Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

[Xmantis]

Usually you just mash R1 until the game signals you that it's time to stpp doing so. It's not like in Souls where you have to consider which way your weapon is gonna swing, whether you're better off using R1s or R2s or the speed of your actual swing. Sekiro doesn't even have an R2 attack, but on the other hand it gives you the ability to cancel attacks.

R2 attacks were more or less replaced by combat arts, I used Ichimonji for the majority of the game as a really slow, hard hitting punish like a fully charged R2 from the other Souls games.

 

[Wolfe]

I found the final fight to be much easier than people have made it out to be in this thread, it only took me half an hour or so. Practice makes perfect, when I beat him I didn't take any any damage in the first two "lives"/HP bars. I have to say that the field where it takes place is a terrible arena, you can barely see some of the animations, I had to lure him to one of the sections without high grass. And what's up with fighting Genichiro for the third time?! Lazy effort from From Software.

Demon of Hatred, however, fuck that terrible boss. The camera wasn't a problem but it's just another garbage attrition fight where you get bored halfway through it because it takes SO FUCKING LONG to go through all of that HP. What, you need to hit it like 100 times in total to kill it? While you're always two hits away from dying? How exciting..

The posture/posture regen/HP bloat issue is a serious stain on this game. I don't have an issue with fights where you feel you're making good progress if you play well, but then you have fights like Owl (not the second Hirata memory one) which is technically very easy but his posture bar and regen are huge and it takes ages to fill it. Demon of Hatred too, and don't get me started on O'Rin. That was the most difficult fight for me.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

another generic soulless demon souls copy & paste,japanese are shit people

at this point it's like pokemon, if they just keep shitting out the same thing but with different colors their fanboys will buy it

 

[Steezus]

Usually you just mash R1 until the game signals you that it's time to stpp doing so. It's not like in Souls where you have to consider which way your weapon is gonna swing, whether you're better off using R1s or R2s or the speed of your actual swing. Sekiro doesn't even have an R2 attack, but on the other hand it gives you the ability to cancel attacks.

R2 attacks were more or less replaced by combat arts, I used Ichimonji for the majority of the game as a really slow, hard hitting punish like a fully charged R2 from the other Souls games.

Ichimonji was my most used combat art, but it's still really situational.

Still, I don't think it's even much of a debate that the focus shifted from deliberate weapon movesets to findig the right answer to every single attack of the boss enemy you're fighting. In Souls you basically remove yourself from the fight by keeping your distance or by blocking/dodging until the boss leaves himself vulnerable. Then you take into account how your weapon moves and use what you have to get some hits in.

You can totally play Sekiro like that, but then every fight takes ages and it becomes a chore to play.

And again, the game literally gives you attack cancels, so it kinda blows my mind that some people act like the game is about movesets.

 

[Lutte]

ITT : people pretending Sekiro's shitty nippon sword never, ever misses attacks even when you hug bosses and that having the option to get a real weapon wouldn't change anything and that movesets don't matter

I don't know which review copy you played but I'd like your hitboxes

 

[Child of Malkav]

Have you guys tried fighting without locking on? That's a different experience. You get so much more freedom in movement and attacking but it's overall more difficult to keep track of the enemy especially when fighting Lady Butterfly, Owl (Ashina Castle), Lone Shadows etc.
I did Lady, Great Shinobi Owl, a few Lone Shadows, the red samurai, the ape, Gyobu and others without locking on.
I....have no words. Amazing, just amazing.
Similar feeling to when I played DkS1 with a shield my first playthrough, then 2 handing the BKH, learning to roll and no lock on. It was hard but.......never looked back. I thought in Sekiro it would be mandatory to fight locked on but it's not and if you fight without it.......just wow. At least for me.
What a game, in this day and age, what a game.

 

[Matador]

Beaten owl on the Castle. Amazing fight.

Now working on purification ending. Owl in Hirata state is a bit harder. I think I have to be more aggressive and stay close to him like in the first fight.
I also liked the second Corrupted monk fight.

