abandoned after lady butterfly, during seven spears. 'not my shit', which it could be argued, is less the grounds for a critical assessment than admission of defeat. the elegant linearity of the level designs, all heading to predictable difficulty choke points in boss fights, means that one doesn't so much inhabit the world of sekiro as its mechanics. there is nothing here beyond wolf's capabilities, activated through training one's nervous system to align with contextual demands, and so the joke about fromsoftware games being rhythm games is actually true of this one. you must respond in a pre-given way to the rhythm, and this gives sekiro a kind of kinesthetic purity i wish i could appreciate more than i do.

but so what i wanted from lady butterfly was the heavy sense of accomplishment i get from any game with considerable challenge — between the weightless noise of the battle and cue to activate a 'death animation', however, i returned to the world without catharsis and doubting anything had ever really occurred. perhaps this is due to the repetition of boss battles, that because the next is up in fifteen minutes, this one's already been forgotten to make room for the next set of steps to memorise. or perhaps this weightlessness is inherent to the shinobi. the camera is placed further from the body than in other fromsoftware games, which communicates the broader field of possibilities available to wolf across any given environment. (he scales walls, ducks beneath things, flings himself across ravines). this also though gives a sense of remoteness to the fights which should require intimacy — instead of a red symbol flashing up to cue a response, it would be nice to actually see the actions performed by our adversaries in order to anticipate a response. unfortunately though they all look like miniatures you are to deal with through a kind of microscope. in the much desired 'flow state' of play you are an abstract flurry of white slices, and the enemy only the distant recipient of the barrage. i like everyone else have praised the dance-like flow of bloodborne, but the emphasis on fluidity here does not have the requisite physicality to be called dance.

it's a pity, because the stealth sections between bosses are some of the most fun i've had in a game by this developer. the camera closes in, and the space becomes vivid.

i had every intention of finishing it just to say 'i dislike this game and have the right to say so' but jesus christ i'm old who cares