Sekiro Shadows Died for First Impressions

[EvilRoy]

NPCs offer some sort of sidequests apparently, and you need em to be healthy for that, but I dunno if you can outright miss any of that. I guess if you run out of dragon tears.

I'm liking the game a fair bit, although I have been having a hell of a time progressing. Part of that I blame on only just recently finding out about the skill tree (more than 10 points stored away), and part of that I blame on the spiderweb nature of the map. Multiple paths has lead to me getting my ass kicked in one area and my ass only gently paddled in others, and I'm only just now starting to pick up on the fact that similar to other From games, they expect you to slam into a problem a few times and realize to say "maybe I shouldn't be here yet". There's also the fact that I did not know shinobi meant ninja. I honestly thought I was a samurai and I was trying to play the way I expected a samurai would play - skillful blade to blade combat, but not an array of skills that make dealing with spearguys and chained psychos way easier.

When it comes to the very branching wide word system they have going on, I think its pretty rad, but I am distressed by how mobility factors into it. I have found things purely accidentally by falling off a cliff or fleeing from an enemy into a tree. With so many mobility skills (including swimming, which crap man I had no idea), it can make figuring out all the places you can go a little annoying as you have to just try jumping in every hole, pond and zipping to each tree to see what the area has to offer in terms of paths and exits.

I hear you when you say it isn't very souls like combat, although I do feel I'm operating fairly similarly to one of my last DS1 builds that was pure dex/backstab. Dodge, dodge, dodge, parry, strike repeat. I desperately hate the penalty system for resurrections, and I've basically stopped using it at all unless the boss I'm fighting was half a fart away from death. Considering how little hp you get back, and the enemies building poise so quickly, you may as well start fresh with a full estus flask.

Shinobu means "to sneak around", the Japanese had a single word for that hahah. Shinobi is "the one who sneaks around", and ninja was a term that came after, using the composing characters of shinobi in a new way. Ninja is basically hired shinobi allied with some ruler or despot who do their bidding. The distinction drawn here by the game not calling you a ninja is that you're basically a lone wolf doing what you believe to be right.

Yeah, I just had one of those weird moments where I was like "hmmm shinobi... shinobi... I know I've heard that word before. It means something to do with how my character is supposed to act like mage/paladin/knight/monk... eh. Must just be a kind of samurai. Oh weird I'm playing a samurai with a hookshot."

And then like three hours later it dawns on me that I'm playing a ninja like person vs various samurai type people. "Oh I'm SUPPOSED to sneak around and stealth kill anyone I can."

 

[CritialGaming]

I am really early in the game but the first mini-boss fight after the tutorial section was far better than any fight in DS1 or BB because the combat is far more involving than Souls. Exploits or cheese don't ruin single player games because you can house-rule that stuff out. Sure, the cheese does so very much ruin the reputation of Souls difficulty, never got why anyone considered them hard to begin with. Plus, the cheese was so blatantly obvious like shields or magic or arrows. However, not cheesing in Souls doesn't make the combat good either because it's so simplistic. I'm sure there's exploits in Sekiro too, but you at least have a good combat system (it seems) when you choose not to be cheap that Souls never had.

The problem with Sekiro as I see it as that it's overall unbalanced. The difficulty between the regular goons and (mini) Bosses is stagering. And the reason for that is because every regular enemy can be stealth killed or pummeled into submission. I can't say I'm that far into the game, only being on my third proper Boss fight, but every regular enemy thus far barely required me to deflect in order to break their posture. I either stealth killed them or just wailed on them till their posture broke. And then a Boss comes along and suddenly I feel like I need to learn the game again. The Bosses thus far don't feel like a culmination of the skills you learned fighting regular enemies prior, because the regular enemies can be insta-killed.

Imagine how frustrating it would be if every enemy fought like a boss though, or the disappointment if bosses were barely a challenge. I think the normal enemies are your typical ?gain experience? grubs that allow some slop with a tougher one thrown in here or there like trolls or dudes with shields. The mini bosses are certainly a step up, but considering they can be stealthed for a free deathblow that?s half the battle done right there. They are really the first enemies that keep you on your toes, which makes sense as they are often still gatekeepers.

