Sekiro Shadows Dies Twice, actually more than just twice, is a From Software Soulsborne game that can also be considered a rhythm game, most of the time. It was also my first ever From Software game and what a sufferable and wonderful first impression.
-Story and Endings(No Spoiler)
You are a nameless shinobi, later on, is put the name of Sekiro and Wolf, wakes up on a well with a letter on your front; the letter says to you to find your destiny at the moon-view tower. You go to the tower to Find Kuro, The Divine Heir, a young boy that is also your master, he is captured and wanted by his bloodline and mysterious powers; he gives you your sword and that's where the game actually starts. Your objective as his shinobi is to protect and help Kuro to achieve his goals. Throughout the game, you meet new NPCs and expand the intriguing lore that, as all Soulsborne, is pretty expansive.
Something interesting about the NPCs's side quests is that, even though it doesn't seem to have different choices, some of them can end in many different ways; most of them also don't tell exactly where to go, you discover as you play and explore the locations. Some of them, don't even give unique rewards, even if useful, the big reward is basically expanded lore and world-building which I can totally respect; sometimes I would do side quests just out of curiosity of where things would go, the "tangible" reward was just profit.
About the endings(AGAIN, don't worry, there are no spoilers) there are 4 of them, you can do 3 of them in only one run, but it includes save manipulation so I recommend that you search it online if you want to do the 3 of them right away. I did the conventional way and started NG+ for all of them.
1º Ending - Is the basic one, I think it was good and even foreshadowed throughout the game, it finishes the story well.
2º Ending - Is the alternative one and... "easiest", and by that I mean that is the easiest to find out alone, except the basic one of course. It's the one with the most optional bosses to beat. It's really satisfying and it also finishes pretty well, maybe with just a little bit of opening for a sequel, and I think it's the one that fits the character the most.
3º Ending - It IS the easiest but the most secret one if you don't see guides right away of course. It is a confusing ending, I still really like it but this is one that gives the biggest opening for a sequel, which is worrying because, that I know, From Software doesn't like to do sequels.
4º Ending - It is an ending where you can beat the game earlier, also having two alternate final bosses. I think this one is my favorite, even though it got spoiled for me, I still liked it a lot... more than I should I guess.
A liked all of them, even if basically all of them were spoiled for me in some way, the 3º one I got really surprised because I got a minor spoiler by the achievement's icon, so I thought the ending would be something but ended up being another thing completely different.
The story is just enough to be good but the biggest thing, standard in all Soulsborne basically, is the game's Lore, that it doesn't just expand by the story itself but also items descriptions, dialogues and also secret dialogues, mostly by eavesdropping.
Lore is something that I always love in any game because is basically an optional story that you pay attention only if you want to. Sekiro does this pretty well expanding the lore with all the location's stories, NPC's dialogues, items descriptions, it really motivates you to pay attention to details but, AGAIN, only if you want, which is the best part. It's amazing when you notice the connections in the lore between characters and the different locations in the game.
-Gameplay
First of all: this is not like Dark Souls. I remember when this game launched everybody was playing like is Dark Souls, trying to dodge everything and underestimating or not using much of the game's combat tools, which is the biggest mistake that you can commit in this game, and I committed for a time. Sekiro is totally different from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, I would say Sekiro is definitely in the middle when it comes to offensiveness and defensiveness playstyle; at the start, the game is more defensive but as you progress you have new ways of going on a more offensive way, but still not reckless or full action paced.
First of all, let's talk about the main gimmick of Sekiro: Deflecting. Instead of having limited stamina, you and the enemies have a limited Posture meter that fills up until it breaks; for the enemies is basically a second health bar, you break their postures, you go for a Deathblow, a kill animation; when the player's posture breaks, Sekiro is going to stop blocking and topple down, being fatal most of the times and being extremely frustrating. Your posture never breaks as long as you deflect... easier said than done; also I have to say: Deflecting an enemy attack on a clutch moment and going for the deathblow is one of the most satisfying feelings I ever felt on a video game. The posture gauge recovers automatically when you stop attacking, the less health you or the enemy has, the slower it regenerates.
But there's is a big flaw: when you deflect, your posture still fills up, which means that if you parry almost all of the enemy's attack strings and your posture fills up to the max and you don't deflect the last attack, your posture breaks and you can die. I died a lot of times like this and It just feels REALLY unfair because is basically the game saying: "Ohh, that is so bad, you deflected ALL of the attacks... except that last one... oh well, I guess you die now"; It's just really annoying to be punished so hard because of one little mistake even though you played almost flawlessly.
Some other focus that this game has is a bigger emphasis on mobility and traversing the map. You have a grappling hook for more verticality and you can also use it on some specific bosses.
There is also the implementation of Stealth, which is really useful; you can just sneak a lot of areas ignoring enemies, if you can't just sprint through all of them, also just kill them right away from behind and even remove a whole health bar from mini-bosses, you can only remove it one bar of course.
