I missed that but does it even matter? Like i was to into the fights to even care when they would end imo sekiro fights are the most thrilling when u have someone like the corrupted monk i could tell just from design that it was my favorite boss
@@dasty5228 I mean, if you're gonna critique the game but make completely untrue statements like "the closer the enemies' posture is to breaking the slower it recovers" while not realizing that posture recovery is tied to health, then it gives the impression that the critic didn't understand the game at all. Personally I think if you're gonna do a serious critique of something, you should understand its design mechanics and principles.
@@Churahm I'd argue his entire video is based on the assumption that there is only 1 correct way to play, his way, and if the game didn't conform to his liking then that part of the game was bad. Most of his arguments are assumptions on how the game was designed, but he has no way on know why From Soft designed it in that way. It's just another clickbait video from a From Soft video essay youtuber.
I'm always surprised that it's such a commonly held opinion that using items in souls games is cheese, they're so obviously intended to be used in specific instances.
Yeah, this is the the soulsborne game to use items and abilities. You're not a naked DS protagonist, use items (divine confetti....didnt need to punish on corrupted monk like that) get abilities, use prosthetics and listen to npcs and eavesdrop for strats. It's a hard game to lvl 1 with items and prostetics. NO items, prosthetics, and thinking it's cheese to not play like DS is the real enemy
Soulsborne community in a nutshell. They overuse “cheese” or “trivialize” way too much. Cheesing a boss is using an unintended mechanic to beat the boss in a way it was not meant to be beaten. Like demon of hatred glitch. Using, say, the Flame Vent to kill the Guardian Ape is just fighting smart and using what the game gives you.
In Sekiro, they are very janky and overall useless. Aside from some actual cheeses, even against beasts, you still need to learn deflecting, and once you do, items are superfluous. Maybe speeding up the fight a bit.
"I have played through all endings and went through all the trials and know everything about the game to give this review." Proceeds to complain that the tutorial text boxes have too much info, didn't bother to read them, then doesn't know health affects posture recovery lol. Also, "I took the absolute worst path to play the game because it clearly hints for you to go to the top of the tower after defeating the bull and I ignored it completely and ran off in a random direction. I will now complain that these mid game enemies are too tough for my beginning skill level."
Yeah Skyrim ruined a generation of gamers. "I want to go where I want, whenever I want, with leveled enemy scaling and a difficulty that permits no item usage."
honestly this guys just sucks fucking ass like holy shit he fucking died to corrupt monk with 3 gourds left like what??? I'd dint even bother to get past the first 15 minutes his opinions about this game is horrid he keeps saying oh this game is hard and bad because I'm not good and if you guys say I'm bad that's gonna hurt my feelings which makes u wrong no maybie the fact that u found it harder than beating a game at level one just means u suck booty cheeks like holy hell ur opinion is not allways right, annoying ahh people who think that because they have an audience they can say whatever and be right
I don't really understand your aversion to killing basic enemies. I absolutely adore this game's combat, and I love feeling like a god after mastering it, so I go out of my way to kill every single enemy in my way just because I can, often without taking any damage. It's immensely satisfying. It also gives me a reason to use all the different skills.
True, and there's a good gameplay reason to kill basic enemies as well since it refills your revives if you've lost any to boss fights. That's why there's a random archer guy right outside Lady Butterfly's arena, to help you recover that lost revive while you figure the boss out over multiple attempts.
Me as well though I personally skip some of my least favorite enemies if possible (the dudes with hats that jump around at senpou temple because FUCK THEM, and the zombies that only grab because they're just boring and pointless to fight)
Then u decide u want to play ng+ with no charm (hard mode) and then demon bell (makes it EVEN harder). And every single npc turns into a mini boss, then u just want the npcs removed completely💀
A large part of enemies are so easy that killing them feels like a chore. Then you have assassins or nightjars who aren't a real threat but piss people off with their strange attacks. IMO, the enemies should prepare you for the boss fights. But only about a third of all enemies do that like the seekers, spear adepts and the interior ministry staff. If Sekiro had better enemies, people wouldn't get killed by Genichiro, Owl and Isshin so often.
@HGDVHIYHNFFDGHVDVBUFFVHGDCBH Try using shurikens on them when they're jumping. Also look out for the specific animation when you can do a mid air deathblow on them. I used to hate them, but I actually find them fun to fight now.
Your opinions on prosthetics, consumables and stealth are... Genuinely bad. Money is important. It allows you to upgrade prosthetics and buy said consumables. This does give plenty of reasons to fight enemies. The consumables in sekiro (besides maybe balloons) are mostly very useful. Especially sugars (and infinite sugars from headless). Prosthetics meanwhile are insanely good as counters to a multitude of mobs and boss attacks - and integrating them into combat can make certain encounters like Demon of Hatred hella enjoyable. Stealth work quite well. And you do usually have more than one approach to most stealth sections. You clearly underutilized ceramic shards, gachin sugars and the variety of stealth takedowns. Also - game literally directs you to the easier paths. You just... Completely ignored Kuro and everything he said. Roofs made out of straw are not grapple-able. The game never let's you grapple onto those roofs - so mist noble enterance is not as bad as you describe. (It is dumb that you can't grapple to the tree tho). Your take on corrupted monk is also bad imo. It's an apparition with the fastest posture regen in the game. You made it more hard just because you view using game mechanics - like snap seeds or consumables as cheese. Then again. You viewed money as useless. So I'm not surprised. Seasons don't change in this game. Only the time of day. And both "teleports" have an incantation on the ground. Explaining the teleport. Besides that - love the vids. Keep it up.
The chained ogre exists to teach the player the importance of eavesdropping. This is why he's not meant to be defeated by deflecting, you're meant to eavesdrop and learn about his weakness to fire.
Okay but those aren't mutually exclusive. You could have hinted at a tool but also made it more in line with the progression. Edit: Also I'd add that if that was the intention but then they barely use it throughout the game? Lame. Honestly if they just fixed the grab attack id say the ogre is fine Also, on another note their level design is sometimes too obtuse. Like getting to the Hirata Estate and also find the singular item to make the chained ogre more ideal for a newcomer seems like something that could be improved
@@austin0_bandit05 based response. If the chained ogre is supposed to teach eavesdropping, then why do we never need that mechanic to beat any other boss in the game? Edit: The chained ogre was an easy boss I by no means needed eavesdropping to beat. I dont think this issue matters much in the critique as it is being made out to be in these comments since my criticism of the chained ogre was not that it was hard, but that hit and run tactics trivialized the fight which is odd in a game mostly about posture break.
@@plasmasnake542 "why do we never need that mechanic to beat any other boss in the game?" That is what I said. What other boss is defeated through eavesdropping? I could have missed something and I'm not trying to be mean, it just seems like you're straw-manning my statement almost intentionally. I'm never said that we didn't use eavesdropping in Sekiro, I simply said that no other boss I can remember is defeated through eavesdropping.
It seems like almost every problem you have with the game comes from you putting artificial limitations on yourself and then criticizing your game for being difficult without the mechanic intended for that moment
Honestly don’t get it. He complains and complains about bosses being difficult and borderline unfair and chalks it up to some terrible game design but then actively ignores a major part of the game design. Like the chained ogre, he’s not there to teach players to run around and then attack, he’s there to teach players to use prosthetics in combat and to eavesdrop. Also almost all of his moves can actually be parried other than his grab. Ignoring the use of fire as weakness if fine, that’s how I beat him my first play through, but to suggest it’s poor design because he ignored the mechanics is on him. Like I get it’s some personal badge of honour to beat every boss with no prosthetics but the game is designed to use them. Most bosses have a particular prosthetic you’re meant to marry with them and it doesn’t make them easy, it makes them fun. He said he’s beat the game 4 times and in those 4 times he never decided to try a play through where he uses the prosthetics and play the game as INTENDED by the developers?
@@jockturner1547 I think it has a lot to do with the souls community and “git gud”. Souls games have really fun and challenging combat systems and it *is* fun to master them, but a lot of people then like to suggest that doing anything other than beating the game using the primary combat system alone is somehow cheesing the game. You see the same thing with people talking about Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Elden Ring, and even Bloodborne a little bit. Its always seemed a little weird to me, like I understand challenging yourself but pretending like huge chunks of the game are only there for if you’re struggling or are some kind of unintended mechanic is ridiculous. If a game gives you a bunch of items and tools it expects you to use them, and most people are going to do that. The only people who don’t are those who took “git gud” too seriously.
@@emmafountain2059 It's not cheesing. It's just not fully rising up to the challenge set by the developers. Which is actually fine, as the items being there in the first place says that they don't expect you to do that, only to rise up to it just enough. Think of it like a puzzle game where solving 75% of it is enough to beat it. But some like to get that 100% and when it doesn't feel reasonable to do so that's when they get annoyed
Honestly it feels like a lot of your complaints come down to personal preference. You think stuff is too hard but then get upset at the tools the game gives you to work around the difficulty, several characters tell you “hey who cares how you win as long as you win.” The whole point of items isn’t to carry you through the game, they’re supposed to be early on crutches (along with stealth and to a lesser extent prosthetics) to give you more opportunities to progress and actually play the game to learn. You mentioned earlier that the samurai generals are good training for Genichiro, but you also said you were off put by the game when you first started. Geni will always be a better teacher of the mechanics and how to beat Genichiro than any other enemy, so it should be better to not slam your head into a brick wall and walk through him later in the game (story reasons and otherwise.
Id fully agree. Saying that using items and other tools aviable to you is "not engaging with the combat system" about as true as saying "leveling up in darksouls is false becasue killing enemies faster (or having more stamina) requires you to not master their mechanics"
@John McLawson Id suggest you check out some videos on what is truly possible within the combat system. There are multiple skilltrees granting you certain technuiqes and attacks that cab massively change the flow of combat . I personaly liked the throwing stars because they allowed me to interrupt enemies who used air combos or close the gap via the throw dash combo
I agree with this, he some valid points, but mostly he just didn't... and I hate to say this lol... git gud. Sekiro is only punishing if you're choosing not to learn the mechanics AND you're not improving your own skills while you play. If your focus is getting better, then the gameplay is rewarding AND fun. If your focus is convenience, then you're gonna get salty real fast
During that entire Corrupted Monk rant I was just like "Did he forget that enemies also have a normal health bar, and that Corrupted Monk only has one health bar?"
Lone shadow duel boss is only duel boss if you choose enter from the window which is the wrong way. Game punishes you for skipping important places by making it 2v1 if you ran past and grappled everywhere. But it doesn't take the option away from you. The correct way enter is from the behind(from the inside of the castle) and stealth kill the first one. You may choose to use ninjutsu on that guy to make it 2v1 against the boss.
I think this is a level design problem. The window should have been locked so you can't get in from the outside. Because this two-enemy fight in such a small room doesn't make any sense. At least with the apes, I can run 200 meters away to the other end of the cave.
To your question "Why FromSoft fans are still okay with all the boss cheese for unskilled players ?", I think the answer is given by Genichiro when he cheeses you in a cutscene "A shinobi would know the difference between honor and victory".
@@jessem3149WHAT?!? Did we play the same game? You can easily cheese those bosses. Genichro first phase you just stunlock him in the corner and for phase 2 you just mikiri loop him with consumables. For isshin phase 1 just jump mortal draw to end it, for phase 2 you might have to fight it for a few seconds but phase 3 and 4 you just jump mortal draw before he even brings the spear out and does a single attack.
@@NathanSavageDamage Meant this in the sense that those who don't try to really learn the fundamentals won't be able to pull these kinds of things off. By being able to do what you're saying, you have to TRY and be skilled enough to do it, proving my point that unskilled players won't be able to pull that off. This was my intention, versus "cheesing" not being able to be done at all, you just need to be good at the game to actually do it.
@@jessem3149 Well the people you are referring to might not be able to play any video games if they can't do the things listed, you can just watch a video and then do it.
I scrolled through so many comments to see if anyone mentioned it, but eventually gave up... The freaking umbrella! So god damn O.P. for so many reasons. It can deflect, it can block, it can attack, it can make the Demon of Hatred so easy. Also the spear for Headless after you deflect the big horizontal attack. HUGE posture damage... Generally going through this game without using, at least, prosthetics, is just making the whole experience worse.. You have so many options and tools that makes each boss encounter so much more fun and engaging, and you just ignored most of them, and then even complained about them being poorly designed. Never have I played a game this fun to master, and robbing yourself of most of it's mechanics is just a downright shame.
You saying ‘I dont wanna look up how to make the minibosses easy because then victory feels hollow’ paired with Tyrannicon cheesing a boss had me dying
1:24:00 the solution to the multi fight is to enter from the other direction and stealth kill the other enemy, which also gives the opportunity to use puppeteer to turn it into an ally for the fight, you’re supposed to think “wow this fight feels impossible right now” and then use the tools at your disposal to problem solve and make the fight manageable
exactly what i did for the fight with the Seven Spears dude (Shume Masaji Oniwa) near the end of the game, who has a pretty tough enemy right next to him. I put in a good amount of attempts just trying to fight both at the same time, which made it so satisfying and relieving when I figured out I could use puppeteer and make the fight 10x easier
This is a solution, but stealth is a bit jank. Enemies spot you very easily, and resetting them after you fail is slow/annoying. (Esp. after the first playthrough where it's no longer a new encounter.)
@@AshoreNevermore this specific encounter is extremely easy for the stealth kill. you just hug the wall and walk behind him and he wont notice you 19/20 times
I'm also venturing a guess here that you never used any of the prosthetic tools and just deflected and R1 spammed your way through the game? Did you even try using the fireproof umbrella tool in the Demon of Hatred bossfight? It's the perfect tool for surviving his massive fire attacks. Bro, not to be mean, but I don't think you are the right person to be making these critique videos.
In Sekiro, enemy posture depletes slower when they have less health. The corrupted Monk is much easier if you focus on getting its health low before going for a posture kill. There were multiple instances in your footage where I saw you deflecting instead of taking an opportunity to attack. For example, you can sidestep the jump attack to get a few hits in instead of deflecting. Maybe you figured this out on your own but just didn't use any footage.
You don't have to die to the snake after using the mind control on the monkey. He sorta jumps up and screams, snake gets distracted, you grapple and run past.
@@MaltexGaming Okay, so the game never states where he gets it aside from Genichiro, my best guess is he took it from him then killed him with it but that part is speculation.
Love the review but your struggles with the corrupted monk were almost entirely created by your lack of information about the game and I don't think she should change at all. First of all, idk if you misspoke but bosses posture regain is based on their health bar not their posture bar. At 50% bosses posture recovery is slowed, and at 25% health bosses will stop recovering posture entirely. (I think this is why chained ogre exists, to make you chip away at health bar and observe it's relation to posture. His posture also wont recover while hes burning, which some npcs tell you to try.) About her recovering posture too quickly, because you mostly ignored prosthetics you might not know the shuriken is great for keeping up posture damage from a distance. There's also a skill that gives you a follow up slash which comes out way faster and has more range than a dashing light attack. Just by the way you talked about the experience system I would bet you probably undervalue all the skills and tools available to wolf. I'm not even gonna mention snap seeds because realistically most players won't recognize the monk is a spirit, but the point is I think most players severely underestimate the power of certain prosthetics and skills. And more importantly how fucking sick some of them look High monk is the only way I dodge sweep attacks now lmao
He also said that using divine confetti (the stuff specifically made for ghost type enemies) would make you less skillful? Like the entire reason for the cobfetti being in the game is to give you an edge
@@eebydeeby03one legit criticism I can think of is that confetti at that point of the game in NG is a very limited consumable (so is snap seeds) and inventory hoarders (me, I’m so guilty of this) will not want to use it. Yes the high priest’s house give you a couple of confetti but that’s only good for a couple of tries.
