I find combat satisfying enough to return playing it from time to time. Also you didn't talk about No Kuro's Charm which actually makes combat even more worth mastering.
Regarding lore stuff and some explanations and interpretations of it I made. 1. I think it went like this - Owl fakes his death in order to backstab you because you are too loyal to Kuro and would be someone that Kuro can rely upon and hope for your help - with you out of the picture he could monopolize the Divine Heir for himself (same thing Genichiro tries to do by killing you). In second Hirata memory heavily implied that Owl was responsible for the whole attack. I don't think getting you ressurected was his plan. He is genuinly surprised you are alive but also tries to uphold a facade. 2. About Isshin - I think it's because Isshin can't or doesn't want to directly undermine Genichiro's authorithy (who is the acting leader of Ashina's troops), which is why he helps you personally but doesn't issue any orders for the soldiers. 3. About Shura being abrupt and Sekiro being bland - I do think they may have communicated that a bit better, but overall I think that if you connect the dots and use your imagination to interpret them a bit that isn't true. It can feel weird that listening to your father makes you into Shura - someone who has no purpose but killing for pleasure. But if Wolf was listening to his father and upholding the Iron Code than that should be his purpose, right? Well the only possible explanation I have is that at this point he doesn't care about his father or the Iron Code. As for the Iron Code - he clearly still cares about it at the start of the game, but when you choose to stay loyal to Kuro Wolf states that he thinks that every individual must follow their own code. So at that point he is already disillusioned with the Iron Code but depending on your choice you can either follow Kuro's ideals or follow the Iron Code you don't really believe in. As for Owl - I think that Wolf hates Owl, but still thinks of him as someone close. Well for one judging from his dialogues and personality I imagine Owl to be an abusive and manipulative father, but that's guesswork. But I think that there is evidence that Wolf knows full well that it was Owl who backstabbed him - for one in the cinematic before the Great Shinobi fight he guards against Owl, so he probably is expecting that. Second and stronger argument is that in the Japanese language (according to something I read about Sekiro's translation on some blog) Owl's death dialogue ("Death of a shadow" "You taught me well" "Good job my boy") goes more something like "Death of a shadow" "I pay you back for the last time" "Good job my boy". Seeing Owl alive after seeing him "die" must have also been a clue. But if that's the case, if you choose to obey Owl you are obeying someone you know you betrayed you and hate. Also probably it must mean that Wolf does like killing - he grew as a war orphan and was adopted by Owl and made into a shinobi. Violence was his entire life and probably that's what he mostly associated himself with. What kept him in check and gave him purpose before was serving a master and obeying the Code, which later got replaced by Kuro's ideals. He maybe didn't intend to betray Owl when he took his side. But the person he cared most about and his mission got replaced by a man who he hates and betrayed him and a code that he doesn't believe. I think that he finally slipped when he killed Emma and discovered it just felt good on it's own. Regarding his relationship with Owl - I really like to interpret the second Hirata fight as a dramatisation of Wolf's inner struggle to overcome his trauma and father complex. This is Owl at his prime, a living martial legend, but he is no longer called a Great Shinobi, but a Father. For me "Father surpassed" means that Wolf is free at last from the influence that Owl had on him even after his death. He comes to peace with what a terrible man he was, that he made him into a mindless killing machine and a tool, tied his freedom and conscience by forcing the Iron Code on him, that he betrayed him and killed him and that they fought to the death and Wolf had to kill the closest thing to a Father he had. He surpasses Owl literally - in combat and emotionally - by no longer being bound by him. That may be a false narrative that I've come up with because I myself had an abusive father, but I really like it and it resonates with me and I'm not gonna force it on anyone. That carries over to the Purification ending - my favourite. Wolf needs to make peace with himself and his death in Hirata estate to be able to give it away for Kuro. I find it quite beatiful, because in two other good endings he still follows a master and his sense of duty, but here he makes his own decision and gives up his life to save someone because he cares about them. (It could also be argued that he makes it out of his duty to protect Kuro) It also makes sense because Wolf should be dead without Kuro - he would have died in Hirata Estate, but now he can lend his life back to Kuro and die without regrets. There are also smaller details, like Wolf's hand shaking out of fear in first Genichiro fight cinematic and not doing so later, Wolf tasting actual tasty food for the first time, or some more I can't really remember well. But even if he's not much on the surface, there's more to him than meets the eye. All that stuff I said may not be what was intended and it's just headcanons, but I think that the very fact that he provoked so much thought in me says something and it's kinda unjust to just dismiss him as bland.
Thank you for the wonderful comment. I'll say, even if Owl thought Sekiro would abandon the Iron Code, he didn't give him the opportunity to make a choice in Hirata. We could disagree about the events of that night, but I think he did it intentionally so Sekiro would get the Oath from Kuro. I talk about it more in some of my other comments, but if Owl believes Wolf should follow the Iron Code, it would make way more sense to have given Sekiro the mission to get close to Kuro for the purpose of espionage or further exploitation. Even this would make Sekiro's betrayal feel more meaningful and do a better job characterizing him imo.
All in all, I give Sekiro a 10/10. Its fun factor has lead me to do multiple replays after my initial month long burst after it came out, where I did enough playthroughs to Platinum Trophy it on PSN. I then put it down for a full year. It's like riding a bike though. Every time I go and replay it, I remember how to play well enough that it doesn't really challenge me like it did on release. This is with starting on NG non-plus. The only real issue I have with it are The Headless. They are most of the problem when it comes to Divine Confetti, because you also want the Terror Gourds/Dust, and unlike a Shichimen, they enact the slow aura inhibiting your movement in their immediate vicinity. To top that off, their reward isn't very good, because they consume spirit emblems for a shorter duration candy buff. This has lead me to outright skip them on repeat playthroughs. And one last thing on Difficulty: I think that Sekiro's initial difficulty stems not just from the idea that you need to parry, but the fact that the game starts you off with terribly low healing item amounts, meaning you don't get a lot of mistake leeway to learn its systems without dying. Case and point, you start the game with critically low HP. When you are given the Healing Gourds, you are given a single gourd which barely brings you back up over half your HP. After that you are introduced to combat, and while you can find some pellets up above Kuro, you go into the tutorial in a worse state than any Souls game. And continues after the tutorial for quite some time. Compare to Dark Souls where you are given 5 renewable estus flasks as your first healing item, and it's easy to see why a lot of people had trouble. People still embraced grinding in Sekiro, because while you can't grind for levels, you can grind for skills and combat arts, a lot of which can fundamentally change the game if you realize how they interact with the enemies you are fighting (Think like, Mikiri Counter basically eliminating thrust deflect difficulty or Ichimonji staggering an enemy duing a problematic wind-up). What threw so many people off is that Fromsoft basically made the same game for 8 years, and then finally made something new. For all the similarities Sekiro has from its Souls series predecessors, it is not a Souls game.
I also skip the Headless every time I play this game. Weather its a 'new game' or a 'newgame+' playthrough, I always let out a "fuck you" and completely avoid any contact with that shit-shi stealing baby bitch Also have a good day
Sekiro had this weird thing where despite being a single player, shorter (than bloodborne at least) experience, having straightforward-ish lore and a more difficult learning curve, it keeps me going back again and again lmao. Like, i actually look forward to every boss encounter and even some mini-bosses as well in every NG cycle. Also, finding out new strats with the prosthetic tools, skills and combat arts to get through fights is exciting on its own. It can turn entire fights around completely. Adding onto that, the freedom of movement completely spoiled me lol. I remember going back to BB and being somewhat upset (but that is to be expected giving it's an older title). It's just soo satisfying to run around and circle an enemy so effectively in sekiro, not to mention all the added mechanics that some combat arts and passive skills bring to the table. Like, every fight feels very cinematic. As it stands, had i not discovered and played BB before, Sekiro might just have been my #1 favorite game of all time (right now it's #2 lol) What you said about owl is easily explained by reading through some items and memories, as well as inbetween the lines: Owl was a dick lol, and he wanted immortality more than anything in the world. He backstabbed his own adoptive son, faked his own death and betrayed the ashina clan to get help from the interior ministry, among other mischiefs.
The "every boss is fun" point is a really big one for me. As much as I love the core souls games and especially bloodborne, the fact I dislike roughly half the bosses makes them slogs to replay at times
@@ivanlagayacrus1891 despite loving it with all my heart, i agree that around half the bosses in BB's main story and even dlc are not that exciting or just straight up tiresome every NG cycle lol.
