Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (topic now 200% easier to find)

I still haven’t figured out if you can get multiple parries off one button press. Like if the second attack is fast enough the game just gives you both of them. I can’t tell. Maybe I’m pressing the button without noticing it.

I’d like to see some alternative strategies on that guy. Once I understood what he was trying to do, I couldn’t not fight him with a clean set of parries.

Yeah I’m not sure but I have a habit of kinda spamming block so I think that’s why I beat Saze so easily and it also worked well in that other fight.

saze

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z27nAeV5XpA

other thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3BUA7lX6vM

Even after I learned how to block that he’d still surprise me occasionally and get the first one or two hits in. At least you can recover if you take a breath and block for the remaining shots.

I just had a fight where he did it 3 times in a row. I couldn’t really do anything, eventually I lost most of my health over the course of 12 arrows.

And it just feels dumb. Its bad enough he has a magical bow that appears in his hands while he’s wielding a sword, but then it fires like a machinegun. It just feels silly and mechanically it’s annoying in a fight that’s otherwise interesting.

That first parry was absolutely remarkable. Pure reaction speed from a single glint. Well done.

On the other fight, umm… how is your posture going down that fast just standing there without even blocking? What the hell?

[EDIT] Okay I just tried it, seems normal. I never noticed that before.

I’m not sure about the poise drop. I was so focused on what he was doing I wasn’t even looking at it, which I guess is how he got me that one time.

I didn’t use any items though. Maybe there’s a skill? I think I’ve crafted 3 bead thingies, but those are just amount of poise and not recovery I think.

Edit: oh ok, cool

It does seem to start going down immediately sometimes. Maybe when the last attack was parried instead of blocked. Normally it takes 1-2 seconds to start dropping. I never noticed that either.

The loading screen tooltip says blocking will speed up posture recovery but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It will be a lot easier to walk around.

It’s so strange that where I’m at I can just wander off and do random shit in places that I have no reason to be at.

I mean it’s sort of cool, but at the same time the game is pretty story-driven and it feels off for me to be “Well, I’d love to rescue you, kid, but I found this creepy underground world…” Weirder yet to pass through the castle he’s in and just wander into the wilderness randomly.

“He’ll come rescue me.”
in the background you see the Shinobi running out of the castle into a forest

Heh, with Saze, i just Naruto ran around him in a circle. He always misses you with his draw attack, then you get free attacks on him.

It’s perhaps not as fast, but it’s definitely ready and foolproof.

I fought the guy in the well, and he killed me a few times, but like Shiva, i missed the drop attack once… And in that fight, i was just like “screw it.”

And i beat his ass bad. After that, I just decided to not worry about him, and just go at him hard. Killed him the next try by just beating on him and periodically deflecting.

There is a lot to be said for going at an enemy with no intention of winning. You try shit you normally wouldn’t and sometimes it works incredibly well.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about how spamming attack and/or the block button is often the best strategy.

That goes against the precision action game side of my brain, but it lines up well with the overpowered beat ‘em up side of my brain.

Things have really started to click now that I’m not panicking all the time. I was having trouble recognizing what was a grab or thrust or sweep. The visual queues tell you everything you need to know once you’re focused enough to pay attention to them.

A recently discovered Shinobi Tool has helped out quite a bit too. I use it to open attacks, or break a lull in combat. Helps me keep the pressure on.

edit: the third skill tree I found Ashina Arts is where grinding for skill points is going to yield dramatic power increase. These skills are all jaw droppers. It’s easy to miss (at least it was for me, I had to backtrack a bit to find it), so keep an eye out if you haven’t found it yet.

I wish I could replay that fight in the training area. It was so fast, and so much fun.

so the honeymoon phase is over? I am still early in the game, struggling with Enshin Shinobi hunter, but we are still in love… But comparing to souls games, this is really hard. But I love the setting more than Bloodborne, where everything was brown.

I know, I didn’t want to buy/play it, but it really feels like a Fromsoft or Miyazaki game, so I had to check it out. Glad I did… but probably it will take me years again to get through it. I wished I would have bought the collectors edition for PC, now I don’t have anything to put on the shelf

I’m in love, that’s for sure. It’s checking all my boxes: gameplay, combat, story, world. And things get real weird real fast.

I’m loving it so far myself, but it’s a bit too intense for me at the moment, which means I’ll take a long time to finish the game because I’ll play in short bursts.

Idol placement feels generous. With death coming so fast, it’s a necessity.

It’s a bit inconsistent in classic From fashion. I found a spot where there are 2 like 20 ft apart and maybe there will be a reason for that later but seemed silly, conversely there’s a pretty big gap between them in a section I just did.

I think it’s different than “spamming”, in that even with grunt enemies, you almost always have to react to at least one attack that tries to interrupt your flurry.

If you literally just mash one button, you get deflected, and then they hit you HARD.

Deflect spamming seems to work, at least against flurries, but I don’t know how you’d be able to survive otherwise. Mikiri spamming definitely works.

edit: but yeah, you will almost assuredly get countered if you attack spam.

I completely forgot to come back and report but OMFG every time anyone was talking about sprinting I thought you meant normal L-stick movement. That’s why I couldn’t dodge that bull, or stay behind it, and I couldn’t figure out how everyone was so blase about how easy it was to get away from it’s attacks! Early on in the game, I clicked in L to run and when it didn’t work I assumed, without stamina to balance running out, the only “running” is the normal running the character does, which I guess is really just a light jog.

What a difference being able to sprint casually makes! I defeated two more bosses, including the drunk, handily with this bit of knowledge, and I nearly beat the Lady after the drunk on my first try (this was more due to dodge/counter attack like the tool tip told me than sprinting, but I think I would have had her on my first try if I’d had any health flasks left).

Now I have her to fight, a crazy ninja down a hole I found, another crazy blue ninja I found in the forest, and an entire area to explore, if tough mini-boss fights aren’t something I’m into at the moment. Progress!

Yeah, I don’t think the game ever actually TELLS you that you can sprint. I uncovered it accidentally after I held down the dodge button once by mistake.