@@eebydeeby03 Yeah, corrupted monk is in a similar ballpark as headless or shichimen warriors as in you need divine confetti if you don't want to die inside during the fight
About the dual line shadow fight, you can literally puppeteer the one on the side of the room to flip the odds and turn it into a 2v1. That fight is definitely there to teach you the importance of that ninjutsu. It's not very hidden either, not sure how you missed that. With the corrupted monk, you know damaging the health bar slows posture recovery right? The lady butterfly fight told you that. If you just go for perfect deflects the whole fight, of course your not going to make any progress. Also seems to me as you almost completely disregard skills and prosthetic tools, for whatever reason. These can be so useful and look fucking sick most of the time. A good example would be the lazulite axe in the lady butterfly fight. This acts as an unlimited use snap seed in that regard while also doing incredible damage. The lazulite flame barrel can harm spirits such as the corrupted monk or the shamans. Any poison blade is a free kill for the people in the divine realm as they are INCREDIBLY weak to poison. High flying kick, can dodge sweeps and counter them at the same time, sakura dance can lightning reverse, living force is just a straight dps upgrade and so many more. Experimenting with different options is one of the best parts of this game so it's just hard to believe you kind of ignored it. Also you make a point of ignoring enemies the whole time because theres no point in killing them. But this would have changed if you used skills and prosthetic tools as you would want the upgrades and skills which you need XP and rare resources found from killing them. Overall good review but some of the, "issues" you had with the game are completely unfounded and simply due to lack of common player knowledge. Edit: The flame umbrella allows you to not take any fire damage from demon of hatred while also having a great follow up attack if you got that skill in the tree. Man you really should play through, but actually use the tools and skills, you'll have a better time.
I don't get why he ignores parts of the game and then complains about things that the things he ignores solves He ignores the prosthetic and doesn't need money, but it's not the game's fault. It's like doing a lvl 1 run in any other From game and saying that souls don't matter, and that enemies are not worth fighting. "I can just use the soul items in my inventory rather than kill enemies to buy items". Ignoring the reward for killing enemies and saying that killing enemies feels useless is a bad criticism because it's not what they intended you to do.
@@noamias4897 This is exactly what I was thinking. He ignores a lot of the game mechanics because of personal taste. Fine, but the critique doesn't hold because the issues are solved by these game mechanics. So, pretty much there is no issue, unless you decide ignore a bunch of these mechanics. Interesting video, but a lot of the critique feels like the problem of the game not matching his personal taste. I never played any Fromsoftware games and actually haven't played many games at all, but I felt that this game is guiding me pretty well and I managed to figure a lot of things on my own. I imediatelly went back to the temple, when I got the bell, cause I new about the buda statue and I new that I need to bring it there and wantesd to see what happens. This is were you get fire prostetics needed for the Ogre. But, also some things were more difficult, because I lack the "gamer" insight. Snake stealth encounter was terrifying for me, the path was not so clear, my husband helped a bit, because some things were more obvious for him. And I remember my heart racing after finishing this encounter with minimal health, no heals and no resurrections. Like luckily avoiding a dangerous car crash or a brick that fell from the roof and you stepped away the last second. I do agree with his ctitique in stealth and dragon rot. Jeez, I feel there should be another way to show to player that dragon blood is negativelly affecting people. It feels demoralizing indeed.
This man completed Senpou Temple, Ashina Depths and Mibu Village before fighting Genichiro. I love the shit out of this game and this is unheard of to me. I respect it.
I almost did the same thing I basically went around to the back of genichro tower instead of going to the top, the entrance to the top can be easy to miss especially if you wanna run past that area due to the relatively tough enemies
Chained ogre was supposed to teach you 1) Some items are very strong on certain enemies, and you can learn what that is from clues in the game . 2) You can grapple some enemies, just like the dude on the horse or the first monke.
This miniboss still confuses players more than it teaches them. At that point you've seen a miniboss who you have to fight the "Sekiro way" and a miniboss where the "Sekiro way" is pretty much useless. As a result the player has no idea what the game wants from him.
One note: the mechanical purpose of the Lady Butterfly illusion attack is an opportunity to refill a bit on spirit emblems. When I first fought Lady Butterfly I still sucked at the game and wasted a bunch of spirit emblems because I let the fight drag on and let posture recover. It also doesn’t help that you start with a low amount of maximum spirit emblems.
"I don't know how to pronounce his name so we're gonna call him Horseman" this is a small moment, but really encapsulates a lot of the problems I and many others seem to have with your approach. You're so focused in on the point you're trying to make you're just ignoring things the game tells you right to your face. Whether its posture relating to health, the Chained Ogre's teaching moments about fire weak red eyes, eavesdropping, etc., or just Gyoubu telling you exactly how to pronounce his name.
Your values just differ from his, I don't care about minute details such as those you listed. My mindset is to focus on the purpose not every individual detail.
@@SixthAllicard minor details such as...the names of major characters? The point was that his problems often stem from just ignoring things the game directly tells him. Also you do you dude?
Looks like you were not using the mikiri counter or jump counter for the Corrupted Monk’s thrust/sweeping attacks. I can imagine how that would have made the fight substantially harder
Yea plus he went way earlier and said he was just running by enemies and got buying skills lol. The upgraded mikiri counter as well as chasing slice solve all the problems he had with the monk. Most hard enemies have a way to counter them you just have to use the tools the game gives you. I think Fromsoft gave so few tools so that people could experiment and find counters like using Sabimaru on Oren but it had the opposite effect it seems like most people just ignored the prosthesis because they weren't viable stand alone weapons even though that was never their purpose.
@@shby95 I ignored the prosthesis because I had to grind coins and find random items to upgrade it. And when in the fight, the use of a prosthetic seems like negating much of the challenge a boss is supposed to provide. The only prosthetic I ever use is the shurakin, and only to close the distance between myself and the enemy with the slash attack.
I’m confused why he handicapped himself when he played this game, the game tells you to use items pretty blatantly, firecrackers, snap seed, divine confetti, your arm prosthetic are SUPPOSED to be used so you’re not trying to deflect a bull that punishes you for doing so
@@mynamejef7963 It's okay if you handicap yourself for the sake of a challenge, but don't make a video complaining about the difficulty when the game tells you to use items
@@mynamejef7963 And you feel like youre above item users because you make the game harder for yourself and dont want others to enjoy the game like they want and as the game suggests to do so
So like. I'm at the corrupted monk part of the video and I was really confused as to how you found it so hard. I might regret commenting this before watching the rest of the video to confirm but did you not know bosses slowed their posture regeneration the more damage you did to their health bar after all those hours?
18:30 sounds you didn't bother to explore the ninjustsus or even try any of your other options there's plenty of ways to even the playing field bloodsmoke is good for a group of enemies backstab 1 blind them with smoke and take out there others quickly or have puppeteer to get a temporary Ally to fight alongside you.You also have a whistle prosthetic to lure enemies away from the group and backstab them.The game gives you options you just don't use them. As for the lone Shadow guy it's not that hard to take care of the ally with stealth kill him first and he want be a bother.
One problem was that he did the side paths before Genichiro lmao so he didn't have like any of the tools, Bloodsmoke helps so much later one but you get the from Genichiro
I kinda disagree about the Isshin 4 phases being the artificial difficulty. Because as long as there are many phases, the phases arent as long as for example 2 phases in owl father. As long as youre aggressive against isshin, it should take you as long as owl father with 2 times less phases. However his posture goes pretty fast, so it encourages you to be aggressive against him, cause otherwise its gonna last forever. But I agree about the lightning reversal making the 4th phase easier, Isshin should be a little bit harder on that one
I mean idk. I'm prone to always mess up a lightning reversal. I have no idea why or how lol. But when you don't perfect them every time but you do go for the reversal every time, they feel more balanced. You lose so much health and are momentarily stunned so your cost is high if you mess them up. I'll grant that maybe they should inflict less posture or give less stun time on the boss but I've also seen videos of people who would prefer to just dodge the lightning than go for the reversal. So idk. Maybe it's fine depending on the skill level of the player.
@@kyletrout3828 lightning reversal is easy, it doesn't matter when you get hit or when you deflect it just so long as you haven't touched the ground yet.
I always looked at is a genichiro being the "buy-in" for the right to fight ishinn. Ishinn fight being only the first 2 phases with the 3rd being a spectacle to finish the game and look cool
The thing is, Ishin is really just 2 phase with 2 moveset you need to learn. Genichiro is a boss you've beaten already, and he's much easier this time around since his mortal draw leaves his back open for attack. Isshin last phase is just his second one but with lightning, so it's easier. The only phases you need to learn is Isshin's first and second phase.
Something i learned that i didnt expect to work is you can actually mikiri counter the purple shinobi's unblockable forward kick. Youre stoppin a kick by stompin down on their shin
It's no wonder you had so much trouble with the corrupted monk, you played the whole game before fighting the 2nd to 3rd REAL boss, because you apparently forgot you had a grappling hook, I hope you at least realized you could increase your attack power, I know how much the souls community hates reading after all
Dude, you can defeat the chained ogre with fire, the blazing bull with firecrackers, and you can look for clues in your environment to make your entire run easier. Using items is a part of the game, why would you not use them?
@@firmak2yeah that's just self handicapping. Don't complain about difficulty if you're intentionally making it more difficult. Use everything you have in order to win. It isn't going to destroy your playthrough in any way I promise.
54:18 some bosses require you to get in a few hits, since the lower the vitality (HP) the slower posture will heal, this is also true for the player character (though you can accelerate posture recovery by holding down the block button) since you already were at Ashina Castle at this point, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this, since the sword wielding miniboss general is there to teach you that some enemies will have extremely good posture recovery, so in addition to deflecting you will need to attack aggressively as well, taking away as little as 30% of a bosses vitality will significantly slow down their posture recovery
@@highlightermarca-texto3281 well, once your mind sets on how you think the intended way is, it's often hard to change your method if he enjoys playing it that way, it's cool, and since he already admitted he was wrong, I think all's fine yeah he missed the fact that the miniboss in front of Ashina Castle with the 4 gunmen is a tutorial on posture recovery when vitality is low, but I think it's safe to say, that he has already read a comment that corrects him
I feel like the chained ogre actually had a lot of utility in where it was placed. Firstly, as other comments pointed out, teaching you about the usefulness of eavesdropping and clue hunting, and also teaching you that the prosthetic tools are useful in combat. But I also want to add that the ogre teaches you that deflecting may be the main mechanic, but dodging is still just as important. A lesson that I feel comes in handy when going against the Ape and the Demon of hatred. This is something I don't actually hear very often in discussions surrounding the game
Except the orge will one shot you for any msitake and is about 10 hours or longer away from the ape or demon. With 10 or more bosses in between which rely heavily on parrying making it seem like a one off.
@@blinkyy1088 Nope, the placement makes perfect sense when you consider the 3rd boss it teaches you to handle which follows directly after it which is the brazen bull (which is also the boss that teaches you about status buildups a good while before they're relevant again) these monstrous bosses all act as their own subset that require unique approaches and sneaky use of your tools (finger whistle, firecrackers, umberdoodle etc) In between both these fights you also contend the giant serpent and learn pretty quickly that you're meant to get the hell out of there an not fight further showing the player that sometimes a straight up battle is NOT the way to go. (Considering how you eventually handle the snake through stealth and tactics vs brute force and parrying feeds into this.) They not only build up the same way all the standard swordfight bosses do towards isshin but they provide a massive amount of info about how to manipulate Sekiro's tools effectively. I absolutely agree with OP that this chain of bosses and the ramping of them mechanically all the way to DoH is slept on. He has the Ogre's aggression, the Snake's pure size and attacks that are best ran from vs dodged or blocked, and he has the exact status the brazen bull absolutely bullys you with the first time you enter its boss room
Good points overall but I disagree on some of the takes on the difficulty. This game WAS hard but after dying multiple times to Lady Butterfly, a boss you can't steal kill the first bar of health, there and then I realized there are bosses that you have to face head on and high head strong - something in that moment clicked in me that the another way to play this game is to be to be a samurai - AGGRESSIVE!. From there on, I was able to be the SAMURAI and to be the SHINOBI and the game was on easy mode. Fromsoft's game design signature is to make the game look almost impossible at face value (this is why a lot of players quit before they even get to 2nd encounter Genichiro) but the more you pick up the pace and gain more understanding the easier it gets. Part of the reason why you would see a lot of players say "I hope I can experience **Insert any Fromsoft game** for the first time again", as we humans yearn to crawl out from hardships and get to the goal only to miss the perseverance we have indulged by achieving what we want. Having the learning process to be more punishing in Sekiro served a great purpose since there is no way out of there - only to well yeah... git gud. Jokes aside, I can see why they have to enforce this strictly as to the point it becomes punishing as they needed the players to be able assimilate the fighting mechanics as soon as possible. The game becomes much more entertaining and visually crafted by your own gameplay. The more grasp on the fighting mechanics the more animesque the game becomes. You use more prosthetics, you counter more, you squeeze attacks before the stagger animation from the enemy is completed. Look at Ongbal's Sekiro videos; the guy has extensive understanding of the fighting mechanics of the game that he is basically producing top level anime type content already lol. Fromsoft tie in the connections of the player and the character with the parallels we feel both in fictional and reality approach. By the time you reach the endgame, You the player, and Wolf the shinobi has reached a mindset and skillset that is required to get you through there. I feel like most of your opinions are made based on how you approached the game rather than seeing it in a objective perspective. You are the only one holding yourself back by not using what is on your arsenal, you refused or rather obstinate your gameplay by not engaging in one fundamental mechanics of the game. Most of the time the weakness of the enemy are revealed way before you fought them. "I want the satisfaction of overcoming difficult odds". This is basically close to the Bushido code. Spoken like a true samurai! Fair. I do this too but you need to be able to switch in between, you can't just play Samurai style throughout the entire game without the element of Shinobi, and vice-versa. This is an equivalent of shooting yourself on the foot because as you said "Wolf is more like a samurai not a shinobi". It seems to me like you are speaking from your gameplay because on my gameplay Wolf is more a ninja. I stealth killed bosses' first health bar if I can because SHINOBIS DO NOT FIGHT FAIR. Also, Finding COLLECTIBLES was not a problem for me since it is often hinted through the "in game text", there's also the "player messages" scattered throughout the world and as a player I am more of the explorer type to the point that I have developed an instinct in which I can sniff out these hidden collectibles lol. I got all gourd seeds on my first blind playthrough. The issue for me though is the utilization of the items you find throughout the game. I finished the game with the gazillion bozo items I got but I guess it's not just a Sekiro problem because almost every other game, not just from Fromsoft, have this problem. Things to note, Sekiro was my first ever Fromsoft game that I played, so at that time I had no scope of reference of a soulslike to compare it to. I just went and dove deep with the only expectation that I will be playing a shinobi. I was the biggest fan of Arkham Series and when I saw this Sekiro was on sale on Steam and saw the stealth tag, I got it without knowing what "soulslike" is. All in all, Sekiro was my introduction to the one of the best genre in gaming. The soulslike.
definitely agree that they held themselves back. 100 hours on the game and don't know the value of consumables and Shinobi tools?? C'mon now. Also funny they said the beginning of the game is too hard but shit talks stealth. You're a Shinobi fighting large crowds of stronger ppl. Stealth is your equalizer, the game IS hard but not embracing aspects of the game that it clearly tells you about is gonna lead to a worse time
Corrupted monk is brilliant dude, one of the best bosses in the game. I like how the fight takes forever, it just gives me more time to enjoy the fight lol. On first playthrough though it can be a little frustrating because divine confetti is limited and you may not know at the time that you’re supposed to whittle down her hp before stacking posture damage. That being said if worse comes to worst you can cheese her and come back later when you’re more prepared.