Personally I?m wondering how much of a disadvantage I?m at from square one as I?m playing on a projector with 67ms input lag. It kinda adds an extra thought process to every defensive action as I have to account for that vs simply reacting. Not sure how much its hampered things but I?ve been able to parry pretty well once I learn the timings. I also have the game on Steam but haven?t tried it yet. It?ll be interesting to put a comparison together sometime, which is half the reason I got both versions.

 

[CritialGaming]

I'm only very early in the game but I'm enjoying the combat far more than I ever did in a Souls game because Sekiro is more than just 'dodge, hit with stick'. Pretentious bullshit I heard about Souls games going in like 'you have to study every enemy to succeed' applies to Sekiro. And unlike Souls, Sekiro actually evolves and changes by giving you new shit to do (and learn and master) whereas Souls was just leveling stats to literally keep the game the same throughout. Those people that thought Souls was some amazingly hard game that they probably put beating them on their resumes are in for quite the rude awakening.

Is it though, because this is pretty much Soulsborne in a different jacket. Just like with Dark Souls and Bloodborne it's hard till you realize it isn't really. On the surface Sekiro is harder (well, the Bosses anyway, since regular enemies are the easiest out of any Miyazaki game), but then you discover a similar system of exploits that sheds a lot of the game's perceived difficulty. One Boss seemed hard as balls until I came to the conclusion that I could just do this one thing, and then he was surprisingly easy.

Like with all of the Soulsborne games a lot of the difficulty comes from the jankiness; a camera that isn't always great, a lock-on that can have mood swings etc.

OT: It's quite good, and I'm digging the skills system. I still find the block on L1 a bit too cumbersome for an action that's so vital in activating fast. I tried changing it to one of the face buttons, but that only helped out in the first real Boss fight. Speaking of, more than in Soulsborne, the Boss fights here feel like they're designed to kill you in order for you to figure them out. Like the horseback guy; how are you supposed to figure out his moves without getting killed multiple times? It's just not possible, and this never really sits right with me. Especially here where there's somekind of karmic 'fuck you for dying' system active. I've chosen to completely ignore the whole dragonrot business and just focus on my own enjoyment - I'm not going to get guilt tripped by a damn game. The Lady Butterfly fight is the one Boss fight as of yet that feels fair, like you'd be able to figure it out and win on your first try while still being very tough.

So yeah, pretty good, but with intervals of frustration. Also, Fromsoft jank.

Y'know I'm right there with you on the not really feeling bad about "nondescript coughing sickness" getting the npc's, its just that I read that the stories of the npcs won't progress if they're sick and that has me kind of pissy. My favorite parts of DS was things like just randomly finding Seig in the pit and talking about how we're both just makin progress in our own directions and then splitting up again. The potential for me to be barred from that kind of thing because I got my ass handed to me slightly more often than the game feels is acceptable has me a little frustrated. I don't even know what form story progression takes in this game, but I know I want all of it, and game mechanics standing in my path doesn't feel right.

Some more details on Dragonrot here. [https://www.gamespot.com/amp-articles/sekiro-death-guide-how-dragonrot-and-resurrections/1100-6465755/]
There are ways to reverse it and apparently it?s not a fatal thing, so judicious use of the cure should still keep all the optional quest lines in the current play through loop.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I am really early in the game but the first mini-boss fight after the tutorial section was far better than any fight in DS1 or BB because the combat is far more involving than Souls. Exploits or cheese don't ruin single player games because you can house-rule that stuff out. Sure, the cheese does so very much ruin the reputation of Souls difficulty, never got why anyone considered them hard to begin with. Plus, the cheese was so blatantly obvious like shields or magic or arrows. However, not cheesing in Souls doesn't make the combat good either because it's so simplistic. I'm sure there's exploits in Sekiro too, but you at least have a good combat system (it seems) when you choose not to be cheap that Souls never had.