I was under the impression that Owl faked his death in order to sic Wolf on Lady Butterfly because she's forgoing him. I mean, he tells us to deal with Kuro's kidnapper, right? And when we kill Lady Butterfly she drops a Sakura Droplet, which indicates that she was attempting to form the Immortal Oath before we arrived. (Even a line she says at the start of the fight, "You'll die if you doubt yourself" can be interpreted as her implying that she's intending on putting her doubts behind and is just going for the immortality now.) We learn in the 2nd Hirata memory that Juzou and the other bandits were sent to the Hirata Estate by the Interior Ministry following a tip from Owl that the Estate's warriors would be absent for a while... However, though he gave them the tip, Owl's ambitions are not aligned with those of the Ministry. Odds are that he actually just wanted Juzou and his bandits to kill Lord Kuro's guardians and then for Wolf to kill Lady Butterfly. After that he would easily be able to kill Wolf on his own, thus making away with loose ends and any witnesses of the fact that he survived. Then Kuro would fall into the hands of the Ashina whereupon Owl would just need to wait a bit, so that Kuro would grow desperate. Aaand then Owl would pop up and convince Kuro to give him immortality so that he could take Kuro to safety... at least, that'd be the lie he'd tell Kuro. His real ambition was to become immortal, overthrow the Ministry and rule Japan... what he didn't foresee was that Kuro would give the immortality to Wolf instead. Also, about Isshin and Genichiro's relationship... I first of all don't think "Isshin may have just wanted to have the strongest person survive and lead the clan" represents a realistic perspective... The Ministry was intending on wiping the heretical land of Ashina off of the map, Isshin being the sole reason why they hadn't done so already. And while Isshin had made peace with the fact that whatever protection his life afforded his land would come to an end the moment he died and that the fate of Ashina would rest in the hands of other people from that moment onwards, the reason why Genichiro kept pestering Kuro for immortality was because, well, Genichiro was Ashina's best warrior second only to Isshin, and he was still only a midway-through-the-game boss. Genichiro knew that Ashina would not be able to stand against the might of the Interior Ministry without going to extreme lengths, and while Isshin clearly didn't approve of such methods, he couldn't really tell the others "nah, just let the Ministry wipe out everything Ashina is and ever was." After all, he was on his way out and the moment he died, it would fall upon the living to do with Ashina as they saw fit... but then Genichiro sacrificed himself to bring Isshin back in his prime, at which point he was no longer on his way out and now he had the strength to defend Ashina once more... though Isshin still didn't approve of Genichiro's methods, he kinda had to honour the path that his grandson had sacrificed his own life to see come to fruition...
I always thought that Isshin fight with you after Genichiro bring him back with the blade,because that is one of the blades effect..Kinda like at that point he dont have the will of his own. He says after crawling out of Genichiro: " Oh ,pitiful grandchild...so that was your final wish...to see Ashina return from the great beyond.." Sounds to me he dont want to do that ( as you said ,Isshin dont like Genichiro's plan) but he is forced. But you explained quite good :D
@@norbertcsaszar4746 There are no mentions in the game that the Black Mortal Blade has any such power tho... But the final wish of his grandson? A final wish that said grandson gave up his life for? That's something that would have a lot of power over an empathic man of honour and responsibility like Isshin... Also, keep in mind that Isshin had spent pretty much his entire life keeping Ashina from the great beyond. It's something he willingly started doing while the land's future was still fully in his hands, so I do not think he had anything against that particular part of Genichiro's plan... well, possibly aside from the fact that he had already done his part in keeping Ashina alive throughout his entire life. To be frank, I'd say Isshin, with his long life ruled by hardships and war, was due for getting his well-earned final rest by the time old age finally did him in... That said, a warrior's death? Of course he wouldn't say no to that, either.
@@GrahamChapman After you beat Genichiro Isshin says: " My grandson Genichiro was bewitched by the Rejuvenating Waters. You did well to put a stop to that for me. You have my thanks." I think he realize how dangerous Genichiro's plan is. But yeah,nothing says thats the Black Blade's blade,so you can be right,Isshin loves a good fight,and probably want to defend his country,but not by any means necessary.
@@norbertcsaszar4746 That is basically what I think, yes. Isshin was pragmatic when it came to combat, his fighting style was literally based on the philosophy that one should use whatever means one could (even if they were considered heretical) in order to win, but this clearly did not extend to _moral_ pragmatism: Killing another warrior in a life-or-death fight by pulling a gun at them and shooting them dead is one thing, embracing immortalities that are founded upon or lead to the death and ruination of one's own people is quite another, and with everything Isshin had seen over the course of his life, from Takeru and Tomoe's struggles with combating the curse of the Dragon's Heritage to Orangutan's fall to Shura's carnage... yeah, he wouldn't willingly accept to walk down Genichiro's path himself and would at least _attempt_ to sabotage other people's attempts at pursuing those methods.
The snap seed thing with lady butterfly was extremely weird and illogical. When I faced her illusions the first time, I used the snap seeds immediately. Then I died. And when fought her again, I didn't have them and thought I was screwed but I wasn't. And I never used Snap seeds again. Only found out this year they are useful against the corrupted monk spirit boss by watching others.
Same. I get the impression that illusion magic was going to be more important, but got mostly dropped. Then again, maybe this was the intended effect... That the npcs in game believe that the illusions are real and powerful, requiring a special item to stand any chance, but once you face them head on they wind up being little more than distractions. I don't know. I'm probably giving the game too much credit, but it seems like a weird oversight for Fromsoft when the obvious solution was to just not include snap seeds at all.
What’s immersion breaking is you’ve got guys walking past the corpses of their dead buddies and not reacting in the slightest. I’m not saying I want MGS stealth where I’ve gotta drag bodies into hiding spots, but it is a little weird that it plays out that way in Sekiro.
More serious comment: I notice you didn't really talk about prosthetics very much, other than the mention that they're not balanced all that well. I don't think the intent was for them to be super balanced, but to each fit whatever niche they were designed for really well, while having some small prospects outside of their main uses. As far as the story goes... If you do both Hirata Estates memories, then you find out that Owl killed Sekiro. At an undefined point afterwards, Kuro pulls the rubble off of Sekiro and gives him the Dragon Blood Contract, returning him to life. Part of Sekiro's story is that this impaired Wolf's memory. Putting 2 and 2 together, it would seem that Owl is surprised that Sekiro is alive, and also seems to realize he lost his memory (due to Wolf not immediately attacking him on sight). Basically, Owl's plan the whole time was to kill Wolf during the Hirata Estates incident, as Wolf had already grown to a point where he no longer obeyed Owl. So what we see on meeting Owl on top of Ashina Castle is Owl trying to take advantage of an amnesiac who he killed once before. On Item economy: I hated that I saw it this way, but I saw the Snap Seed scenario with the guard as a subtle tutorial in and of itself, because you can have Lady Butterfly as your first boss. The wounded guard gives you one snap seed, saying you need it. But with only one seed, it's not very effective. This might cause you to leave the memory and go the intended/expected route to Gyoubu, where you can find a few more, or cause you to realize that you don't need items for bosses, but that certain items CAN help during bosses in a similar manner to prosthetics, just more limited. With how you are completely unlimited in other ways(no stamina/infinite stamina) I don't really see it as an issue.
You can also just lead the apparitions away from you and then hide behind a pillar or run around to escape the homing butterflies... I honestly never saw snap seeds as useful until subsequent playthroughs, and i only use them to get through the fight faster lol
Right, but you get something like 5 more for that point in the game, meaning players really have about 6 attempts to kill Lady Butterfly with Snap Seeds available (and that's assuming you don't use 2 on a run.) No matter how weak a boss is, you shouldn't have a limited resource to deal with them because the worst player could try over 100 times to kill her.
Honestly, the only 2 "negatives" I had were Dragonrot and Unseen Aid. And they're not really negatives, just kinda pointless and underdeveloped. The rest of the game is literally a 10/10. Flawless combat, fun exploration. Also, people complain about the lack of build variety is a bit stupid. It's not an RPG, it's an action/adventure.
18:22 I was honestly baffled by this in game, I kept thinking I skipped over some chunk of content that explains why Isshin's people are trying to kill me. But at a certain point I just didn't care about anything in the story of Sekiro. This was like a puzzle game to my brain and I just wanted the satisfaction of solving each boss puzzle. I felt the themes were repetitive from prior entries and instead of researching some of the concepts rooted in Buddhism or Hinduism, I just plowed to the end regardless of how little sense it made. I wanted more time to hang out with Isshin and Blackhat.
@@traceursebas going against a natural order or cycle, impurity in fluids, vermin/centipedes representing corruption, experiments on people, children especially, the curse of immortality
found you from shades discord. This was my first software game and still my second second favorite. I really hope they make another skill-based game or a sequel.
