Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - From Software

[Cyrrex]

Not being Soulsy might be fine, I guess what I am really wondering is how far it goes into general Hack&Slash territory.  I dislike (or get bored of) most H&S, but the Technu comparisons give me hope.  I only ever had...I think it was the first PS2 version of Technu, and I fucking loved that game.

[Falconeer]

Combat is fine, bosses are fine. Everything is good and Souls-like. The fucking stealth part though is super annoying *TO ME*. I really can't find the fun in stealth games. I also don't like the hook too much as by the time you shoot a few that unpleasant Spider-Man feeling begins to creep in.

Now, let's talk about that Chained Ogre grab, without the fire shortcut.

[schild]

the only games i liked stealth in was splinter cell chaos theory and metal gear solid 4

if this game is stealth-centric, I'm waiting for it to be $9 or grabbing it off a pirate ship

[cironian]

So much blood... And way too much of it is my own.

Stealth so far is sort of optional but encouraged because alerted enemies start calling for help and if you don't thin their numbers before going into battle you may end up overwhelmed by numbers. Or maybe that's just because I'm not that good at the combat system yet.

[Falconeer]

I am only 5 hours in so it's hard to say how stealth-based it really is. You cannot run into an area without scouting (stralthily) a bit, that's certain death. But once you have figured out where the enemies are you can certainly kill them all. I would say, based on what I have played so fat that the stealth mechanics are not mandatory as a way to avoid enemies that would otherwise kill you, it is more like a mandatory way to slow the pace down and force you to assess the situation and devise an attack plan before you dive in.

After a few sneaky practice runs it's cool to basically hit "execute" and see how well and hkw efficiently you can kill everything by spending the least healing resouces in the process.

[cironian]

So, after killing 4 mini-bosses through dozens of retries each you finally get the chance to turn your hard work into your very first stat increase. So here I am, thinking that this will at last make other enemies easier, and then I watch my vitality stat increase all the way from its starting value of 10... to 11. 

I guess that was the healthy effect of jogging over from the spawn point to the bosses so many times.

[Jeff Kelly]

Haven’t had the chance to play this myself yet. I do see quite a few complaints though by people about glitches, „warping“ bosses that ignore your dodges and parries and camera issues.

So basically Fromsoft being Fromsoft or worse?

[Falconeer]

I haven't found any meaningful glitch but I also have not finished the game yet. I can tell you that a few of the things that felt wrong and maybe buggy for me ended up being part of the process of getting familiar with a game that has some subtle differences from the usual Soulsbornes, especially when it comes to dodges and iFrames.

Bugs or not, being From Software the best software house of the last ten years, we can only hope they'll keep being themselves for another ten years.

[Jeff Kelly]

Well, their technical side has always been little wonky. There's a reason why DSFix came to be.

I made a mistake in reading reviews in the frist place though. The way people describe this game makes it sound as if you'd need the reflexes of a teenager to play it and I have started to question if I'd still be able to play it at my age of 42. Well time to try, I guess.

The "get gud" and "you have been 2 frames early" crowd is out in full force already though. It's interesting to see what kind of effect this has. They are accidentally discouraging people from buying the game by hyping up the difficulty level and due to their constant chest beating.

[Sky]

I watched a streamer yesterday for a few minutes. He hit a boss and started kiting it around. He mentioned how it took multiple tries and 5 hours to defeat some other boss (I think the main one, he was playing NG+).

It looked like the worst of mmo fights, kiting a giant damage sponge around.

You can have the coolest mechanics in the world, but when it's wrapped in such bad fight mechanics, meh.

[cironian]

My biggest technical problem is that horrible, terrible camera. The point of a third person camera is to keep yourself and your surroundings in view. There have been moments in boss fights where I could see neither and had to guess whether my inability to move was because of blocking geometry (change movement direction or jump, depending on the height of the thing) or because I have been knocked prone (need to hit the dodge button). That confusion can allow a boss to get two good hits in on your defenseless body.

And then there is the lock-on system randomly disengaging whenever the enemy jumps past you too fast. Which many of the enemies do on a regular basis. In that case you have to notice the problem, swivel the camera around to find the bastard and then lock back on. Which again is enough time to take a pointless hit.