The problem with Sekiro as I see it as that it's overall unbalanced. The difficulty between the regular goons and (mini) Bosses is stagering. And the reason for that is because every regular enemy can be stealth killed or pummeled into submission. I can't say I'm that far into the game, only being on my third proper Boss fight, but every regular enemy thus far barely required me to deflect in order to break their posture. I either stealth killed them or just wailed on them till their posture broke. And then a Boss comes along and suddenly I feel like I need to learn the game again. The Bosses thus far don't feel like a culmination of the skills you learned fighting regular enemies prior, because the regular enemies can be insta-killed.

Yeah, that's been my thoughts on the matter so far. It's almost like playing 2 completely different games between the regular mooks and the mini-bosses and bosses. I feel like I just don't have enough practice doing the combat because the game very clearly wants me to be playing it as a stealth game until I hit a boss and the rules change. The game doesn't feel like it reinforces the things it teaches you about the combat in the actual minute to minute gameplay.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

The problem with Sekiro as I see it as that it's overall unbalanced. The difficulty between the regular goons and (mini) Bosses is stagering. And the reason for that is because every regular enemy can be stealth killed or pummeled into submission. I can't say I'm that far into the game, only being on my third proper Boss fight, but every regular enemy thus far barely required me to deflect in order to break their posture. I either stealth killed them or just wailed on them till their posture broke. And then a Boss comes along and suddenly I feel like I need to learn the game again. The Bosses thus far don't feel like a culmination of the skills you learned fighting regular enemies prior, because the regular enemies can be insta-killed.

I feel that way about Souls series too where they throw at you all these trash mobs with a boss at the end. The trash mobs are like routine grounders to shortstop (that you only fuck up on because you drop your focus like a booted grounder) and then the boss fight is diving highlight reel play, which Sekiro does feel that way too. As the more I play, I don't feel the Souls stuff fitting into the game that much, though I don't care that much for much of the Souls stuff in Souls either. I had one instance of having some big hammer guy hiding in a corner, he didn't kill me but why put him there besides for an 'I got ya' moment. This style of combat and game feels like it should flow from one fight to the other instead of doing the standard Souls thing of trying to hide enemies for surprise attacks and whatnot, which makes for more sense in Souls at least. I could see the moment-to-moment gameplay of Sekiro being like a combat version of Mirror's Edge where you time your counter, kill, move to the next guy (sorta like stringing along those disarms in Mirror's Edge back-to-back-to-back). I think the normal enemies being weak can work if you're supposed to fight them in groups but From's combat is pretty piss-poor with multiple enemy fights because the lock-on jank, it works really well in 1v1 fights. I don't see why From can't make a combat system that's not so reliant on lock-on, which every other dev can do. I don't know if the respawning of enemies or the death punishments works here either. Just because these elements work and are enjoyed in Souls, doesn't mean they'll translate well to a new IP.

 

[CritialGaming]

I'm reading all ya'll's comments, and you guys have no idea what this game becomes. It's funny to me. I've seen things, and they are ball busting.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'm reading all ya'll's comments, and you guys have no idea what this game becomes. It's funny to me. I've seen things, and they are ball busting.

Have you found an izuna drop skill yet? (can't be a complete ninja experience without it XD)

 

[EvilRoy]

I'm only very early in the game but I'm enjoying the combat far more than I ever did in a Souls game because Sekiro is more than just 'dodge, hit with stick'. Pretentious bullshit I heard about Souls games going in like 'you have to study every enemy to succeed' applies to Sekiro. And unlike Souls, Sekiro actually evolves and changes by giving you new shit to do (and learn and master) whereas Souls was just leveling stats to literally keep the game the same throughout. Those people that thought Souls was some amazingly hard game that they probably put beating them on their resumes are in for quite the rude awakening.

Is it though, because this is pretty much Soulsborne in a different jacket. Just like with Dark Souls and Bloodborne it's hard till you realize it isn't really. On the surface Sekiro is harder (well, the Bosses anyway, since regular enemies are the easiest out of any Miyazaki game), but then you discover a similar system of exploits that sheds a lot of the game's perceived difficulty. One Boss seemed hard as balls until I came to the conclusion that I could just do this one thing, and then he was surprisingly easy.

Like with all of the Soulsborne games a lot of the difficulty comes from the jankiness; a camera that isn't always great, a lock-on that can have mood swings etc.

