mogwaimon]

What a bunch of fuckin faggots. Go to Disney World because you don't want to play Souls or Bloodborne or Sekiro, you just want to walk through a theme park.

 

[Cromwell]

But if I try to stay close how would I escape the scream. The time it takes me to get out normally is enough to kill me and if I manage I will be killed the second time because that terror shit stays a while.

Don't push right into her face, just kindda hang around her and bait her into attacking so her posture constantly depletes (which is happening much slower than in the 1st stage, that should be a hint for you). Escaping her screams is very easy if you're fighting defensively, not aggressively. That's the key - don't go all Leroy Jenkins on her, don't be hurrrr imma kill you byatch schwing schwing schwing. Just stand around, defend, take a few steps back if she screams or get in a spear or a few slices if you stagger her. That's all there's to it.

used your advice and fucked that ape up first try. Also, what all the tipps sections and youtube retards forget to tell you about this fight and te spear trick is, you can actually be to close to it. Even if youre standing right before his wound it may be to close and you will stick your spear into the body not the headwound and therefore not get the centipede out. Happened to times to me.

 

[Matador]

What is the ending with more bosses?

I made the.shura ending first time. And want to beat the remaining bosses and move on to another game.

 

[Sentinel]

The other 3 endings take you through the same route, so just rush it.

 

[Lutte]

What is the ending with more bosses?

I made the.shura ending first time. And want to beat the remaining bosses and move on to another game.

Purification (because you get the second owl encounter). But you can do any ending as long as it's not Shura. Doing the eavedropping and talk to emma to get the purification path and killing its bosses does NOT lock you into having to pick the purification ending, if you want to try other endings first.

Do not miss the prerequirements for purification path because once the game gets to a certain point I don't believe you can get access to the second hirata memories (if they were not unlocked by then)

 

[Cromwell]

For people that have already beaten the game, are the tools ever really useful? I mean you can use them but outside of specific things like spear and ape or butterfly and shuriken I never have used them and never found I needed to. I tried a few things but I always came back to just whack it with the sword. The only two subweapons that I found useful are the firecrackers and the umbrella, the only upgrades I foudn useful are longer crackers and lilac umbrella.

Its sad that theres a whole system where I can farm and upgrade all these things but cant think of a single encounter were they are useful aside from being "the gimmick" to that specific thing. Same goes for the unlockable skills, some people swear on double ijimonji and maybe if you learn when and how to use it it gets better but it never feels like its an sueful upgrade to your arsenal. I never felt I got stronger having these skills, its more like I killed some things and afterwards thought to myself "ah maybe that would be 10 seconds faster if you sliced them with whirlwind." but imho they dont open up a lot of possibilities. But if they dont why is this stuff even in there.

 

[Sentinel]

Yes.
Shuriken has the best gap closer and it interrupts, which is extremely good against a lot of bosses.
Flame Barrel + Oil sets most bosses on fire and is easy HP damage while you just sit back.
Poison Sword can poison most bosses and is very effective against both Snake Eyes.
Divine Fan is good for farming since it instakills in an AoE.
Mist Raven is broken as fuck. Invulnerability + *teleports behind you*, don't think I need to explain.

 

[Matador]

I'm very basic and like the shuriken. It's not super powerful, but very versatile and reliable.

 

[v1rus]

The last 2 beads can be only gotten on NG+, with a different ending.

Not necessarily.

You can do all that shit for both purification ending (eavesdropping) and return ending (well, you know) in the same run, do the revised Hirate estate, and proceed with the game, choosing your ending after beating the Sword Saint.

 

[Silva]

Its sad that theres a whole system where I can farm and upgrade all these things but cant think of a single encounter were they are useful aside from being "the gimmick" to that specific thing. Same goes for the unlockable skills, some people swear on double ijimonji and maybe if you learn when and how to use it it gets better but it never feels like its an sueful upgrade to your arsenal. I never felt I got stronger having these skills, its more like I killed some things and afterwards thought to myself "ah maybe that would be 10 seconds faster if you sliced them with whirlwind." but imho they dont open up a lot of possibilities. But if they dont why is this stuff even in there.

Tools and upgrades look really weird in this game. They seem useful in very circumstancial situations (that don't really need them in first place). Like if that Souls kick was an upgrade.