Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - From Software and Hidetaka Miyazaki's new game for PS4, XBone, PC

it's definitely more explicit in terms of its storyline. I found it very atmospheric, and I think the environment is as ingenious as that in DS1, possibly more so as it changes over the course of the game as the plot pushes on. I agree about the combat, it's an absolute joy to take out a boss that you had previously thought was invincible, even more so than the Souls games as there's no recourse to outside help and little scope for cheesing.

I did the last boss and the fire demon, both of which were worthwhile and my most memorable parts of the game. That could just be because they were at the end, but it's probably because they took the longest to learn.

(I think I did use the flame umbrella on the demon, which protects you from the move where he jumps into the sky)

Also this series is essential viewing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mmP5jOWemI

scrub dojo - this sounds like my dojo

xxp okay I will go back and give it another go (or 100 goes!), does that vide provide some useful hints?

video!

enter the dojo

I don't think he's made videos about those last bosses yet, but lots of good info about the mechanics and entertainment value is high imo. There are plenty of other videos of other people doing it if you're into that.

Looking upthread apparently it took me at least three hours to learn the final boss. :) I'm sure if I started Sekiro again today it would take me quite awhile to get back into the rhythm of it.

I suspect this is next in my queue ...

And I'm in! Just did the intro stuff, more or less. It's going to take some getting used to how fast this game is, even compared to "Bloodborne." It's a huge relief (at least for now) that all the arcane RPG stats n stuff doesn't seem to play a huge role, because that always made me anxious.

Bookmarked.

It's now been awhile since I've played this (never went back to it), but yeah iirc the special skills and tools aren't really required (with a couple of basic exceptions), but just make things easier.

The current top Any% speedrun for Sekiro is 19m 55s, so if you take longer than that you're doing it wrong imo

Oh, I'm totally doing it wrong.

i think i made it to the TWO MONKEYS stage and that did it

Hmm, maybe I spoke too soon. I'm in the first village and the first mini boss, or at least tougher soldier, is giving me a little bit of trouble, because I was being impatient, thinking there were fewer repercussions than in a Souls game. But I think I'm wrong. You lose half your accumulated HP, it seems, and there must be a catch to resurrections, because why would it give me the option? I'm assuming the HP you get from enemies is how you level up, but I suspect there are some malignant mechanics are work that I am as of yet unaware of. Hopefully reversible!

did you check out one of those "10 things you should know the first time you play Sekiro" kind of guides or are you going in cold? i'm trying to remember if there was some deal with death that had irreversible consequences (though not gamebreaking ones), but i never played this one. maybe it the system in Mortal Shell (which i didn't finish).

anyway, might be worth taking a look at one just in case!

I glanced at one, and my big takeaway was "use your items" and "be aggressive." But yeah, I think there was a downside to coming back from the dead? Though I suppose it might be worth it to come back from the dead if it means keeping your Souls or whatever they are here (XP). Like a Devil's bargain. I'll look into it.

You don't need to worry about it too much. There's an item you can get to deal with it.

https://www.polygon.com/sekiro-guide/2019/3/25/18281289/sekiro-rot-essence-dragonrot-cure-item

Yeah, I think I need to follow a walkthrough. I was hoping to try it relatively on my own, but I'm barely into it and I'm already knee deep in esoteric lore, the statue carver is sick because of me, I keep getting items with mysterious uses, and praying to a statue of Buddha sent me back in time three years. Plus I'm going to have to get a lot better at fighting, though at least the first mini boss stays dead!

Don't worry about resurrecting, it's part of the game (and plot).

And yeah it takes time to get used to the combat, that's the whole thing. Iirc hp is a red herring (for bosses), it's all about breaking their posture.