OT: It's quite good, and I'm digging the skills system. I still find the block on L1 a bit too cumbersome for an action that's so vital in activating fast. I tried changing it to one of the face buttons, but that only helped out in the first real Boss fight. Speaking of, more than in Soulsborne, the Boss fights here feel like they're designed to kill you in order for you to figure them out. Like the horseback guy; how are you supposed to figure out his moves without getting killed multiple times? It's just not possible, and this never really sits right with me. Especially here where there's somekind of karmic 'fuck you for dying' system active. I've chosen to completely ignore the whole dragonrot business and just focus on my own enjoyment - I'm not going to get guilt tripped by a damn game. The Lady Butterfly fight is the one Boss fight as of yet that feels fair, like you'd be able to figure it out and win on your first try while still being very tough.

So yeah, pretty good, but with intervals of frustration. Also, Fromsoft jank.

Y'know I'm right there with you on the not really feeling bad about "nondescript coughing sickness" getting the npc's, its just that I read that the stories of the npcs won't progress if they're sick and that has me kind of pissy. My favorite parts of DS was things like just randomly finding Seig in the pit and talking about how we're both just makin progress in our own directions and then splitting up again. The potential for me to be barred from that kind of thing because I got my ass handed to me slightly more often than the game feels is acceptable has me a little frustrated. I don't even know what form story progression takes in this game, but I know I want all of it, and game mechanics standing in my path doesn't feel right.

Some more details on Dragonrot here. [https://www.gamespot.com/amp-articles/sekiro-death-guide-how-dragonrot-and-resurrections/1100-6465755/]
There are ways to reverse it and apparently it?s not a fatal thing, so judicious use of the cure should still keep all the optional quest lines in the current play through loop.

Yeah, I realized I was forgetting the age old FROM standby of "everytime you do something of minor significance, hoof it back to firelink and talk to everyone". I didn't realize that I needed to be progressing a cure story path, and upon further inspection it seems that the dragonrot progression is somewhat randomized, and the potential for it to be passed on may or may not be increased by using resurrection. Now that I've got more than one chug of heal and I've basically worked out the mechanics I'm feeling better about progressing and using rez in fights because its less painfully common for me. It was just one of those "this shit is hard enough douchebag, don't fuckin pile on while I'm getting my sea legs" situations.

I'm reading all ya'll's comments, and you guys have no idea what this game becomes. It's funny to me. I've seen things, and they are ball busting.

It better get fuckin bonkers dude. I saw a bit of it with the ogres, but the reason I love the DS series (and Bloodborne from afar...) is because the monsters are simultaneously horrifying and beautiful. If I wasn't pretty sure shit is gonna start getting real in ten more hours or less I wouldn't be playing it. Don't get me wrong, blue kicky ninja dudes and spooky old ladies are neat, but I need gaping dragon/nito/aldrich levels of fuckin nonsense to keep me going. If they absolutely must be human-ish then it better get rougher than a drunk with bad breath.

 

[stroopwafel]

Game is absolutely incredible. Miyazaki has done it again! I never doubted this guy's genious. This is the first game since Demon's Souls that moves away from the Souls template completely but one that still wouldn't exist without those games' dna. Everything is more versatile from the combat options to the traversal methods to the level lay-out but having it all fixated on one single 'class' of character brings the game into laser focus on it's depth and mastery of mechanics. It's good, maybe too good. I also really love the story in this game and how they treated death and ressurection as a story element. Graphics are also absolutely gorgeous and the audiovisual communication of swords clashing is so well done you almost feel the shockwave. Creature design is also once again the product of incredibly vivid imagination and I love how in particular some bosses seem to esoterically reference Asian folklore.

It's still early days but *gasp* besides Bloodborne I don't think I ever enjoyed a game this much.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Imagine how frustrating it would be if every enemy fought like a boss though, or the disappointment if bosses were barely a challenge. I think the normal enemies are your typical ?gain experience? grubs that allow some slop with a tougher one thrown in here or there like trolls or dudes with shields. The mini bosses are certainly a step up, but considering they can be stealthed for a free deathblow that?s half the battle done right there. They are really the first enemies that keep you on your toes, which makes sense as they are often still gatekeepers.