It's an absolute shame that we might never get a dlc , if the vanilla game have bosses that compare to the likes of the slave knight and Ludwig I can't even fathom how good the dlc could be I disagree with the rating sekiro a 9/10 at least
There definitely will not be dlc, elden is out and in full swing as a massive hit. Sekiro is old news and a second game would make more sense at this point
I never had to farm for spirit emblems. Just use a little extra money every time you have a bit extra to buy some and you're good. I have like max always stored up especially if you do a little bit of farming for a skill point you want or something they build up fast. Way way way easier than vials in bb
Yeah. Blood vials I occasionally farmed. Only some enemies drop them and souls spent on vials aren't spent on level ups. With Sekiro more enemies drop emblems, and money is distinct from xp, and there's hardly any uses for money much of the time. And more punishing death penalty means I can't reclaim sen like I can souls.
I haven't player the game so when you were talking about divine confetti and snap seeds you forgot to explain what they do. I got the message but I'm curious about their utility and I can't really gauge their importance without knowing what they do.
Thanks. Snap Seeds make a loud sound which can "snap" the player out of an illusion, and Divine Confetti place an aura on Sekiro's sword allowing him to deal damage to undead things like ghosts. It'd be easy to mistake Divine Confetti for something like Fire Paper/Resin from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, but its use is more limited in Sekiro. Without it, you won't be able to kill certain enemies that are really strong...and since those enemies are really strong, it's easy to die and waste the buff.
Yeah... totally needed Divine Confetti to kill Shichimen Warrior >_>;;;; Totally didn't just use infinite sprint and to dodge the terror balls for 9 minutes while slowly widdling it down _>;
Funny how this was like their experimental game and it ends up being fucking amazing. Nothing has been come close to the gameplay mechanics in this game since
I liked gameplay overall , but I am not a fan of curse/ terror (or how it is called in Sekiro ) being part of mini bossfights and bossfights . I already have to deal with enemy attacks, manage health and posture bar. Make sure I have enough space to maneveur and last thing I need is status effect that is basically: you are dead no matter what. If you let this new bar fill up.
Yes,and thats why for me its behind all the Soulsborne games. I like this game (and yeah its not a Soulsborne game ) but after you master the fighting style,there is nothing to it,most of the bosses become a breeze. I'm at NG+2 right now and pushing for some achievements. I remember pushing Ds3 to NG+7 and on every new NG cycle i was like: okay lets use this big ass weapon i never used...Okay now use this janky trash weapon ...Now just miracles etc., and i'm really into challenges like bow only,no heal and the like,but here you really have nothing to do. No different weapons,hell,you cant even do prostetic only realistically (not even talking about how i almost never use prostetic tools cause most of them are,well not useless but sub-par). Isshin still beat me 2-3 times for sure tho.
I haven't played this game and I don't know why it terrifies me playing it. I think since I am bad, like dumb bad at timing attacks on enemies can be one reason. If that's the key of beating it, it won't be fun for me (I think) I'll be more frustrated than having fun. Still, I think is an awesome game that makes you feel like a real shinobi from what I can gather from who have played this.
It's not as hard as it sounds. The game rarely throws things at you out of left field, so if you're paying attention to how the main mechanic (posture) works, you'll be good. There's really nothing that can't be beaten thru memorization rather than reflexes. The parry windows are pretty generous, and even if you're bad, there's upgrades to be found thru exploration that will make you stronger, and the game gives plenty of places to go after the initial area, so you can tackle it at your own pace and order.
I was worried about the same. I can parry in ds1 a bit, never got good with it. Never learned it at all in ds2 or 3. Was quite good in Bloodborne. It's quite easy in Sekiro. Takes learning, of course. But timings are much more forgiving and a failed deflect often turns into a succesful block. I recommend you give it a try unless you're still very apprehensive.
I was so stoked for the trailer thinking it may be Bloodborne II. However it's a ninja Game, ok that's cool. Omg I suck! Ohh you can cheez Lady Butterfly with the same move and hmm I'm still not Gud. Guess I'll put this down for like.. years
First off, good work on the reviews. I've been slowly going through them, and they've been quite good. On this one in particular you put many of my own thoughts down pretty well, so I'd agree with it's 8/10 rating. It's one of my favorite games, but it's a game with lots of shortcomings; on the other hand, those are shortcomings, not flaws, so while it does feel the game needed some more time in the oven, it never feels broken, and what's there can be promptly enjoyed if you get into it. (I'll be putting my own thoughts down here, read at your own risk as it got very long. Sorry?) As for what I think the root cause of those issues is, I'd have to blame FromSoft's own experience as an ARPG developer over an action game developer. Sekiro certainly did a lot to separate itself from Souls games and be its own type of action adventure game, but many of the same design philosophies carried over, and mostly worked to the detriment of the game. Prosthetics and combat arts are the best example of this. Combat being the main feature of the game, you'd think getting more abilities would really change the gameplay. But because of the way they're limited and balanced, they don't. As a result there's no real character progress, and when you do use them you just end up feeling cheesy, for lack of a better word. The best comparison I can think of is shurikens vs firecrackers. Shurikens are low cost, for little but decent damage, allow you to keep pressure on escaping enemies, keep attacking enemies in place cut and distances with their follow up attack, and serve as a counter for air attacks. Firecrackers on the other hand, are high cost and big reward, and what they amount to ultimately is just stopping the combat for a free hit. Not that you can't use them in discretion or for certain tough attacks, but the combat being such a big deal here, being allowed to circumvent it so easily for emblems (which in turn means less of the other abilities) just doesn't mix well. Meanwhile shurikens do feel like a tool, y'know getting an extra arm, they don't replace the core combat but put patches on those small holes it has. Sadly, prosthetics like the shurikens are lesser of them. None of the others are as egregious as the firecrackers either, but you can see how the game is lacking in this area. Nightjar Reversal is an example of a great ability that you'll just be gated out of because there's better combat arts to just cheese the game out of. The spear has a idea behind it, but it's not something that's truly useful. The axe is just a strong attacked, save for those enemy types you absolutely need it for. Sabimaru gives you another weapon, but it's nerfed so you will still have to use your sword. The umbrella is just a better block. The mist raven is basically never useful, and the fans feel cheesy too, but not that much. The flame vent and the whistle are probably the two other prosthetics you're going to have to use in conjunction with the rest of the gameplay, where they have their uses and benefits under the correct situations. That's 3/10 prosthetics. Obviously, I'm not saying the game needed to be designed for the prosthetics to be one way or the other. But when you consider how important they are to Sekiro the character, and the collection of materials, and the upgrade trees, and the fact there's a total of like 40 (!) variants of them in the game, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. There's tons of grinding to be done for things for them and they're sprinkled throughout the game, all so that they would sit at their own corner of the game. Again, I think this just comes down to FromSoft focusing so much on ARPGs previously, they were clearly designing the game so you would have "builds" but as a result the exploration is unrewarding, there's needless grinding, and the player just feels pigeonholed into the main combat. Games like Metroid directly tie character progression to exploration and rewards the player immediately for finding things, and gives them abilities that stack on top of each other instead of meaningless choice. Things like Unseen Aid could have been handled better simply by making the average chance without Dragonrot something like 80%, and only adding to Dragonrot if you used revive and died, so that you would be incentivized to find NPCs and keep them healthy and die less. Similarly with items, rather than have a repeat of Bloodborne's blood vials, you could've just had them be limited and upgraded through other means, instead of being both limited and having to find spares so you can't use them in battle with a clear conscience. I bet this would have worked wonders against the Headless as the player would have immediately gotten the idea that they aren't ready yet if they would only have had one confetti to use at the time, rather just not finding enough. You could've had more skills found through the world rather than in a skill tree the player is constantly losing EXP for. Items, prosthetics and/or combat arts could've used some sort of cooldown bar, either separate or universal, rather than all of them being flat numbers. There could've been more abilities and items that expanded the stealth like the whistle (which comes so late at that!) instead of having worse stealth than previous games in the ninja game. There could have been more abilities used for crowd control, actual crowd control, and not nulifying weaker enemies or running away. And NG+ could have been designed for the player to tackle the game again with all these abilities together, like it is in many action game serieses, not just backwards with some foresight on how enemies work but als forwards with changed enemy encounters and behaviors, making them feel like there's an entire second tier to the game they can go through and a lot more depth to it than what they originally started with. And I'm repeating myself here but I'm not saying the game needed to be that way. Blasphemous is a good example of a game in the Metroidvania vein, which otherwise lacks real character progression. But instead it has a robust customization system that allows for various playstyles if the player cares to engage with it. Sekiro could've been this or it could've been that, but it's just very middle-of-the-road instead. A very polished, very fun middle-of-the-road, but a middle-of-the-road nonetheless.