The trickiest thing so far is that in a lot of ways the combat is the *opposite* of Dark Souls. There are shields in DS but they are rarely useful, and Bloodborne gets rid of the shield entirely; in Sekiro, it actually benefits you to keep your block up all the time. In DS, rushing in at an enemy is a surefire way to get killed; in Sekiro, keeping up the pressure and pounding away seems to be a better strategy than giving the enemy time to regain their composure. In DS, you are more or less immune when you roll; in Sekiro, dodging and rolling and getting out of the way allows the enemy to regenerate posture. In DS, parrying was a helpful skill that makes certain specific fights and enemies easier; in Sekiro, parrying is essentially key to combat, even at the most basic level. In DS, your stats give you an upper hand, and you can farm to improve your power; in Sekiro, you're at the mercy of your mastery of timing. I suppose in this one it's balanced out a bit by giving you a grappling hook hand and dispensing with stamina.

So yeah, gonna take a bit to get used to this.

Well, I'll say this much: at least I know what I'm in for. I've been fighting the chained ogre mini boss for a while now and my impatience has been my downfall. The first ten times it killed me with one hit I should have gotten the message that I should not let him touch me, but he's well within reach.

So, the dragon rot that everyone has (because of me), does that have a negative impact aside from lowering my odds of getting some stuff back after death?

https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Dragonrot

Yeah, that's the site I'm going to have to start using. The thing about these From games, even with guides and help it's still super challenging!

Yesterday I made my first I think irreversible mistake. I was in the area three years in the past and killed a looter NPC (while I was on a panic-mode kill everything spree), and after realizing what I did learned he becomes a vendor "later" (that is, present-day) in the game. The thing is, I think I met him already. So if I met him first, *then* killed him in the flashback (or whatever it is), is he gone? I guess I can check and if so may possibly just start over. Now that I am a little more confident I think I can speed through what I've done so far relatively quickly, and then by the time I get back to the Chained Ogre have the patience to just kick his ass properly.

Yeah I think he's gone for good, but you could get by without him if you didn't want to start over. Or, you're right that I'm sure you could get back to that spot very quickly if you really don't want to miss out on anything.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of killing NPCs, at least not accidentally. I think I did it on purpose a few times in the first Dark Souls, killing the vendor to get the fancy sword and pushing a knight off a cliff much later to get ... something, I can't remember. But killing them for no good reason seems like stabbing yourself in the foot, especially so early in the game. No benefit, only pain. Plus, they're fun to interact with in otherwise lonely games.

Looking at my posts upthread, here are some random things that I apparently learned at some point:

1) You can do a charged thrust attack by holding down R1 (I had no idea)

2) For the secret doors in this game, you have to hug the wall

3) Btw I switched the controls so that up on the d-pad changes prosthetics, and triangle heals (so you can keep moving while healing), that helped a lot.

It's going to crazy if Elden Ring introduces Sekiro-style counters and jumping over low attacks, which it sounds like it does.

I ended up starting over, and it wasn't too bad. Still had trouble with the chained ogre, whose reach was insane, but after I learned to keep my distance it went better. As always, battling the camera is half the, er, battle. Also, did more of the flashback and got two more prosthetics, which helped. Definitely going to swap the d-pad and triangle, though, that's a great idea.

I actually figured out charged attack on my own, for once, but goddam ... more secret doors!?

I've seen some debate over which From game is the hardest, but at least as far as early game goes this one is *significantly* more challenging than the others. For every little tweak that makes things a little easier (the ability, even encouragement, to zip away fast and hide from enemies, for example) there are some serious offsets (enemies so aggro and strong and numerous you *need* to run away and hide, for example). The early game feels a bit like the Old Hunters DLC in Bloodborne, where the game is just not messing around, and you have to deal with sharper AI and more aggressive tactics. Except that here you are pretty unpowered and, er, underarmed, compared to the time you reach that DLC, which calls for a completely novel approach to tactics and strategy. It's pretty neat that they were able to reinvent everything, but boy it can be tricky. So far of the three or four mini bosses I've faced each has had a specific weakness that 1) wasn't always obvious 2) needed exploration to figure out and 3) didn't always help all that much. And all could more or less one or two shot me.