Last but not less important: the Exploration. This is my first Souls game so, even though I know this is basically standard for all Soulsbornes, I just need to talk about the interesting way the game teaches you about map exploration: it doesn't. The game really just throws you into the world and says "Here, you are free. Have fun now", that is the kind of exploration this game has.
The game doesn't even have a map, at least not a conventional one, or a way to know where the place you need to go is except by paying attention to dialogue and texts. Even on New Game Plus runs I would still get a little bit lost on where the place I was supposed to go was. There was this one time on an NG+ where I was trying to go to Ashina Reservoir, that is an area that I would ALWAYS forget where it is, I randomly walked into an old woman and I thought "Meh, why not just talk to her" and she actually told the direction not just of the Reservoir but also another important area that I needed to go. This kind of event, even though is just a minor thing, really emphasizes exploration, talking to NPCs, and paying attention to dialogue and other texts, even if subconsciously.
There is also Eavesdropping, which is an interesting mechanic that mostly just adds some lore but also can unlock new important dialogues, item localizations, and even trigger quests for different endings.
There are also of course the Sculptor's Idols that are basically the Bonfires. Here they are really frequent having a lot of them in the different locations. You can fast travel, unlock skills, improve vitality, posture, and attack, buy Spirit Emblems and even change skins, fight bosses and do boss rushes.
Something that I don't really liked is the punishment when you die. On Dark Souls, for example, you lose Souls but you can recover them if you manage to reach the place you died; on Sekiro when you die you lose half of your money, experience and can give Dragonrot to NPCs; XP and Moneywise the only way to recover is grinding again. The Dragonrot is an illness that NPCs you contacted would contract after some "True Deaths", even though it seems interesting, isn't really as bad as it may look, maybe just lock some NPC quests and dialogues. There is a mechanic called Unseen Aid that can go up to 30%, this is the chance you have of not losing anything when you die; the more NPCs with Dragonrot, the less chance you have. I honestly don't liked it, I would even just forget to cure the Dragonrot.
-Combats and Progression
I feel that most of the people, especially the people that didn't stick on the game for much, felt the same: the combat is repetitive and underwhelming; and, honestly, I don't just understand why but also felt like that for a long time.
At the start of the game, it is going to feel really stale and repetitive because most of the time you are just going to stay idle Deflecting things until the posture breaks. Another reason why it feels stale is because we can only use one weapon, which would be our sword. But the more you play, unlock new skills, Prosthetic and learn bosses's weaknesses the more depth it gets.
In Sekiro, differently from other Souls games, you don't have any other weapon besides your sword. All of the playstyles are focused on some combat skills, the Combat Arts and Prosthetics.
Let's talk about the Prosthetics first, these are also a main gimmick in the game and to use them you need to consume Spirit Emblems, which I'm going to talk about later. I think most of them are really useful, some better than others, and some are really situational, still they are really useful in these specific situations. They are, like a LOT of things in this game, ALL missable. I for example on my first run only discovered one of them just in the middle part of the game and another prosthetic I just discovered the existence on NG+ 2; so yeah... explore the map and pay attention to detail. For example, some of its localizations are got by eavesdropping on enemies, mini-bosses, and information sold by merchants, but you still need to recognize the locations in the information you got.
These Prosthetics are definitely the biggest underestimated mechanic of the game, which is also a mistake that I committed. They can make a lot of boss fights really easier, even the situational ones. As I said: The more you play, the more complex it gets, you don't just upgrade the prosthetics but also unlock specific combat skills that make them even better and more versatile.
The Combat Arts are the ones that feel even more underwhelming, especially at the start.
We have two types of Combat Arts: the ones that Cost Spirit Emblems and the ones that don't.
Most of the ones that don't cost any Spirit Emblems can feel really weak, which... they mostly are, exactly because they don't cost any Spirit Emblems. Most of them are better on mini-bosses or just really situational on main bosses.
The ones that cost Spirit Emblems are the big boys but, as I said, they aren't free and may feel like a waste if you use them recklessly, even though you can still use them if you don't have the Emblems, a weak version of course. They, like a lot of the Prosthetics, can make a boss fight much easier, especially if you combine both the Combat Arts and the Prosthetics.
Something that I liked is that you unlock new combat Arts by items while exploring the map or doing some quests.
Now the Spirit Emblems, that I repeated 100 times over this topic. They are basically your second "currency", except you spend them on using some Combat Arts, Prosthetics, and some specific items. Something that I didn't understand at the start is that they are limited, and what I mean by that is that you can run out of them and have to buy or grind for them. I think they made it like this exactly that you don't be completely reckless because if you be, you are going to run out of them.
Overall, Sekiro's Combat may seem underwhelming and repetitive the first hours or even the first playthroughs, but if you stick to the game and learn how to play efficiently, it gets just better and better the more you play and learn how to deal with enemies and the best you to use your Skills and Tools.