Everything apart from the terrible UI works great for me though. But that's on PS4. From what I hear, the PC version has more issues.

[Falconeer]

I watched a streamer yesterday for a few minutes. He hit a boss and started kiting it around. He mentioned how it took multiple tries and 5 hours to defeat some other boss (I think the main one, he was playing NG+).

It looked like the worst of mmo fights, kiting a giant damage sponge around.

You can have the coolest mechanics in the world, but when it's wrapped in such bad fight mechanics, meh.

That's just people who try to either cheese or win with the tactics they WANT to win with. I often made that choice myself and took 4+ hours and a hundred tries to beat a boss, but I knew very well that it was my choice to do it with THAT weapon, or at THAT early level or by NOT using the widely known better approach, and so on. The beauty of these games is that you can really fight and win in many, many different ways.
Fight mechanics are pretty great as in all the other From games.

[Trippy]

Haven’t had the chance to play this myself yet. I do see quite a few complaints though by people about glitches, „warping“ bosses that ignore your dodges and parries and camera issues.

So basically Fromsoft being Fromsoft or worse?

From what I've watched on streams it seems more the former than latter.

I made a mistake in reading reviews in the frist place though. The way people describe this game makes it sound as if you'd need the reflexes of a teenager to play it and I have started to question if I'd still be able to play it at my age of 42. Well time to try, I guess.

My main concern is it sounds like you can't "cheese" the game by over-leveling on easy content like you can in the other Soulsborne games to compensate for aging reflexes. E.g. in Bloodborne right now I'm about 40 levels higher than the normal/recommended level for the boss I'm on right now (Ebrietas, level 109* vs 60 - 70 typical) and I've still died to it three times now (though my last attempt was pretty close).

I watched a streamer yesterday for a few minutes. He hit a boss and started kiting it around. He mentioned how it took multiple tries and 5 hours to defeat some other boss (I think the main one, he was playing NG+).

It looked like the worst of mmo fights, kiting a giant damage sponge around.

You can have the coolest mechanics in the world, but when it's wrapped in such bad fight mechanics, meh.

That's just people who try to either cheese or win with the tactics they WANT to win with. I often made that choice myself and took 4+ hours and a hundred tries to beat a boss, but I knew very well that it was my choice to do it with THAT weapon, or at THAT early level or by NOT using the widely known better approach, and so on. The beauty of these games is that you can really fight and win in many, many different ways.
Fight mechanics are pretty great as in all the other From games.

Yes those super long fights are because that's the only way that person knows how to beat the boss without failing right now. But in time people will get better and the fights will get a lot shorter. It's like in Bloodborne where it'll take me, say, 20 minutes to beat a certain boss while a speedrunner can do it in 2 minutes or less.


* In my defense I'm not totally lacking in playing ability as I'm good enough to mostly solo some of the NG+ early game bosses like BSB in co-op mode even with only a +6 weapon. I.e. I've joined other people's games who are clearly worse than me and I've had to carry them through some of their early-game NG+ bosses.

[Jeff Kelly]

Sekiro doesn't seem to have a riposte mechanic, right?

So why exactly should I parry? Parry is very high risk. Miss the input and you could die. BB and DS at least gave you riposte with significantly higher damage even if you didn't have the opportunity to backstab. This made parrying a tradeoff between risk/reward because each successful parry helped you.

What I've seen so far is a lot of whittling health bars down microscopically while trying to survive until the enemy/boss has lost enough health so that his posture bar is no longer recovering instantly and then the fight simply ends once you get that parry in.

[Trippy]

Deflecting does extra posture damage.

[Jeff Kelly]

Deflecting does extra posture damage.

Does it matter? Honest question

I've seen how quickly enemies can regenerate posture when they are at 100% health. From my perspective it seems like it's much more difficult to beat certain enemies by breaking posture with parry/deflect because they regenerate posture so quickly. What I usually see is people whittling down health bars to a point where posture regenerates slower and then they switch to parry/deflect.

That first part doesn't seem to be fun though.

