Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (new From Software game)

[Sentinel]

https://streamable.com/l0g9m

 

[Hamziz]

Unsolicited opinion incoming:

After 15 hours I really don't like or enjoy Sekiro, because I can't shake the feeling that it does not earn or deserve it's difficulty....

...I'm rambling, but my point is that this to me feels like a phoned-in, half baked game. I can probably get better and beat the last part of the game, but having already seen and done all of what little fun there is on offer, why on earth would I want to?

Tldr; I'm getting too old for this shit.

Meanwhile culpa: I'm apparently full of shit.

Maybe muscle memory kicked in, maybe my attitude changed, or maybe I just got gud, but I'm now thoroughly enjoying the combat and working through my suckedness.

My original criticism of limited exploration/reward still stands, and the homing attacks and hit boxes are still bullshit sometimes, but this is now my 2nd favorite from soft game. Just wish they didn't throw stealth out the window half-way through.

Bloodborne is awesome, Sekiro is great, and dark souls all suck ass.

 

[Sentinel]

Just wish they didn't throw stealth out the window half-way through.

what do you mean? I didn't experience this.

 

[cvv]

Just wish they didn't throw stealth out the window half-way through.

what do you mean? I didn't experience this.

Didn't your mum tell you to not talk to crazy people?

 

[Hamziz]

Just wish they didn't throw stealth out the window half-way through.

what do you mean? I didn't experience this.

Maybe I'm mistaken and it will come back again, but after Genichiro it feels like the usefulness/necessity to sneak, wall hug, etc. has dropped off.

God knows I've been wrong beforw

 

[toro]

Poor Hob is getting rekt by Sekiro. His entire stick of doing no hit runs is a recipe of disaster when it comes to Sekiro.

He can barely make it pass Gyobu without getting hit. His years of playing Souls game are betraying him. He is pretty much fucked.

The sad part is that a no hit run was already done by another guy like 2 weeks ago.

 

[abija]

Took me a while cause I don't have much time, love blind plays and take my sweet time jumping of cliffs and did the best I could to avoid spoilers (so didn't read much in this thread). Some notes from quick thread skimming:
- can replace confetti with purple umbrella (block into hit) for some fights, but you are limited by the cost
- since when are people so ADD that get frustrated after some hours into a boss fight, just enjoy the learning process...

The route I used to farm skill points (since from experience I don't do well with running games like this multiple times): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCrbTSFoYSo ("optimised" for mindless button mashing). It's late in the game and used it cause I was curios of what the skills actually do.
Mostly used high monk (VERY good posture breaker), whirlwind and floating passage because... no cost. Learned high monk cause no cost + the description seemed similar to what those damn ninjas do (and wasn't disappointed). Woud have loved to have more slots for moves (feels weird pausing and changing mid fight).

As for difficulty, people just become entitled ADD crybabies... I'm old, reflexes kinda shit. A hard game for me means learning all you can in a fight then having to execute it close to perfection. Sekiro fights ended after learning some of the fight (which also makes most of the consumables kinda pointless for me since I'm a hoarder and don't use them while learning). Got a habit from wow raiding days, I record and watch my fails when learning fights. Just count the mistakes in the last boss fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4l4cYwokvc. And if I had spent time to learn to counter properly more of his moves fight would have been way shorter (at least it seemed some of his moves were punishable with proper dodge/deflect or at the very least get more opening to start high monk. Or maybe using some of the hoarded consumables and trade with flaming axe or other shit.)

 

[toro]

 

[Zep Zepo]

Revisiting some previous areas for farming. Find out Butterfly is still alive. She must have glitched into the geometry or something near the end of phase 2.

I thought it was odd she was gone when I fought her initially. The fog wall didn't disappear and I had to homeward bone out. Anyway, she's dead...again.

But discovered a PRO-Tip:
So using a Combat Art, it says use L1+R1, which I could get to work sometimes, other times I would just do a regular strike. I was trying to push both buttons at the same time to use.
The secret was, just hold L1 (guard or whatever that is), and tap R1 when you want to do the combat art. Made using Nightjar Slash MUCH easier during Butterfly, again.

Zep--

 

[Multidirectional]

Did a longer break. Came back to Seven Spears + General fight and figured out I can cheese it by using stealth sugar and sneaking up on general and stealth kill + puppeteer. An extremely annoying fight suddenly turned into a very easy one. Feel stupid for not doing it before.

 

[Ivan]

Is this the one near the end game? I thought you could only sneak up on the rifleman.

 

[toro]

Demon Bell + No Kuro's Charm is a complete shitshow.

Spoiler

I had to cheese the Shinobi Hunters because for some reason they are absolutely insane. I swear they are even more aggressive with the Demon Bell (!?)

Juzou the Drunkard went down 1st try cause I already know Hirata like the back of my palm.

But Gyobu took me over an hour. You need to perfect parry otherwise you lose health.