A complaint that I have about it is that even if gets better later, the game doesn't give much motivation for you to try to play in different ways besides playing defensive and focusing on Deflecting, quite the opposite in some way. Sometimes I would try new strategies using different Prohestetics and Combat Arts and I would just end up dying or it wouldn't have a really big reward. On my first playthrough, I almost didn't use the Prohestetics and only used 1 or 2 combat arts. I just started trying more on the NG+ runs because deflecting wasn't really enough, then it just started getting better. That can be a flaw to most of the players, basically the combat just starts to get more interesting, more complex, and more rewarding too late or just doesn't even gets better if the player isn't upgrading their stuff enough.
The main motivation that I can think of, besides they being effective the more you upgrade them, is weaknesses that the bosses have like weakness to poison, fire and the Firecrackers, a Prosthetic, that can be more effective against a specific boss or a type of enemy. These Firecrackers for example are even more effective against beasts. These weaknesses are shown, mostly, towards items descriptions so it can be easy to miss.
Talking about Upgrades and Progression, the game doesn't have any way to upgrade your stats, EXCEPT for Vitality, Posture, and Attack. You upgrade Vitality and Posture by collecting four Prayer Beads, that you gain by finding on the map but, mostly, receive defeating most of the Mini-Bosses; the attack is upgraded with Memories from the Main Bosses. You can have up to 20 Vitality and Posture and 99 Attack.
As I said, the Prosthetics can be upgraded with upgrade materials that either does something better or an alternative version that works differently, and also the Combat Arts can be upgraded to a better version.
Something really weird that I noticed is that, even when you upgrade them, you can still equip the obsolete version that works exactly like the upgraded but is weaker. It's not like it's a flaw, I just think is weird.
-Bosses and Pacing
The boss design on this is probably one of the most bizarre and unique I ever see; which when I explored the other Soulsborne, I noticed that this is also basically another standard. All of them are not just amazing designed but their designs also tell how they fight might go; the swordsman is the ones where you need to use and prove that you know all the fundamentals of the game like deflecting and countering unblockable attacks while others like some beastly looking bosses have a totally different fight.
I think MOST of the bosses, especially the main ones, are really good and fair, even though there are minor ones that give a sour taste. A lot of them may play similarly but you can't play efficiently the same way with all of them. Let me try to explain: deflecting is still the main gimmick on most bosses but how you punish them and manage to use your tools in the best way possible is really different; some bosses may be weaker to some specific tools that are useless to other bosses, even consumable items. Maybe that is another reason why the Prosthetics may feel underwhelming if you try to use only one Prohestetic all the time it may not work always the same way because it isn't as efficient to one boss as it is to another; so is basically trial and error each attempt, try different Prohestetics and even specific consumables to see which one of them works the best.
Now about the pacing, when I mean by "pacing" I mean how the bosses are put in a way that teaches and tests your knowledge of the basics and advanced fundamentals and game mechanics or even breaks these exact fundamentals.
For this, I need to use two bosses as an example and I have to talk a little bit about their fights.
One of my favorite bosses of the game is Genichiro, he is the one that tests if you know the advanced fundamentals that are: Deflecting and Countering the unblockable attacks. After you defeat him, these fundamentals are even more reinforced and if you didn't adapt before, after you start to understand how important they are.
After Genichiro the next main boss would be the Guardian Ape, one of the bosses that are considered the most difficult, especially on the first tries; one of the reasons for that is because he just breaks almost everything that you learned with Genichiro. Deflect means mostly nothing, actually, this fight is more focused towards dodging and sprinting away and them hitting hard when he is recovering.
This kind of pacing happens on the entirety of the game, even on the start; there is the bosses that act like walls that you can only pass if you prove that you know how to play and understand the basics or the advanced mechanics and may feel similar and repetitive, but there is others that just break the basic and you need to fight them in a totally different way. I think this is really good even if these fights that break the basics feel like most of what you learned was useless because it makes the boss fights feel less repetitive and more of the same.
Still about pacing, is good to remember that just some bosses have a mandatory order that you can fight; I, for example, talked about Genichiro and the Guardian ape, but there are a lot of bosses that you can fight after or earlier. There is a boss that you are supposed to fight only on the middle of the game, but I fought against it basically on the start of the game, before Genichiro.
-Difficulty and New Game+
I couldn't talk about a Soulsborne without talking about the difficulty.
I honestly think the difficulty is well made, at least for most of the bosses. A problem that was recurrent on my first playthroughs was Artificial Difficulty, that is something that I totally despise in any game; there is a big difference between a bullet sponge boss that kills you in one hit and a boss that is hard to read and memorize its patterns, doing big damage but also rewards you for countering in the right way. That is actually why Genichiro is my favorite boss, he has a lot of big damage attacks that can even hit kills you but, if you counter it on the right way, you too can also punish him with big damage.
But not all bosses are like this, some of them have big damage or one-hit-kill attacks that doesn't really let you do a hard punish if countered correctly. I think a relatively good example of this is an Ogre, an early mini-boss that has... questionable hitboxes; even though he is really slow, you are still too early on the game, not having much options for big damage punishes; he is also a boss that breaks fundamentals so some players might fight him in a inefficient way... also the questionable, QUESTIONABLE, hitboxes.