[Falconeer]

It does matter to the point that it's the whole game. Riposte has always been the "hardest" part of the Souls games, only good players could perform it consistently. And now it's THE only way to play. As far as I can tell so far, blocking and dodging or even jumping are not gonna get you far. Let alone spamming attacks. And there aren't -at least in the beginning- many crutches like magic or real long range attacks. Even sneaking can let you clear an area no problem but won't do anything for you against bosses. Either you learn how to deflect, or you can sell/uninstall the game unfortunately. I must say, before release everything pointed in the other direction with the Activision deal, but this is the hardest From Software game... maybe ever? Unless you have a particular innate affinity with the timing of riposte and lightning reflexes, I don't think you are gonna beat this game. Hell, I am talking about myself: I hate to admit this but after a few more days of trying there's a chance this game is beyond my capabilities at this point.

Wow.

[Velorath]

Sounds like it's a good thing I didn't pick this up then. One of the things I loved about the Souls games was how different builds lent themselves to different playstyles. This all sounds pretty disappointing so far.

[Jeff Kelly]

That's getting to my point though. This game is designed around deflect/parry. Posture regenerates if the enemy does not get hit. So far so good.

My issue is in how fast posture seems to regenerate when the enemy is at good health.

Deflect is a reaction as is parry, so you can only deflect/parry if the enemy attacks you. What I've seen so far of the game: Boss is at full health -> boss attacks -> player deflects -> posture bar regenerates because the enemy is not attacking or it's an "undeflectable" attack. So people do this song and dance where they parry/deflect to not die and counterattack to reduce the health bar of the enemy (and health goes down slow as fuck). At some point the enemy has lost enough health that posture regen is slower than posture damage via deflect and then the enemy dies once posture is broken.

Fights take ages because its death by a thousand cuts and if you fuck up once you're insta-murdered. Also you can't cheese it.

Maybe the talent trees give you enough abilities that break down posture more quickly?

Take the tutorial boss for example. In DS you could murder the asylum demon at level 1 with the base weapon, in BB you can murder the giant wolf bare handed. You can in fact beat most of the games at level 1 without any upgrades. I can't see how you could possibly beat the tutorial boss in Sekiru though using the intended mechanics because you'll never be able to inflict more posture damage than he regenerates. I suppose that you could beat him in the old fashioned way by parry/dodge and hitting him a bunch but that would probably take ages.

Granted I've only played the first areas of the game and a few streams.

[Jeff Kelly]

It does matter to the point that it's the whole game. Riposte has always been the "hardest" part of the Souls games, only good players could perform it consistently.

Yeah, but in DS and BB a riposte does significantly more damage and can stagger enemies/break stance. It's always valuable even if you can't do a backstab or visceral attack after. What I've seen so far of Sekiro gives me the impression that deflect is not very useful in the early parts of a fight because it only does posture damage which the enemy regenerates faster than you can apply it and there seems to be no stagger mechanic that lets you follow through with a counter after a successful parry.

[Falconeer]

I wouldn't be surprised if it opened up to more options later on, and even in the beginning there are many ways to tackle (or not tackle) trivial enemies. But the tough ones are so hard to figure out and learn that it's like everyone is quite lost, and the fact that death penalty is maybe harsher than ever doesn't lend itself to a smooth trial-and-error process. You don't have that typical "Fuck it, I am gonna throw myself at this mini-boss 100 times until I learn it" here, and they are surrounded by other mobs so everything takes much much longer to learn.

But yes, deflecting and countering is the core mechanic here and it is slammed on your face from the very beginning.

And no in my experience they cannot regenerate it as quickly as you say (unless you are talking about bosses), you gotta keep pushing it and when their posture is broken they are dead. It is clearly not the same as the Souls, as you say, but it serves the function of opening them up for a clean blows and eventually a finisher.

[Jeff Kelly]

(unless you are talking about bosses)

Yes, bosses. Should have made it more obvious.

[Falconeer]

Ah, OK. With bosses it seems to be a bit less about deflections, although for example the Shinobi Hunter forces you to pick up the Mikiri counter which works pretty much like the deflection except on a different button. No idea how it is with other bosses, but to me the Mikiri thing expresses exactly their intention of creating a game all about timing your counter(s). So, I don't know, maybe that's where they want for players to try different things and so deflecting is not the only viable option anymore.