Well said, and I agree about skilling up or finding actual upgrades through progression and exploration. It's weird, because there are some elements of that─you get better healing from killing the first Chained Ogre. They had a lot of good ideas, and I almost suggested some of this stuff in the review, but it becomes increasingly problematic when you start to alter the economy of the game. For instance, if you only upgraded from exploration and killing certain enemies, there's less incentive to fight the weaker enemies. It would take quite a lot of balancing to make the different systems of stealth, combat, consumables, and character progression feel properly rewarding, so I think some of the smallest "solutions" to problems like being able to manually save, or having merchants sell Divine Confetti and Snap Seeds earlier would have been enough to make me ignore the other issues. As it is, I think it would have been smarter to delete Spirit Emblems and have Prosthetic Tools have a limited amount of uses per life that could be upgraded through materials obtained from enemies. This way it would still limit how much they could be used, but still contribute to your character progression. Depending on the balance, you could also force players to go more all-in with certain tools, and make them overpowered to encourage people to try different builds in different game cycles. Of course, a lot of this is easier said than done, but I agree that the usage of most tools is woefully limited. (Firecrackers OP. It's crazy they can be obtained so early. They also pretty much make the Flame Vent obsolete too)
@@LastProtagonist Of course, of course. It's not the kind of thing you can put a band-aid over and call it a day. I think it was inevitable that FromSoft couldn't shed all the design from their ARPGs, given the context. It was definitely the dev and not the game. But it was still a fairly big jump and I completely agree with many of the decisions they took and had wanted some of them myself for a while. I'm pretty satisfied with it all.
And my first time against butterfly I didn't use any seeds because I was worried and got through just fine but the fear of no using them is the issue. But the one thing would be divine conf because yes if you die to the headless a few times you're essentially fucked until end game BUT they are all optional and headless and shichi can all be fought end game when you can buy infinite so its not like it would ever prevent you from progressing. And I don't agree with the saves. At all. The whole thing that makes these games such a thrill is that your deaths matter. Take that away and from games aren't what they are. The difficulty would be quenched and your choices would lose meaning. Do I risk using this valuable resource or save it? That part of these games NEEDS to stay. They lose a big part of who they are if you can just save and not have your choices matter
LP, I feel like you missed quite a few things about the story, which probably explains why it doesn't make sense. From what I understand Isshin allies with you because he doesn't want to use the dragon's heritage, while genichiro does, that's why he helps you, I think Emma says something like "Lord Isshin has no desire to use The Dragon's Heritage", She was sent by Isshin from the beginning to help you. Owl is not that hard to understand; he simply lusts for power, he was the one who got the bandits in Hirata Estate while all the samurai were gone, during that he faked his death and sent you towards Lady Butterfly, he watched you two fight and then stabs you in the back while you were distracted, and that's why he said that he thought you died at the top of the castle, in the end, he just wants as much power as he can get.
No, I understood all that, but it's still needlessly convoluted for a game that's supposed to be more straightforward. If Owl thinks his word is absolute, he could tell Sekiro to abandon Kuro at Hirata Estate, and to not rescue him. But he doesn't. So he probably wants him to go rescue Kuro so he could receive the Oath, hence stabbing him in the back. If he wanted more power, he'd be more powerful with Sekiro at his side one way or the other. He's probably lying to Sekiro by saying he's surprised Sekiro's still alive (it was his plan for Sekiro to get the Oath.) Either way, if he isn't lying, he still could have told Sekiro to pretend to get close to Kuro so he could be exploited later...something like a real spy/shinobi mission. Isshin helps Sekiro because he doesn't want to oppose Genichiro outright, but it's still weird that his personal spies and all of Ashina's soldiers oppose us when *we're an agent of Ashina ourselves.* A lot of this stuff could have been set up more nicely by having people blame Sekiro more openly for the raid on Hirata Estate, and assuming we want to kidnap Kuro for the Ministry. This would make it so Ashina doesn't trust us and the Ministry doesn't trust us (because they don't know us.) I'm fine with Isshin wanting to fight Sekiro at the end of the game; it makes sense for a lot of his lore, but they could have tightened up the story in more places to make it more cohesive imo. Hell, imagine how cool it would have been if Genichiro's plan was outlined to be get the Divine Heritage so he could use the Black Mortal Blade limitlessly, spawning a literally army of the dead to fight for Ashina. (And this could be a Big Bad move because it'd spread Dragonrot throughout all of Ashina and turn people into living sacrifices, or dragon zombies like in the fight with the Divine Dragon.) Nonetheless, I appreciate your comment.
@Last Protagonist I think the reason why everyone attacks you on sight is because they listen to Genichiro, he's the bossman, the one every grunt mentions, not Isshin, Isshin's just minding his business and killing rats occasionally.
I also thought about why am I fighting these soldiers too but it makes sense. There is a corrupt ruler. The ruler wants to have the divine child, so you need to do what you ha e to do to serve your master. The irony is a big part ahina was able to be invaded is because sekiro goes around killing all the generals and main battle tools that ahina has. But I don't agree with that not making sense or that sekiro is just a tool for others. He's upholding his honor, which is very thematically Japanese and I felt the story was satisfying. The one thing I don't get is ishin coming out of geni. Also it's a ton of fun to replay and try new things and strategies and is the first game I've got to max ng+ even tho I started two weeks ago lol BUT I made multiple characters with different build on other games.....also not trying to argue just make my points I really like your videos server and community
i appreciate some more critical reviews of these games... but your reviews dont really match your score... for beeing a souls channel your scores are really low... no game is higher then 8. ds3 is better as 1... and i understand ds2 beeing not good as the other games.. but a 3 of 10? what are other really bad titles? a minus?
@@axelgray260 hmm for me its like 1.complete shit, 2 , really shit.. 3, shit, 4, not playable, 5,shit but some potential ,6: not good but can be enjoyble 7, its ok 8, good 9 really good 10 perfect game
Sekiro isn't about making players 'git gud', it's about making them master ONE technique (parrying). The lack of robust combat creates an artificial difficulty curve when compared to the other FromSoft titles. Someone might be able to soul level 1 DS3 naked with nothing but their fists, but if they can't PARRY, they can't play Sekiro. This doesn't make Sekiro more difficult, just less accessible and more annoying.
You do realize that the game is not only beatable without parrying but the game teaches parrying throughout the entirety of the game right? What if I didn't know how to swing a sword? Dark Souls teaches you that and the encounters get more and more difficult requiring more complicated swordplay just like Sekiro with parrying.
@@fatherrat9020 Swordplay and parrying are not comparable techniques. Nor is Dark Souls primarily about the "swinging of the sword" (which amounts to 'press r1', let's be real here) but about stamina management. And if you can't do that, you lose. And yes, you can beat Sekiro without parrying, but that's not how the game is intended to be played. To do so requires so much extra effort that people who can't beat it otherwise certainly aren't going to bother. That's like saying Nuzlocks are the intended way to play Pokemon; it's not, it's just something fans do on the side. The fact is, parrying is a technique not everyone can master, and when a game is an unforgiving as the Souls games, having only one truly viable mode of combat is at best boring, and at least a little unfair. I'm not an advocate for 'easy modes', I just hate parrying and don't want my games completely structured around it.
I find combat satisfying enough to return playing it from time to time. Also you didn't talk about No Kuro's Charm which actually makes combat even more worth mastering.
No one ever talks about Charmless bro, I completely understand. Us real gigachads have killed Inner Isshin on Charmless+Bell Demon lol
@@Tainuo Might as well just say you no hit the game by that point :)) cause the only reason you can do charmless + Bell demon is not getting hit
Regarding lore stuff and some explanations and interpretations of it I made.
1. I think it went like this - Owl fakes his death in order to backstab you because you are too loyal to Kuro and would be someone that Kuro can rely upon and hope for your help - with you out of the picture he could monopolize the Divine Heir for himself (same thing Genichiro tries to do by killing you). In second Hirata memory heavily implied that Owl was responsible for the whole attack. I don't think getting you ressurected was his plan. He is genuinly surprised you are alive but also tries to uphold a facade.
2. About Isshin - I think it's because Isshin can't or doesn't want to directly undermine Genichiro's authorithy (who is the acting leader of Ashina's troops), which is why he helps you personally but doesn't issue any orders for the soldiers.
