Ok, I’m now at the point where i can constantly get Genichiro to his final phase without much trouble, and then he beats my ass.
Progress!
Finished it. GG EZ
Overall I really liked it. With DMC5 I pretty much loved it. I wish both games were just slightly better in a few minor ways. Sekiro is almost without fault, but I didn’t reach that state of pure joy quite enough.
There’s no nice warm glow at the end either. I still have a ton of stuff left to do, so I’d better clean my sword and head back in there with grim determination!
Just wrapped up an hours long battle with Sunkey Valley boss stupid ape. My entire play session yesterday and another hour or so today. I don’t even know why it took me so long, it doesn’t seem like that hard of a fight now but so many of my attempts I would just walk into telegraphed attacks that I’d seen a hundred times before. I think I was just getting impatient.
Also, ffs, I miss the days of single phase bosses. Remember that, From? Remember when a boss could just be about one thing and not like you’d win and then it would transform into a second completely different thing so essentially I have to beat 2 bosses back to back and I only ever get to practice the second boss after being the first one again but they’re both kinda hard so that takes forever?
Those were good times.
I’ll tell you exactly why you had that specific trouble with this boss. It’s because this is a Dark Souls boss. Remember how Dark Souls boss fights used to go? You’d learn everything a boss had to teach you within the first 5 minutes, and then you’d sit down for the endurance test. You’d get tired waiting for the boss to start his pattern. The challenge was convincing yourself not to be greedy.
With rare exceptions, Sekiro is a lot different.
Not only is it a pain, it’s also a joy-killer. I’ll give them a pass on this one because it’s a great twist. But there was another multi-phase boss fight that was literally the high point and the low point of the game within 30 seconds of each other! I was absolutely thrilled when I finally beat Genichiro and then they dumped me into a new phase with a shitty, confusing tutorial pop-up that I barely understood before I got spammed with it twice and died.
I even captured a screenshot of that first joyous moment. Those of you past the midgame, just look at this.
Amazing
A deathblow on top of the world. A slight look of surprise. Beautiful Mt. Kongo peeking out in the background.
Then… nah LOL just kidding.
Well, I think I’ve played as much as I’m ever going to. 9 hours in and I’ve enjoyed almost none of it (with the exception of the snake sequence, which was a perfect combination of weird and cinematic). Admittedly, I didn’t get very far. The bosses in this are so much harder than in the Dark Souls series. They remind me of the completely un-fun bosses in Demon’s Souls. I got stuck a few times for a long time, but pushed through. All of them took too many tries to feel rewarding. I just felt relieved to finally be done.
I’d be more okay with it if I was enjoying the rest of the game as much as Souls games, but I don’t find exploring any of the environments I’ve been in very interesting or rewarding. I had a similar gameplay issue with Bloodborne in that without a silly complicated equipment system like other Souls games, the items you find hidden in corners just aren’t that interesting. For me, Bloodborne made up for it with fantastically interesting looking environments full of equally insane characters. I’m not finding Sekiro’s environments exciting to explore.
I think I’m going to go replay DMC 5 instead.
And the bull is down! That felt good.
I love this game. I have no idea if/when I’ll ever finally beat it, but I think this is the best fun-to-frustration ratio I’ve had in a Souls game. Hard to imagine this not being by GOTY.
And down goes the Drunkard. Would have liked that much more if I didn’t have to spend so much time clearing out the adds first.
This is a statement that can be used for about half the mini-bosses in the game.
I saw Jm --and I am sharply critical of him to the point I think I am being cleverly mean … push through that game playing extremely well… and he died 7-8 times on the stream. He was conservative and thought full in his is gameplay. My question: Who is this game intended for? Who kills themselves over and over to get past a boss?
This is the exact sentiment I shared with @ShivaX this morning. It’s a cool game, and I like playing it, but literally every boss and mini-boss has required multiple (often more than a dozen) attempts and long bouts of intense patience and concentration. I feel like when I make progress it’s more because I got lucky finally than any sort of skill on my part, because the game never feels “easier” than before. I would bet if I started a new game, I’d still struggle with the same early encounters I did last week. It’s daunting, and I’m finding my desire to launch the game vs. getting back to my other stuff less and less each day.
I think that’s it for me. I’ve hit a multiple boss wall. I love almost everything about the game, from the story, to the graphics, the aesthetic, the traversal, the combat (on trash mobs). But bosses are just too hard for me.
I made it past the Drunkard but I can’t beat Lady Butterfly no matter what. I tried legit strategy and I tried cheesing. I can get to the 2nd round easy enough, then I get beat down. Also, in that same area, I have the same success with the purple ninja, impossible for me.
Then, I got past the snake which was cool, but I’ve died dozens of times fighting Gyoubu the Demon. I read the strategy guides and saw the videos. Same with Headless.
I don’t think there are any paths of normal game play (or mini/bosss) I’ve missed. I’ve grinded for hours and hours and have a respectable build-out of skills but I’m not skilled enough as a player to advance any further. And it really sucks because I love the game, except for the bosses and the static difficulty.
$60 for about 60 hours of play (nearly all of it grinding the same 2 areas).
I felt this way early on, but after two specific boss fights (especially the second) I didn’t.
That said, every time I run into a new boss I feel like a complete noob again.
I don’t know if this will help, or not, but constantly tapping L1 during new boss fights/encounters has helped me tremendously. It can feel frustrating to constantly die to an enemy you’ve never seen before trying to learn its moveset.
Tapping L1, almost like a boxer constantly moving his hands in defense, will ready you for any incoming attack. It works much better than just holding block, or standing wide open waiting for a perfectly timed parry.
You are poised to deflect without having to memorize the exact timing of what’s coming at you. This frees your mind so you can better pay attention to any perilous attacks.
I think the endboss of Hirata butterfly is a little misplaced. You can reach that point very early in the game, at a time when the main path offers much more manageable boss encounters.
I understand why that encounter is there, but it really is a daunting skillcheck compared to what you have faced up to that point. Before anyone quits, try going for the main path bosses first Gyoubu the Demon and The Bull. Both of these fights are more gimmick based and rely on prosthetic tools, not raw skill.
From that point, there are other paths to explore and you can really see much more of the game, even if you do ultimately decide to call it quits on the main boss fights.
I recommend folks train up the Ashina school of moves. I’ve found the “Double” move very useful against bosses.
Basically, it’s a hard downward attack, with a follow up (hence the double). It does pretty good damage, and with the double, it’s got very good reach on the second attack.
But the key is that when you you do, you recover a large chunk of your posture.
It can be useful in these fights after you’ve blocked a bunch of stuff without getting perfect deflections, and your posture gauge is getting full, as this attack punishes the enemy for screwing up, while also basically resetting your own gauge, so you can go back to beating on him without needing to back off at all.
Oh, one thing about Genichiro… WTF is with his arrow attacks? It seems like a bunch of them stagger you, even if you block them, and even if your posture isn’t full. What’s the mechanic going on there?
The single arrow is a charged up attack designed to wreck your posture. Lock on sprint away or dodge. The rapid machine gun arrows you can just block or deflect without much posture damage.
More detail: the charged single shot happens if you are at mid or long range from him, so stay up in his face unless you need to heal. The rapid shots happen when he jumps in the air, and he can do that at close range, so best to just block if your posture is even close to full.
I use that arrow as a posture reset. If you’re far enough away, you recover before he can do anything
But what I don’t get is that it doesn’t actually break my posture. It hits me, and does a bunch of posture damage if I block it…but it staggers me anyway. WTF is with that?