To me the biggest annoyance are the trash mobs surrounding the mini bosses. Even the damn Wrestling Ogre forces you to deal with a stupid extra lancer from time to time. It all detracts from focusing on the enemy and learning what they do in a way that doesn't really add much to me. Same with the Shinobi Hunter, surrounded by useless crap that you have to get rid of over and over again before you try the boss again.

I have to ask, when you mention the tutorial boss, which one are you talking about? ostly to try and remember how I beat it, and also because this time I have been having a hard time figuring out myself which one is the tutorial one, which one is the optional one, as they all seem skippable up to a point.

[Jeff Kelly]

Forgot his name, the boss who
Allegedly he's beatable in the tutorial  like all of the previous tutorial bosses (Asylum Demon in DS 1 for example) were.

Right now I can't see how though, he recovers posture incrediby quickly

[Falconeer]

Hah. Because of the impact on the story, I assumed that one wasn't beatable. Silly me.

[Trippy]

Forgot his name, the boss who
Allegedly he's beatable in the tutorial  like all of the previous tutorial bosses (Asylum Demon in DS 1 for example) were.

Right now I can't see how though, he recovers posture incrediby quickly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz1-H4gmPC0

From the video it looks like it takes about 1/3 damage to his health before the delay before his posture meter starts to drain is long enough that you can keep it from emptying as long as you keep the pressure on rather than running away to the other side of the arena any time a Perilous Attack symbol appears like most streamers are doing right now. I.e. git gud.

[Trippy]

Hah. Because of the impact on the story, I assumed that one wasn't beatable. Silly me.

It's just a flesh wound...if you do manage to beat him.

[Ironwood]

I've been watching Fighting Cowboy play this and even just looking at the fight above that Trippy linked :

This game looks boring as fuck.   Help me out here.  Is it one of those things that's just better to play than watch ?

[Cyrrex]

Anecdotally, but my 14 year-old bought it and says it is the best thing ever, and more fun than the Souls games.  I think he is very near the end, or so he says.

It should be said that - as much as I dislike saying so out loud - his video game reflexes are better than mine ever were.  I know I like the idea of this game, time will tell if I like the actual game.  I will try it shortly after he's done with it, I expect.

[schild]

Mathematically, that 14 year old was 4 when Demon's Souls came out.

[Jeff Kelly]

This game looks boring as fuck.   Help me out here.  Is it one of those things that's just better to play than watch ?

I suppose so. Sekiro combat is very mechanical and timing based. From the outside this may look like two guys that just hit katanas at each other. From what I've seen so far there haven't been any flashy visual fights similar to those in BB or DS. So less "Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Father Gascoine or Artorias of the Abyss. Maybe it gets more flashy later in the game.

From the reactions I gathered so far they must be very satisfying to beat though. I can't speak from experience though, I haven't made it to the first boss yet. Still trying to find my footing in that game.

[Cyrrex]

Mathematically, that 14 year old was 4 when Demon's Souls came out.

I purposely did not mention, as to not draw your ire, that he never tried Demon's Souls.  He refuses to go that far back in time.  But he generally like the others, including BB, though I don't think he finished any of them.  Neither have I!

[schild]

Mathematically, that 14 year old was 4 when Demon's Souls came out.

I purposely did not mention, as to not draw your ire, that he never tried Demon's Souls.  He refuses to go that far back in time.  But he generally like the others, including BB, though I don't think he finished any of them.  Neither have I!

-_-

[Cyrrex]

I don't know what to tell you.  I am onboard.  Demon's Souls is the only one of the bunch I completed, never came close with the others.  I like them just fine, but not enough to see them through.

[Jeff Kelly]

I really like the visual style and art direction. I like that the game looks and feels like a Japanese martial arts movie including the ridiculously gory kills and resulting fountains of blood. I really, really like their choice to make Japanese audio and english subtitles the default. It add so much to the atmosphere of the game. The UI is improved, the technical aspects of the game have been improved as well. The level design so far is absolutely great.

Game is hard as fuck though. You seriously need to keep up on visual and audio clues to get your timing right.

Also dodge is your enemy. The only recommendation that nearly every good player gives is that you should always deflect if possible and sidestep/jump over attacks that you can't and that dodge is a fools errant most of the time.