But one of the reasons why I felt that this game is really dependent of artificial difficulty is the things that make the game harder. By the way, YES this game HAS difficulty options, except that is not an Easy mode, it's: Normal, Hard and Very Hard.
Let's start by Hard first:
There is an item that you can find early on the game, after the Ogre to be more specific; it's called the Demon Bell that makes the enemies do more damage and have more health BUT you gain more and better loot from enemies, don't include more money. The first time I beat the game I had the demon bell activated in the middle of the game, I think; and the changes were... noticeable but the game still felt fair and was a good playthrough.
Now the Very Hard is where I'm still not completely sure about what I think; after you beat the game for the first time you receive the Kuro's Charm in all next new games, if you give the Charm to Kuro you not just gonna increase enemy's damage and vitality but also receive chip damage for blocking, making you need to learn how to properly deflect even more, the good thing is that you gain more money and XP. The "Very Hard" comes from having both the Demon Bell and Kuro's Charm's penalties, making the game basically a one-hit kill fest.
I'm gonna get back to this after. Gonna talk a little bit about New Game Plus first and about my runs.
Right after you finish the game you have the choice to start an NG+ right away or stay on the playthrough to do other things like collect all the Prayer Beads. When you start a new one you carry all the skills and items, except key items, and unlock the Kuro's Charm that you collect with the letter on the well. Each new NG+ increases money and XP gained until NG+ 7.
Now, back to the Artificial Difficulty subject, in this game, I think it is a necessary evil, which, even though I despise it, I still recognize it is necessary for not making the game too easy. For this I'm gonna talk about some of my playthroughs:
NG+ 2 - I went for the 2º Ending and was with both the Demon Bell and Charmless. It was here that I started getting conflicted about the game's difficulty and I took... some months to beat it, maybe even a whole fucking YEAR; of course, most of it, was because it was such a sufferable experience that I always hesitated to go back to the game and would end up giving up. When I finally got back to the game and beat my PTSDs I basically finished right away, only a few bosses were left so I could have finished much, MUCH earlier. The experience was just mostly sufferable and gave me a lot of conflicting emotions about the game.
NG+ 3 - I went for the 3º Ending BUT, because I didn't wanted to suffer so much as the NG+ 2, I only went Charmless, without the Demon Bell; and HOLY. SHIT. It was so easy it hurted. I just rushed the game and beat it in TWO FUCKING DAYS. And that is when I noticed that the artificial difficulty was definitely necessary; the most times I died was 3 or 4 times against one boss, the others I beat either on first or second try.
NG - This is not New Game Plus but a True New Game; I played only with the Demon Bell, I actually didn't even know the Kuro's Charm was on a True New Game, as easy as the NG+ 3; of course it was because I already knew all bosses's patterns, weaknesses and I used Prosthetics and Combat Arts in a better way.
So, basically, the artificial difficulty is necessary for the game to be harder and not just that, on my NG+ 3 and True NG I played much better and using much more of the game's tools like the Prosthetics, Combat Arts and Items, as I said; all of this made me realize how much better the difficulty of the game was than I thought it was.
-Conclusion
Sekiro is a wonderful game and it's amazing how I almost slept on it for a long time.
All the challenges were really good to overcome; I loved all of the bosses if not most of them. Their fights, design, lore, all of it make them so unique and satisfying to overcome.
The lore was something that also hooked me up a lot and made me appreciate this side of games even more. I just love when the game's information that is shown isn't just something to put on the game and doesn't really add much to the world-building or the game's story. Everything feels important and connected, at the same time optional.
The atmosphere, characters's stories and their inner... demons. It's amazing how the world feels alive even though it really is just, mostly, full of soldiers and hostiles; I think this is the From Software Immersion that so many talked about, how you feel immersed in the world just because of the world itself and it's characters, not because of realism or something like that.
I also think that this is the first game I played that just throws you in the world and says: "Have fun", discovering things by myself, just doing things and exploring places just out of curiosity felt really good and rewarding, instead of just following markers as usual.
The combat... please don't sleep on it, is much better than it looks, which was a mistake that I committed. I think is still a flaw that the combat may only get better too late. But, if you stick on the game for long enough, it just gets better and better. Especially the Prosthetics have a lot of interesting and different ways to use but not all of them are equally efficient against all bosses which can make them feel underwhelming but you just need to try out each attempt.
I beat this shit over 7 or 8 times as I write this, I played until NG+ 6 and did another New Game, each time being better than the other one; doing quests in a different way, doing different endings, learning new lore, trying to play better, doing all achievements(easier than it seems), THERE IS SO MUCH.
After Sekiro won GOTY, it also received a free update where you can fight against bosses that you fought and doing boss rushes for the endings you did, you can access it only on the Dilapidated Temple.
This game... is just... wonderful as I said. As I was writing this I was kinda worried and disappointed that the things I was writing weren't living up for how good the game is, maybe because this is spoiler-free or just because I didn't manage to put everything; like, I didn't even talked about the Soundtrack, that IS really good, especially boss themes.
Sekiro is just the kind of game that you need to play to understand its experience. I recommend it to anyone that likes Action-Adventure games, RPGs, and, of course, for people that like Soulsborne/Soulslike games, I highly recommend it.