3. About Shura being abrupt and Sekiro being bland - I do think they may have communicated that a bit better, but overall I think that if you connect the dots and use your imagination to interpret them a bit that isn't true. It can feel weird that listening to your father makes you into Shura - someone who has no purpose but killing for pleasure. But if Wolf was listening to his father and upholding the Iron Code than that should be his purpose, right?
Well the only possible explanation I have is that at this point he doesn't care about his father or the Iron Code. As for the Iron Code - he clearly still cares about it at the start of the game, but when you choose to stay loyal to Kuro Wolf states that he thinks that every individual must follow their own code. So at that point he is already disillusioned with the Iron Code but depending on your choice you can either follow Kuro's ideals or follow the Iron Code you don't really believe in.
As for Owl - I think that Wolf hates Owl, but still thinks of him as someone close. Well for one judging from his dialogues and personality I imagine Owl to be an abusive and manipulative father, but that's guesswork. But I think that there is evidence that Wolf knows full well that it was Owl who backstabbed him - for one in the cinematic before the Great Shinobi fight he guards against Owl, so he probably is expecting that. Second and stronger argument is that in the Japanese language (according to something I read about Sekiro's translation on some blog) Owl's death dialogue ("Death of a shadow" "You taught me well" "Good job my boy") goes more something like "Death of a shadow" "I pay you back for the last time" "Good job my boy". Seeing Owl alive after seeing him "die" must have also been a clue. But if that's the case, if you choose to obey Owl you are obeying someone you know you betrayed you and hate.
Also probably it must mean that Wolf does like killing - he grew as a war orphan and was adopted by Owl and made into a shinobi. Violence was his entire life and probably that's what he mostly associated himself with. What kept him in check and gave him purpose before was serving a master and obeying the Code, which later got replaced by Kuro's ideals. He maybe didn't intend to betray Owl when he took his side. But the person he cared most about and his mission got replaced by a man who he hates and betrayed him and a code that he doesn't believe. I think that he finally slipped when he killed Emma and discovered it just felt good on it's own.
Regarding his relationship with Owl - I really like to interpret the second Hirata fight as a dramatisation of Wolf's inner struggle to overcome his trauma and father complex. This is Owl at his prime, a living martial legend, but he is no longer called a Great Shinobi, but a Father. For me "Father surpassed" means that Wolf is free at last from the influence that Owl had on him even after his death. He comes to peace with what a terrible man he was, that he made him into a mindless killing machine and a tool, tied his freedom and conscience by forcing the Iron Code on him, that he betrayed him and killed him and that they fought to the death and Wolf had to kill the closest thing to a Father he had. He surpasses Owl literally - in combat and emotionally - by no longer being bound by him. That may be a false narrative that I've come up with because I myself had an abusive father, but I really like it and it resonates with me and I'm not gonna force it on anyone.
That carries over to the Purification ending - my favourite. Wolf needs to make peace with himself and his death in Hirata estate to be able to give it away for Kuro. I find it quite beatiful, because in two other good endings he still follows a master and his sense of duty, but here he makes his own decision and gives up his life to save someone because he cares about them. (It could also be argued that he makes it out of his duty to protect Kuro) It also makes sense because Wolf should be dead without Kuro - he would have died in Hirata Estate, but now he can lend his life back to Kuro and die without regrets.
There are also smaller details, like Wolf's hand shaking out of fear in first Genichiro fight cinematic and not doing so later, Wolf tasting actual tasty food for the first time, or some more I can't really remember well. But even if he's not much on the surface, there's more to him than meets the eye. All that stuff I said may not be what was intended and it's just headcanons, but I think that the very fact that he provoked so much thought in me says something and it's kinda unjust to just dismiss him as bland.
Thank you for the wonderful comment. I'll say, even if Owl thought Sekiro would abandon the Iron Code, he didn't give him the opportunity to make a choice in Hirata. We could disagree about the events of that night, but I think he did it intentionally so Sekiro would get the Oath from Kuro. I talk about it more in some of my other comments, but if Owl believes Wolf should follow the Iron Code, it would make way more sense to have given Sekiro the mission to get close to Kuro for the purpose of espionage or further exploitation. Even this would make Sekiro's betrayal feel more meaningful and do a better job characterizing him imo.
All in all, I give Sekiro a 10/10. Its fun factor has lead me to do multiple replays after my initial month long burst after it came out, where I did enough playthroughs to Platinum Trophy it on PSN. I then put it down for a full year. It's like riding a bike though. Every time I go and replay it, I remember how to play well enough that it doesn't really challenge me like it did on release. This is with starting on NG non-plus.
The only real issue I have with it are The Headless. They are most of the problem when it comes to Divine Confetti, because you also want the Terror Gourds/Dust, and unlike a Shichimen, they enact the slow aura inhibiting your movement in their immediate vicinity. To top that off, their reward isn't very good, because they consume spirit emblems for a shorter duration candy buff. This has lead me to outright skip them on repeat playthroughs.
And one last thing on Difficulty: I think that Sekiro's initial difficulty stems not just from the idea that you need to parry, but the fact that the game starts you off with terribly low healing item amounts, meaning you don't get a lot of mistake leeway to learn its systems without dying. Case and point, you start the game with critically low HP. When you are given the Healing Gourds, you are given a single gourd which barely brings you back up over half your HP. After that you are introduced to combat, and while you can find some pellets up above Kuro, you go into the tutorial in a worse state than any Souls game. And continues after the tutorial for quite some time. Compare to Dark Souls where you are given 5 renewable estus flasks as your first healing item, and it's easy to see why a lot of people had trouble. People still embraced grinding in Sekiro, because while you can't grind for levels, you can grind for skills and combat arts, a lot of which can fundamentally change the game if you realize how they interact with the enemies you are fighting (Think like, Mikiri Counter basically eliminating thrust deflect difficulty or Ichimonji staggering an enemy duing a problematic wind-up). What threw so many people off is that Fromsoft basically made the same game for 8 years, and then finally made something new. For all the similarities Sekiro has from its Souls series predecessors, it is not a Souls game.
I also skip the Headless every time I play this game. Weather its a 'new game' or a 'newgame+' playthrough, I always let out a "fuck you" and completely avoid any contact with that shit-shi stealing baby bitch
Also have a good day
Sekiro had this weird thing where despite being a single player, shorter (than bloodborne at least) experience, having straightforward-ish lore and a more difficult learning curve, it keeps me going back again and again lmao. Like, i actually look forward to every boss encounter and even some mini-bosses as well in every NG cycle. Also, finding out new strats with the prosthetic tools, skills and combat arts to get through fights is exciting on its own. It can turn entire fights around completely.
Adding onto that, the freedom of movement completely spoiled me lol. I remember going back to BB and being somewhat upset (but that is to be expected giving it's an older title). It's just soo satisfying to run around and circle an enemy so effectively in sekiro, not to mention all the added mechanics that some combat arts and passive skills bring to the table. Like, every fight feels very cinematic. As it stands, had i not discovered and played BB before, Sekiro might just have been my #1 favorite game of all time (right now it's #2 lol)
What you said about owl is easily explained by reading through some items and memories, as well as inbetween the lines: Owl was a dick lol, and he wanted immortality more than anything in the world. He backstabbed his own adoptive son, faked his own death and betrayed the ashina clan to get help from the interior ministry, among other mischiefs.
The "every boss is fun" point is a really big one for me. As much as I love the core souls games and especially bloodborne, the fact I dislike roughly half the bosses makes them slogs to replay at times
@@ivanlagayacrus1891 despite loving it with all my heart, i agree that around half the bosses in BB's main story and even dlc are not that exciting or just straight up tiresome every NG cycle lol.
@@MegaBlair007 bb is my favorite game period from gameplay, aesthetic, and story. But oh my god most of the required story bosses are pretty bad
I was under the impression that Owl faked his death in order to sic Wolf on Lady Butterfly because she's forgoing him. I mean, he tells us to deal with Kuro's kidnapper, right? And when we kill Lady Butterfly she drops a Sakura Droplet, which indicates that she was attempting to form the Immortal Oath before we arrived. (Even a line she says at the start of the fight, "You'll die if you doubt yourself" can be interpreted as her implying that she's intending on putting her doubts behind and is just going for the immortality now.)