@@Ghorda9 Ehh I don’t know about that. From my experience the drop rate is pretty low, once you upgrade the senpou arts tree i’m sure it’s more common but you won’t have that at that point in the game. It depends on how many times you’re gonna die. Between corrupted monk and O’rin you could be dying a few dozen times depending on the player skill level. That’s a good amount of farming. But you don’t technically need divine confetti for corrupted monk, but if you don’t use it the fight will take quite a while which may be stressful for brand new players on the first playthrough.
sekiro is a game that broke me and I thought I would never be able to beat it. Beating the sword saint for the first time was probably the largest opium rushes I had In my life so far. It might have broken me but I came back stronger and prouder
"Emma is the only woman in Japan" Dude, this entire region is about to face an invasion from the inner ministry. Why would they leave women and children there instead of evacuating them somewhere safe to begin with?
About the first snake attack, what made you think it was an unfinished sequence? And about Corrupted Monk, I'm pretty sure it was balanced to be a longer battle until you get her HP to half, which then stops any posture recovery. And since it's an illusion, you can use fire, snap seeds, firecrackers... It's not that bad at all. Wait, Genichiro AFTER Corrupted Monk? That explains everything. The second Corrupted Monk was only easier because you met it at the appropriate time. And still, the first fight was only phase 1 of the second fight, so it is mostly a new fight. It won't be easier for most people. About the bosses making you feel like the boss through mastery, DMC5 does that and it feels incredible
This is definitely my favorite Fromsoft game without any doubt, and one of my favorite games of all time. Still hearing that you first time beat Genichiro hurts me because it took me 9 hours across three days.
I keep replaying and replaying the bossfights against Isshin, Genichiro and Owl. Especially Sword Saint Isshin is so damn enjoyable I can play that fight 10 times back to back at the idol. If this game had something like Chalice Dungeons I'd never quit playing. The idea of a Berserk game playing as Guts made by From would be awesome. I don't even dare imagining it
Genichiro did the same for me, he really is the wakeup call. Before that point you could get by with dodging instead of parrying, but not him. You gotta learn the game and that took me wayyyy too long lmao
He beat him way later into the game than most people do. That's probably why. It took me a fuckin while to beat Genichiro but that was pretty much the moment I figured out how the game works and fell in love with it.
When Sekiro says "One who opposes the Buddha?", I interpreted the way he said it as one of contemplation, like he was slowly repeating what the dying man was saying to try and deduce who "the one who opposes the Buddha" might mean. Especially since it ends up being someone he never mt before and only had an adjacent knowledge of as it was pointing at being the person causing the fog in the valley. I never heard that line as meaning that Sekiro was taken aback by the idea of anyone ever daring to stray from or question or not believe in or be otherwise diametrically at odds with the principles of Buddhism. The way he repeated what the dying man was saying was very contemplative in delivery, the man being near death makes sense as to why Sekiro would vocalize his thoughts about finding the culprit with any other hints the dying Buddhist can give before he dies. But it seems like a contemplative statement where Wolf was solidifying the new lead in his mind by vocalizing it with slow, deliberate articulation and so the dying man can hear that Sekiro is indeed taking interest in pursuing the man's dying wish. H was trying to deduce the identity of the man through careful thought and allow for the mortally wounded man to be able to add any further leads, hints or contemplations of his own as easily as possible in such a state of death throes. The river noble village he was about to visit next was completely devoid of true Buddhists, as the village populous had all but completely abandoned the core tenets of Buddhism, wherein residents had rejected restraint from desire and excess, rejected the pursuit of self-improvement and they had absolutely rejected the idea of reincarnation by pursuing its polar opposite in pursuing the immortality of the rejuvenating waters. So considering Wolf is a Shinobi that is well acquainted with Ashina and its people, especially its biggest and most prolific areas like Mibu village and the Mibu Nobles, its likely that the Mibu may have been first to come to his mind as he rearticulated the hint the dying man gave about who was causing the fog was "One who opposes Buddha", it is very likely that Mibu came to mind first within Ashina. And in less words: Wolf said it out loud and thought deeply about who best fits the description as 'opposers of Buddha', and with the slow and deliberate vocal cadence of Wolf's words, it sounds like he is both in deep contemplation about the culprit, as well as deducing who the culprit indeed is. Wolf comes off as deeply contemplating the potential candidates based on the defining characteristic the dying man gave to wolf, but the slow and deliberate speed to the cadence makes it sound as though Wolf was in fact making that connection between the heretical abuse of the rejuvenating waters by the Mibu and the dying man's guidance that Wolf should seek out "One who opposes Buddha" and deducing that it is a Mibu noble who is in fact at fault for the depravity and illusions plaguing the valley they stand in.
Gaachins Sugar literally makes it to where you can sneak around easily without getting seen and combined with the blue ninjutsu on mini bosses (specifically the last Seven Spears of Ashina mini boss with the other samurai) can make the fight so much easier
I'm going to have to call a few things out in your "multi-fight" section I think a lot of your problem is the fact that you've decided that stealth sucks and not worth attempting. For example in that the Lone Shadow Vilehand + buddy fight you can actually sneak up and stealth kill the "normal" Purple Ninja buddy without aggroing by sneaking in and hugging the wall. This actually makes the miniboss super easy since you can use the chump to activate ninjitsu (a lot of people like to puppeteer the chump, but I prefer Bestowal bc I find puppet guy just gets in my way more than anything). As for the purple ninjas on the rooftops I really think you're intended to sneak around them, because while it isn't easy I personally found it a lot of fun to figure out how to sneak around and take them all out. Granted I'll give you that on my first playthrough I mostly just ran past them. I can't really think of many more instances of multifights - maybe the Seven Spears + General part near the end, but for that part you can use the Stealth Sugar to stealth kill the general and either puppet or use Bestowal or blood cloud or whatever. EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot about the Outskirts Revisited bit at the end. Yeah. Fair enough, just run past all those jackasses to fight the Demon of Hatred.
I have to agree with this comment. When I played Sekiro, upon entering new arenas and zones, I would always take my time and to look around. This always rewarded me by frequently finding ways to deliver a stealth blow to mini bosses and to take out as many additional enemies as possible before breaking stealth. I thought this was obviously intended because of how levels were designed.. FromSoft really rewards a more cerebral play style in Sekiro, and really punishes brute force (until you get to the point where you’re very skilled at the mechanics). I was shocked when I watched play throughs on RUclips. Almost no one thinks to utilize stealth, or the environment. This is fine, but it makes for a VERY frustrating learning curve, and it’s unnecessary with patience and basic awareness of your surroundings + utilization of your situational abilities.
@@firmak2 This is only possible through sheer dumb trial & error until you figure out which paths you can sprint through without alerting them. It's not the intended way to take them out neither the easiest
1:46:18 the Genichiro mixup gave me problems too, and after dying to that mixup for the 15th time I realized you could see the glint on his blade to judge whether it was a sweep or a thrust. If the glint is under him, it’s a thrust, if it’s behind him, it’s a sweep. 46:07 funny story, my friend also did ashina depths first, and after running out of divine confetti for the corrupted monk, quit the game forever. I’ve been trying to get him back into it forever but he won’t budge. Also I love your style or critique, keep up the good work!
That rooftop part where you have to get past all those deadly nightjars. Even just getting past that one small part gives me such a feeling of satisfaction accomplishment, and excitement. Like even that one part is cooler than the entirety of 99% of video games.
I love this game but it's the one game I wish I wasnt as old as I am. My reflexes just cant keep up the onslaught of attacks plus not knowing where anything is. It's a game I watch not play.
From what I’m seeing here, your issues with the game all stem from your own personal decision to not use the prosthetics, also leading to a lack of understanding the game mechanics. I’ll break it down here. I’m aware my comment won’t be seen by many, but if you do read it I’d love a response and a legitimate discussion. 1. Prosthetics are meant to be used, and they largely do not trivialize the boss fights at all. If you google what specific timings, combos, or “cheese” strats you can use with the prosthetics, then yes, they make the game too easy. But if you just experiment with them and use common sense? They add a bit of extra combat variety to the game and make boss fights marginally easier without trivializing them. For example, flame vent against the ape or the giant. Great way to build fire damage. Firecrackers are a great way to stop your enemy and get a few hits in, and are fairly effective against every boss in the game. Use the axe for some extra damage. Loaded spear does a ton of posture damage to the guardian ape and gives a sick animation. You can decide to play without these tools, but using a self-imposed handicap to say the game is “too hard” is wrong. And then saying it’s too easy with these prosthetic tools is just outright inaccurate, as again, it’s only too easy if you choose to employ cheese strats. The game itself encourages you on multiple occasions to do whatever it takes to win, as Shinobi are known for underhanded tactics. You’re allowed to stealth, use hit-and-run, or prosthetics to help yourself out. The beauty of this game is that it’s hard and unforgiving, so you can throw every tool in your arsenal at bosses and mini-bosses to try to get through it without making the game too easy. 2. Fights are not useless at all. They give you money, for… prosthetics. You chose not to use said prosthetics, and that’s on you, but that doesn’t make it a bad design choice. That just means you played the game a different way than the devs intended. Plus, these fights allow you to get skills, many of which are extremely useful and definitely worth grinding for. You get certain combat arts, extra spirit emblem usages, stronger healing gourds, a better mortal draw, and more. Fights also give spirit emblems, which is helpful if you’re running low and helps keep your count high, as they are consumables. Lastly, they give a good amount of practice. And fighting in this game is so fun that I don’t see why you wouldn’t fight enemies. In fact, listing out all of this has made me realize that Sekiro really gives MORE reason to fight enemies than most other games. Sure, the leveling system is gone, but the fact that skills, prosthetics, spirit emblems and multiple consumables are directly tied to fighting gives you plenty of reason to fight, whereas on repeat playthroughs of Bloodborne I find myself sprinting past every fight. 3. The multi-fight complaint is, once again, a self-imposed issue. The multi-fights are obviously made for you to use Shinobi tactics to beat them. In the example of the Lone Shadowmen double fight, you can easily sneak into the room and stealth deathblow the other guy to make it a 1v1. Or even better, you can equip the puppeteer Ninjitsu (which you have to have at this point in the game) to make the second guy fight on your side against the mini-boss. This is applicable to many fights in the game.
I don't know, I personally take some issue with your critique on the Blazing Bull. The usage of FireCrackers wasn't even considered in the analysis when there is clear evidence throughout previous areas that it's very effective against beasts, from the soldier eavesdrop, Gyobu boss fight, as well as the description, one should systematically conclude that FireCrackers not only make the Blazing Bull boss fight fair, but probably the easiest boss fight in the game. I could be wrong however, one of the coolest things about this game is the fact that one boss that is easy for on individual was an impossible task for another. This is still a well done review and I can tell that alot of effort went in to this, so seriously kudos my man!
I agree that the chained ogre and blazing bull are completely out of place for the start of the game and can give some people contradicting ideas on how to play the game if they are unlucky. Also most players block a lot of attacks so you dont have to be "perfect" especially without kurus charm. Its actually a legitimate tactic to try to parry, but whenever youre unsure on when to parry just spamm block just in case for a new player. Kurus charm and normal playthrough is completely different. In a normal playthrough you can literally just run from a boss and regen. Also the first samurai boss or immortal tutorial guy tells you that you need to lower HP for some Bosses first to reduce their posture regen posture. I think its highly unlikely for people to go to mibubvillage first, most people will either explore the giant castle in front of them or go left to the monks where the buddha picture tells you to not go further its dangerous. So 90% of people went to genichiro after blazing bull pretty much. But I can see your frustration and highly unlucky.
Half right, it's both. The corrupted monk is just taking what the game teaches you when fighting Lady Butterfly (that posture recovery slows down based on their health damage) to it's logical conclusion. It's a single deathblow against an enemy with insane posture recovery, but the recovery becomes very manageable once you take 25%-50% of her total health away, depending on your skill level. Her leaping attacks are all very easy to dodge and get some decent health damage in, and you can use the mortal blade skill for some unblockable health damage as well.
@@ni9274”100x faster to kill it through health bar “ at 1/4 hp you can get a posture kill “ Do you not realize these are two different things? They were talking about lowering the hp to 0, not to 25% for a posture kill
Great video with some excellent points, there are some things I disagree with however. Every encounter that requires stealth can be solved by using stealth only, the only exception being Juzou where you have to de-aggro him in order to perform a stealth deathblow. I would highly recommend anyone to use Gaichiin's sugar/spiritfall for these encounters as they make it so much easier to remain undetected. Also Chained Ogre, like many other early game challenges, is supposed to be a way to teach you certain mechanics that'll be useful for the remainder of the game. For the Ogre for example it is that 1. Always be wary of grab attacks and learn how to dodge them 2. Normal attacks can always be deflected, no matter how powerful they look 3. Red-eyed enemies have a crippling weakness to fire (so maybe search for the flame vent, no seriously go to the Hirata estate first before you proceed). The only enemy that I truly don't enjoy is the Blazing Bull even though it's also supposed to teach you something (that beasts are weak to firecrackers). That fight will never feel like a clean victory no matter what you do. I do agree however that there are some situations which don't have many ways to solve them, making them kind of tedious to replay. Edit: nevermind, some more baffling points were brought up that I don't have the time and energy for to engage with lol
No mikiri counters and ever time he jumps over a red attack he doesn’t jump on there head for extra posture damage , feeling like a lot of this review is just you not having enough info or good use off all the mechanics the game offers
Funny to me that you had so much trouble with Corrupted Monk, then beat Genichiro first try-I usually tell people that Genichiro is the great equalizer-he forces you to learn how to play the game “properly”. Constant aggression, perfect parries, etc. and beating him makes most of the challenges of the rest of the game (final form Isshin excepted) FAR easier in comparison. Not only would Corrupted Monk have been easier by grinding your teeth on Gen, but Corrupted Monk is also, imo, a teaching moment of using items and prosthetics to help kill larger, high health enemies who are hard to have a straight up sword fight with.
@@downsjmmyjones101 kill the monk? The game give’s you the items and equipments to use in a battle, you are not a Samurai, You are a Shinobi, fight to win, hesitation is Defeat. You may like the game by lilting yourself, but if you take everything and use, you gonna love the gam. ;-;
I think the bull is meant to be chased or run around it in circles - teaching you the important mechanic that wolf is basically as fast as any enemy and never gets tired. I used this tactic on the apes and demon of hatred. The bull in fountainhead palace was taken down super easily this way along with some firecrackers.
I didn't even use firecrackers. Just drop the lock on and constantly dodge attack towards his rear and he never hits you. He was the easiest boss for me actually. Generally for fromsoft games, if you're stuck, try not locking on.
@@resm-oe9ji even if you maintain lock the bull is best fought by chasing it down rather than allowing it to chase you down, hit the ass in the ass is the winning tactic for sure!
Dark Souls difficulty is over blown, that being said the first time I tried Sekiro it took me 2 hours to get through the tutorial and I gave up before beating the first mini-boss. I played Jedi Fallen Order to finish and thought "huh that's kind of like Sekiro." Then tried it again and feel in love. Probably my favorite game of all time.
My friend gave up on Sekiro but wanted me to play JFO, which I'm currently blind playing on GMJ difficulty on my channel, he asked me how I was able to jump straight to max difficulty and I told him once he finishes GMJ to try Sekiro again.