And the Dragonrot stuff is mostly annoying (so far). I was able to cure it once, so it looks like every time it builds up I need to find one of the infected NPCs, get a blood sample, bring it back to Emma, and then get a dragon's blood droplet. But at the rate I'm dying it's pretty inevitable that all of these NPCs will eventually be suffering from Dragonrot.

Yeah I would agree with that, all the other games give you so many different ways to do it (magic, ranged, poise, shields, dodge, summon friends, etc). You pretty much have to meet Sekiro on its own terms.

This might help if you're stuck on a boss or section:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCUGQbM4UVA

y'all are gonna make me go back to this game aren't you

xpost I don't think I'm quite ready for that insanity, and hopefully it is relatively far off.

Made some modest progress, by my similarly modest standards. Killed the shinobi hunter on my first try, which was satisfying, killed General Tenzen Yamauchi after a few tries that taught me patience above all else. Made some more progress in Hirata Estate (to the fire and my father to get a key), explored some caves near the General's compound, where there was also an optional enemy I was tipped off by a guide to avoid. Managed my first prayer bead upgrade, too, which should help for a minute or two.

Another observation: this game seems designed *not* to reward farming, or at least to reward it much less than the other From games. It takes a while to get even one skill point, and of course if you die (which is easy enough) you lose half your progress.

OK, now we're cooking with gas. Got past the giant snake (it never killed me, but leaping to my death did), and just took down my first boss! Maybe ... three or four tries? So far the best strategy on mini bosses and bosses seems to be keeping your distance, but then finding windows of opportunity to be hyper, hyper aggressive. In this case, I used the firecracker trick and the grappling hook, which ... yeah, if I didn't check out a guide this fight would have been dire, like one of the tougher DS bosses. Looks like it unlocked a bunch of abilities to explore, so I'll do that next time I play.

BTW, not sure I like the titular "die twice" mechanic, which I'm sure will turn out to be a plot point but for now is just kind of weird to deal with. You kill the enemy, but then have to kill them ... again. Why not just give it two phases? Also, dragonrot: I've cured it once, so it doesn't seem like it for sure be a huge problem the next time it comes up, but I was wondering how many times you have to resurrect or die or whatever for dragonrot to spread. Like, if you go a long time without dying and resurrecting, is there an invisible counter somewhere that resets? Or is it kind of a cumulative effect that you can't impede? Could you be, say, 5/6 on the invisible dragonrot meter, go a long stretch without resurrecting, and then once you hit number 6, bam, dragonrot?

I really loved that snake part the first time I saw it. I thought the game was just going to be a bunch of dudes fighting each other until then.

I do like that you only seem to incur modest fall damage here, and only in egregious circumstances, and that you can swim, too. Those are some nice changes from previous From games. I hope there are some perma-buff items coming up that will boost my power and give me at least a little more of an advantage over at least smaller dudes. I know I unlocked a latent skill that I *think* helps me heal a little with every deathblow? I should test that out. For all I could tell that helped me with the boss on a a horse, these fights are so fast and frantic.

OK, I killed the Giant Drunkard, then I backtracked to the Bull, which is ... pretty energetic, to say the least. I have a feeling it will take me some time, but I think if I went the other way, back to Hirata, the next (only?) boss there is apparently another roadblock for many, so I have to pick my punishment, I guess.

God I fuckin loved this game

I take it back, the bull wasn't too bad, or at least I got really lucky. I was playing not locked on and I kind of got trapped in a corner with it, so for most of the fight it was, in true Dark Souls fashion, slash at its butt, pivot, slash at its butt, pivot, etc. Went on for that long enough that I started to get a little freaked out, honestly, until I finally got nudged from my magic spot and almost killed. Backed off, healed, dove in and finished it off! Explored a tiny bit further, unlocked I think three (!) more idols, and suddenly there are lots of routes to go.

Yeah the bull felt weirdly like a Dark Souls boss, I remember playing unlocked and running around in a ridiculous manner. Apparently you can deflect/parry the bull, but that's too scary.