We learn in the 2nd Hirata memory that Juzou and the other bandits were sent to the Hirata Estate by the Interior Ministry following a tip from Owl that the Estate's warriors would be absent for a while... However, though he gave them the tip, Owl's ambitions are not aligned with those of the Ministry. Odds are that he actually just wanted Juzou and his bandits to kill Lord Kuro's guardians and then for Wolf to kill Lady Butterfly. After that he would easily be able to kill Wolf on his own, thus making away with loose ends and any witnesses of the fact that he survived. Then Kuro would fall into the hands of the Ashina whereupon Owl would just need to wait a bit, so that Kuro would grow desperate. Aaand then Owl would pop up and convince Kuro to give him immortality so that he could take Kuro to safety... at least, that'd be the lie he'd tell Kuro. His real ambition was to become immortal, overthrow the Ministry and rule Japan... what he didn't foresee was that Kuro would give the immortality to Wolf instead.
Also, about Isshin and Genichiro's relationship... I first of all don't think "Isshin may have just wanted to have the strongest person survive and lead the clan" represents a realistic perspective... The Ministry was intending on wiping the heretical land of Ashina off of the map, Isshin being the sole reason why they hadn't done so already. And while Isshin had made peace with the fact that whatever protection his life afforded his land would come to an end the moment he died and that the fate of Ashina would rest in the hands of other people from that moment onwards, the reason why Genichiro kept pestering Kuro for immortality was because, well, Genichiro was Ashina's best warrior second only to Isshin, and he was still only a midway-through-the-game boss. Genichiro knew that Ashina would not be able to stand against the might of the Interior Ministry without going to extreme lengths, and while Isshin clearly didn't approve of such methods, he couldn't really tell the others "nah, just let the Ministry wipe out everything Ashina is and ever was." After all, he was on his way out and the moment he died, it would fall upon the living to do with Ashina as they saw fit... but then Genichiro sacrificed himself to bring Isshin back in his prime, at which point he was no longer on his way out and now he had the strength to defend Ashina once more... though Isshin still didn't approve of Genichiro's methods, he kinda had to honour the path that his grandson had sacrificed his own life to see come to fruition...
straight facts, couldn't have explained it better
I always thought that Isshin fight with you after Genichiro bring him back with the blade,because that is one of the blades effect..Kinda like at that point he dont have the will of his own. He says after crawling out of Genichiro: " Oh ,pitiful grandchild...so that was your final wish...to see Ashina return from the great beyond.." Sounds to me he dont want to do that ( as you said ,Isshin dont like Genichiro's plan) but he is forced.
But you explained quite good :D
@@norbertcsaszar4746 There are no mentions in the game that the Black Mortal Blade has any such power tho... But the final wish of his grandson? A final wish that said grandson gave up his life for? That's something that would have a lot of power over an empathic man of honour and responsibility like Isshin... Also, keep in mind that Isshin had spent pretty much his entire life keeping Ashina from the great beyond. It's something he willingly started doing while the land's future was still fully in his hands, so I do not think he had anything against that particular part of Genichiro's plan... well, possibly aside from the fact that he had already done his part in keeping Ashina alive throughout his entire life. To be frank, I'd say Isshin, with his long life ruled by hardships and war, was due for getting his well-earned final rest by the time old age finally did him in... That said, a warrior's death? Of course he wouldn't say no to that, either.
@@GrahamChapman After you beat Genichiro Isshin says: " My grandson Genichiro was bewitched by the Rejuvenating Waters. You did well to put a stop to that for me. You have my thanks."
I think he realize how dangerous Genichiro's plan is. But yeah,nothing says thats the Black Blade's blade,so you can be right,Isshin loves a good fight,and probably want to defend his country,but not by any means necessary.
@@norbertcsaszar4746 That is basically what I think, yes. Isshin was pragmatic when it came to combat, his fighting style was literally based on the philosophy that one should use whatever means one could (even if they were considered heretical) in order to win, but this clearly did not extend to _moral_ pragmatism: Killing another warrior in a life-or-death fight by pulling a gun at them and shooting them dead is one thing, embracing immortalities that are founded upon or lead to the death and ruination of one's own people is quite another, and with everything Isshin had seen over the course of his life, from Takeru and Tomoe's struggles with combating the curse of the Dragon's Heritage to Orangutan's fall to Shura's carnage... yeah, he wouldn't willingly accept to walk down Genichiro's path himself and would at least _attempt_ to sabotage other people's attempts at pursuing those methods.
Damn, can't wait for Sekiro: Shadow Die Thrice. But why did you skip Sekiro: Shadows Die Once? It just doesn't make sense.
I'd have to humbly agree, this fact is quite troublesome for me as it just doesn't add up
Wait the first comment isn’t just first
Small correction, the more vitality you take from an enemy, the slower their posture regenerates, they won't take extra posture dmg.
The snap seed thing with lady butterfly was extremely weird and illogical. When I faced her illusions the first time, I used the snap seeds immediately. Then I died. And when fought her again, I didn't have them and thought I was screwed but I wasn't.
And I never used Snap seeds again. Only found out this year they are useful against the corrupted monk spirit boss by watching others.
Same. I get the impression that illusion magic was going to be more important, but got mostly dropped. Then again, maybe this was the intended effect... That the npcs in game believe that the illusions are real and powerful, requiring a special item to stand any chance, but once you face them head on they wind up being little more than distractions. I don't know. I'm probably giving the game too much credit, but it seems like a weird oversight for Fromsoft when the obvious solution was to just not include snap seeds at all.
Even then you can use Bundles of Ash instead, which are far more common.
What’s immersion breaking is you’ve got guys walking past the corpses of their dead buddies and not reacting in the slightest. I’m not saying I want MGS stealth where I’ve gotta drag bodies into hiding spots, but it is a little weird that it plays out that way in Sekiro.
More serious comment: I notice you didn't really talk about prosthetics very much, other than the mention that they're not balanced all that well. I don't think the intent was for them to be super balanced, but to each fit whatever niche they were designed for really well, while having some small prospects outside of their main uses.
As far as the story goes... If you do both Hirata Estates memories, then you find out that Owl killed Sekiro. At an undefined point afterwards, Kuro pulls the rubble off of Sekiro and gives him the Dragon Blood Contract, returning him to life. Part of Sekiro's story is that this impaired Wolf's memory. Putting 2 and 2 together, it would seem that Owl is surprised that Sekiro is alive, and also seems to realize he lost his memory (due to Wolf not immediately attacking him on sight). Basically, Owl's plan the whole time was to kill Wolf during the Hirata Estates incident, as Wolf had already grown to a point where he no longer obeyed Owl. So what we see on meeting Owl on top of Ashina Castle is Owl trying to take advantage of an amnesiac who he killed once before.
On Item economy: I hated that I saw it this way, but I saw the Snap Seed scenario with the guard as a subtle tutorial in and of itself, because you can have Lady Butterfly as your first boss. The wounded guard gives you one snap seed, saying you need it. But with only one seed, it's not very effective. This might cause you to leave the memory and go the intended/expected route to Gyoubu, where you can find a few more, or cause you to realize that you don't need items for bosses, but that certain items CAN help during bosses in a similar manner to prosthetics, just more limited. With how you are completely unlimited in other ways(no stamina/infinite stamina) I don't really see it as an issue.
You can also just lead the apparitions away from you and then hide behind a pillar or run around to escape the homing butterflies... I honestly never saw snap seeds as useful until subsequent playthroughs, and i only use them to get through the fight faster lol
Right, but you get something like 5 more for that point in the game, meaning players really have about 6 attempts to kill Lady Butterfly with Snap Seeds available (and that's assuming you don't use 2 on a run.) No matter how weak a boss is, you shouldn't have a limited resource to deal with them because the worst player could try over 100 times to kill her.
Honestly, the only 2 "negatives" I had were Dragonrot and Unseen Aid. And they're not really negatives, just kinda pointless and underdeveloped. The rest of the game is literally a 10/10. Flawless combat, fun exploration. Also, people complain about the lack of build variety is a bit stupid. It's not an RPG, it's an action/adventure.
18:22 I was honestly baffled by this in game, I kept thinking I skipped over some chunk of content that explains why Isshin's people are trying to kill me. But at a certain point I just didn't care about anything in the story of Sekiro. This was like a puzzle game to my brain and I just wanted the satisfaction of solving each boss puzzle. I felt the themes were repetitive from prior entries and instead of researching some of the concepts rooted in Buddhism or Hinduism, I just plowed to the end regardless of how little sense it made. I wanted more time to hang out with Isshin and Blackhat.
Never played previous titles myself, only Sekiro. What are the repeating themes?
@@traceursebas going against a natural order or cycle, impurity in fluids, vermin/centipedes representing corruption, experiments on people, children especially, the curse of immortality
found you from shades discord. This was my first software game and still my second second favorite. I really hope they make another skill-based game or a sequel.