Claiming that the only difference between weapons move sets amounts to "how they look to swing" is so disingenuous. They completely change the hitbox of your attacks which can have a huge influence on how you approach combat!
Still don't understand why feeble didn't use double jump and mikiri counter attacks on corrupted monk. Plus it's very useful to perform a nightjar ninja's strike on distancing enemies Took like 30 minutes to beat her. Guess different people just get stuck and cant find a proper solution at different moments. Mine personally was the 1v2 fight against spearman mini boss and a samurai just before the final boss. Spent like 2 hours and figured a way to get a stealth takedown only afterwards....
for me its the least replayable. i was enjoying the game massively until the invasion happens and then fromsoft decided to just spam areas with groups of minibosses, lost izalith style. the ashina castle roof during the invasion is a prime example of what i'm talking about, its complete bullshit. yeah, you can just run past them like most people do but thats not how i like to play these games. i like to fully clear the area out as i progress through it, and the last quarter of sekiro made that painfully annoying to do. i got the platinum and haven't played it since.
Actually Genichiro's follow up to his jump attack is pretty predicatble. In phase 1 he can only stab, in phase 2 he can stab and sweep, in phase 3 he can stab, sweep or do the uppercut that leads into the stab. In phase 3 he also does these things pretty much equally often. That is why you felt the stab was more likely and the uppercut was rare.
And in phase three he also adds a stab at the end of his long ass spam attack if you deflected them. I always took at is once he loses his armor he's more mobile
He really is feeble. Sekiro is hard but damn man you make it sound like your first playthrough had bell demon and no kuro charm active. Lol love the videos tho dude keep em coming
@@ni9274 It also seems like he didn't realize that posture regeneration was tied to health, for both him and the enemies, or that his posture would never break as long as he deflected an attack. He also didn't mention the use of prosthetics at all, which combined with the prosthetic skills gives you so many more options to dynamically deal with boss combos, mechanics or level design. Why did he never use prosthetics, I do not know.
@@common_undead He say he didn't used prosthetics and items to better understand the games mechanic, lmao. He didn't even purchased miriki counter, and he did genichiro after fucking fake monk.
@@ni9274 That is such an absurd statement to me. The prosthetics are part of the core mechanics. They aren't like spells or certain weapons in souls games. There's no stat requirements, no fp, no weight limits, nothing. The prosthetics and using them would also address his "complaint" of just running past enemies in the level, since its a good idea to kill them for the chance to drop spirit emblems, and because you can use the money you get to stock up on the emblems for the boss fights. Like he fundamentally doesn't get the mechanics or design choices, but tries to "critique" them still.
your point about needing perfection to beat bosses is correct. But even if you beat one boss, next one still feels equally if not more difficult. I like this think about this game. And another thing I like is, if you know the basics, you basically have everything to finish the game, sure it will be harder, but you don't have to grind for farm. you can do that to ease the difficulty, but its not REQUIRED. there is some motivational text i am remembering (forgot where it is from) that says something like "i am not afraid you of 1000 moves that you practiced once, i am afraid of your 1 move that you practiced 1000 times", this feels fit for the deflection mechanism. which seems to cover 90-95% of fights. This is my first such games so i don't know any better, but this game seems perfect to me: My only issue is basic quality of life things. 1. Reflection of Strength should reset to same arena instead of sending me back to idol an re-initiate it if i want to rematch. 2. The practice guy at temple should become stronger with time. Also training set needs to be an an infinite loop where we can exit the arena to stop it instead of set of 3 then restart with menu. 3. and key mapping for PC can be improved, where we have many keys. no point having "hold" actions when you can assign a separate key.
bloodborne is my favorite fromsoft game by far, but my favorite moment in these games was my first genichiro kill, the click that happened in my brain and i understood the combat in sekiro was just the best
You can make your way up Ashina Castle from the inside to reach the Vilehand fight during the invasion and stealth-kill his buddy before either of them notice you. I actually don't know how you entered that fight from the outside roof. I had no idea it was possible. It's funny. I feel like Sekiro came to me more naturally than any other FromSoft game. Despite repeated playthroughs I never managed to git gud at any entry except Sekiro, and I gitted real good.
If anyone here loves Sekiro and are desperate for more, please play SIFU. It's a beautifully animated hand to hand fighting game with pretty much sekiro mechanics. An easy 9/10 game for me.
This video was timed perfectly I just did a replay of Sekiro. I got this game back in 2019 when it released and I did finish it but it was a struggle I left the game not liking.3 years later I decided to revisit and had to get my muscle memory back and I did much better this time.This game offers some of the best combat I have played in an action game the sword combat once you get in the rhythm of it feels very satisfying deflects hit feels good and combined with learning all the mikori counters just elevates this game. This game is frustrating to the point of wanting to put a hole in the wall,but it offers an experience I can't get with most other games. I'm also glad this game doesn't have bloated RPG elements like most Western games.Theres no shortcut in this game like other fromsoft games no summoning and the only real way to get stronger is actually fighting the boss and learning the weakness which will punish you harshly if you fail. I can definitely see that alienating most of fromsofts audience,but I didn't mind I love action games and Sekiro does alot to distinguish itself from other action games.
I wanted a DLC for this game too :( Thymesia is something I recommend to anyone who enjoyed the combat in Sekiro. It's a shorter experience with tight and even faster gameplay. The way in which you flow between defence and offense is so exhilarating. There are some great bosses that allow you to push this concept further and further, until there is literary zero seconds wasted waiting for something to happen. There is only attacking, deflecting and bosses dying. Once you learn how agressive you can really play and how to do so effectively, I've found a couple of fights to be more fun than most (and possibly than any) of Sekiro's. And I love Sekiro. I got the platinum trophy by accident cause I played it too much. And even if it's nowhere as polished or complete as Sekiro, Thymesia was just fun as hell.
I gave this game 3 tries and just figured it wasn't for me. just couldn't bring myself to learn it. Gave it a 4th and final go and now I'm enjoying it. I'm actually sortve proud at how far I've come in the game. Went from practicing with the immortal guy at dilapidated temple everytime I booted the game to now beating owl father. It's a nice feeling.
Chained ogre was to teach using your resources. Going and getting the fire cannon attachment, you eavesdrop before this fight and they literally tell you he’s weak to fire
True. Since there is no stamina in Sekiro, monster bosses can be easily dealt with by dropping the lock on an constantly circling around and hitting their back.
The only stealth section I find to be really hard is the poison pit and the first stealth area when your going to the demon of hatred area. The best method to me for the beginning area is to ledge hang and use ceramic shards to get the enemies close to the edge so I can throw them off. Then you hug the wall at 21:14 and ceramic shard to get the attention of the rest of the guards. Plus you can use bloodsmoke ninjutsu. Also shinobi are samurai. Shinobi we’re what we would call a “corps” nowadays and were used like spies but they were also actual samurai.
Almost every single point that's brought up in the video is flat out wrong. This guy contradicts himself over and over again sometime in one breath. It just doesn't sound like he knows what he talking about and isn't looking at the game logically but instead speaking from a place of deep butt hurt.
It shocks me how someone route of the game could change his view of the game entirely Corrupted monk is supposed to be fought way further into the endgame not early before genechro , genechro is supposed to be the skill check that test what the players have learned that's why it was so easy for you because you were overpowered ( or let's say overskilled ) most people fought genechro first , the route to mipu village is hidden and hard to find , it took me hours to know how to go so I don't how you found it before top of ashina castle especially if you were following the story Also the mini bosses are the indication of how strong a boss is not the enemies of the area , and for corrupted monk it should have been obvious you are on the wrong track when you fought the ninja guy and seven spears of ashina , orin of water and saw how strong they are compare to the rest of the area By the time you get to corrupted monk you should've had a respectable amount of health and damage , 7 to 8 healings and lastly mortal blade which is op against most bosses even without spirit emblems Corrupted monk should go down in less than 10 minutes and the real corrupted monk should take 30 minutes because it is supposed to harder not easier , fake corrupted monk is supposed to be like spirit of godfrey and other spirit bosses in elden ring , a training for real boss so it won't be as overwhelming So no sekiro isn't as hard as you make it sound to be , it is indeed harder than the other souls games and very punishing but it doesn't require pure perfection like you said , I agree with other parts of the video and it was great
Agreed. Dude didn't explore and expressed that he avoids prosthetic tools and only deflects the monk... like yeah, you're going to have a hard time because you're avoiding mechanics.
@charles gee like I said the path to mibu village is hidden and hard to reach much harder than the obvious ashina castle It's his fault for not seeing the obvious Also letting you access end game areas early is something all other souls games do not just sekiro , the devs want the players to decide if they want to risk going very hard area underpowered or go the linear easier path either way they should accept the consequences of their choices If he made a mistake then it's on him and he should accept the consequences
@@lordofcinder8884 she still doesn't take that long if you just focus on parrying her since she's more aggressive now, just make sure you hit her when she goes idle.
Typical Soulsborne tryhard virgin: "The game is hard without using items and abilities and using them is cheese." Chad Soulsborne enjoyer: "I use all the mechanics the game makes available to me to ensure my victory." Even the game at the very beginning tells you to win by any means necessary: "A shinobi would know the difference between victory and honor." THIS is the intended way to play. Not just hit it with a sharp stick until it dies, that sounds boring and tedious as hell even if mastered.
This is why the game keeps telling you that you are a shinobi, not a samurai with codes. They know how asinine their player base is. Not that samurais in this game don't love cheating, aka genichiro's greatbow and Isshin's glock.
Isshin’s third phase is easier than the second because you can just use the lightnings to chop off half of his health, then the posture goes down like nothing.
Less than 50% of people on steam defeated Lady Butterfly and whats more emotionally compelling while ashina is burning is that you made this happen. By defeating Genichiro and all the defenders of Ashina, you weakened them enough that they were over taken by the ministry forces.
I like this review, there's a lot of insightful stuff in here. I do feel like there's a lot of personal experience diagnosing "the player has no choice but to do this thing I did which MUST be the meta" when there is a clear better answer available.
Yep pretty much. He keeps saying “there is only 3 choices” or something along those lines when it comes to a grip with the game, while actively ignoring the 4th option, which is really the 1st option that he decides to ignore, using prosthetics, and then criticised the game for it. Some of it honestly felt a little insulting where he suggests a player either looked up a guide to maximise their playthrough, left and came back when they’re stronger or cheesed the enemy to beat them. As if that’s the 3 only options. Like no, I just learnt the game mechanics and beat the boss as intended, using the tools intended by the developers and it didn’t take that long to do it.
It's crazy how someone can make it all the way to Corrupted Monk and completely miss the fact that posture regeneration is tied to HP damage.
I missed that but does it even matter? Like i was to into the fights to even care when they would end imo sekiro fights are the most thrilling when u have someone like the corrupted monk i could tell just from design that it was my favorite boss
@@dasty5228 I mean, if you're gonna critique the game but make completely untrue statements like "the closer the enemies' posture is to breaking the slower it recovers" while not realizing that posture recovery is tied to health, then it gives the impression that the critic didn't understand the game at all. Personally I think if you're gonna do a serious critique of something, you should understand its design mechanics and principles.
@@common_undead this is facts i feel you
I think a lot of his arguments are valid, but this is quite the mistake I have to agree.
@@Churahm I'd argue his entire video is based on the assumption that there is only 1 correct way to play, his way, and if the game didn't conform to his liking then that part of the game was bad. Most of his arguments are assumptions on how the game was designed, but he has no way on know why From Soft designed it in that way. It's just another clickbait video from a From Soft video essay youtuber.
I'm always surprised that it's such a commonly held opinion that using items in souls games is cheese, they're so obviously intended to be used in specific instances.
They’re anything but cheese
Yeah, this is the the soulsborne game to use items and abilities. You're not a naked DS protagonist, use items (divine confetti....didnt need to punish on corrupted monk like that) get abilities, use prosthetics and listen to npcs and eavesdrop for strats.
It's a hard game to lvl 1 with items and prostetics. NO items, prosthetics, and thinking it's cheese to not play like DS is the real enemy
I rarely use items because I always think I'm saving them for something else and by the end of the game I have loads of items I never even used
Soulsborne community in a nutshell. They overuse “cheese” or “trivialize” way too much. Cheesing a boss is using an unintended mechanic to beat the boss in a way it was not meant to be beaten. Like demon of hatred glitch. Using, say, the Flame Vent to kill the Guardian Ape is just fighting smart and using what the game gives you.
In Sekiro, they are very janky and overall useless. Aside from some actual cheeses, even against beasts, you still need to learn deflecting, and once you do, items are superfluous. Maybe speeding up the fight a bit.
"I have played through all endings and went through all the trials and know everything about the game to give this review." Proceeds to complain that the tutorial text boxes have too much info, didn't bother to read them, then doesn't know health affects posture recovery lol. Also, "I took the absolute worst path to play the game because it clearly hints for you to go to the top of the tower after defeating the bull and I ignored it completely and ran off in a random direction. I will now complain that these mid game enemies are too tough for my beginning skill level."
Yeah Skyrim ruined a generation of gamers.
"I want to go where I want, whenever I want, with leveled enemy scaling and a difficulty that permits no item usage."
honestly this guys just sucks fucking ass like holy shit he fucking died to corrupt monk with 3 gourds left like what??? I'd dint even bother to get past the first 15 minutes his opinions about this game is horrid he keeps saying oh this game is hard and bad because I'm not good and if you guys say I'm bad that's gonna hurt my feelings which makes u wrong no maybie the fact that u found it harder than beating a game at level one just means u suck booty cheeks like holy hell ur opinion is not allways right, annoying ahh people who think that because they have an audience they can say whatever and be right
I don't really understand your aversion to killing basic enemies. I absolutely adore this game's combat, and I love feeling like a god after mastering it, so I go out of my way to kill every single enemy in my way just because I can, often without taking any damage. It's immensely satisfying. It also gives me a reason to use all the different skills.
True, and there's a good gameplay reason to kill basic enemies as well since it refills your revives if you've lost any to boss fights.
That's why there's a random archer guy right outside Lady Butterfly's arena, to help you recover that lost revive while you figure the boss out over multiple attempts.
Me as well though I personally skip some of my least favorite enemies if possible (the dudes with hats that jump around at senpou temple because FUCK THEM, and the zombies that only grab because they're just boring and pointless to fight)
Then u decide u want to play ng+ with no charm (hard mode) and then demon bell (makes it EVEN harder). And every single npc turns into a mini boss, then u just want the npcs removed completely💀
A large part of enemies are so easy that killing them feels like a chore. Then you have assassins or nightjars who aren't a real threat but piss people off with their strange attacks. IMO, the enemies should prepare you for the boss fights. But only about a third of all enemies do that like the seekers, spear adepts and the interior ministry staff. If Sekiro had better enemies, people wouldn't get killed by Genichiro, Owl and Isshin so often.
@HGDVHIYHNFFDGHVDVBUFFVHGDCBH Try using shurikens on them when they're jumping. Also look out for the specific animation when you can do a mid air deathblow on them. I used to hate them, but I actually find them fun to fight now.
Your opinions on prosthetics, consumables and stealth are... Genuinely bad. Money is important. It allows you to upgrade prosthetics and buy said consumables. This does give plenty of reasons to fight enemies. The consumables in sekiro (besides maybe balloons) are mostly very useful. Especially sugars (and infinite sugars from headless). Prosthetics meanwhile are insanely good as counters to a multitude of mobs and boss attacks - and integrating them into combat can make certain encounters like Demon of Hatred hella enjoyable. Stealth work quite well. And you do usually have more than one approach to most stealth sections. You clearly underutilized ceramic shards, gachin sugars and the variety of stealth takedowns.
