ok, now I am really curious. How does Sekiro compare to DMC5??
btw. are there different difficulty settings? With souls you could make the game easier with summoning, but here no MP.
This game came out of nowhere for me. I’ve played all of the soulsbourne games but for whatever reason hadn’t heard of this until ads for it started popping up everywhere yesterday. So, boughten, despite my enormous backlog (still around 2/3 of the way through RDR2 bought on release day and just hit HR on MHW).
I’m finding it pretty difficult. Only had about an hour to play this morning before my wife woke up but I got stuck on the first miniboss in the starting area about a half dozen times. I need to slow down and learn to time my button presses are this is going to be a tedious affair.
Are you talking about the drunk? I cheesed that one by pulling only a couple of the enemies with a shuriken. Then I was able to spam down one and a half health bars thanks to that NPC distracting him. Keeping him alive as long as possible was the important part.
The progression curve is pretty flat but an extra health potion or two will definitely make a difference. That might be how they gate progress.
We talked about this earlier. DMC5 has a difficulty curve for new players that’s practically flat. Sekiro is the usual From Software boss fight roadblocks.
No difficulty settings and no summoning. But so far I’ve found a strategy for every boss that made the impossible seem easier.
Thank god it’s not only me. I was in two minds about this game - not really one for torturous games where I die over and over and avoided the Souls games for that reason. But actually I am enjoying dying over and over - and a precisely timed kill is very satisfying…
Glad I took a risk on it.
I’m a little gunshy about posting anything that could be taken as a spoiler, so I’m going to be pretty liberal with the tags.
I’ve sunk a ton of time into this already, but I don’t feel I’ve progressed very far. I’m taking care to try and master the combat, studying enemies, training, replaying encounters, and I’m enjoying it so, so much. But it’s slow going. I’ve beaten the first boss, got past the snake, encountered the second boss the one on a horse, and then backed up a bit to do some Hirata Estate stuff before I attempt that boss again.
This game is super fucking hard. There’s no sugar coating it. But I do not find it frustrating because the combat feels so good. The brutality of these swordfights is awesome. You feel so deadly, but so vulnerable. And if you want to be stealthy, you can! You can methodically scope out every area and take down most enemies in a single blow. But when you do find yourself in a fight, your best bet is to clash steel. Rarely are you rewarded for fighting timidly, or circling, or trying to be evasive. The game wants you in there, toe to toe. It doesn’t want you to be afraid. It wants you to feel like a ninja, standing in front of an enemy with your katana lowered, knowing you’ll be able to counter any attack that comes.
There are so many ways to take on every encounter, and your options are only going to increase as you unlock more skills/arms. For example: I was having a hell of a time with the first boss, until I realized *there is a way to pull him so that he loses sight of you, and then you can sneak around and deathblow from behind, making the fight much easier. That’s been my strat so far on double deathblow enemies: getting one “cheap” deathblow via stealth, then fighting proper. I felt elated when I beat that red-eyed monstrosity, though it took many attempts. Shortly thereafter I found the fire arm, lol, which you’re clearly supposed to use in that fight.
So far the shrines seem to be located very close to boss fights/tough areas, so unlike Dark Souls, the runback is nearly nonexistent.
For me, the difficulty is due to how fast everything is. It’s not that the window for action is small, it’s that you have to execute the correct maneuver. Do I parry? Block? Jump? Sidestep? Do I follow up with an attack, or back the fuck off? Knowing how to properly respond, and having your brain connect the right dots, takes practice.
It’s not cheap though. There are so many visual and auditory queues telling you what’s about to happen, and what you should do about it. Another example: I was practicing a parry move I’d unlocked. It’s a move to counter a thrust. I couldn’t get the timing right, despite the red warning sign, until I noticed right before the warning sign there’s a sound queue, and right before the thrust, the tip of the enemy katana flashes. Going off the sound queue I could execute the maneuver every time.
TLDR; game is great, visit the training area and git gud. Ninjas!
How is the level design? From what I’ve seen it looks good, is it linear like DS2 or more like DS1 / DS3 where stuff interconnects.
Glad to hear that worked for you! I was beginning to doubt my advice. The game slows way down if you take a deep breath and practice the attacks coming at you.
Personally I feel like once you do that, the game becomes easier in terms of execution than some of the others. So there’s a higher difficulty spike up front until you learn the patterns. Once you do, it’s faster and easier to get the win.
In some games it’s the opposite, where you know what to do but you have to remain patient for 5 minutes of the boss fight or something. I suck at that kind of thing.
It’s like Dark Souls 2, so it’s excellent. Haha!
Interconnected maps are overrated. Embrace the bonfire teleporting.
Hey wait a minute, I just Googled the DS3 map and it’s very similar to 2 and Sekiro. Damn DS2 haters.
Two things that took me an absurdly long time to figure out:
-
hold X to collect coins/loot off dead enemies
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anytime you see a green indicator, use your grappling hook (and not just to move around the map).Use it on bosses when you see a green flash over their head.
This perfectly sums up my wall of text.
Despite the setting and combat, the game still very much has that FromSoft weirdness going on. The world is definitely full of secrets and mystery, and some of the NPCs you meet are bizarre as hell like the dude in a pot by the water in Hirata Estate: just a creepy arm, and he dreams of becoming a carp!
I didn’t realize this until I got to the first merchant and wondered how to get cash.
I hear ya. I actually restarted my game because I played for 3 hours and had no money.
Ninja Badass Moment #37:
- Stealth kill death from above
- Shuriken to Chasing Slice on one ranged guy, deathblow
- Second ranged guy misses his shot, repeat the same combo on him
- Turn around just as a spear guy is attacking me, Mikiri Counter and then deathblow
If there was a kill 4 people in 3 seconds achievement, I would’ve earned it.
Also I literally have 6 different directions I can go in right now. Branching tree level design is the best.
How many bosses have you killed? And have you gone down…the mountain pass…?
I honestly have no idea since there are so many minibosses. I’m an hour or two past your description above, in the castle and just beyond it.
To be clear about the level design, you’re able to see old and new areas from just about every location. So the map feels coherent without tying itself down to direct interconnectedness. It’s very well done.
The grapple hook points seem incredibly arbitrary. Why can I launch up to this building but not that one? It feels so limiting at times and I can’t see a reason why except they want you only using certain spots.
The death mechanic is so good. Both practically and story wise. I was genuinely shocked re: story implications.
I routinely resurrect just to sprint back to an idol. It’s as close as you can get to save scumming in a FromSoft game.
Oh son of a…
Square on the PS4 - is everyone on the Xbox & Windows?