It's the stealth option that makes things feel uneven. It might've been better had it not been there at all, or at the very least be something that's actually hard to pull off. For a game that's this hard performing stealth kills is as easy as it is in Assassin's Creed. Or have less regular dudes and more elite type enemies. And have the mini-Bosses respawn. These dudes are tough and require you to legitimately fight, but once they're dealt with that's it, there's nothing left but guys that you can easily stealth kill. Both Dark Souls and Bloodborne would respawn tougher regular enemies, so you'd be kept on your toes. Sekiro lacks that.

I feel that way about Souls series too where they throw at you all these trash mobs with a boss at the end. The trash mobs are like routine grounders to shortstop (that you only fuck up on because you drop your focus like a booted grounder) and then the boss fight is diving highlight reel play, which Sekiro does feel that way too. As the more I play, I don't feel the Souls stuff fitting into the game that much, though I don't care that much for much of the Souls stuff in Souls either. I had one instance of having some big hammer guy hiding in a corner, he didn't kill me but why put him there besides for an 'I got ya' moment. This style of combat and game feels like it should flow from one fight to the other instead of doing the standard Souls thing of trying to hide enemies for surprise attacks and whatnot, which makes for more sense in Souls at least. I could see the moment-to-moment gameplay of Sekiro being like a combat version of Mirror's Edge where you time your counter, kill, move to the next guy (sorta like stringing along those disarms in Mirror's Edge back-to-back-to-back). I think the normal enemies being weak can work if you're supposed to fight them in groups but From's combat is pretty piss-poor with multiple enemy fights because the lock-on jank, it works really well in 1v1 fights. I don't see why From can't make a combat system that's not so reliant on lock-on, which every other dev can do. I don't know if the respawning of enemies or the death punishments works here either. Just because these elements work and are enjoyed in Souls, doesn't mean they'll translate well to a new IP.

The lock-on is better here (it actually has range now for one), but it can still screw you over, and yeah, when fighting multiple enemies at once it becomes kinda a babysitting nightmare. Due to it also being a white dot I had a hard time figuring out what I was locked on to in the thick of it.

Another issue I had was with the red kanji icon that showed a strong incoming enemy attack. Maybe I'm missing something, but I figured these were unblockable/unparry-able but then some can be parried and some can't. Like a grab attack can't be parried, but it gives the same red icon warning as it would if it was a stab attack or a sweep. You have 3 different types of super attacks that require you to react accordingly (stab = parry, grab = dodge, sweep = jump), but they all have the same red warning icon and sound effect.

Also, fuck that sand kicking move enemies sometimes pull. There's no warning to it, it can just happen in a second, and then you're stunned and open for an attack.

 

[CritialGaming]

So after another 6 hours into the game, my opinion is starting to turn. Which is unfortunate because I was really liking the game.

However now that I getting to the point of things getting bonkers, I've realized that everything up till now has actually done very little to prepare me for the combat in the game as well has made me realize that the game deliberately keeps you underpowered imo. AS you all have probably figured out, you need 4 beads from mini bosses to upgrade your health. Here is the problem, not every mini boss drops beads, and there simply aren't enough bead bosses to get before your health upgrades quickly become irrelevant. Regardless of how you progress, the enemy's power simply out grows your health increases. The same goes for attack power increases which only occur with "real" bosses.

But that isn't the core of the problem. The real issue stems from the stealth system in general. You are meant to stealth kill most of the fodder in this game, as direct combat is an utter pain in the ass which most of them especially later on when even basic enemies can chew through your posture with 10+ hit combos even if you perfect deflect every hit.

Techically I suppose you could fight basic enemies face to face. But even then I don't think the game trains you for the insanity that is the bosses which are capable of chaining together unblockable attacks that each require you to hand them differently (jump, dodge, mikiri counter, etc) which would be fine except they do these attacks in a random order so you can't memorize the pattern at lightning speed in which the attack are delivered.

Not to mention there are bosses that can only be hurt with magic, which you use Divine Confetti on your blade to make it magical. No big deal right? Oh wait confetti is extremely limited, which means you have extremely limited attempts on the grand total of all of these bosses. Not enough time to learn a boss at the best of times. Let alone learning how to fight when you never have to fight in the rest of the game.