-Story and Endings(No Spoiler)
You are a nameless shinobi, later on, is put the name of Sekiro and Wolf, wakes up on a well with a letter on your front; the letter says to you to find your destiny at the moon-view tower. You go to the tower to Find Kuro, The Divine Heir, a young boy that is also your master, he is captured and wanted by his bloodline and mysterious powers; he gives you your sword and that's where the game actually starts. Your objective as his shinobi is to protect and help Kuro to achieve his goals. Throughout the game, you meet new NPCs and expand the intriguing lore that, as all Soulsborne, is pretty expansive.
Something interesting about the NPCs's side quests is that, even though it doesn't seem to have different choices, some of them can end in many different ways; most of them also don't tell exactly where to go, you discover as you play and explore the locations. Some of them, don't even give unique rewards, even if useful, the big reward is basically expanded lore and world-building which I can totally respect; sometimes I would do side quests just out of curiosity of where things would go, the "tangible" reward was just profit.
About the endings(AGAIN, don't worry, there are no spoilers) there are 4 of them, you can do 3 of them in only one run, but it includes save manipulation so I recommend that you search it online if you want to do the 3 of them right away. I did the conventional way and started NG+ for all of them.
1º Ending - Is the basic one, I think it was good and even foreshadowed throughout the game, it finishes the story well.
2º Ending - Is the alternative one and... "easiest", and by that I mean that is the easiest to find out alone, except the basic one of course. It's the one with the most optional bosses to beat. It's really satisfying and it also finishes pretty well, maybe with just a little bit of opening for a sequel, and I think it's the one that fits the character the most.
3º Ending - It IS the easiest but the most secret one if you don't see guides right away of course. It is a confusing ending, I still really like it but this is one that gives the biggest opening for a sequel, which is worrying because, that I know, From Software doesn't like to do sequels.
4º Ending - It is an ending where you can beat the game earlier, also having two alternate final bosses. I think this one is my favorite, even though it got spoiled for me, I still liked it a lot... more than I should I guess.
A liked all of them, even if basically all of them were spoiled for me in some way, the 3º one I got really surprised because I got a minor spoiler by the achievement's icon, so I thought the ending would be something but ended up being another thing completely different.
The story is just enough to be good but the biggest thing, standard in all Soulsborne basically, is the game's Lore, that it doesn't just expand by the story itself but also items descriptions, dialogues and also secret dialogues, mostly by eavesdropping.
Lore is something that I always love in any game because is basically an optional story that you pay attention only if you want to. Sekiro does this pretty well expanding the lore with all the location's stories, NPC's dialogues, items descriptions, it really motivates you to pay attention to details but, AGAIN, only if you want, which is the best part. It's amazing when you notice the connections in the lore between characters and the different locations in the game.
-Gameplay
First of all: this is not like Dark Souls. I remember when this game launched everybody was playing like is Dark Souls, trying to dodge everything and underestimating or not using much of the game's combat tools, which is the biggest mistake that you can commit in this game, and I committed for a time. Sekiro is totally different from Dark Souls or Bloodborne, I would say Sekiro is definitely in the middle when it comes to offensiveness and defensiveness playstyle; at the start, the game is more defensive but as you progress you have new ways of going on a more offensive way, but still not reckless or full action paced.
First of all, let's talk about the main gimmick of Sekiro: Deflecting. Instead of having limited stamina, you and the enemies have a limited Posture meter that fills up until it breaks; for the enemies is basically a second health bar, you break their postures, you go for a Deathblow, a kill animation; when the player's posture breaks, Sekiro is going to stop blocking and topple down, being fatal most of the times and being extremely frustrating. Your posture never breaks as long as you deflect... easier said than done; also I have to say: Deflecting an enemy attack on a clutch moment and going for the deathblow is one of the most satisfying feelings I ever felt on a video game. The posture gauge recovers automatically when you stop attacking, the less health you or the enemy has, the slower it regenerates.
But there's is a big flaw: when you deflect, your posture still fills up, which means that if you parry almost all of the enemy's attack strings and your posture fills up to the max and you don't deflect the last attack, your posture breaks and you can die. I died a lot of times like this and It just feels REALLY unfair because is basically the game saying: "Ohh, that is so bad, you deflected ALL of the attacks... except that last one... oh well, I guess you die now"; It's just really annoying to be punished so hard because of one little mistake even though you played almost flawlessly.
Some other focus that this game has is a bigger emphasis on mobility and traversing the map. You have a grappling hook for more verticality and you can also use it on some specific bosses.
There is also the implementation of Stealth, which is really useful; you can just sneak a lot of areas ignoring enemies, if you can't just sprint through all of them, also just kill them right away from behind and even remove a whole health bar from mini-bosses, you can only remove it one bar of course.
Last but not less important: the Exploration. This is my first Souls game so, even though I know this is basically standard for all Soulsbornes, I just need to talk about the interesting way the game teaches you about map exploration: it doesn't. The game really just throws you into the world and says "Here, you are free. Have fun now", that is the kind of exploration this game has.