 

[Cromwell]

So far only got him into his second phase. But at least I can see how to kill him and its not nearly as much of a clusterfuck as that fucking ape.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

wtf is up with all the hype around speedrunning/0 hit running these games? of all the skills you could develop, memorizing boss fights in a single player game is what people love really??

Speedruns of fast games or platformers (mario or whatever) are pretty cool but this just strikes me as so lame

 

[Rivmusique]

O'Rin

is a perfect fight for posture breaking. She's extremely aggressive and every perilous is a sweep (or the grab, but only if she breaks your posture first IME) so you know what to do every red slash. Once she is ~75% HP pure defence can get her to deathblow, even if you are only perfect parrying 1/2 her attacks because of her weird flourishes throwing your timing off. Charmless, where a block does ~1/5 of your HP is scary, will take awhile to work out that combo parry timing for sure. Edit: actually, went back to it on my finished charmless where I skipped it, turns out you can pretty reliably perfect parry the whole long combo by spamming LB the moment the first strike hits until the end. Having higher attack power may have helped a lot though.

Watched some people when they've just started, and I think I was like this as well, when they wanted to get perfect parries they'd just sit locked on not pressing anything waiting to LB as soon as an attack came in. Fine if you land it, but a little slow and that's a full hit taken for huge damage. Much better to sit in guard and release then repress LB to land the parry, if you're slow you still get a block. Only reason to stop guarding is to dodge perilous or sprint out to heal. Or if fighting enemies where blocking/parrying still fucks you up, things that apply terror or burning, so you've decided to make dodging your only defence.

 

[Hassar]

wtf is up with all the hype around speedrunning/0 hit running these games? of all the skills you could develop, memorizing boss fights in a single player game is what people love really??

Speedruns of fast games or platformers (mario or whatever) are pretty cool but this just strikes me as so lame

I think speed runs show other players that areas or challenges they thought were dramatically difficult are more easily overcome with different approaches.

For example, a lot of people hyped up how difficult this game is. When that player sees a more expert player “raise the curtain” and reveal things such as how undynamic the AI is, a regular player realizes that the game is not so difficult after all.

Heck, many players didn’t realize you could roll through so many attacks or simply dash past enemies in DS until speedrunners and %ers did it.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

wtf is up with all the hype around speedrunning/0 hit running these games? of all the skills you could develop, memorizing boss fights in a single player game is what people love really??

Speedruns of fast games or platformers (mario or whatever) are pretty cool but this just strikes me as so lame

I think speed runs show other players that areas or challenges they thought were dramatically difficult are more easily overcome with different approaches.

For example, a lot of people hyped up how difficult this game is. When that player sees a more expert player “raise the curtain” and reveal things such as how undynamic the AI is, a regular player realizes that the game is not so difficult after all.

Heck, many players didn’t realize you could roll through so many attacks or simply dash past enemies in DS until speedrunners and %ers did it.

Obviously someone who spends hundreds of hours in a single player game like this is going to get pretty damn good at it. These games are designed to be played once or twice, not thousands of times.

The whole "souls games are hard" thing is some bullshit marketing tactic. Sure, they're harder than skyrim but compare them to something like street fighter or starcraft and they're piss easy. I kinda feel bad for people who actually think these games are hard.

 

[Cromwell]

The reason why these fuckwits made a combat system that rewards constant fighting is probably to make sure players dont get killed by doors, walls, their camera or a fucking flower pot anymore.

 

[Wunderbar]

So i continued playing with my backed up saves to get Purification ending. And after getting two more attack upgrades from Hirata Owl and Demon of Hatred, I curb stomped Isshin Sword Saint on my first attempt. First! What the fuck. I understand that I already learned his moves when i tried to kill him before, but first try? It were probably those two attack upgrades lol.

 

[Cromwell]

Can you kill the optional hirate bosses and still get another ending if not killing owl or are you forced into this fight?