So it's starting to feel like From Soft didn't think their combat system out as much as they should have. This isn't though but fair, this is though to the point of outright punishment because the core combat is just not a reasonable system. Nothing feels worse than feeling completely unprepared for a boss fight, especially when information of how to fight the bosses is not communicated to the player. For example the magic bosses, which do nothing to tell you that you need magic to fight them. You can totally jump into the fight and just do no damage and the game never tells you why or how to fix it. (though the wiki will)

Personally I find the game cheap for the sake of being cheap as every boss almost REQUIRES specific things to defeat which was never the case in any previous FromSoft game. Soulsborne games had better ways to fight the bosses, but you still could win with any gear set up. Sekiro doesn't do that. You HAVE to use specific things to fight the bosses (sometimes eavesdrop hints provide enough info to figure out but most bosses do not have these hints), otherwise you are not only boned but you don't even have the ability to TRY to learn the fight.

So combat feels broken later on, unless you go through the game never stealthing and just practicing face to face combat against every foe. Which is too much of a hassle because it would take far too long to get anywhere in the game.

Maybe I'm just salty, but I have three different directions I could go within the game and they all lead to nonsense. Like the boss that does a 15 hit combo followed by a tracking death move. Or two magic only bosses in which I have no more magic items to use. Oh or the Spear guy who's thrust attack cannot be mikiri countered because why follow the rules the game teaches you?

 

[CritialGaming]

Imagine how frustrating it would be if every enemy fought like a boss though, or the disappointment if bosses were barely a challenge. I think the normal enemies are your typical ?gain experience? grubs that allow some slop with a tougher one thrown in here or there like trolls or dudes with shields. The mini bosses are certainly a step up, but considering they can be stealthed for a free deathblow that?s half the battle done right there. They are really the first enemies that keep you on your toes, which makes sense as they are often still gatekeepers.

It's the stealth option that makes things feel uneven. It might've been better had it not been there at all, or at the very least be something that's actually hard to pull off. For a game that's this hard performing stealth kills is as easy as it is in Assassin's Creed. Or have less regular dudes and more elite type enemies. And have the mini-Bosses respawn. These dudes are tough and require you to legitimately fight, but once they're dealt with that's it, there's nothing left but guys that you can easily stealth kill. Both Dark Souls and Bloodborne would respawn tougher regular enemies, so you'd be kept on your toes. Sekiro lacks that.

Spoiler

I feel that way about Souls series too where they throw at you all these trash mobs with a boss at the end. The trash mobs are like routine grounders to shortstop (that you only fuck up on because you drop your focus like a booted grounder) and then the boss fight is diving highlight reel play, which Sekiro does feel that way too. As the more I play, I don't feel the Souls stuff fitting into the game that much, though I don't care that much for much of the Souls stuff in Souls either. I had one instance of having some big hammer guy hiding in a corner, he didn't kill me but why put him there besides for an 'I got ya' moment. This style of combat and game feels like it should flow from one fight to the other instead of doing the standard Souls thing of trying to hide enemies for surprise attacks and whatnot, which makes for more sense in Souls at least. I could see the moment-to-moment gameplay of Sekiro being like a combat version of Mirror's Edge where you time your counter, kill, move to the next guy (sorta like stringing along those disarms in Mirror's Edge back-to-back-to-back). I think the normal enemies being weak can work if you're supposed to fight them in groups but From's combat is pretty piss-poor with multiple enemy fights because the lock-on jank, it works really well in 1v1 fights. I don't see why From can't make a combat system that's not so reliant on lock-on, which every other dev can do. I don't know if the respawning of enemies or the death punishments works here either. Just because these elements work and are enjoyed in Souls, doesn't mean they'll translate well to a new IP.

The lock-on is better here (it actually has range now for one), but it can still screw you over, and yeah, when fighting multiple enemies at once it becomes kinda a babysitting nightmare. Due to it also being a white dot I had a hard time figuring out what I was locked on to in the thick of it.