The game doesn't even have a map, at least not a conventional one, or a way to know where the place you need to go is except by paying attention to dialogue and texts. Even on New Game Plus runs I would still get a little bit lost on where the place I was supposed to go was. There was this one time on an NG+ where I was trying to go to Ashina Reservoir, that is an area that I would ALWAYS forget where it is, I randomly walked into an old woman and I thought "Meh, why not just talk to her" and she actually told the direction not just of the Reservoir but also another important area that I needed to go. This kind of event, even though is just a minor thing, really emphasizes exploration, talking to NPCs, and paying attention to dialogue and other texts, even if subconsciously.
There is also Eavesdropping, which is an interesting mechanic that mostly just adds some lore but also can unlock new important dialogues, item localizations, and even trigger quests for different endings.
There are also of course the Sculptor's Idols that are basically the Bonfires. Here they are really frequent having a lot of them in the different locations. You can fast travel, unlock skills, improve vitality, posture, and attack, buy Spirit Emblems and even change skins, fight bosses and do boss rushes.
Something that I don't really liked is the punishment when you die. On Dark Souls, for example, you lose Souls but you can recover them if you manage to reach the place you died; on Sekiro when you die you lose half of your money, experience and can give Dragonrot to NPCs; XP and Moneywise the only way to recover is grinding again. The Dragonrot is an illness that NPCs you contacted would contract after some "True Deaths", even though it seems interesting, isn't really as bad as it may look, maybe just lock some NPC quests and dialogues. There is a mechanic called Unseen Aid that can go up to 30%, this is the chance you have of not losing anything when you die; the more NPCs with Dragonrot, the less chance you have. I honestly don't liked it, I would even just forget to cure the Dragonrot.
-Combats and Progression
I feel that most of the people, especially the people that didn't stick on the game for much, felt the same: the combat is repetitive and underwhelming; and, honestly, I don't just understand why but also felt like that for a long time.
At the start of the game, it is going to feel really stale and repetitive because most of the time you are just going to stay idle Deflecting things until the posture breaks. Another reason why it feels stale is because we can only use one weapon, which would be our sword. But the more you play, unlock new skills, Prosthetic and learn bosses's weaknesses the more depth it gets.
In Sekiro, differently from other Souls games, you don't have any other weapon besides your sword. All of the playstyles are focused on some combat skills, the Combat Arts and Prosthetics.
Let's talk about the Prosthetics first, these are also a main gimmick in the game and to use them you need to consume Spirit Emblems, which I'm going to talk about later. I think most of them are really useful, some better than others, and some are really situational, still they are really useful in these specific situations. They are, like a LOT of things in this game, ALL missable. I for example on my first run only discovered one of them just in the middle part of the game and another prosthetic I just discovered the existence on NG+ 2; so yeah... explore the map and pay attention to detail. For example, some of its localizations are got by eavesdropping on enemies, mini-bosses, and information sold by merchants, but you still need to recognize the locations in the information you got.
These Prosthetics are definitely the biggest underestimated mechanic of the game, which is also a mistake that I committed. They can make a lot of boss fights really easier, even the situational ones. As I said: The more you play, the more complex it gets, you don't just upgrade the prosthetics but also unlock specific combat skills that make them even better and more versatile.
The Combat Arts are the ones that feel even more underwhelming, especially at the start.
We have two types of Combat Arts: the ones that Cost Spirit Emblems and the ones that don't.
Most of the ones that don't cost any Spirit Emblems can feel really weak, which... they mostly are, exactly because they don't cost any Spirit Emblems. Most of them are better on mini-bosses or just really situational on main bosses.
The ones that cost Spirit Emblems are the big boys but, as I said, they aren't free and may feel like a waste if you use them recklessly, even though you can still use them if you don't have the Emblems, a weak version of course. They, like a lot of the Prosthetics, can make a boss fight much easier, especially if you combine both the Combat Arts and the Prosthetics.
Something that I liked is that you unlock new combat Arts by items while exploring the map or doing some quests.
Now the Spirit Emblems, that I repeated 100 times over this topic. They are basically your second "currency", except you spend them on using some Combat Arts, Prosthetics, and some specific items. Something that I didn't understand at the start is that they are limited, and what I mean by that is that you can run out of them and have to buy or grind for them. I think they made it like this exactly that you don't be completely reckless because if you be, you are going to run out of them.
Overall, Sekiro's Combat may seem underwhelming and repetitive the first hours or even the first playthroughs, but if you stick to the game and learn how to play efficiently, it gets just better and better the more you play and learn how to deal with enemies and the best you to use your Skills and Tools.
A complaint that I have about it is that even if gets better later, the game doesn't give much motivation for you to try to play in different ways besides playing defensive and focusing on Deflecting, quite the opposite in some way. Sometimes I would try new strategies using different Prohestetics and Combat Arts and I would just end up dying or it wouldn't have a really big reward. On my first playthrough, I almost didn't use the Prohestetics and only used 1 or 2 combat arts. I just started trying more on the NG+ runs because deflecting wasn't really enough, then it just started getting better. That can be a flaw to most of the players, basically the combat just starts to get more interesting, more complex, and more rewarding too late or just doesn't even gets better if the player isn't upgrading their stuff enough.