It's an absolute shame that we might never get a dlc , if the vanilla game have bosses that compare to the likes of the slave knight and Ludwig I can't even fathom how good the dlc could be
I disagree with the rating sekiro a 9/10 at least
There definitely will not be dlc, elden is out and in full swing as a massive hit. Sekiro is old news and a second game would make more sense at this point
I never had to farm for spirit emblems. Just use a little extra money every time you have a bit extra to buy some and you're good. I have like max always stored up especially if you do a little bit of farming for a skill point you want or something they build up fast. Way way way easier than vials in bb
Yeah. Blood vials I occasionally farmed. Only some enemies drop them and souls spent on vials aren't spent on level ups.
With Sekiro more enemies drop emblems, and money is distinct from xp, and there's hardly any uses for money much of the time. And more punishing death penalty means I can't reclaim sen like I can souls.
I haven't player the game so when you were talking about divine confetti and snap seeds you forgot to explain what they do. I got the message but I'm curious about their utility and I can't really gauge their importance without knowing what they do.
Thanks. Snap Seeds make a loud sound which can "snap" the player out of an illusion, and Divine Confetti place an aura on Sekiro's sword allowing him to deal damage to undead things like ghosts. It'd be easy to mistake Divine Confetti for something like Fire Paper/Resin from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, but its use is more limited in Sekiro. Without it, you won't be able to kill certain enemies that are really strong...and since those enemies are really strong, it's easy to die and waste the buff.
Yeah... totally needed Divine Confetti to kill Shichimen Warrior >_>;;;; Totally didn't just use infinite sprint and to dodge the terror balls for 9 minutes while slowly widdling it down _>;
You did it the hard way. Kudos to you for that. Kinda like defeating Jorm the Giant without using the Storm Ruler.
Yep, not needed at all. At all. >_>;;;;
Funny how this was like their experimental game and it ends up being fucking amazing. Nothing has been come close to the gameplay mechanics in this game since
I liked gameplay overall , but I am not a fan of curse/ terror (or how it is called in Sekiro ) being part of mini bossfights and bossfights . I already have to deal with enemy attacks, manage health and posture bar. Make sure I have enough space to maneveur and last thing I need is status effect that is basically: you are dead no matter what. If you let this new bar fill up.
Hot take: Sekiro is a rhythm game. It's an upgraded, way more badass, RPG-style reimagining of Donkey Konga.
I'm only half-joking
Yes,and thats why for me its behind all the Soulsborne games. I like this game (and yeah its not a Soulsborne game ) but after you master the fighting style,there is nothing to it,most of the bosses become a breeze. I'm at NG+2 right now and pushing for some achievements. I remember pushing Ds3 to NG+7 and on every new NG cycle i was like: okay lets use this big ass weapon i never used...Okay now use this janky trash weapon ...Now just miracles etc., and i'm really into challenges like bow only,no heal and the like,but here you really have nothing to do. No different weapons,hell,you cant even do prostetic only realistically (not even talking about how i almost never use prostetic tools cause most of them are,well not useless but sub-par). Isshin still beat me 2-3 times for sure tho.
I haven't played this game and I don't know why it terrifies me playing it. I think since I am bad, like dumb bad at timing attacks on enemies can be one reason. If that's the key of beating it, it won't be fun for me (I think) I'll be more frustrated than having fun. Still, I think is an awesome game that makes you feel like a real shinobi from what I can gather from who have played this.
It’s the best game
It's not as hard as it sounds. The game rarely throws things at you out of left field, so if you're paying attention to how the main mechanic (posture) works, you'll be good. There's really nothing that can't be beaten thru memorization rather than reflexes.
The parry windows are pretty generous, and even if you're bad, there's upgrades to be found thru exploration that will make you stronger, and the game gives plenty of places to go after the initial area, so you can tackle it at your own pace and order.
I was worried about the same. I can parry in ds1 a bit, never got good with it. Never learned it at all in ds2 or 3. Was quite good in Bloodborne.
It's quite easy in Sekiro. Takes learning, of course. But timings are much more forgiving and a failed deflect often turns into a succesful block.
I recommend you give it a try unless you're still very apprehensive.
That thumbnail tho...
That thumbnail lool
It's because the journalists didn't get multiplayer thus : we need easy mode entitled rant.
My only problem with Sekiro is basically no build variety. But I cant think about a better combat than that.
I was so stoked for the trailer thinking it may be Bloodborne II. However it's a ninja Game, ok that's cool. Omg I suck! Ohh you can cheez Lady Butterfly with the same move and hmm I'm still not Gud. Guess I'll put this down for like.. years
First off, good work on the reviews. I've been slowly going through them, and they've been quite good. On this one in particular you put many of my own thoughts down pretty well, so I'd agree with it's 8/10 rating. It's one of my favorite games, but it's a game with lots of shortcomings; on the other hand, those are shortcomings, not flaws, so while it does feel the game needed some more time in the oven, it never feels broken, and what's there can be promptly enjoyed if you get into it.
(I'll be putting my own thoughts down here, read at your own risk as it got very long. Sorry?)
As for what I think the root cause of those issues is, I'd have to blame FromSoft's own experience as an ARPG developer over an action game developer. Sekiro certainly did a lot to separate itself from Souls games and be its own type of action adventure game, but many of the same design philosophies carried over, and mostly worked to the detriment of the game.
Prosthetics and combat arts are the best example of this. Combat being the main feature of the game, you'd think getting more abilities would really change the gameplay. But because of the way they're limited and balanced, they don't. As a result there's no real character progress, and when you do use them you just end up feeling cheesy, for lack of a better word.
The best comparison I can think of is shurikens vs firecrackers. Shurikens are low cost, for little but decent damage, allow you to keep pressure on escaping enemies, keep attacking enemies in place cut and distances with their follow up attack, and serve as a counter for air attacks. Firecrackers on the other hand, are high cost and big reward, and what they amount to ultimately is just stopping the combat for a free hit. Not that you can't use them in discretion or for certain tough attacks, but the combat being such a big deal here, being allowed to circumvent it so easily for emblems (which in turn means less of the other abilities) just doesn't mix well. Meanwhile shurikens do feel like a tool, y'know getting an extra arm, they don't replace the core combat but put patches on those small holes it has.
Sadly, prosthetics like the shurikens are lesser of them. None of the others are as egregious as the firecrackers either, but you can see how the game is lacking in this area. Nightjar Reversal is an example of a great ability that you'll just be gated out of because there's better combat arts to just cheese the game out of. The spear has a idea behind it, but it's not something that's truly useful. The axe is just a strong attacked, save for those enemy types you absolutely need it for. Sabimaru gives you another weapon, but it's nerfed so you will still have to use your sword. The umbrella is just a better block. The mist raven is basically never useful, and the fans feel cheesy too, but not that much. The flame vent and the whistle are probably the two other prosthetics you're going to have to use in conjunction with the rest of the gameplay, where they have their uses and benefits under the correct situations. That's 3/10 prosthetics.
Obviously, I'm not saying the game needed to be designed for the prosthetics to be one way or the other. But when you consider how important they are to Sekiro the character, and the collection of materials, and the upgrade trees, and the fact there's a total of like 40 (!) variants of them in the game, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. There's tons of grinding to be done for things for them and they're sprinkled throughout the game, all so that they would sit at their own corner of the game. Again, I think this just comes down to FromSoft focusing so much on ARPGs previously, they were clearly designing the game so you would have "builds" but as a result the exploration is unrewarding, there's needless grinding, and the player just feels pigeonholed into the main combat.
Games like Metroid directly tie character progression to exploration and rewards the player immediately for finding things, and gives them abilities that stack on top of each other instead of meaningless choice. Things like Unseen Aid could have been handled better simply by making the average chance without Dragonrot something like 80%, and only adding to Dragonrot if you used revive and died, so that you would be incentivized to find NPCs and keep them healthy and die less. Similarly with items, rather than have a repeat of Bloodborne's blood vials, you could've just had them be limited and upgraded through other means, instead of being both limited and having to find spares so you can't use them in battle with a clear conscience. I bet this would have worked wonders against the Headless as the player would have immediately gotten the idea that they aren't ready yet if they would only have had one confetti to use at the time, rather just not finding enough.
You could've had more skills found through the world rather than in a skill tree the player is constantly losing EXP for. Items, prosthetics and/or combat arts could've used some sort of cooldown bar, either separate or universal, rather than all of them being flat numbers. There could've been more abilities and items that expanded the stealth like the whistle (which comes so late at that!) instead of having worse stealth than previous games in the ninja game. There could have been more abilities used for crowd control, actual crowd control, and not nulifying weaker enemies or running away. And NG+ could have been designed for the player to tackle the game again with all these abilities together, like it is in many action game serieses, not just backwards with some foresight on how enemies work but als forwards with changed enemy encounters and behaviors, making them feel like there's an entire second tier to the game they can go through and a lot more depth to it than what they originally started with.
