Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019)

The other day I decided to compute the average Sekiro frame. Last night as I was going to bed I realised that instead of just computing a simple average, I could play with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the frames. PCA is a statistical method that (in broad term) extracts a series of "contrasting" features that most describe the whole dataset.

It's more understandable by just looking at some of the results. These are the 21st first Principal Components of Sekiro.

(I did it using grayscale images, because I don't know how to do this for RGB, but I'm sure there's got to be a way. )

Each panel is the "typical" image corresponding to a particular component. The first three are not very interesting. The first one is just a uniform image, because it captures the difference between overall bright and overall dark frames.

So, here are the three frames with the highest value (left) and lowest value (right) on this component. Yes, the frames on the left are just all black.

The second and third component are also not super interesting. They represent the brightness difference between top and bottom part of the frame and the left and right part of the frame respectively.

Here are three representative images of the positive (left) and negative (right) third component.

Now, the fourth component is when it starts getting interesting. It clearly shows the item pop-up. We can confirm this by looking at some representative images.

So, positive values of this component are "detecting" item pickups. If we plot the 4 component value of each frame, there are a bunch of very positive spikes.

I tried to count the number of item pickups detected, but it's hard. I think that only sampling 1000 frames from an 8hour longplay of the game might miss on most item pickups, which are very brief events.

Finally, I'll end with the fifth component. This one has a distinct pattern of horizontal strips at the top and bottom of the frame... can you guess what it means?

Letterboxed cinematics! These appear mostly at the start and second third of the game.

Anyway, that's fun! I might try this with other games. It would also be nice to do this in colour, since grayscale might be losing some important information, although maybe not with sekiro, which doesn't have a particularly wide color palette.

This is the average Sekiro frame.

(I downloaded a longplay from youtube, extracted 1000 frames and average them out; you can see the channel logo on the bottom right).

Kind of cool to see what takes more of your time. Main character clearly visible in the centre. Life bar to the left, with a gradient for the higher values, which you only unlock later in the game. The big boxy dialogue that appears when grabbing items can also be seen in the middle of the screen. Above, the boss life bar and posture bar, the skill progression and even the save icon.

The second replay, now that I know hat I'm doing feels night and day, especially the early game.

The annoying stealth mechanics? Not that annoying because I barely need to engage with them. I don't need them as much because I can kill basic enemies with ease and I don't to repeat them because I don't fail as often.

The terrible tutorialisation? Not an issue because I don't need the tutorials.

I can only imagine, that this is much closer to most people's experience with the game, since most players --and especially reviewers-- are probably FromSoft "veterans' (or at least had some experience with the previous games).

As I play a second playthrough to beat the different endings and optional bosses, I'm still frustrated by the perilous attack UI.

Having the same big symbol for every type of perilous attack is super annoying. I could understand the idea maybe being that you need to observe the enemy to decide, but in that case, why plaster the screen with a huge distracting symbol that actually makes it harder for the player to see what the enemy is doing?

Why not use a more diegetic indicator that is part of the enemy attack? A similar red tint in their weapon for example? That would clue the player that a perilous attack is coming while also more directly pushing the player attention towards what the enemy is doing.

It feels like I'm close to the end. Got to second phase Isshin. The fight was amazing. Once I got the patterns more or less right, the whole phase felt like the dance that I was promised.

A wonderful series of attacks and deflect to the rhythm of crossing blades. Sooo satisfying. Second phase got me dead pretty quick. That fucker's got a gun now?! 🤣

Shame that the fight is now gated by that pushover Genichiro. He was dead on my first attempt and I've now beaten him without taking a single hit several times.

It was surprisingly easy and also kind of boring. For the most part you can just whale at him, Mikiri-counter a few attacks and done.

So, yeah, this is another plea to developers to let us skip boss phases that have become trivial and repetitive. Long-ass bossruns are not fun, and "solved" phases are essentially bossruns. Let us enjoy the part that we find challenging and rewarding, not the parts that became routine.

I've just killed the Shichimen Warrior in the Fountainhead Palace and I'm debating whether to quit the game. This whole area and that miniboss in particular highlights so many things that are completely broken with this game. The sniper enemy that can shoot you an electric attack from anywhere in the map if you go into the water, even in areas with no line of sight. The same enemy will kill you if you fall into the water in an area without any means of leaving the water, so you're forced to warp back to an idol if you slip. The totally inconsistent enemy AI, that can pin point your location even behind walls at the same time that cannot see you when you walk right next to them.

That Shichimen Warrior was just terrible. Once I managed to get a deathblow from above, but then I spent so many lives jumping on him only for the red dot never to appear again. Tried from different angles. Jumping, crouching, different heights. Nothing. I had to google to learn that, for god know what reason, you need to first get him aggro, then lose him and only then you can get the deathblow. Nothing about that makes any sense in context and no other enemy in the game so far required this.

Then I needed to use a limited item just to do any damage, at which point the fight was just mash attack and win. Also that purple beam clips through the level to hit you exactly where you are but it doesn't hit if you're right in front of the guy. Extremely disappointing; it felt like a broken fight from a beta. This is not difficulty, it's just... buggy gameplay.

And the fact that when I went to read what people thought about this area I see almost universal acclaim makes me realise that clearly I have no idea what people see in this game. I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode.

Anyway. It's sad, because I really like the core combat in this game but there is so much other bullshit that get in the way and either I don't like or feels broken.