The main motivation that I can think of, besides they being effective the more you upgrade them, is weaknesses that the bosses have like weakness to poison, fire and the Firecrackers, a Prosthetic, that can be more effective against a specific boss or a type of enemy. These Firecrackers for example are even more effective against beasts. These weaknesses are shown, mostly, towards items descriptions so it can be easy to miss.
Talking about Upgrades and Progression, the game doesn't have any way to upgrade your stats, EXCEPT for Vitality, Posture, and Attack. You upgrade Vitality and Posture by collecting four Prayer Beads, that you gain by finding on the map but, mostly, receive defeating most of the Mini-Bosses; the attack is upgraded with Memories from the Main Bosses. You can have up to 20 Vitality and Posture and 99 Attack.
As I said, the Prosthetics can be upgraded with upgrade materials that either does something better or an alternative version that works differently, and also the Combat Arts can be upgraded to a better version.
Something really weird that I noticed is that, even when you upgrade them, you can still equip the obsolete version that works exactly like the upgraded but is weaker. It's not like it's a flaw, I just think is weird.
-Bosses and Pacing
The boss design on this is probably one of the most bizarre and unique I ever see; which when I explored the other Soulsborne, I noticed that this is also basically another standard. All of them are not just amazing designed but their designs also tell how they fight might go; the swordsman is the ones where you need to use and prove that you know all the fundamentals of the game like deflecting and countering unblockable attacks while others like some beastly looking bosses have a totally different fight.
I think MOST of the bosses, especially the main ones, are really good and fair, even though there are minor ones that give a sour taste. A lot of them may play similarly but you can't play efficiently the same way with all of them. Let me try to explain: deflecting is still the main gimmick on most bosses but how you punish them and manage to use your tools in the best way possible is really different; some bosses may be weaker to some specific tools that are useless to other bosses, even consumable items. Maybe that is another reason why the Prosthetics may feel underwhelming if you try to use only one Prohestetic all the time it may not work always the same way because it isn't as efficient to one boss as it is to another; so is basically trial and error each attempt, try different Prohestetics and even specific consumables to see which one of them works the best.
Now about the pacing, when I mean by "pacing" I mean how the bosses are put in a way that teaches and tests your knowledge of the basics and advanced fundamentals and game mechanics or even breaks these exact fundamentals.
For this, I need to use two bosses as an example and I have to talk a little bit about their fights.
One of my favorite bosses of the game is Genichiro, he is the one that tests if you know the advanced fundamentals that are: Deflecting and Countering the unblockable attacks. After you defeat him, these fundamentals are even more reinforced and if you didn't adapt before, after you start to understand how important they are.
After Genichiro the next main boss would be the Guardian Ape, one of the bosses that are considered the most difficult, especially on the first tries; one of the reasons for that is because he just breaks almost everything that you learned with Genichiro. Deflect means mostly nothing, actually, this fight is more focused towards dodging and sprinting away and them hitting hard when he is recovering.
This kind of pacing happens on the entirety of the game, even on the start; there is the bosses that act like walls that you can only pass if you prove that you know how to play and understand the basics or the advanced mechanics and may feel similar and repetitive, but there is others that just break the basic and you need to fight them in a totally different way. I think this is really good even if these fights that break the basics feel like most of what you learned was useless because it makes the boss fights feel less repetitive and more of the same.
Still about pacing, is good to remember that just some bosses have a mandatory order that you can fight; I, for example, talked about Genichiro and the Guardian ape, but there are a lot of bosses that you can fight after or earlier. There is a boss that you are supposed to fight only on the middle of the game, but I fought against it basically on the start of the game, before Genichiro.
-Difficulty and New Game+
I couldn't talk about a Soulsborne without talking about the difficulty.
I honestly think the difficulty is well made, at least for most of the bosses. A problem that was recurrent on my first playthroughs was Artificial Difficulty, that is something that I totally despise in any game; there is a big difference between a bullet sponge boss that kills you in one hit and a boss that is hard to read and memorize its patterns, doing big damage but also rewards you for countering in the right way. That is actually why Genichiro is my favorite boss, he has a lot of big damage attacks that can even hit kills you but, if you counter it on the right way, you too can also punish him with big damage.
But not all bosses are like this, some of them have big damage or one-hit-kill attacks that doesn't really let you do a hard punish if countered correctly. I think a relatively good example of this is an Ogre, an early mini-boss that has... questionable hitboxes; even though he is really slow, you are still too early on the game, not having much options for big damage punishes; he is also a boss that breaks fundamentals so some players might fight him in a inefficient way... also the questionable, QUESTIONABLE, hitboxes.
But one of the reasons why I felt that this game is really dependent of artificial difficulty is the things that make the game harder. By the way, YES this game HAS difficulty options, except that is not an Easy mode, it's: Normal, Hard and Very Hard.