Also - game literally directs you to the easier paths. You just... Completely ignored Kuro and everything he said.
Roofs made out of straw are not grapple-able. The game never let's you grapple onto those roofs - so mist noble enterance is not as bad as you describe. (It is dumb that you can't grapple to the tree tho).
Your take on corrupted monk is also bad imo. It's an apparition with the fastest posture regen in the game. You made it more hard just because you view using game mechanics - like snap seeds or consumables as cheese.
Then again. You viewed money as useless. So I'm not surprised.
Seasons don't change in this game. Only the time of day. And both "teleports" have an incantation on the ground. Explaining the teleport.
Besides that - love the vids. Keep it up.
When he said the bit about just running past enemies and how money was useless I was like “no wonder this guy struggled so much with this game” lol
balloons are useful tho thats how you farm money for the prosthetic upgrades
The chained ogre exists to teach the player the importance of eavesdropping. This is why he's not meant to be defeated by deflecting, you're meant to eavesdrop and learn about his weakness to fire.
Okay but those aren't mutually exclusive. You could have hinted at a tool but also made it more in line with the progression.
Edit: Also I'd add that if that was the intention but then they barely use it throughout the game? Lame. Honestly if they just fixed the grab attack id say the ogre is fine
Also, on another note their level design is sometimes too obtuse. Like getting to the Hirata Estate and also find the singular item to make the chained ogre more ideal for a newcomer seems like something that could be improved
@@austin0_bandit05 based response. If the chained ogre is supposed to teach eavesdropping, then why do we never need that mechanic to beat any other boss in the game?
Edit: The chained ogre was an easy boss I by no means needed eavesdropping to beat. I dont think this issue matters much in the critique as it is being made out to be in these comments since my criticism of the chained ogre was not that it was hard, but that hit and run tactics trivialized the fight which is odd in a game mostly about posture break.
@@austin0_bandit05 barely used it thru the game? are we even playing the same game?
is this what happens when you use 15% of your brain?
@@plasmasnake542 "why do we never need that mechanic to beat any other boss in the game?"
That is what I said. What other boss is defeated through eavesdropping? I could have missed something and I'm not trying to be mean, it just seems like you're straw-manning my statement almost intentionally. I'm never said that we didn't use eavesdropping in Sekiro, I simply said that no other boss I can remember is defeated through eavesdropping.
@@plasmasnake542 I think I hurt his feelings.
It seems like almost every problem you have with the game comes from you putting artificial limitations on yourself and then criticizing your game for being difficult without the mechanic intended for that moment
Honestly don’t get it. He complains and complains about bosses being difficult and borderline unfair and chalks it up to some terrible game design but then actively ignores a major part of the game design. Like the chained ogre, he’s not there to teach players to run around and then attack, he’s there to teach players to use prosthetics in combat and to eavesdrop. Also almost all of his moves can actually be parried other than his grab. Ignoring the use of fire as weakness if fine, that’s how I beat him my first play through, but to suggest it’s poor design because he ignored the mechanics is on him.
Like I get it’s some personal badge of honour to beat every boss with no prosthetics but the game is designed to use them. Most bosses have a particular prosthetic you’re meant to marry with them and it doesn’t make them easy, it makes them fun.
He said he’s beat the game 4 times and in those 4 times he never decided to try a play through where he uses the prosthetics and play the game as INTENDED by the developers?
@@jockturner1547 Same thing with corrupted monk. I don't think I saw him hit a single Mikiri on her...
@@kyledubois6511 he hit a couple in the video. He actually acknowledges his mistakes and lack of info on the monk in some comments.
@@jockturner1547 I think it has a lot to do with the souls community and “git gud”. Souls games have really fun and challenging combat systems and it *is* fun to master them, but a lot of people then like to suggest that doing anything other than beating the game using the primary combat system alone is somehow cheesing the game.
You see the same thing with people talking about Dark Souls, Demon Souls, Elden Ring, and even Bloodborne a little bit. Its always seemed a little weird to me, like I understand challenging yourself but pretending like huge chunks of the game are only there for if you’re struggling or are some kind of unintended mechanic is ridiculous. If a game gives you a bunch of items and tools it expects you to use them, and most people are going to do that. The only people who don’t are those who took “git gud” too seriously.
@@emmafountain2059 It's not cheesing. It's just not fully rising up to the challenge set by the developers. Which is actually fine, as the items being there in the first place says that they don't expect you to do that, only to rise up to it just enough. Think of it like a puzzle game where solving 75% of it is enough to beat it. But some like to get that 100% and when it doesn't feel reasonable to do so that's when they get annoyed
Honestly it feels like a lot of your complaints come down to personal preference. You think stuff is too hard but then get upset at the tools the game gives you to work around the difficulty, several characters tell you “hey who cares how you win as long as you win.” The whole point of items isn’t to carry you through the game, they’re supposed to be early on crutches (along with stealth and to a lesser extent prosthetics) to give you more opportunities to progress and actually play the game to learn. You mentioned earlier that the samurai generals are good training for Genichiro, but you also said you were off put by the game when you first started. Geni will always be a better teacher of the mechanics and how to beat Genichiro than any other enemy, so it should be better to not slam your head into a brick wall and walk through him later in the game (story reasons and otherwise.
Id fully agree. Saying that using items and other tools aviable to you is "not engaging with the combat system" about as true as saying "leveling up in darksouls is false becasue killing enemies faster (or having more stamina) requires you to not master their mechanics"
@John McLawson Id suggest you check out some videos on what is truly possible within the combat system. There are multiple skilltrees granting you certain technuiqes and attacks that cab massively change the flow of combat . I personaly liked the throwing stars because they allowed me to interrupt enemies who used air combos or close the gap via the throw dash combo
Yea, a lot of his criticism was just his personal issue and him not wanting to use certain mechanics in the game.
I agree with this, he some valid points, but mostly he just didn't... and I hate to say this lol... git gud. Sekiro is only punishing if you're choosing not to learn the mechanics AND you're not improving your own skills while you play. If your focus is getting better, then the gameplay is rewarding AND fun. If your focus is convenience, then you're gonna get salty real fast
Even the game says in the first genichiro fight that it doesn’t matter how you win as long as you win
During that entire Corrupted Monk rant I was just like "Did he forget that enemies also have a normal health bar, and that Corrupted Monk only has one health bar?"
Lone shadow duel boss is only duel boss if you choose enter from the window which is the wrong way. Game punishes you for skipping important places by making it 2v1 if you ran past and grappled everywhere. But it doesn't take the option away from you. The correct way enter is from the behind(from the inside of the castle) and stealth kill the first one. You may choose to use ninjutsu on that guy to make it 2v1 against the boss.
headless ape bro
@@cheeseburgerhotdogman3364you can skip headless ape and his gf if you go to ashina depths before killing the ape
I think this is a level design problem. The window should have been locked so you can't get in from the outside. Because this two-enemy fight in such a small room doesn't make any sense. At least with the apes, I can run 200 meters away to the other end of the cave.
@@MenacingBanjo By this point in the game you have a massive range of tools to make a 2v1 simple even without using the puppet ninjutsu
@@Furionic696 can you give me a couple of examples of the simple strategies for fighting two lone shadows at once in a small room?
To your question "Why FromSoft fans are still okay with all the boss cheese for unskilled players ?", I think the answer is given by Genichiro when he cheeses you in a cutscene "A shinobi would know the difference between honor and victory".
A Samurai pretending to a Shinobi?
Those players won't beat the game because you are not cheesing Genichiro and Isshin. Doing themselves a disservice hurts them in the way that matters
@@jessem3149WHAT?!? Did we play the same game? You can easily cheese those bosses. Genichro first phase you just stunlock him in the corner and for phase 2 you just mikiri loop him with consumables. For isshin phase 1 just jump mortal draw to end it, for phase 2 you might have to fight it for a few seconds but phase 3 and 4 you just jump mortal draw before he even brings the spear out and does a single attack.
@@NathanSavageDamage Meant this in the sense that those who don't try to really learn the fundamentals won't be able to pull these kinds of things off. By being able to do what you're saying, you have to TRY and be skilled enough to do it, proving my point that unskilled players won't be able to pull that off. This was my intention, versus "cheesing" not being able to be done at all, you just need to be good at the game to actually do it.
@@jessem3149 Well the people you are referring to might not be able to play any video games if they can't do the things listed, you can just watch a video and then do it.
I scrolled through so many comments to see if anyone mentioned it, but eventually gave up...
The freaking umbrella! So god damn O.P. for so many reasons. It can deflect, it can block, it can attack, it can make the Demon of Hatred so easy. Also the spear for Headless after you deflect the big horizontal attack. HUGE posture damage...
Generally going through this game without using, at least, prosthetics, is just making the whole experience worse.. You have so many options and tools that makes each boss encounter so much more fun and engaging, and you just ignored most of them, and then even complained about them being poorly designed. Never have I played a game this fun to master, and robbing yourself of most of it's mechanics is just a downright shame.
You saying ‘I dont wanna look up how to make the minibosses easy because then victory feels hollow’ paired with Tyrannicon cheesing a boss had me dying
1:24:00 the solution to the multi fight is to enter from the other direction and stealth kill the other enemy, which also gives the opportunity to use puppeteer to turn it into an ally for the fight, you’re supposed to think “wow this fight feels impossible right now” and then use the tools at your disposal to problem solve and make the fight manageable
exactly what i did for the fight with the Seven Spears dude (Shume Masaji Oniwa) near the end of the game, who has a pretty tough enemy right next to him. I put in a good amount of attempts just trying to fight both at the same time, which made it so satisfying and relieving when I figured out I could use puppeteer and make the fight 10x easier
This is a solution, but stealth is a bit jank. Enemies spot you very easily, and resetting them after you fail is slow/annoying. (Esp. after the first playthrough where it's no longer a new encounter.)
@@AshoreNevermore this specific encounter is extremely easy for the stealth kill. you just hug the wall and walk behind him and he wont notice you 19/20 times
I'm also venturing a guess here that you never used any of the prosthetic tools and just deflected and R1 spammed your way through the game? Did you even try using the fireproof umbrella tool in the Demon of Hatred bossfight? It's the perfect tool for surviving his massive fire attacks. Bro, not to be mean, but I don't think you are the right person to be making these critique videos.
"uSiNg gAmE mEcHaNiCs iS cHeAtInG"
@@twoshu8940i liked VG Matthew’s Sekiro critique he also has bloodborne and Elden ring ones but i havnt watch either yet
You are right but I didn’t use fire umbrella either to be fair
Epic name bro for ds1, mathewmatosis for ds2, aesir asthetics for sekiro.
Others who have some good videos are smoughtown and hawkshaw.
In Sekiro, enemy posture depletes slower when they have less health. The corrupted Monk is much easier if you focus on getting its health low before going for a posture kill. There were multiple instances in your footage where I saw you deflecting instead of taking an opportunity to attack. For example, you can sidestep the jump attack to get a few hits in instead of deflecting. Maybe you figured this out on your own but just didn't use any footage.
wow really? i really struggled with the monk. guess i should go back and play this game again i never mastered it even after getting 100%.
Or just stab the Monk
@@wakkjobbwizard you never saw the big red bar with the boss name ?
@@ni9274 no i just mean i focused much more on posture damage
It's still a very unbalanced, uncreative unfun encounter.
You don't have to die to the snake after using the mind control on the monkey. He sorta jumps up and screams, snake gets distracted, you grapple and run past.
Owl actually leaves while you fight Emma to kill Genichiro and then places his head next to him in the cutscene.
How did he do that without the mortal blade?
@@MaltexGaming Okay, so the game never states where he gets it aside from Genichiro, my best guess is he took it from him then killed him with it but that part is speculation.
@@twelvevoltage oh yeah, I completely forgot about the black mortal blade! Makes sense
Love the review but your struggles with the corrupted monk were almost entirely created by your lack of information about the game and I don't think she should change at all. First of all, idk if you misspoke but bosses posture regain is based on their health bar not their posture bar. At 50% bosses posture recovery is slowed, and at 25% health bosses will stop recovering posture entirely. (I think this is why chained ogre exists, to make you chip away at health bar and observe it's relation to posture. His posture also wont recover while hes burning, which some npcs tell you to try.)
About her recovering posture too quickly, because you mostly ignored prosthetics you might not know the shuriken is great for keeping up posture damage from a distance. There's also a skill that gives you a follow up slash which comes out way faster and has more range than a dashing light attack. Just by the way you talked about the experience system I would bet you probably undervalue all the skills and tools available to wolf. I'm not even gonna mention snap seeds because realistically most players won't recognize the monk is a spirit, but the point is I think most players severely underestimate the power of certain prosthetics and skills. And more importantly how fucking sick some of them look High monk is the only way I dodge sweep attacks now lmao
and he didnt use mikiri counters
@@distributistsshrekvideo ninja art are for little scrub …
Based.
@@distributistsshrekvideo dude called it a miriki counter
@@ni9274 ninja arts add skill expression and this one is integral
Watching him complain about the corrupted monk's posture, while not doing any makiri counters on her, hurt my soul
He also said that using divine confetti (the stuff specifically made for ghost type enemies) would make you less skillful? Like the entire reason for the cobfetti being in the game is to give you an edge
@@eebydeeby03one legit criticism I can think of is that confetti at that point of the game in NG is a very limited consumable (so is snap seeds) and inventory hoarders (me, I’m so guilty of this) will not want to use it. Yes the high priest’s house give you a couple of confetti but that’s only good for a couple of tries.
@@eebydeeby03 Yeah, corrupted monk is in a similar ballpark as headless or shichimen warriors as in you need divine confetti if you don't want to die inside during the fight
Feeble king shtick is "game hard for me = game bad"
About the dual line shadow fight, you can literally puppeteer the one on the side of the room to flip the odds and turn it into a 2v1. That fight is definitely there to teach you the importance of that ninjutsu. It's not very hidden either, not sure how you missed that.
With the corrupted monk, you know damaging the health bar slows posture recovery right? The lady butterfly fight told you that. If you just go for perfect deflects the whole fight, of course your not going to make any progress.
Also seems to me as you almost completely disregard skills and prosthetic tools, for whatever reason. These can be so useful and look fucking sick most of the time. A good example would be the lazulite axe in the lady butterfly fight. This acts as an unlimited use snap seed in that regard while also doing incredible damage. The lazulite flame barrel can harm spirits such as the corrupted monk or the shamans. Any poison blade is a free kill for the people in the divine realm as they are INCREDIBLY weak to poison. High flying kick, can dodge sweeps and counter them at the same time, sakura dance can lightning reverse, living force is just a straight dps upgrade and so many more. Experimenting with different options is one of the best parts of this game so it's just hard to believe you kind of ignored it.
Also you make a point of ignoring enemies the whole time because theres no point in killing them. But this would have changed if you used skills and prosthetic tools as you would want the upgrades and skills which you need XP and rare resources found from killing them.
Overall good review but some of the, "issues" you had with the game are completely unfounded and simply due to lack of common player knowledge.
Edit: The flame umbrella allows you to not take any fire damage from demon of hatred while also having a great follow up attack if you got that skill in the tree. Man you really should play through, but actually use the tools and skills, you'll have a better time.
Yeah I used to play this game the exact same every time. Then I figured out how much cool anime shit you can do. Best game ever
I don't get why he ignores parts of the game and then complains about things that the things he ignores solves
He ignores the prosthetic and doesn't need money, but it's not the game's fault. It's like doing a lvl 1 run in any other From game and saying that souls don't matter, and that enemies are not worth fighting. "I can just use the soul items in my inventory rather than kill enemies to buy items". Ignoring the reward for killing enemies and saying that killing enemies feels useless is a bad criticism because it's not what they intended you to do.