 

[Wunderbar]

Can you kill the optional hirate bosses and still get another ending if not killing owl or are you forced into this fight?

you can choose which ending you want after killing Isshin (give dragon tears / give dragon tears and child's tears / give dragon tears and a branch from Hirata Owl).
So technically you can do everything and then backup your saves right after deathblowing Isshin but before interacting with Kuro.

 

[Taurist]

Finally beat the game. Sword Saint was tough, but fun.

On the whole I disliked the game. It still reminds me a lot of Dark Souls 2. The levels are just as tedious, and the best stratagy for dealing with them is just to rush to the next idol. Every miniboss requires 10 mins of clearing out the area before you can attempt it. A hell of a lot of the bosses sucked ass. Exploration was weak. Camera is awful. The best way to deflect is just to spam the l1 button. Each big fight takes ages of chipping down poise/HP. I ran though a little of the NG+ till just after the Ogre. It's still a terrible fight, crap hitboxes, and utterly boring.
I liked a few things though, the first Genchiro fight was fantastic, the level from Ogre up to it was also great. The village and temple was also pretty memorable. The Monk and Final Boss were another few highlights.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Came back to this this morning after a few days break...

Bulls down. Strat was some Ako's Sugar, Whirlwind Slash, and basically running around like an idiot and only taking the safe shots. Did end up using all my gourds & pellets, fucked up a few times and got hit because of the camera enemy.

Will check out the new area(s) in a day or two.

Edit: Oh, also disabled CROUCH in config cause running retarded always make me click L3 fucking up my run. It helped a lot. Gotta remember to turn that back on when I continue.

Zep--

 

[Child of Malkav]

Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Here.
I recently started playing without lock on, as I mentioned before, and I just did The Owl in the Hirata Estates.
I died like 20-25 times, but I don't remember getting angry once. What an amazing fight, although I don't understand why people say this is harder than the one in Ashina Castle. He has the same attacks, a few of them new and 2nd phase is the same except he gets that owl, for the fire just jump and the thrust mikiri right after. Like, wow, such a good fight.
This one and Isshin the Sword Saint are by far the fairest fights in the game, bar none. Edit: and Lady Butterfly.
Also, I really recommend trying to play without lock on.
You get a sort of freedom in attacking and movement which allows you to pull off some impressive stuff.
Damn, this game, this game right here.

 

[Suicidal]

Finished it. Really fucking great game, I liked it a lot more than I expected and more than all the Souls games.

Played on keyboard and mouse, controls were quite comfortable and I had zero issues.

Combat becomes much better and more complex as you unlock more prosthetic upgrades, new skills, new combat moves, etc. I like that many bosses force you to use different damage avoidance methods - you have to parry some attacks, jump over others, side step, thrust counter, etc.

While Dark Souls games have a bigger variety of playstyles thanks to different weapons, ability to play as a mage, etc., I'd rather have one more complex and well developed playstyle like in Sekiro, because in Dark Souls games no matter which fighting style I chose the result was 30 hours of using one attack button and rolling around like Sonic the Hedgehog. That's why I never played any Dark Souls more than once, while I already want to start another playthrough of Sekiro to check the other endings (one of which has different bosses), but I'll probably wait till the DLC. Fighting things in this game is just so much more fun.

World exploration and finding different secrets was very fun and I really like the environments, they looked beautiful. I hope Nioh developers take notes how to make environments for Nioh 2 from this game, because as much as I like Nioh, visually it's quite ugly compared to Sekiro.

Some complaints:

Enemy AI is retarded especially when it comes to stealth. Enemies get stuck in random objects, don't react to me killing their friends from afar with shurikens, keep slashing their swords at the air while I hang from a ledge and cut their feet. I remember once I started trailing a group of several enemies in stealth and started backstabbing them one by one while the others didn't even turn around. Also once a boss just flat out stopped attacking me because I kited him too far from the tiny room with obnoxious camera angles the game expected me to fight him in. This has been a problem in every Souls game as well and is something From really needs to work on moving forward.