Let's start by Hard first:
There is an item that you can find early on the game, after the Ogre to be more specific; it's called the Demon Bell that makes the enemies do more damage and have more health BUT you gain more and better loot from enemies, don't include more money. The first time I beat the game I had the demon bell activated in the middle of the game, I think; and the changes were... noticeable but the game still felt fair and was a good playthrough.
Now the Very Hard is where I'm still not completely sure about what I think; after you beat the game for the first time you receive the Kuro's Charm in all next new games, if you give the Charm to Kuro you not just gonna increase enemy's damage and vitality but also receive chip damage for blocking, making you need to learn how to properly deflect even more, the good thing is that you gain more money and XP. The "Very Hard" comes from having both the Demon Bell and Kuro's Charm's penalties, making the game basically a one-hit kill fest.
I'm gonna get back to this after. Gonna talk a little bit about New Game Plus first and about my runs.
Right after you finish the game you have the choice to start an NG+ right away or stay on the playthrough to do other things like collect all the Prayer Beads. When you start a new one you carry all the skills and items, except key items, and unlock the Kuro's Charm that you collect with the letter on the well. Each new NG+ increases money and XP gained until NG+ 7.
Now, back to the Artificial Difficulty subject, in this game, I think it is a necessary evil, which, even though I despise it, I still recognize it is necessary for not making the game too easy. For this I'm gonna talk about some of my playthroughs:
NG+ 2 - I went for the 2º Ending and was with both the Demon Bell and Charmless. It was here that I started getting conflicted about the game's difficulty and I took... some months to beat it, maybe even a whole fucking YEAR; of course, most of it, was because it was such a sufferable experience that I always hesitated to go back to the game and would end up giving up. When I finally got back to the game and beat my PTSDs I basically finished right away, only a few bosses were left so I could have finished much, MUCH earlier. The experience was just mostly sufferable and gave me a lot of conflicting emotions about the game.
NG+ 3 - I went for the 3º Ending BUT, because I didn't wanted to suffer so much as the NG+ 2, I only went Charmless, without the Demon Bell; and HOLY. SHIT. It was so easy it hurted. I just rushed the game and beat it in TWO FUCKING DAYS. And that is when I noticed that the artificial difficulty was definitely necessary; the most times I died was 3 or 4 times against one boss, the others I beat either on first or second try.
NG - This is not New Game Plus but a True New Game; I played only with the Demon Bell, I actually didn't even know the Kuro's Charm was on a True New Game, as easy as the NG+ 3; of course it was because I already knew all bosses's patterns, weaknesses and I used Prosthetics and Combat Arts in a better way.
So, basically, the artificial difficulty is necessary for the game to be harder and not just that, on my NG+ 3 and True NG I played much better and using much more of the game's tools like the Prosthetics, Combat Arts and Items, as I said; all of this made me realize how much better the difficulty of the game was than I thought it was.
-Conclusion
Sekiro is a wonderful game and it's amazing how I almost slept on it for a long time.
All the challenges were really good to overcome; I loved all of the bosses if not most of them. Their fights, design, lore, all of it make them so unique and satisfying to overcome.
The lore was something that also hooked me up a lot and made me appreciate this side of games even more. I just love when the game's information that is shown isn't just something to put on the game and doesn't really add much to the world-building or the game's story. Everything feels important and connected, at the same time optional.
The atmosphere, characters's stories and their inner... demons. It's amazing how the world feels alive even though it really is just, mostly, full of soldiers and hostiles; I think this is the From Software Immersion that so many talked about, how you feel immersed in the world just because of the world itself and it's characters, not because of realism or something like that.
I also think that this is the first game I played that just throws you in the world and says: "Have fun", discovering things by myself, just doing things and exploring places just out of curiosity felt really good and rewarding, instead of just following markers as usual.
The combat... please don't sleep on it, is much better than it looks, which was a mistake that I committed. I think is still a flaw that the combat may only get better too late. But, if you stick on the game for long enough, it just gets better and better. Especially the Prosthetics have a lot of interesting and different ways to use but not all of them are equally efficient against all bosses which can make them feel underwhelming but you just need to try out each attempt.
I beat this shit over 7 or 8 times as I write this, I played until NG+ 6 and did another New Game, each time being better than the other one; doing quests in a different way, doing different endings, learning new lore, trying to play better, doing all achievements(easier than it seems), THERE IS SO MUCH.
After Sekiro won GOTY, it also received a free update where you can fight against bosses that you fought and doing boss rushes for the endings you did, you can access it only on the Dilapidated Temple.
This game... is just... wonderful as I said. As I was writing this I was kinda worried and disappointed that the things I was writing weren't living up for how good the game is, maybe because this is spoiler-free or just because I didn't manage to put everything; like, I didn't even talked about the Soundtrack, that IS really good, especially boss themes.
Sekiro is just the kind of game that you need to play to understand its experience. I recommend it to anyone that likes Action-Adventure games, RPGs, and, of course, for people that like Soulsborne/Soulslike games, I highly recommend it.