@@noamias4897 kind of crazy considering his hour count...
Pretty sure most people would have figured this stuff out right away
@@noamias4897 This is exactly what I was thinking. He ignores a lot of the game mechanics because of personal taste. Fine, but the critique doesn't hold because the issues are solved by these game mechanics. So, pretty much there is no issue, unless you decide ignore a bunch of these mechanics.
Interesting video, but a lot of the critique feels like the problem of the game not matching his personal taste.
I never played any Fromsoftware games and actually haven't played many games at all, but I felt that this game is guiding me pretty well and I managed to figure a lot of things on my own. I imediatelly went back to the temple, when I got the bell, cause I new about the buda statue and I new that I need to bring it there and wantesd to see what happens. This is were you get fire prostetics needed for the Ogre. But, also some things were more difficult, because I lack the "gamer" insight. Snake stealth encounter was terrifying for me, the path was not so clear, my husband helped a bit, because some things were more obvious for him. And I remember my heart racing after finishing this encounter with minimal health, no heals and no resurrections. Like luckily avoiding a dangerous car crash or a brick that fell from the roof and you stepped away the last second.
I do agree with his ctitique in stealth and dragon rot. Jeez, I feel there should be another way to show to player that dragon blood is negativelly affecting people. It feels demoralizing indeed.
@@juditabarkauskaite Agreed on every point. Fun to see that you enjoyed Sekiro, it was my first Fromsoft game and now I've played and love them all
This man completed Senpou Temple, Ashina Depths and Mibu Village before fighting Genichiro.
I love the shit out of this game and this is unheard of to me. I respect it.
@@grayestratmostly same here, had no idea i could have fought him the whole time lmao
@@grayestratidk who that is yet but i agree, genichiro took me less tries than most mini bosses, sick fight though
How do you get to mibu without gun fort key?
@@grayestrat I completely forgot about the bottomless hole I'm so used to getting to mibu through sunken valley
I almost did the same thing I basically went around to the back of genichro tower instead of going to the top, the entrance to the top can be easy to miss especially if you wanna run past that area due to the relatively tough enemies
Tengu names you Sekiro then later Ishin calls you that first time you meet him if I remember correctly. It blew my mind, how clever it is
Never even noticed this. I have almost 1000 hours and I learn new things about the game everyday. Greatest game of all time
Also you can find Tengu’s outfit in his room hanging on the wall. I think he reveals a lot more when you offer him sake
Chained ogre was supposed to teach you 1) Some items are very strong on certain enemies, and you can learn what that is from clues in the game . 2) You can grapple some enemies, just like the dude on the horse or the first monke.
3) that jumps have can be used as long dodges
4) Fromsoft likes WWE
@@rocketappliances2160 that's my favorite thing I've learned so far
Maybe, but for how early it is in the game, it caused more harm than good imo.
This miniboss still confuses players more than it teaches them. At that point you've seen a miniboss who you have to fight the "Sekiro way" and a miniboss where the "Sekiro way" is pretty much useless. As a result the player has no idea what the game wants from him.
One note: the mechanical purpose of the Lady Butterfly illusion attack is an opportunity to refill a bit on spirit emblems. When I first fought Lady Butterfly I still sucked at the game and wasted a bunch of spirit emblems because I let the fight drag on and let posture recover. It also doesn’t help that you start with a low amount of maximum spirit emblems.
32:34 'HIS NAAAAAAAAAAAAAME! IS ON THE TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP LEFT CORNER OF YOUR SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Came to comment abt this too lmao clearly he didn’t die to him enough if he doesn’t know how to pronounce his name
"I don't know how to pronounce his name so we're gonna call him Horseman"
this is a small moment, but really encapsulates a lot of the problems I and many others seem to have with your approach. You're so focused in on the point you're trying to make you're just ignoring things the game tells you right to your face. Whether its posture relating to health, the Chained Ogre's teaching moments about fire weak red eyes, eavesdropping, etc., or just Gyoubu telling you exactly how to pronounce his name.
Your values just differ from his, I don't care about minute details such as those you listed. My mindset is to focus on the purpose not every individual detail.
@@SixthAllicard minor details such as...the names of major characters? The point was that his problems often stem from just ignoring things the game directly tells him.
Also you do you dude?
@@Nocturne989 Factually that's not important but cool.
@@SixthAllicard me when I ignore how to play the game and then ragequit
@@blazing910 Your comment makes no sense.
Looks like you were not using the mikiri counter or jump counter for the Corrupted Monk’s thrust/sweeping attacks. I can imagine how that would have made the fight substantially harder
Yea plus he went way earlier and said he was just running by enemies and got buying skills lol. The upgraded mikiri counter as well as chasing slice solve all the problems he had with the monk. Most hard enemies have a way to counter them you just have to use the tools the game gives you. I think Fromsoft gave so few tools so that people could experiment and find counters like using Sabimaru on Oren but it had the opposite effect it seems like most people just ignored the prosthesis because they weren't viable stand alone weapons even though that was never their purpose.
@@shby95 I ignored the prosthesis because I had to grind coins and find random items to upgrade it. And when in the fight, the use of a prosthetic seems like negating much of the challenge a boss is supposed to provide.
The only prosthetic I ever use is the shurakin, and only to close the distance between myself and the enemy with the slash attack.
I’m confused why he handicapped himself when he played this game, the game tells you to use items pretty blatantly, firecrackers, snap seed, divine confetti, your arm prosthetic are SUPPOSED to be used so you’re not trying to deflect a bull that punishes you for doing so
Because all those things make the game easier and aren’t required? not rocket science
@@mynamejef7963 It's okay if you handicap yourself for the sake of a challenge, but don't make a video complaining about the difficulty when the game tells you to use items
@ I bet you use spells in dark souls nerd
@@mynamejef7963 And you feel like youre above item users because you make the game harder for yourself and dont want others to enjoy the game like they want and as the game suggests to do so
@@cseve8801 I am above item users 😂😂 riding a bicycle and riding a bike with training wheels aren’t the same thing
So like. I'm at the corrupted monk part of the video and I was really confused as to how you found it so hard. I might regret commenting this before watching the rest of the video to confirm but did you not know bosses slowed their posture regeneration the more damage you did to their health bar after all those hours?
18:30 sounds you didn't bother to explore the ninjustsus or even try any of your other options there's plenty of ways to even the playing field bloodsmoke is good for a group of enemies backstab 1 blind them with smoke and take out there others quickly or have puppeteer to get a temporary Ally to fight alongside you.You also have a whistle prosthetic to lure enemies away from the group and backstab them.The game gives you options you just don't use them.
As for the lone Shadow guy it's not that hard to take care of the ally with stealth kill him first and he want be a bother.
One problem was that he did the side paths before Genichiro lmao so he didn't have like any of the tools, Bloodsmoke helps so much later one but you get the from Genichiro
I kinda disagree about the Isshin 4 phases being the artificial difficulty.
Because as long as there are many phases, the phases arent as long as for example 2 phases in owl father.
As long as youre aggressive against isshin, it should take you as long as owl father with 2 times less phases.
However his posture goes pretty fast, so it encourages you to be aggressive against him, cause otherwise its gonna last forever.
But I agree about the lightning reversal making the 4th phase easier, Isshin should be a little bit harder on that one
I mean idk. I'm prone to always mess up a lightning reversal. I have no idea why or how lol. But when you don't perfect them every time but you do go for the reversal every time, they feel more balanced. You lose so much health and are momentarily stunned so your cost is high if you mess them up.
I'll grant that maybe they should inflict less posture or give less stun time on the boss but I've also seen videos of people who would prefer to just dodge the lightning than go for the reversal. So idk. Maybe it's fine depending on the skill level of the player.
@@kyletrout3828 lightning reversal is easy, it doesn't matter when you get hit or when you deflect it just so long as you haven't touched the ground yet.
I always looked at is a genichiro being the "buy-in" for the right to fight ishinn. Ishinn fight being only the first 2 phases with the 3rd being a spectacle to finish the game and look cool
@@kyletrout3828In phase three I found that thing to be on higher ground than Isshin makes the lightning reversal timing easier
The thing is, Ishin is really just 2 phase with 2 moveset you need to learn. Genichiro is a boss you've beaten already, and he's much easier this time around since his mortal draw leaves his back open for attack. Isshin last phase is just his second one but with lightning, so it's easier. The only phases you need to learn is Isshin's first and second phase.
Something i learned that i didnt expect to work is you can actually mikiri counter the purple shinobi's unblockable forward kick. Youre stoppin a kick by stompin down on their shin
A thrust is a thrust, and I will mikiri counter that shit either way
@Lemmon Boy so like hypothetically, if he were too pelvic thrust at me, would i then mikiro counter him by stomping on his dong? Sekiro CBT dlc when?
@@MrDark086 I mean, you're not wrong..
@@lemmonboy6459 Apart from that one BS attack from the seven spears guy which is clearly a thrust but the game doesn't allow mikiri on it.
@@lukew6725 you can mikiri counter it. It’s just really delayed
It's no wonder you had so much trouble with the corrupted monk, you played the whole game before fighting the 2nd to 3rd REAL boss, because you apparently forgot you had a grappling hook, I hope you at least realized you could increase your attack power, I know how much the souls community hates reading after all
Souls fans hate it when you actually have to get good instead of increasing arbitrary stat numbers to do slightly more damage
@@GothamiteYT doesnt that argument meqn that everyone should be able to do SL1 playtrough of souls games and if they cant then they suck at the game?
Dude, you can defeat the chained ogre with fire, the blazing bull with firecrackers, and you can look for clues in your environment to make your entire run easier.
Using items is a part of the game, why would you not use them?
Because people(including me) dont like using a limited resource.
@@firmak2 then you're self imposing a harder challenge.
The game includes resource management
@@firmak2yeah that's just self handicapping.
Don't complain about difficulty if you're intentionally making it more difficult.
Use everything you have in order to win. It isn't going to destroy your playthrough in any way I promise.
@@Jimmymatthewb it is. Doesnt mean its not one of the hatdest souls game if not the hardest.
54:18 some bosses require you to get in a few hits, since the lower the vitality (HP) the slower posture will heal, this is also true for the player character (though you can accelerate posture recovery by holding down the block button)
since you already were at Ashina Castle at this point, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this, since the sword wielding miniboss general is there to teach you that some enemies will have extremely good posture recovery, so in addition to deflecting you will need to attack aggressively as well, taking away as little as 30% of a bosses vitality will significantly slow down their posture recovery
@@highlightermarca-texto3281 well, once your mind sets on how you think the intended way is, it's often hard to change your method
if he enjoys playing it that way, it's cool, and since he already admitted he was wrong, I think all's fine
yeah he missed the fact that the miniboss in front of Ashina Castle with the 4 gunmen is a tutorial on posture recovery when vitality is low, but I think it's safe to say, that he has already read a comment that corrects him
I feel like the chained ogre actually had a lot of utility in where it was placed. Firstly, as other comments pointed out, teaching you about the usefulness of eavesdropping and clue hunting, and also teaching you that the prosthetic tools are useful in combat. But I also want to add that the ogre teaches you that deflecting may be the main mechanic, but dodging is still just as important. A lesson that I feel comes in handy when going against the Ape and the Demon of hatred. This is something I don't actually hear very often in discussions surrounding the game
Except the orge will one shot you for any msitake and is about 10 hours or longer away from the ape or demon. With 10 or more bosses in between which rely heavily on parrying making it seem like a one off.
Your post would make a lot more sense if chained ogre was placed before ape or demon not at the start of the game
@@blinkyy1088 Nope, the placement makes perfect sense when you consider the 3rd boss it teaches you to handle which follows directly after it which is the brazen bull (which is also the boss that teaches you about status buildups a good while before they're relevant again) these monstrous bosses all act as their own subset that require unique approaches and sneaky use of your tools (finger whistle, firecrackers, umberdoodle etc)
In between both these fights you also contend the giant serpent and learn pretty quickly that you're meant to get the hell out of there an not fight further showing the player that sometimes a straight up battle is NOT the way to go. (Considering how you eventually handle the snake through stealth and tactics vs brute force and parrying feeds into this.)
They not only build up the same way all the standard swordfight bosses do towards isshin but they provide a massive amount of info about how to manipulate Sekiro's tools effectively. I absolutely agree with OP that this chain of bosses and the ramping of them mechanically all the way to DoH is slept on. He has the Ogre's aggression, the Snake's pure size and attacks that are best ran from vs dodged or blocked, and he has the exact status the brazen bull absolutely bullys you with the first time you enter its boss room
Good points overall but I disagree on some of the takes on the difficulty.
This game WAS hard but after dying multiple times to Lady Butterfly, a boss you can't steal kill the first bar of health, there and then I realized there are bosses that you have to face head on and high head strong - something in that moment clicked in me that the another way to play this game is to be to be a samurai - AGGRESSIVE!. From there on, I was able to be the SAMURAI and to be the SHINOBI and the game was on easy mode.
Fromsoft's game design signature is to make the game look almost impossible at face value (this is why a lot of players quit before they even get to 2nd encounter Genichiro) but the more you pick up the pace and gain more understanding the easier it gets. Part of the reason why you would see a lot of players say "I hope I can experience **Insert any Fromsoft game** for the first time again", as we humans yearn to crawl out from hardships and get to the goal only to miss the perseverance we have indulged by achieving what we want.
Having the learning process to be more punishing in Sekiro served a great purpose since there is no way out of there - only to well yeah... git gud. Jokes aside, I can see why they have to enforce this strictly as to the point it becomes punishing as they needed the players to be able assimilate the fighting mechanics as soon as possible. The game becomes much more entertaining and visually crafted by your own gameplay. The more grasp on the fighting mechanics the more animesque the game becomes. You use more prosthetics, you counter more, you squeeze attacks before the stagger animation from the enemy is completed. Look at Ongbal's Sekiro videos; the guy has extensive understanding of the fighting mechanics of the game that he is basically producing top level anime type content already lol.
Fromsoft tie in the connections of the player and the character with the parallels we feel both in fictional and reality approach. By the time you reach the endgame, You the player, and Wolf the shinobi has reached a mindset and skillset that is required to get you through there.
I feel like most of your opinions are made based on how you approached the game rather than seeing it in a objective perspective. You are the only one holding yourself back by not using what is on your arsenal, you refused or rather obstinate your gameplay by not engaging in one fundamental mechanics of the game. Most of the time the weakness of the enemy are revealed way before you fought them.
"I want the satisfaction of overcoming difficult odds". This is basically close to the Bushido code. Spoken like a true samurai! Fair. I do this too but you need to be able to switch in between, you can't just play Samurai style throughout the entire game without the element of Shinobi, and vice-versa. This is an equivalent of shooting yourself on the foot because as you said "Wolf is more like a samurai not a shinobi". It seems to me like you are speaking from your gameplay because on my gameplay Wolf is more a ninja. I stealth killed bosses' first health bar if I can because SHINOBIS DO NOT FIGHT FAIR.
Also, Finding COLLECTIBLES was not a problem for me since it is often hinted through the "in game text", there's also the "player messages" scattered throughout the world and as a player I am more of the explorer type to the point that I have developed an instinct in which I can sniff out these hidden collectibles lol. I got all gourd seeds on my first blind playthrough. The issue for me though is the utilization of the items you find throughout the game. I finished the game with the gazillion bozo items I got but I guess it's not just a Sekiro problem because almost every other game, not just from Fromsoft, have this problem.
