It's easy, sometimes, to forget that FromSoft is at this point a triple-A studio. The games in their Souls quasi-series are so idiosyncratic, and remain so true to the personality of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, that even as budgets would bloom in size they still kept much of that original slightly-janky charm. Even Elden Ring, a game whose colossal size makes its budget clear, and that unfortunately teeters into open world design industry standard bloat, still flies in the face of a lot of other industry standard design philosophies in such an intense way that other triple-A developers were up in arms upon the game's release at the notion that people were actually enjoying it so much.

Then, there's Sekiro. Don't get me wrong here, Sekiro is still undeniably a FromSoft game; obtuse, thematically deep and unusually challenging. That said a bit of me wonders how much influence Activision might have had on this game's final form, with the mass of skill trees and weapon unlock trees, something that makes my eyes glaze over at the very sight of, feeling both wholly extraneous to the experience the game is trying to provide and reminding me of the way that trash like God of War slaps on rpg systems into a decidedly not-rpg game just because that's the industry standard. There are hints of this design philosophy elsewhere with quick-time events, platforming based more around hunting for symbols to click on rather than thoughtfulness, even the bizarre inclusion of a boss rush mode, and whilst none of this was as objectionable to me as the tacked-on rpg aspects it still all hints at a design approach that is very much at odds with FromSoft's other output and which lands as off-putting to me. Even the game's insistence on having picking up an item cause in turn a pop-up, listing in entirety what an item does even if you've picked up said item ten times beforehand, to take over the screen and interrupt the gameplay feels like it may have come from an Activision higher-up tapping on Miyazaki's back to say that expecting people to go into their inventory to read what the items do there is a step too far.

At the same time there's an assured artfulness to Sekiro that excels beyond their other work, too. I adore the thematic exploration of this company's work just generally, and in particular I am very drawn to the almost tone poem nature of the Dark Souls trilogy, but Sekiro manages to use more exact language to tell such a wonderful and engaging tale about devotion and commitment, corruption and the nature of family. This aspect of the game is something I was not able to fully appreciate at the time for reasons I will get into shortly, but re-watching some of these cutscenes now and taking a more vested interest in the lore in the past day or so has revealed a real, subtle and powerful emotionality to the game, and I do find aspects of Sekiro quite beautiful as a result of this.

The biggest diversion from the Souls games is of course Sekiro's combat system, built around deflection, parries, posture, and the notion that you must not hesitate, must be prepared to be relentless. At its very peak this leads to some of the best fights FromSoft has ever presented; one-on-one fights with other warriors-with-swords like Owl, Genichiro and the final boss, or even mini-bosses like the Lone Shadows, O'Rin and the Ashina Elites, present such intense battles, that mechanically encourage you to never let up and that carry this almost rhythmic joy to them once, after many iterations, you start to truly understand the timings of those deflections and how to respond to your opponent's actions. Genuinely thrilling, adrenaline surging stuff, and immensely rewarding to gain a handle on after the steep learning process.

Conversely, when Sekiro's fights deviate from this structure I found the combat honestly lacking. Demon of Hatred might well rank below Bed of Chaos as my least favourite FromSoft boss ever, and fights like the Guardian Ape encounters, Headless Ones, Chained Ogres, Shichimen Warriors and the Bulls all attempt to mix things up, to encourage you to engage with the full extent of what Sekiro's combat system is capable of, but I find many of these fights frustrating in how they don't feel like they actually play to Sekiro's strengths, and tedious in some of the play-patterns they can encourage. This is emphasised by the game's difficulty; for me Sekiro was the hardest game this company has released by a substantial margin in part because the Souls games allow a lot more means for you to influence their difficulty, but mostly because the Souls games largely ask for your patience, for you to be willing to learn and meet the game on its own terms, whereas Sekiro asks, undeniably, for impressive reflexes and dexterity. I found myself mostly able to meet the game on these terms, and I legitimately enjoyed a large part of the process involved in learning to beat some of the more imposing bosses here, but the moment Sekiro deviates from its strengths and asks you to beat up some rampaging ape, whilst still keeping the difficulty high for these ill-fitting encounters, it starts to really lose me and leave me, for the first time since Dark Souls 2, genuinely frustrated (and honestly; baffled).

There are some other issues I have with the game also; a small handful of mini-bosses necessitate the usage of consumables that are very limited in quantity until late into the game, the scaling up in difficulty of areas reaches the point that by Fountainhead Palace I was finding some of the encounter design quite unpleasant especially when the game asks that you fight multiple enemies at once that are fundamentally designed to be fought one-on-one with deflects and parries (all too often my response to this was just to run past them, which is equally unsatisfying), the game is just frankly over-long which makes its insistence on recycling large amounts of content feel even more bothersome.

There are points where I look back on Sekiro and feel like I could rate the game even as much as a full star lower and not have that much regret, yet at the same time it feels undeniable that some of FromSoft's very best work exists within here also and the moments when it shines it is glorious. I wish I liked this game more than I do.