Playing like this really forces me to use all the prosthetics arts and shit. For the first time I'm out of pellets and spirit tokens. On the other hand the game is dropping all kinds of materials (even 2xDivine Confetti from guy with an axe).

The game is very different. I'm not sure I will finish this run but I'm curious how far I can get.

 

[Multidirectional]

Is this the one near the end game? I thought you could only sneak up on the rifleman.

Yes that one.
Fuck still cannot do Isshin. Didn't even get to last phase yet. I am playing less and less though, starting to feel burnt out by this game. After Dark Souls III this is a second From Software game that I started getting tired of before even finishing first run.

 

[Hassar]

Beat it around 4:50 am. About to finish it and trade it in. Interesting but not my kind of game. Got the ending where I stayed with Kuro and considered getting the other endings first for literally two seconds but really did not want to do it over again (emphasis on really - it was OK but I never really found it “fun”. It was like playing a bullet hell game where you find a rhythm but it’s not necessarily satisfying). I’m glad we have Let’s Plays so I can see other content, though. I kind of wish that Ghost of Tsushima game was still planned because that seems more my style.

Trying to think if I had a favorite boss fight. I find that I remember how sluggish Sekiro can move so it was more about finding out what he could do than anything particularly amazing about the fight itself. Anyone else remembering more about fighting the controls to find the right button combo than anything about the boss?

Back to Dark Souls to refine my archer mage a la Kikyou and Rosa. I do want to watch “Ninja Scroll” again, though.

 

[toro]

Long post.

Spoiler

After Gyobu I went for the Lady Butterfly. With some luck I was able to beat her in like the 3rd try. She is doing more damage but she basically has the same combos as without Demon Bell.

This motherfucker I had to cheese ... not in classical sense. It takes like 20 seconds for him to get poisoned. Then I used the Flame to burn him a couple of times. I feel no remorse because his grab hitbox is broken. Fuck him.

Another pushover. Took me like 3 tries because he hits like a truck. Also I got lucky and I killed the fighter from the pit on 2nd try.

And now for the big surprise: Do you remember the pushover Genichiro which took 1 try to beat? Well forget him. Genichiro 2.0 (on Demon Bell + No Kuro's Charm) has new patterns and it's aggressive as fuck.

You will say that I'm exaggerating but I had like 11 deflections in a row (some perfect, while last 3 not so much). Pure insanity. Genichiro 2.0 broke me. At some point I went blank and I could not deflect even his basic attacks.

This fight was on par with Isshin without Demon Bell cause you cannot rely on your memory muscle (the patterns are different). But I persisted.

I've spent 3 hours trying to reach phase 3 of the fight (no joke) and, once I reached it, I used Divine Grass + all my gourds/pellet + almost all my firecrackers to beat him. It worked.

I guess this is what people felt after they fought Father Owl for the second time. I'm fucking pumped with adrenaline after this fight

Honestly after this fight I'm afraid to continue. I don't even want to think about Isshin 2.0.

 

[toro]

I'm watching a streamer fighting Genichiro 1.5 (https://www.twitch.tv/hekimae) - she has the Kuro Charm therefore she doesn't need to deflect perfectly. I'm really curious how much time it will take her.

Edit1: This is fun. She has no idea about her predicament. The fight is still harder than the regular Genichiro.

Edit2: It looks like No Kuro's Charm is the spicy ingredient to the game difficulty: half attack damage on bad parries + more aggressive bosses. Yeah, it really makes a difference.

Edit3: After like 45 minutes, she is trying to run away from the Tower Ashina Dojo

Edit4: She did it. R1 spam. No deflect. No parry. Mo Mikiri. Just running around. Like I did it the first time /despair

 

[toro]

Some progress but I think I hit a wall.

Spoiler

I cannot kill O'Rin of the Water. I'm doing like insignificant damage to her while she is demolishing my posture. The HP bloat is out of this world.

This dude drops like 900+ Xp.

Spent like 2 hours to kill the second Snake Eyes mini-boss. Absolute shitshow. So pissed off I did not even screenshot the deathblow. That mini-boss is so tanky it hurts.

Ape fight. Yeah. It's bad. Took me like 5 tries and 5 minutes. With Demon Bell and charmless you cannot get close to it because it will destroy both your health and posture.

Honestly I don't know who could perfect parry/deflect this shitshow. That's why the only option was to play defensive: wait for combo, try to punish and get the fuck out. Rinse and repeat.

 

[toro]

Autism works.


Edit: At this point the speedrun is so broken he could skip the entire game.

 

[Hassar]

Autism works.


Edit: At this point the speedrun is so broken he could skip the entire game.

Yeah, this is totally a game for autists

 

[Parabalus]

Some progress but I think I hit a wall.

Spoiler

I cannot kill O'Rin of the Water. I'm doing like insignificant damage to her while she is demolishing my posture. The HP bloat is out of this world.