Things to note, Sekiro was my first ever Fromsoft game that I played, so at that time I had no scope of reference of a soulslike to compare it to. I just went and dove deep with the only expectation that I will be playing a shinobi. I was the biggest fan of Arkham Series and when I saw this Sekiro was on sale on Steam and saw the stealth tag, I got it without knowing what "soulslike" is. All in all, Sekiro was my introduction to the one of the best genre in gaming. The soulslike.
definitely agree that they held themselves back. 100 hours on the game and don't know the value of consumables and Shinobi tools?? C'mon now. Also funny they said the beginning of the game is too hard but shit talks stealth. You're a Shinobi fighting large crowds of stronger ppl. Stealth is your equalizer, the game IS hard but not embracing aspects of the game that it clearly tells you about is gonna lead to a worse time
owl father is the fight of sekiro's conflicted feelings. It ties in with the purification ending beautifully.
Corrupted monk is brilliant dude, one of the best bosses in the game. I like how the fight takes forever, it just gives me more time to enjoy the fight lol. On first playthrough though it can be a little frustrating because divine confetti is limited and you may not know at the time that you’re supposed to whittle down her hp before stacking posture damage. That being said if worse comes to worst you can cheese her and come back later when you’re more prepared.
you can farm divine confetti from the ashina samurai inside the castle.
@@Ghorda9 I know, I forgot, but that’s boring and repetitive
@@grimreefer213 you only need to go around two or three times to get enough with a balloon.
@@Ghorda9 Ehh I don’t know about that. From my experience the drop rate is pretty low, once you upgrade the senpou arts tree i’m sure it’s more common but you won’t have that at that point in the game. It depends on how many times you’re gonna die. Between corrupted monk and O’rin you could be dying a few dozen times depending on the player skill level. That’s a good amount of farming. But you don’t technically need divine confetti for corrupted monk, but if you don’t use it the fight will take quite a while which may be stressful for brand new players on the first playthrough.
@@grimreefer213 you don't need it for O'Rin and it's good practice to get a good feel for a boss before using any consumables.
sekiro is a game that broke me and I thought I would never be able to beat it. Beating the sword saint for the first time was probably the largest opium rushes I had In my life so far. It might have broken me but I came back stronger and prouder
Opium rush ?😂 dopamine?
"Emma is the only woman in Japan"
Dude, this entire region is about to face an invasion from the inner ministry. Why would they leave women and children there instead of evacuating them somewhere safe to begin with?
About the first snake attack, what made you think it was an unfinished sequence?
And about Corrupted Monk, I'm pretty sure it was balanced to be a longer battle until you get her HP to half, which then stops any posture recovery. And since it's an illusion, you can use fire, snap seeds, firecrackers... It's not that bad at all.
Wait, Genichiro AFTER Corrupted Monk? That explains everything.
The second Corrupted Monk was only easier because you met it at the appropriate time. And still, the first fight was only phase 1 of the second fight, so it is mostly a new fight. It won't be easier for most people.
About the bosses making you feel like the boss through mastery, DMC5 does that and it feels incredible
Dmc5 combat is the most sleeper shit ever
29:10 fun fact. Rot accumulates even if you avoid the resurrection mechanic entirely.
resurrection has no effect on rot.
Yeah as far as I know rot only triggers when you truly die.
Fun fact. Rot doesn't accumulate if you don't ignore the resurrection mechanic, and instead use it to run back to an idol.
I think rot accumulates more when you die die after resurrecting once already
This is definitely my favorite Fromsoft game without any doubt, and one of my favorite games of all time. Still hearing that you first time beat Genichiro hurts me because it took me 9 hours across three days.
I keep replaying and replaying the bossfights against Isshin, Genichiro and Owl. Especially Sword Saint Isshin is so damn enjoyable I can play that fight 10 times back to back at the idol. If this game had something like Chalice Dungeons I'd never quit playing.
The idea of a Berserk game playing as Guts made by From would be awesome. I don't even dare imagining it
Genichiro did the same for me, he really is the wakeup call. Before that point you could get by with dodging instead of parrying, but not him. You gotta learn the game and that took me wayyyy too long lmao
@noamias4897 genechiro took me 12 hours pesent
He beat him way later into the game than most people do. That's probably why. It took me a fuckin while to beat Genichiro but that was pretty much the moment I figured out how the game works and fell in love with it.
“Samurai general is mini boss easy mode” and here I am. Getting killed by him 20 times in a row
When Sekiro says "One who opposes the Buddha?", I interpreted the way he said it as one of contemplation, like he was slowly repeating what the dying man was saying to try and deduce who "the one who opposes the Buddha" might mean. Especially since it ends up being someone he never mt before and only had an adjacent knowledge of as it was pointing at being the person causing the fog in the valley.
I never heard that line as meaning that Sekiro was taken aback by the idea of anyone ever daring to stray from or question or not believe in or be otherwise diametrically at odds with the principles of Buddhism. The way he repeated what the dying man was saying was very contemplative in delivery, the man being near death makes sense as to why Sekiro would vocalize his thoughts about finding the culprit with any other hints the dying Buddhist can give before he dies. But it seems like a contemplative statement where Wolf was solidifying the new lead in his mind by vocalizing it with slow, deliberate articulation and so the dying man can hear that Sekiro is indeed taking interest in pursuing the man's dying wish. H was trying to deduce the identity of the man through careful thought and allow for the mortally wounded man to be able to add any further leads, hints or contemplations of his own as easily as possible in such a state of death throes. The river noble village he was about to visit next was completely devoid of true Buddhists, as the village populous had all but completely abandoned the core tenets of Buddhism, wherein residents had rejected restraint from desire and excess, rejected the pursuit of self-improvement and they had absolutely rejected the idea of reincarnation by pursuing its polar opposite in pursuing the immortality of the rejuvenating waters. So considering Wolf is a Shinobi that is well acquainted with Ashina and its people, especially its biggest and most prolific areas like Mibu village and the Mibu Nobles, its likely that the Mibu may have been first to come to his mind as he rearticulated the hint the dying man gave about who was causing the fog was "One who opposes Buddha", it is very likely that Mibu came to mind first within Ashina.
And in less words:
Wolf said it out loud and thought deeply about who best fits the description as 'opposers of Buddha', and with the slow and deliberate vocal cadence of Wolf's words, it sounds like he is both in deep contemplation about the culprit, as well as deducing who the culprit indeed is. Wolf comes off as deeply contemplating the potential candidates based on the defining characteristic the dying man gave to wolf, but the slow and deliberate speed to the cadence makes it sound as though Wolf was in fact making that connection between the heretical abuse of the rejuvenating waters by the Mibu and the dying man's guidance that Wolf should seek out "One who opposes Buddha" and deducing that it is a Mibu noble who is in fact at fault for the depravity and illusions plaguing the valley they stand in.
As someone who’s never played sekiro, I agree.
Gaachins Sugar literally makes it to where you can sneak around easily without getting seen and combined with the blue ninjutsu on mini bosses (specifically the last Seven Spears of Ashina mini boss with the other samurai) can make the fight so much easier
I don't think they used much of the items or Shinobi tools so they took advantage of this
>plays a fromsoft game
>Plays the hardest fromsoft game
>"Why wont it let me change the difficulty? This game is too hard :("
I'm going to have to call a few things out in your "multi-fight" section
I think a lot of your problem is the fact that you've decided that stealth sucks and not worth attempting.
For example in that the Lone Shadow Vilehand + buddy fight you can actually sneak up and stealth kill the "normal" Purple Ninja buddy without aggroing by sneaking in and hugging the wall. This actually makes the miniboss super easy since you can use the chump to activate ninjitsu (a lot of people like to puppeteer the chump, but I prefer Bestowal bc I find puppet guy just gets in my way more than anything).
As for the purple ninjas on the rooftops I really think you're intended to sneak around them, because while it isn't easy I personally found it a lot of fun to figure out how to sneak around and take them all out. Granted I'll give you that on my first playthrough I mostly just ran past them.
I can't really think of many more instances of multifights - maybe the Seven Spears + General part near the end, but for that part you can use the Stealth Sugar to stealth kill the general and either puppet or use Bestowal or blood cloud or whatever.
EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot about the Outskirts Revisited bit at the end. Yeah. Fair enough, just run past all those jackasses to fight the Demon of Hatred.
I have to agree with this comment. When I played Sekiro, upon entering new arenas and zones, I would always take my time and to look around. This always rewarded me by frequently finding ways to deliver a stealth blow to mini bosses and to take out as many additional enemies as possible before breaking stealth. I thought this was obviously intended because of how levels were designed.. FromSoft really rewards a more cerebral play style in Sekiro, and really punishes brute force (until you get to the point where you’re very skilled at the mechanics).
I was shocked when I watched play throughs on RUclips. Almost no one thinks to utilize stealth, or the environment. This is fine, but it makes for a VERY frustrating learning curve, and it’s unnecessary with patience and basic awareness of your surroundings + utilization of your situational abilities.
you can also lure out some mini bosses as well.
Funny, another guy just said not to bother with stealth and just rush them from behibd since you move so fast.
@@firmak2
This is only possible through sheer dumb trial & error until you figure out which paths you can sprint through without alerting them. It's not the intended way to take them out neither the easiest
1:46:18 the Genichiro mixup gave me problems too, and after dying to that mixup for the 15th time I realized you could see the glint on his blade to judge whether it was a sweep or a thrust. If the glint is under him, it’s a thrust, if it’s behind him, it’s a sweep.
46:07 funny story, my friend also did ashina depths first, and after running out of divine confetti for the corrupted monk, quit the game forever. I’ve been trying to get him back into it forever but he won’t budge.
Also I love your style or critique, keep up the good work!
That rooftop part where you have to get past all those deadly nightjars. Even just getting past that one small part gives me such a feeling of satisfaction accomplishment, and excitement. Like even that one part is cooler than the entirety of 99% of video games.
I love this game but it's the one game I wish I wasnt as old as I am. My reflexes just cant keep up the onslaught of attacks plus not knowing where anything is. It's a game I watch not play.
From what I’m seeing here, your issues with the game all stem from your own personal decision to not use the prosthetics, also leading to a lack of understanding the game mechanics. I’ll break it down here. I’m aware my comment won’t be seen by many, but if you do read it I’d love a response and a legitimate discussion.
1. Prosthetics are meant to be used, and they largely do not trivialize the boss fights at all. If you google what specific timings, combos, or “cheese” strats you can use with the prosthetics, then yes, they make the game too easy. But if you just experiment with them and use common sense? They add a bit of extra combat variety to the game and make boss fights marginally easier without trivializing them. For example, flame vent against the ape or the giant. Great way to build fire damage. Firecrackers are a great way to stop your enemy and get a few hits in, and are fairly effective against every boss in the game. Use the axe for some extra damage. Loaded spear does a ton of posture damage to the guardian ape and gives a sick animation. You can decide to play without these tools, but using a self-imposed handicap to say the game is “too hard” is wrong. And then saying it’s too easy with these prosthetic tools is just outright inaccurate, as again, it’s only too easy if you choose to employ cheese strats.
The game itself encourages you on multiple occasions to do whatever it takes to win, as Shinobi are known for underhanded tactics. You’re allowed to stealth, use hit-and-run, or prosthetics to help yourself out. The beauty of this game is that it’s hard and unforgiving, so you can throw every tool in your arsenal at bosses and mini-bosses to try to get through it without making the game too easy.
2. Fights are not useless at all. They give you money, for… prosthetics. You chose not to use said prosthetics, and that’s on you, but that doesn’t make it a bad design choice. That just means you played the game a different way than the devs intended. Plus, these fights allow you to get skills, many of which are extremely useful and definitely worth grinding for. You get certain combat arts, extra spirit emblem usages, stronger healing gourds, a better mortal draw, and more. Fights also give spirit emblems, which is helpful if you’re running low and helps keep your count high, as they are consumables. Lastly, they give a good amount of practice. And fighting in this game is so fun that I don’t see why you wouldn’t fight enemies. In fact, listing out all of this has made me realize that Sekiro really gives MORE reason to fight enemies than most other games. Sure, the leveling system is gone, but the fact that skills, prosthetics, spirit emblems and multiple consumables are directly tied to fighting gives you plenty of reason to fight, whereas on repeat playthroughs of Bloodborne I find myself sprinting past every fight.
3. The multi-fight complaint is, once again, a self-imposed issue. The multi-fights are obviously made for you to use Shinobi tactics to beat them. In the example of the Lone Shadowmen double fight, you can easily sneak into the room and stealth deathblow the other guy to make it a 1v1. Or even better, you can equip the puppeteer Ninjitsu (which you have to have at this point in the game) to make the second guy fight on your side against the mini-boss. This is applicable to many fights in the game.
I spent a while on corrupted monk but once someone told me use a divine confetti it was over
The Bull teaches you to use your prothesis against enemies and watch out for their weaknesses.
That’s more ogre if anything but bull definitely rewards you for using firecrackers
Still a shit boss. 😆
I don't know, I personally take some issue with your critique on the Blazing Bull. The usage of FireCrackers wasn't even considered in the analysis when there is clear evidence throughout previous areas that it's very effective against beasts, from the soldier eavesdrop, Gyobu boss fight, as well as the description, one should systematically conclude that FireCrackers not only make the Blazing Bull boss fight fair, but probably the easiest boss fight in the game. I could be wrong however, one of the coolest things about this game is the fact that one boss that is easy for on individual was an impossible task for another.
This is still a well done review and I can tell that alot of effort went in to this, so seriously kudos my man!
I agree that the chained ogre and blazing bull are completely out of place for the start of the game and can give some people contradicting ideas on how to play the game if they are unlucky.
Also most players block a lot of attacks so you dont have to be "perfect" especially without kurus charm.
Its actually a legitimate tactic to try to parry, but whenever youre unsure on when to parry just spamm block just in case for a new player.
Kurus charm and normal playthrough is completely different. In a normal playthrough you can literally just run from a boss and regen.
Also the first samurai boss or immortal tutorial guy tells you that you need to lower HP for some Bosses first to reduce their posture regen posture.
I think its highly unlikely for people to go to mibubvillage first, most people will either explore the giant castle in front of them or go left to the monks where the buddha picture tells you to not go further its dangerous. So 90% of people went to genichiro after blazing bull pretty much. But I can see your frustration and highly unlucky.
as someone who didnt manage to beat sekiros learning curve i gotta say that take on weirdly deterring newbie players is spot on
You need to kill corrupted monk by doing health damage not posture damage, it’s obvious.
....no. The only fights where HP damage is more efficient would be the beast fights. And even then, the firecrackers could even it out a little.
Half right, it's both. The corrupted monk is just taking what the game teaches you when fighting Lady Butterfly (that posture recovery slows down based on their health damage) to it's logical conclusion. It's a single deathblow against an enemy with insane posture recovery, but the recovery becomes very manageable once you take 25%-50% of her total health away, depending on your skill level. Her leaping attacks are all very easy to dodge and get some decent health damage in, and you can use the mortal blade skill for some unblockable health damage as well.
@@Izak_Klark no, it’s 100x quicker to beat fake monk with hp damage.
When she is at 1/4 of his Health bar you can kill him with posture.
@@midastheunwise2423 yes you can kill her with posture if you did engouh damage.