I'm sure I deflected it once or twice by spamming the button, but the bull is such a spazz it's hard to know what to do with any fleeting window of opportunity. I did almost die to the enemies that immediately showed up after before I realized what was going on.

Like, someone yells "the enemy is not dead!" or something like that, and my immediate thought was that the bull was coming back to life. Then I realized, wait, *I'm* the enemy, and guys with swords were trying to kill me.

OK, getting stronger now. Took out the next general at the castle, fought a bunch of PIA roof ninjas while hopping from house to house. Unlocking more skills and got some more gourds. Explored a dungeon and fought zombies, this game's version of DS skeletons, I guess, because they come back unless you do extra kill stuff (that I had to look up).

I do find this game pretty manic at times, which is very different from the long spooky stretches in DS and Bloodborne. Everything is just so aggro that I feel a bit like a human pinball.

This dragonrot mechanic is total bullshit. It's bad enough that when you die you lose half your (non-banked) XP and money, but then after x number of deaths everyone gets dragonrot, and until you cure it (which is admittedly easy enough) you can't advance their quests or make them do the thing you want/need them to do. It's just an annoying roadblock, an irritant. Related, I was losing to my first of those blue samurais, which are pretty tough and fast and force you to focus on your parry, and given the choice to revive or just die I figured, eh, I'll just die. I'm right by the idol and don't have much stuff, anyway, and besides, I don't want to add to the dragonrot meter. So I choose "die" and immediately, blam, like five people get dragonrot anyway. wtf? If dying a lot alone is enough to spread dragonrot, then there's going to be a lot of dragonrot.

Just beat the Ashina Elite mini-boss, who was my first double red dot I took down without a a free stealth-kill gimme first. Some of these more frenetic fighters almost reward spamming, since they're so fast you're bound to deflect a chunk of their attacks. Or maybe not. Either way, this dude's attack rhythm was slightly easier to time than I expected.

And *now* I think I'm on the cusp of a couple of tough legit bosses.

Just fought Lady Butterfly for the first time. I died (of course), but I did almost make it through the second phase. Granted, I had no more estus and was out of spirit emblems, but still! A good start.

Lady Butterfly is down! Wasn't *too* bad, all things considered. I was worried I would use up all my snap seeds, but I ended up killing her without needing them. Took about ... 8 tries? (Seems pretty early in the game for such cut-scene *drama*, too.) Anyway, my early (I assume) take is that this might be my least favorite of the From games I've played, but it's still fun.

Another early game qualm I have with this game: On one hand, "Sekiro" actively encourages stealth play with grappling points, tall grass, resetting enemies, stealth deathblows, eavesdropping, etc. On the other hand, mastering the parry mechanism is really the only way to progress, and the only way to master the parry is to fight enemies, not to avoid them or sneak up on them. Sure, the game gives you the zombie sparring partner for practice, but I find him pretty tedious. The flipside is that actual enemies, while much more challenging and productive, are also, you know, very potentially lethal, so while you might get better dying to them over and over again to get better at parrying, there is the downside of dragonrot, losing money, reloading, starting an area all over again, and so on, which is also kinda tedious. It forces a frustrating trade off: speed vs. skill. The easier way is also often the faster way, so you're rewarded in expediency but punished for skipping much needed parry practice. The hard way helps you hone your skills, but it's also sometimes a little boring to fight the same scrubs over and over again when you know there may be an easier alternative.

Compare that to Dark Souls, where the parry, while unnecessary, makes things much easier, a reward for learning to fight better, though even in the faster DS3 and Bloodborne the parry is just one of many options. Here the parry more or less is *necessary,* which makes even the basic enemies tougher, but that also risks turning "Sekiro" into (as others have pointed out) something of a rhythm game. Which Dark Souls et al. sometimes had going on as well, but it was never *key* to the combat to totally memorize slash-slash-parry-slash-parry-parry. Those aforementioned "so many different ways to do it (magic, ranged, poise, shields, dodge, summon friends, etc)" makes things a bit easier, sure, but they also make things a bit more varied and interesting.