Another issue I had was with the red kanji icon that showed a strong incoming enemy attack. Maybe I'm missing something, but I figured these were unblockable/unparry-able but then some can be parried and some can't. Like a grab attack can't be parried, but it gives the same red icon warning as it would if it was a stab attack or a sweep. You have 3 different types of super attacks that require you to react accordingly (stab = parry, grab = dodge, sweep = jump), but they all have the same red warning icon and sound effect.

Also, fuck that sand kicking move enemies sometimes pull. There's no warning to it, it can just happen in a second, and then you're stunned and open for an attack.

I?m only in the estate map, but even so at that early point there is no way every basic enemy can be stealthed unless you lure each one individually into an area far enough from the rest. You can get the jump on maybe half of a group of six in certain areas, but then for me it turns into a game of kill ?em quick before another one?s fire arrow hits you. It feels awesome taking out a group, especially using the grapple and skills.

I think the tough common enemies in SoulsBorne had more to do with their place in the environments than actually fighting them, which seems to be the reverse here. The mini bosses so far to me are a decent step up from the non respawning SoulsBorne variety, even including the offline red phantoms and hunters. I gave up on that purple ninja on top of the building for now because I could barely crack his posture, and burned through a bunch of oil trying to light him up with my flame thrower. Was able to get him to about 25% health between that and some intense sword clashing but he?s definitely tougher to me than past games because there is much less room for error.

I kinda agree on the red signs, but it basically boils down to learning their tells which are so far pretty forgivingly telegraphed. I suppose it?d be back to being too easy if each one was color coded.

 

[CritialGaming]

I?m only in the estate map, but even so at that early point there is no way every basic enemy can be stealthed unless you lure each one individually into an area far enough from the rest. You can get the jump on maybe half of a group of six in certain areas, but then for me it turns into a game of kill ?em quick before another one?s fire arrow hits you. It feels awesome taking out a group, especially using the grapple and skills.

I think the tough common enemies in SoulsBorne had more to do with their place in the environments than actually fighting them, which seems to be the reverse here. The mini bosses so far to me are a decent step up from the non respawning SoulsBorne variety, even including the offline red phantoms and hunters. I gave up on that purple ninja on top of the building for now because I could barely crack his posture, and burned through a bunch of oil trying to light him up with my flame thrower. Was able to get him to about 25% health between that and some intense sword clashing but he?s definitely tougher to me than past games because there is much less room for error.

I kinda agree on the red signs, but it basically boils down to learning their tells which are so far pretty forgivingly telegraphed. I suppose it?d be back to being too easy if each one was color coded.

Yeah but the game seems to promote that hit and run tactic, encouraging you to take pot shots at the group until you work them all down. The game never actually forces you to fight a regular enemy and because a normal fight is so much harder than the obvious 1-shot stealth kills you are never encouraged to practice real fighting until you get to a boss who just fucks you up.

Deeper into the game, fighting a mook head on is also insanely hard. It just feels like the mooks and the boss are so disconnected in the core gameplay loop that you are always unprepared for a boss. And growth options are overly limited imo.

 

[stroopwafel]

I gave up on that purple ninja on top of the building for now because I could barely crack his posture, and burned through a bunch of oil trying to light him up with my flame thrower. Was able to get him to about 25% health between that and some intense sword clashing but he?s definitely tougher to me than past games because there is much less room for error.

I kinda agree on the red signs, but it basically boils down to learning their tells which are so far pretty forgivingly telegraphed. I suppose it?d be back to being too easy if each one was color coded.

Do you mean the one in Hirata estate near the bridge? He's tough but I wouldn't focus on his posture too much. He usually opens with an immediate sword attack which is easily deflected but his other tells are lightning fast so it's better to create distance by step dodging and jumping away from them and then immediately close in for an attack in the second or so opportunity you have before his next onslaught. He's surprisingly vulnerable to direct hits. I love how the game gives you options. You can fight him like a pro and deflect his every move but also by creating and closing distance or playing dirty by throwing fistful of ash in his face. The combat is simply incredible.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I?m only in the estate map, but even so at that early point there is no way every basic enemy can be stealthed unless you lure each one individually into an area far enough from the rest. You can get the jump on maybe half of a group of six in certain areas, but then for me it turns into a game of kill ?em quick before another one?s fire arrow hits you. It feels awesome taking out a group, especially using the grapple and skills.