@@ni9274”100x faster to kill it through health bar
“ at 1/4 hp you can get a posture kill “
Do you not realize these are two different things? They were talking about lowering the hp to 0, not to 25% for a posture kill
Great video with some excellent points, there are some things I disagree with however. Every encounter that requires stealth can be solved by using stealth only, the only exception being Juzou where you have to de-aggro him in order to perform a stealth deathblow. I would highly recommend anyone to use Gaichiin's sugar/spiritfall for these encounters as they make it so much easier to remain undetected. Also Chained Ogre, like many other early game challenges, is supposed to be a way to teach you certain mechanics that'll be useful for the remainder of the game. For the Ogre for example it is that
1. Always be wary of grab attacks and learn how to dodge them
2. Normal attacks can always be deflected, no matter how powerful they look
3. Red-eyed enemies have a crippling weakness to fire (so maybe search for the flame vent, no seriously go to the Hirata estate first before you proceed).
The only enemy that I truly don't enjoy is the Blazing Bull even though it's also supposed to teach you something (that beasts are weak to firecrackers). That fight will never feel like a clean victory no matter what you do. I do agree however that there are some situations which don't have many ways to solve them, making them kind of tedious to replay.
Edit: nevermind, some more baffling points were brought up that I don't have the time and energy for to engage with lol
No mikiri counters and ever time he jumps over a red attack he doesn’t jump on there head for extra posture damage , feeling like a lot of this review is just you not having enough info or good use off all the mechanics the game offers
It's crazy to me how you didn't learn gyoubu's name because he screams it at you when you enter
just wanna say that you can get like 8 of the gourd seeds before even fighting genichiro
Actually if you kill the headless you get permanent sugars it’s kinda awesome actually
Funny to me that you had so much trouble with Corrupted Monk, then beat Genichiro first try-I usually tell people that Genichiro is the great equalizer-he forces you to learn how to play the game “properly”. Constant aggression, perfect parries, etc. and beating him makes most of the challenges of the rest of the game (final form Isshin excepted) FAR easier in comparison. Not only would Corrupted Monk have been easier by grinding your teeth on Gen, but Corrupted Monk is also, imo, a teaching moment of using items and prosthetics to help kill larger, high health enemies who are hard to have a straight up sword fight with.
So what do you do if you don't use prosthetics and items?
@@downsjmmyjones101 kill the monk? The game give’s you the items and equipments to use in a battle, you are not a Samurai, You are a Shinobi, fight to win, hesitation is Defeat.
You may like the game by lilting yourself, but if you take everything and use, you gonna love the gam. ;-;
@@downsjmmyjones101 deal health damage until their posture recovery is slow enough for you to win with deflects.
Now that you mentioned it, he probably struggled on the monk because he didn't fight genichiro first
I think the bull is meant to be chased or run around it in circles - teaching you the important mechanic that wolf is basically as fast as any enemy and never gets tired. I used this tactic on the apes and demon of hatred. The bull in fountainhead palace was taken down super easily this way along with some firecrackers.
I didn't even use firecrackers. Just drop the lock on and constantly dodge attack towards his rear and he never hits you. He was the easiest boss for me actually. Generally for fromsoft games, if you're stuck, try not locking on.
@@resm-oe9ji even if you maintain lock the bull is best fought by chasing it down rather than allowing it to chase you down, hit the ass in the ass is the winning tactic for sure!
Dark Souls difficulty is over blown, that being said the first time I tried Sekiro it took me 2 hours to get through the tutorial and I gave up before beating the first mini-boss. I played Jedi Fallen Order to finish and thought "huh that's kind of like Sekiro." Then tried it again and feel in love. Probably my favorite game of all time.
This is my exact story aswell
Passive gamers usually have it the hardest in Sekiro playing passive is boring too guess that's why Sekiro was so cinematic and thrilling. Great game
My friend gave up on Sekiro but wanted me to play JFO, which I'm currently blind playing on GMJ difficulty on my channel, he asked me how I was able to jump straight to max difficulty and I told him once he finishes GMJ to try Sekiro again.
@@billythenarwhal1579 what GMJ
@@shby95 Grand Master Jedi
Claiming that the only difference between weapons move sets amounts to "how they look to swing" is so disingenuous. They completely change the hitbox of your attacks which can have a huge influence on how you approach combat!
Still don't understand why feeble didn't use double jump and mikiri counter attacks on corrupted monk. Plus it's very useful to perform a nightjar ninja's strike on distancing enemies
Took like 30 minutes to beat her. Guess different people just get stuck and cant find a proper solution at different moments. Mine personally was the 1v2 fight against spearman mini boss and a samurai just before the final boss. Spent like 2 hours and figured a way to get a stealth takedown only afterwards....
for me its the least replayable. i was enjoying the game massively until the invasion happens and then fromsoft decided to just spam areas with groups of minibosses, lost izalith style. the ashina castle roof during the invasion is a prime example of what i'm talking about, its complete bullshit. yeah, you can just run past them like most people do but thats not how i like to play these games. i like to fully clear the area out as i progress through it, and the last quarter of sekiro made that painfully annoying to do. i got the platinum and haven't played it since.
Actually Genichiro's follow up to his jump attack is pretty predicatble. In phase 1 he can only stab, in phase 2 he can stab and sweep, in phase 3 he can stab, sweep or do the uppercut that leads into the stab. In phase 3 he also does these things pretty much equally often. That is why you felt the stab was more likely and the uppercut was rare.
Exactly, I can confirm this
And in phase three he also adds a stab at the end of his long ass spam attack if you deflected them. I always took at is once he loses his armor he's more mobile
AKCHEWERLY
Commenting for the algorithm my man. I appreciate the amount of time and effort you would have put into this.
He really is feeble. Sekiro is hard but damn man you make it sound like your first playthrough had bell demon and no kuro charm active. Lol love the videos tho dude keep em coming
He tried to beat fake monk with posture damage…
@@ni9274 It also seems like he didn't realize that posture regeneration was tied to health, for both him and the enemies, or that his posture would never break as long as he deflected an attack.
He also didn't mention the use of prosthetics at all, which combined with the prosthetic skills gives you so many more options to dynamically deal with boss combos, mechanics or level design.
Why did he never use prosthetics, I do not know.
@@common_undead He say he didn't used prosthetics and items to better understand the games mechanic, lmao.
He didn't even purchased miriki counter, and he did genichiro after fucking fake monk.
@@ni9274 That is such an absurd statement to me. The prosthetics are part of the core mechanics. They aren't like spells or certain weapons in souls games. There's no stat requirements, no fp, no weight limits, nothing.
The prosthetics and using them would also address his "complaint" of just running past enemies in the level, since its a good idea to kill them for the chance to drop spirit emblems, and because you can use the money you get to stock up on the emblems for the boss fights.
Like he fundamentally doesn't get the mechanics or design choices, but tries to "critique" them still.
Dark Souls players get filtered by Sekiro and make a 2hr long video explaining why they got filtered
12:24 you forgot the info broker lol
finally someone acknowledge that Naruto invented rivalries, electricity and black hair.
How have you not seen yu yu hakusho
@@loveisthewae3745 i was being sarcastic.. but no, i have not.
The complain about enemies seeing you actually only applies to the snake eye enemies, they are snipers so yeah.
This game gets more appreciated over time. I'm a big fan of it since release and I'm glad more people are enjoying it now.
42:33 you're supposed to use snap seeds that the guy in front of her arena gives you to remove the illusions.
your point about needing perfection to beat bosses is correct. But even if you beat one boss, next one still feels equally if not more difficult. I like this think about this game.
And another thing I like is, if you know the basics, you basically have everything to finish the game, sure it will be harder, but you don't have to grind for farm. you can do that to ease the difficulty, but its not REQUIRED.
there is some motivational text i am remembering (forgot where it is from) that says something like "i am not afraid you of 1000 moves that you practiced once, i am afraid of your 1 move that you practiced 1000 times", this feels fit for the deflection mechanism. which seems to cover 90-95% of fights.
This is my first such games so i don't know any better, but this game seems perfect to me:
My only issue is basic quality of life things.
1. Reflection of Strength should reset to same arena instead of sending me back to idol an re-initiate it if i want to rematch.
2. The practice guy at temple should become stronger with time. Also training set needs to be an an infinite loop where we can exit the arena to stop it instead of set of 3 then restart with menu.
3. and key mapping for PC can be improved, where we have many keys. no point having "hold" actions when you can assign a separate key.
bloodborne is my favorite fromsoft game by far, but my favorite moment in these games was my first genichiro kill, the click that happened in my brain and i understood the combat in sekiro was just the best
You can make your way up Ashina Castle from the inside to reach the Vilehand fight during the invasion and stealth-kill his buddy before either of them notice you. I actually don't know how you entered that fight from the outside roof. I had no idea it was possible.
It's funny. I feel like Sekiro came to me more naturally than any other FromSoft game. Despite repeated playthroughs I never managed to git gud at any entry except Sekiro, and I gitted real good.
If anyone here loves Sekiro and are desperate for more, please play SIFU. It's a beautifully animated hand to hand fighting game with pretty much sekiro mechanics. An easy 9/10 game for me.
This video was timed perfectly I just did a replay of Sekiro. I got this game back in 2019 when it released and I did finish it but it was a struggle I left the game not liking.3 years later I decided to revisit and had to get my muscle memory back and I did much better this time.This game offers some of the best combat I have played in an action game the sword combat once you get in the rhythm of it feels very satisfying deflects hit feels good and combined with learning all the mikori counters just elevates this game. This game is frustrating to the point of wanting to put a hole in the wall,but it offers an experience I can't get with most other games.
I'm also glad this game doesn't have bloated RPG elements like most Western games.Theres no shortcut in this game like other fromsoft games no summoning and the only real way to get stronger is actually fighting the boss and learning the weakness which will punish you harshly if you fail. I can definitely see that alienating most of fromsofts audience,but I didn't mind I love action games and Sekiro does alot to distinguish itself from other action games.
I wanted a DLC for this game too :(
Thymesia is something I recommend to anyone who enjoyed the combat in Sekiro.
It's a shorter experience with tight and even faster gameplay. The way in which you flow between defence and offense is so exhilarating.
There are some great bosses that allow you to push this concept further and further, until there is literary zero seconds wasted waiting for something to happen.
There is only attacking, deflecting and bosses dying.
Once you learn how agressive you can really play and how to do so effectively, I've found a couple of fights to be more fun than most (and possibly than any) of Sekiro's.
And I love Sekiro. I got the platinum trophy by accident cause I played it too much.
And even if it's nowhere as polished or complete as Sekiro, Thymesia was just fun as hell.
I gave this game 3 tries and just figured it wasn't for me. just couldn't bring myself to learn it. Gave it a 4th and final go and now I'm enjoying it. I'm actually sortve proud at how far I've come in the game. Went from practicing with the immortal guy at dilapidated temple everytime I booted the game to now beating owl father. It's a nice feeling.
Hell yeah
Chained ogre was to teach using your resources. Going and getting the fire cannon attachment, you eavesdrop before this fight and they literally tell you he’s weak to fire
The one thing the flaming bull taught me is that I can run indefinitely, and that actually was my strategy for all monster bosses.
True. Since there is no stamina in Sekiro, monster bosses can be easily dealt with by dropping the lock on an constantly circling around and hitting their back.
The only stealth section I find to be really hard is the poison pit and the first stealth area when your going to the demon of hatred area. The best method to me for the beginning area is to ledge hang and use ceramic shards to get the enemies close to the edge so I can throw them off. Then you hug the wall at 21:14 and ceramic shard to get the attention of the rest of the guards. Plus you can use bloodsmoke ninjutsu. Also shinobi are samurai. Shinobi we’re what we would call a “corps” nowadays and were used like spies but they were also actual samurai.
Almost every single point that's brought up in the video is flat out wrong. This guy contradicts himself over and over again sometime in one breath. It just doesn't sound like he knows what he talking about and isn't looking at the game logically but instead speaking from a place of deep butt hurt.
Ah yes time to cozy up with a cup of mushroom and enjoy this next 2 hours
It shocks me how someone route of the game could change his view of the game entirely
Corrupted monk is supposed to be fought way further into the endgame not early before genechro , genechro is supposed to be the skill check that test what the players have learned that's why it was so easy for you because you were overpowered ( or let's say overskilled ) most people fought genechro first , the route to mipu village is hidden and hard to find , it took me hours to know how to go so I don't how you found it before top of ashina castle especially if you were following the story
Also the mini bosses are the indication of how strong a boss is not the enemies of the area , and for corrupted monk it should have been obvious you are on the wrong track when you fought the ninja guy and seven spears of ashina , orin of water and saw how strong they are compare to the rest of the area
By the time you get to corrupted monk you should've had a respectable amount of health and damage , 7 to 8 healings and lastly mortal blade which is op against most bosses even without spirit emblems
Corrupted monk should go down in less than 10 minutes and the real corrupted monk should take 30 minutes because it is supposed to harder not easier , fake corrupted monk is supposed to be like spirit of godfrey and other spirit bosses in elden ring , a training for real boss so it won't be as overwhelming
So no sekiro isn't as hard as you make it sound to be , it is indeed harder than the other souls games and very punishing but it doesn't require pure perfection like you said , I agree with other parts of the video and it was great
Agreed. Dude didn't explore and expressed that he avoids prosthetic tools and only deflects the monk... like yeah, you're going to have a hard time because you're avoiding mechanics.
@charles gee like I said the path to mibu village is hidden and hard to reach much harder than the obvious ashina castle
It's his fault for not seeing the obvious
Also letting you access end game areas early is something all other souls games do not just sekiro , the devs want the players to decide if they want to risk going very hard area underpowered or go the linear easier path either way they should accept the consequences of their choices
If he made a mistake then it's on him and he should accept the consequences
half an hour on true monk is overblown, you can jump death blow the second phase and the first phase she takes a lot more damage than corrupted monk.
@@Ghorda9 well the third phase is what took me most of the time
@@lordofcinder8884 she still doesn't take that long if you just focus on parrying her since she's more aggressive now, just make sure you hit her when she goes idle.
Sekiro is my second Fromsoft game after Elden Ring... and I'm asking, how the fuck does one spend 4 FUCKING HOURS on corrupted monk?
Typical Soulsborne tryhard virgin: "The game is hard without using items and abilities and using them is cheese."
Chad Soulsborne enjoyer: "I use all the mechanics the game makes available to me to ensure my victory."
Even the game at the very beginning tells you to win by any means necessary: "A shinobi would know the difference between victory and honor."
THIS is the intended way to play. Not just hit it with a sharp stick until it dies, that sounds boring and tedious as hell even if mastered.
This is why the game keeps telling you that you are a shinobi, not a samurai with codes. They know how asinine their player base is. Not that samurais in this game don't love cheating, aka genichiro's greatbow and Isshin's glock.
Isshin’s third phase is easier than the second because you can just use the lightnings to chop off half of his health, then the posture goes down like nothing.
Less than 50% of people on steam defeated Lady Butterfly and whats more emotionally compelling while ashina is burning is that you made this happen. By defeating Genichiro and all the defenders of Ashina, you weakened them enough that they were over taken by the ministry forces.
Favorite game of all time. When it clicks, no other game compares
I like this review, there's a lot of insightful stuff in here. I do feel like there's a lot of personal experience diagnosing "the player has no choice but to do this thing I did which MUST be the meta" when there is a clear better answer available.
Yep pretty much. He keeps saying “there is only 3 choices” or something along those lines when it comes to a grip with the game, while actively ignoring the 4th option, which is really the 1st option that he decides to ignore, using prosthetics, and then criticised the game for it.
Some of it honestly felt a little insulting where he suggests a player either looked up a guide to maximise their playthrough, left and came back when they’re stronger or cheesed the enemy to beat them. As if that’s the 3 only options.
Like no, I just learnt the game mechanics and beat the boss as intended, using the tools intended by the developers and it didn’t take that long to do it.
actually so funny that this video got recomended to me after a video that talked about sekiro not having repplayability