Too many recycled bosses. You fight the majority of minibosses at least twice and some major bosses twice as well (at least in the case of bosses they get some new moves).

Minibosses were pretty disappointing in general. Some are cool like the Drunkard and the undead wizard thing, which actually felt like bosses, while most felt like normal mobs with 2 health bars. Some barely had any moves. The centipede gimps have like 2 combos that they spam and that's it. The headless has a few different slashes and a ranged attack that he won't even use as long as you stay close to him. Fighting him is a chore and you have to do it 5 fucking times. The bull just runs at you, turns around, runs at you again. I would have exchanged all of this garbage for at least a couple of more proper boss fights, which were all a lot of fun except for the screen monkeys, which I wouldn't call a boss.

Some issues with combat responsiveness - for example sometimes I try to jump once after making an attack but the game doesn't listen, then when I press jump twice it queues it and jumps twice. Also, sometimes when I tried to deflect right after making an attack, the game interpreted it as me using a combat skill (which require pressing the attack and block buttons at the same time). I even had to "unequip" all my combat skills on some boss fights to avoid that.

Other than that, I'm quite happy. Hope there's gonna be DLC (the memory talisman is perfect DLC bait - just have Sekiro travel to different memories and fight people there) and/or Sekiro 2. Between this and Devil May Cry 5, March has been one of the best months for melee combat action games in a long while.

 

[cvv]

Minibosses were pretty disappointing in general. Some are cool like the Drunkard and the undead wizard thing, which actually felt like bosses, while most felt like normal mobs with 2 health bars.

What. There isn't a single mini-boss like that.

The mini-bosses are more consistently good than the actual bosses.

 

[Lutte]

The mini-bosses are more consistently good than the actual bosses.

Ogre : grab grab grab grab grab grab grab. The most infuriating move of souls series with wonkiest hitboxes as a main attack of an enemy. Truly great. Quickly killed after a few sessions of flamethrowing to stagger him though. Shitty designed encounter overall.
Centipede giraffe : parry only two attack flurries, fight ends. Entire fight is a gimmick to get you to understand rhythmic tapping.
KATANA FOLDED OVER 9000 minibosses - the ones who basically only really do one move, the "sheath the katana, wait like a hobo then whail two unblockable hits" are also dead after merely two parries. They're just an overgrown random world mob being made to spam the same shit move.
Constant recycling of purple ministry ninja with only ever one or two change to their moves. Those things aren't particularly hard but From always throws them in extremely tiny rooms where your camera goes spastic while the enemy also goes spastic. Fun times always. NOT.
Constant recycling of headless, shichimen and other pieces of gimmicky crap.

Dude, if Juzou, O'Rin and Seven Spears didn't exist the entire idea of mini bosses would be a joke. And even then, Juzou was copy pasted 4 times and Seven Spears is encountered twice.

I'm torn on Snake Eyes. She's.. interesting, but also infuriating.

 

[cvv]

'k

 

[Suicidal]

Minibosses were pretty disappointing in general. Some are cool like the Drunkard and the undead wizard thing, which actually felt like bosses, while most felt like normal mobs with 2 health bars.

What. There isn't a single mini-boss like that.

The mini-bosses are more consistently good than the actual bosses.

Bruh I just listed a bunch of examples in my post.

Also, what Lutte said above (except I actually thought Shnichemen was a fun encounter).

 

[Adon]

After hearing how bad Demon of Hatred was supposed to be, I was expecting for the fight to go a little bit like the first phase of the Guardian Ape. Nah, Demon of Hatred was super manageable outside of 1-2 moves that are hard to evade/dodge. It's just a matter of trying to consistently evade his attacks.

He also didn't feel like he had HP bloat in comparison to the 2nd Owl fight. I liked the 2nd Owl fight, but I swear it felt like I had hit him at least a dozen times for his bar the only be down by 1/16th.