I could stealth kill most of the mooks, and the ones I couldn't I could pummel till their posture broke. This becomes especially easy once you get certain skills, like the shuriken follow-up slash. The only time I had real trouble was at the little overlook that has four or so fire archers shooting at you. And that just feels hard because it's impossible to get through unscaved.

I kinda agree on the red signs, but it basically boils down to learning their tells which are so far pretty forgivingly telegraphed. I suppose it?d be back to being too easy if each one was color coded.

I can't say I find it too well telegraphed, since the different attack animations don't look distinct enough from eachother until they actually hit. Color coding would've made it too easy, but using a different weapon or maybe just a different hand to signify a stab, grab, or sweep could've made it clearer to anticipate while still requiring fast reflexes from the player. Now whenever I spot that red icon and hear that 'thoom' noise my initial reaction is 'oh shit, dodge', and the next second I'll realize I should've actually performed a jump kick. As it is it feels like a crapshoot most of the time. Just changing that accompanying sound would've probably been enough.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'm starting to think the problem with Sekiro is that mini-bosses do too much damage.

The bosses seem to do less damage per attack than the mini-bosses do. I could take 4 or sometimes more hits from Gyoubu Oniwa (horse boss) without dying but every mini-boss I've fought kills me in 2 hits.

This causes the problem that you don't get enough time to learn the enemy pattern before you die, and a fight might only last a few seconds and then you have to clear out all the enemies around the mini-boss again before you have another chance of fighting him.

It creates a weird difficulty curve where I'm way more nervous fighting the mini-bosses than I am the actual bosses. I guess in theory this is supposed to be balanced by the fact that you can stealth attack mini-bosses to get rid of half their health, but honestly their health pools don't really matter once you know the timing of their attacks and their tells. I'd rather be able to take more hits against a mini-boss and not be able to backstab them, since then I'd get more chances to get good at actually fighting them.

 

[CritialGaming]

This [https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/comments/b5l7sp/this_game_makes_a_lot_more_sense/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app] pretty much sums up what could end up being my biggest wtf complaint about the game. I know it?s part of the design to be ?difficult?, but logic certainly doesn?t seem to apply a whole lot when you?re so consistently fragile and underpowered next to ?late game scrubs?.

Other than that, VaatiVidya has a pretty good collection of tips. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=zT35HWy_qvQ]

 

[PapaGreg096]

I really enjoy this game but my god do you need a lot of tips to surive the game.

 

[meiam]

Other than that, VaatiVidya has a pretty good collection of tips. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=zT35HWy_qvQ]

Well shit, the thing I was most excited about was the removal of i-frame, turned out not only did they not remove them they added them to jump too and increased enemy tracking.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I am likely the game a bit more and more each time I play as I'm still learning the ins and outs of combat. I still really hate the lock-on system and fighting multiple enemies. I'm pretty sure that option of not locking onto the next enemy after killing one does completely nothing because it still locks on to the next enemy for me when disabled.

VaatiVidya has a pretty good collection of tips. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=zT35HWy_qvQ]

Sekiro seems like it does much of what Dark Souls was always supposed to be about, learning each enemy and deliberate combat. You can't just dodge and spam R1 so you have to actually learn enemy attacks and animations. The fact that you have to be far more careful with hitting R1 means it accomplishes what Souls was always trying to do, which is make you consider each and every attack and animation you perform. Thus, Sekiro is better deliberate combat even though its far faster paced than Souls.

Well shit, the thing I was most excited about was the removal of i-frame, turned out not only did they not remove them they added them to jump too and increased enemy tracking.

I don't get the hatred of i-frames, I very much doubt there's a single good action game that doesn't have i-frames. That's because it's so very hard to make super accurate hitboxes along with perfect tracking of those hitboxes. Even in the most polished looking games where you see the enemy and where the enemy is in the game code can be 2 completely different places let alone the exact coordinates of the enemy's sword and your character's ducking head or whatever. You really do need i-frames to get games like this out the door and combat feeling anywhere near good. Sure I'd prefer the perfect scenario of not needing i-frames, but it just isn't feasible.