Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019)

What a disappointment. If this is really what inspired Nine Sols, then Red Candle are to be commended. This... is not very good? I'm trying but I cannot see how this game has received such universal acclaim. Besides the terrible onboarding I mentioned in a previous status, I'm now having to deal with the stealth, which is not great.

Stealth in non-stealth games is always tricky but I don't understand what's it doing here.

First, it feels terrible. Enemy AI is not up to the task, sometimes being completely deaf and blind to an epic battle going on next to them behind a wall, or knowing exactly where you are even without line of sight (as seems to be the case with ranged enemies, who can follow you behind walls and shoot the wall precisely where you are). Tall grass hides you, but also blocks most of your sight, so it's hard to see where enemies are. The ceramic shards don't appear to actually distract enemies and I don't even know how to aim them. In summary, the stealth (at least in the early game) is just plain bad.

If stealth was just tacked-on and not necessary none of this would be a problem, but level design seems to encourage stealth at every turn. You've got elite enemies surrounded by minions, so the optimal strategy is to stealth kill all the minions and start the fight with the miniboss with a stealth attack. So after slowly and safely dealing with the minions, invariably you (or at least I) get killed by the general and you need to do the whole thing again --slow, tedious and not good-- before getting to the actual challenge.

All of this is so frustrating because I do want to engage with the combat system. What little I was able to see looks good and complex. The deathblow system seems to be a good way of dealing with bosses: if you prove that you master their attacks by parrying everything, then you basically bypass their health bar.

I might give it a couple more tries and if it doesn't click, then I guess this kind of game is just not for me.

After loving Nine Sols and reading everyone saying that it's like Sekiro I decided to play Sekiro. Just a few hours in and I don't know what are people drinking. It feels nothing like Nine Sols. Nine Sols combat is fast, agressive, instantly going from parry to attack to talisman. This is much slower and defensive, waiting for the enemy's openings. The timing of the parry also feels completely different. It's not bad, just... not what I expected.

Also, I'm suspecting that FromSoft's hand in design is overrated. From everyone saying how great they are, here I am, fighting the Chained Ogre with its absolutely bullshit grab attacks. You start the fight and get a prompt telling you about grab attacks and how to dodge them. "Ok", I think, "this miniboss is clearly here to tutorialise grab attacks". After countless attempts, I still don't understand grab attacks because whether I manage to dodge them seems to be complete random.

But then I google the bastard and everyone says that this is an intentionally bullshit fight that is trying to tell you to go to some place called Hirata.... What? How? How is a grab-heavy enemy after a gigantic grab tutorial is supposed signify that you shouldn't learn to avoid grabs and instead piss off somewhere else? The game has been pretty much linear at this point, btw, so I didn't even know that pissing off was a possibility.

Also... is it so unbelievable that after a deathblow I still want to fight the same enemy? Why do I lose my lock on?

I think I'm starting to get the hang of things now, 27 hours in 😂. The mini-bosses are starting to get a bit easier for me though they still require quite a few attempts. The Long Shadow Longswordsman dude took me maybe 15 tries (I didn't realize until I looked up some tips on the fight that his kick is actually a thrust that can be Mikiri countered), and Ashina Elite Jinzuke Saze only took me about 5 tries. I took out the Samurai General in Ashina Castle on the first attempt (after doing a stealth deathblow to steal his first dot without a fight). The Long-arm Centipede guy took me probably 15 tries as well (he basically only has one attack that does 10 strikes you need to time your deflections on well), he and longswordsman one I just mentioned were pretty frustrating due to the super small, confined space that the fight took place in, often allowing you to get pinned in a corner if you're trying to escape a barrage (I guess the lesson being: don't try to escape). I still need to go back and face Seven Ashina Spears (I skipped this one after a few attempts because you have to kill a few guys first to make sure they don't join in while facing the mini-boss) and I also skipped Snake Eyes Shirafuji after I started Sunken Valley a little too early and tried maybe 15 times to beat her (I think I took one dot from her once). I surprised myself by getting Genichiro's two dots on only my second attempt, but of course then he turns into his lightning-sword form, so I'm not done with that one yet.

So far a very fun and rewarding game.

Many Souls parallels but also completely unique in terms of theming, RPG elements, and combat. Through the first 10 hours so far, still going through the brutal process of learning the ropes. Just finished off the Shinobi hunter in the Hirata Estate flashback. It feels a bit like I cheated since I used stealth to get rid of his first dot and then the Mikiri Counter made the second dot achievable after losing maybe 5 times to him before acquiring that skill.

Even after this much time in the game and spending a fair amount of time practicing with the training dude at the dilapidated temple, I still feel like I'm having trouble recognizing quickly enough when to deflect, jump, or sidestep, so much of the time I'm still panic pressing deflect or dodge and hoping I guessed correctly.

Anyone have tips on how to get better at this? Does the symbol that appears above your head give some clue or is it as simple as just pausing to look at the opponent's build-up?

I recently found out that I quit this game two boss fights away from the ending, by watching a speedrun. However I will not return, as towards the end the games structure has become similarly non-linear as with the Souls games. I have the patience to retry a boss over and over, but not when in the back of my head I know that there are other things in the game I could be doing right now. Maybe it’s a form of decision paralysis/fatigue?

I loved the game initially, when the game was linear. But after a certain boss the game splits into several paths, which was increasingly frustrating.