And I'm repeating myself here but I'm not saying the game needed to be that way. Blasphemous is a good example of a game in the Metroidvania vein, which otherwise lacks real character progression. But instead it has a robust customization system that allows for various playstyles if the player cares to engage with it. Sekiro could've been this or it could've been that, but it's just very middle-of-the-road instead. A very polished, very fun middle-of-the-road, but a middle-of-the-road nonetheless.
Well said, and I agree about skilling up or finding actual upgrades through progression and exploration. It's weird, because there are some elements of that─you get better healing from killing the first Chained Ogre. They had a lot of good ideas, and I almost suggested some of this stuff in the review, but it becomes increasingly problematic when you start to alter the economy of the game. For instance, if you only upgraded from exploration and killing certain enemies, there's less incentive to fight the weaker enemies. It would take quite a lot of balancing to make the different systems of stealth, combat, consumables, and character progression feel properly rewarding, so I think some of the smallest "solutions" to problems like being able to manually save, or having merchants sell Divine Confetti and Snap Seeds earlier would have been enough to make me ignore the other issues.
As it is, I think it would have been smarter to delete Spirit Emblems and have Prosthetic Tools have a limited amount of uses per life that could be upgraded through materials obtained from enemies. This way it would still limit how much they could be used, but still contribute to your character progression. Depending on the balance, you could also force players to go more all-in with certain tools, and make them overpowered to encourage people to try different builds in different game cycles. Of course, a lot of this is easier said than done, but I agree that the usage of most tools is woefully limited. (Firecrackers OP. It's crazy they can be obtained so early. They also pretty much make the Flame Vent obsolete too)
@@LastProtagonist Of course, of course. It's not the kind of thing you can put a band-aid over and call it a day. I think it was inevitable that FromSoft couldn't shed all the design from their ARPGs, given the context. It was definitely the dev and not the game. But it was still a fairly big jump and I completely agree with many of the decisions they took and had wanted some of them myself for a while. I'm pretty satisfied with it all.
Don't forget the umbrella protects against fire and terror attacks, which is impossible with a sword.
And my first time against butterfly I didn't use any seeds because I was worried and got through just fine but the fear of no using them is the issue. But the one thing would be divine conf because yes if you die to the headless a few times you're essentially fucked until end game BUT they are all optional and headless and shichi can all be fought end game when you can buy infinite so its not like it would ever prevent you from progressing. And I don't agree with the saves. At all. The whole thing that makes these games such a thrill is that your deaths matter. Take that away and from games aren't what they are. The difficulty would be quenched and your choices would lose meaning. Do I risk using this valuable resource or save it? That part of these games NEEDS to stay. They lose a big part of who they are if you can just save and not have your choices matter
I do like the game overall, but not being able to play the way i want is just not as involving as the other souls
LP, I feel like you missed quite a few things about the story, which probably explains why it doesn't make sense.
From what I understand Isshin allies with you because he doesn't want to use the dragon's heritage, while genichiro does, that's why he helps you, I think Emma says something like "Lord Isshin has no desire to use The Dragon's Heritage", She was sent by Isshin from the beginning to help you.
Owl is not that hard to understand; he simply lusts for power, he was the one who got the bandits in Hirata Estate while all the samurai were gone, during that he faked his death and sent you towards Lady Butterfly, he watched you two fight and then stabs you in the back while you were distracted, and that's why he said that he thought you died at the top of the castle, in the end, he just wants as much power as he can get.
No, I understood all that, but it's still needlessly convoluted for a game that's supposed to be more straightforward.
If Owl thinks his word is absolute, he could tell Sekiro to abandon Kuro at Hirata Estate, and to not rescue him. But he doesn't. So he probably wants him to go rescue Kuro so he could receive the Oath, hence stabbing him in the back. If he wanted more power, he'd be more powerful with Sekiro at his side one way or the other. He's probably lying to Sekiro by saying he's surprised Sekiro's still alive (it was his plan for Sekiro to get the Oath.) Either way, if he isn't lying, he still could have told Sekiro to pretend to get close to Kuro so he could be exploited later...something like a real spy/shinobi mission.
Isshin helps Sekiro because he doesn't want to oppose Genichiro outright, but it's still weird that his personal spies and all of Ashina's soldiers oppose us when *we're an agent of Ashina ourselves.* A lot of this stuff could have been set up more nicely by having people blame Sekiro more openly for the raid on Hirata Estate, and assuming we want to kidnap Kuro for the Ministry. This would make it so Ashina doesn't trust us and the Ministry doesn't trust us (because they don't know us.) I'm fine with Isshin wanting to fight Sekiro at the end of the game; it makes sense for a lot of his lore, but they could have tightened up the story in more places to make it more cohesive imo.
Hell, imagine how cool it would have been if Genichiro's plan was outlined to be get the Divine Heritage so he could use the Black Mortal Blade limitlessly, spawning a literally army of the dead to fight for Ashina. (And this could be a Big Bad move because it'd spread Dragonrot throughout all of Ashina and turn people into living sacrifices, or dragon zombies like in the fight with the Divine Dragon.)
Nonetheless, I appreciate your comment.
@Last Protagonist I think the reason why everyone attacks you on sight is because they listen to Genichiro, he's the bossman, the one every grunt mentions, not Isshin, Isshin's just minding his business and killing rats occasionally.
I love the idea of the game, I just can't get the hang of the rhythm of combat.
I also thought about why am I fighting these soldiers too but it makes sense. There is a corrupt ruler. The ruler wants to have the divine child, so you need to do what you ha e to do to serve your master. The irony is a big part ahina was able to be invaded is because sekiro goes around killing all the generals and main battle tools that ahina has. But I don't agree with that not making sense or that sekiro is just a tool for others. He's upholding his honor, which is very thematically Japanese and I felt the story was satisfying. The one thing I don't get is ishin coming out of geni. Also it's a ton of fun to replay and try new things and strategies and is the first game I've got to max ng+ even tho I started two weeks ago lol BUT I made multiple characters with different build on other games.....also not trying to argue just make my points I really like your videos server and community
Being a samurai or shinobi means you are servant to your lord
Love this game
Coke bck after plying.lies of P. You’ll destroy sekiro
This game is dog, looks like dog if youre not playing on pc.
I personally prefer PS4 Sekiro. The moveset feels better and there aren't graphic problems
Video is redundant, nothing to critique, perfect game
i appreciate some more critical reviews of these games... but your reviews dont really match your score...
for beeing a souls channel your scores are really low... no game is higher then 8. ds3 is better as 1...
and i understand ds2 beeing not good as the other games.. but a 3 of 10? what are other really bad titles? a minus?
If you think of 5 as average its just two points below average, maybe thats how he understands it
@@axelgray260 hmm for me its like
1.complete shit,
2 , really shit..
3, shit,
4, not playable,
5,shit but some potential
,6: not good but can be enjoyble
7, its ok
8, good
9 really good
10 perfect game
Sekiro isn't about making players 'git gud', it's about making them master ONE technique (parrying). The lack of robust combat creates an artificial difficulty curve when compared to the other FromSoft titles. Someone might be able to soul level 1 DS3 naked with nothing but their fists, but if they can't PARRY, they can't play Sekiro. This doesn't make Sekiro more difficult, just less accessible and more annoying.
You do realize that the game is not only beatable without parrying but the game teaches parrying throughout the entirety of the game right? What if I didn't know how to swing a sword? Dark Souls teaches you that and the encounters get more and more difficult requiring more complicated swordplay just like Sekiro with parrying.
Wouldn't it be more accessible since you literally only have to follow one mechanic? Lmao
Just parry 🤷♂️
@@fatherrat9020 Swordplay and parrying are not comparable techniques. Nor is Dark Souls primarily about the "swinging of the sword" (which amounts to 'press r1', let's be real here) but about stamina management. And if you can't do that, you lose. And yes, you can beat Sekiro without parrying, but that's not how the game is intended to be played. To do so requires so much extra effort that people who can't beat it otherwise certainly aren't going to bother. That's like saying Nuzlocks are the intended way to play Pokemon; it's not, it's just something fans do on the side.
The fact is, parrying is a technique not everyone can master, and when a game is an unforgiving as the Souls games, having only one truly viable mode of combat is at best boring, and at least a little unfair. I'm not an advocate for 'easy modes', I just hate parrying and don't want my games completely structured around it.
So if one can't roll on time while playing Dark Souls one can't play Dark Souls?