If you don't mind some dishonour

Spoiler

You can backstab her by jumping at her while she's initially peaceful.

Spoiler

You can also run towards the idol, she will soft-leash at the rocks.

 

[toro]

Some progress but I think I hit a wall.

Spoiler

I cannot kill O'Rin of the Water. I'm doing like insignificant damage to her while she is demolishing my posture. The HP bloat is out of this world.

If you don't mind some dishonour

Spoiler

You can backstab her by jumping at her while she's initially peaceful.

Spoiler

You can also run towards the idol, she will soft-leash at the rocks.

I've upgraded my attack and I did kill her. I think O'Rin of the Water is pure trolling

 

[The Vanished One]

Saw all endings, done with the game for now.

Yes, the game is too hard for my liking. It demands more competence, reaction speed and consistency than I can reliably provide. Sometimes, it wasn't fun.

That aside, I did like the combat and I liked the seamless stealth (except for how long it takes for alerted enemies to stop looking for you). The gameplay, setting and level design fit together well. Wish there were a couple more areas.

I liked the story well enough, but it never quite gripped me. Characters are ok, but some of the weakest in a FROM game. However, I do like that they moved away from traditional Dark Souls storytelling (I've grown a bit tired of that).

Performance has been mediocre. Camera is abysmal: never before has a game camera given me so much trouble, so often. I'm really surprised it's so bad.

In spite of the negatives, I really liked the game overall. Will buy the DLC for sure though I don't know if I'll be able go through it.

Hall of infamy:

Daddy Owl ~50 tries
Genichiro/OG Isshin ~35
Owl/Madama Butterfly ~25
Armored warrior & Lone Shadow in the shrine ~20

 

[toro]

Long post.

Spoiler

O'Rin of the Water got fucked Fun fact: It seems that she lost Sakura's baby (probably stillborn) (https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Jinza's+Jizo+Statue)

Corrupted Monk got fucked. He is quite easy. No Divine Confetti or other cheese tactic.

Apes got gang raped. Fun fact: If you don't have the Mortal Blade then the Headless Ape will remain "alive" in that position

Spent 15 minutes running after the monkeys. Jesus, I hate this boss or whatever the fuck it is (but I love the fact that it drops a Memory).

Another pleasant surprise: Owl 2.0 is more aggressive than the normal Owl however he is still a pushover.

Genichiro 2.0 was harder than this but it nice to see the effects of Bell Demon and No Kuro's charm. I'm looking forward to Father Owl.

Went back to the Headless monkey. I remembered I had the Mortal Blade

Time for Immortality Severed

And the last big surprise: True Corrupted Monk

You cannot cheese this first phase (!?) Basically you have to posture kill him otherwise you are fucked. His HP is insane.

The fight is pretty awesome because you have to perfect parry like 5-7 hits in a row. It took me like 30 minutes to learn this proper way of killing it.

Nice item.

Maybe I'm wrong but I'm starting to think that Bell Demon + No Kuro's Charm is the intended way to play the game. Basically the fights with Genichiro, Own and Corrupted Monk are very different and you have to always be engaged with them. I mean I finished the game twice but this is the first time I learn some things because there is no other way to progress. I wanted to challenge myself but I didn't expect this attention to detail.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Had some time to explore Ashina Castle today. Mini-Boss Jinsuke Saze down (2nd try). Used Loaded Spear Thrust type on him, pretty easy. Bait a strike then punish with spear. Don't get greedy like my first try at him.

Also, fuck those things on the castle roofs. Utter bullshit.

Not sure where I will go now, I think I need 1 more bead for necklace 4. Might go searching for another mini-boss somewhere before I fight Big Boss GG.

Zep--

 

[Child of Malkav]

Had some time to explore Ashina Castle today. Mini-Boss Jinsuke Saze down (2nd try). Used Loaded Spear Thrust type on him, pretty easy. Bait a strike then punish with spear. Don't get greedy like my first try at him.

Also, fuck those things on the castle roofs. Utter bullshit.

Not sure where I will go now, I think I need 1 more bead for necklace 4. Might go searching for another mini-boss somewhere before I fight Big Boss GG.

Zep--

From the Ashina Castle idol, go up the stairs and you'll see 4 soldiers with rifles and a general.

Also from Ashina Castle idol you can access Ashina Reservoir area that contains 2 mini bosses, a Lone Shadow and a spear general. Both can be backstabbed. The general is very annoying. Look up cheese strats.

You can also go all the way to Gun Fort, from Old Grave idol and fight a Snake Eyes miniboss and another miniboss before the bridge.

Or Ashina Depths all the way to Poison Pool area to fight another Snake Eyes miniboss and then through the forest, village and get the ability to dive underwater.

Also go to Senpou Temple, 3 easy minibosses and a prayer bead underwater.

That's all I remember for now. The thing is, the game really opens up once you get to the Ashina Castle idol.