Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

[dug]

@MardiganX Fyi, you get to fight 

Spoiler

the old version of Isshin the same way you get to fight Emma. Spoiler for if you want to know how:

 

Spoiler

On top of the castle at the point you fight Owl, before the fight he tells you to obey the iron code and betray Kuro, and you get a choice whether or not to do so. If you choose to betray Kuro, that's how you get to fight Emma and old Isshin. If you stay loyal to Kuro, you fight Owl instead and the rest of the game unfolds the way you saw.

 

 

[MardiganX]

Ah right, cheers @dug so does that mean the rest of the game pans out differently after those fights or does it slot back into what happens after the path I took?

[dug]

10 minutes ago, MardiganX said:

Ah right, cheers @dug so does that mean the rest of the game pans out differently after those fights or does it slot back into what happens after the path I took?

 

No, that's it. 

Spoiler

You fight Emma, then Isshin then you get one of the four endings. There is no rest of the game after that! It's worth doing though, the Emma fight is tricky and different to any of the other bosses, and the Isshin fight is challenging because half the moves are ones you're used to from the sword Saint fight, but the other half are different. It fucks you up because you expect him to do one thing but he does something different.

 

[MardiganX]

How do I get access to those battles? Do I need to do them on another play through?

[Kayin Amoh]

Yeah, just choose the other option when you get to Owl. Doesn't take super long on a new run once you know where and what you're doing.

 

Be sure to do it in NG+ if you want all battles conveniently at hand from the statues rather than a totally fresh save.

[MardiganX]

Nice one, thanks. I assume I should be mopping things up before going to NG+ to make sure I’m suitably equipped? I have 9 gourd things, 13 attack power and 7 or 8 prayer necklaces but no idea what the cap is for those things. 

[Kayin Amoh]

Attack power goes up to 99, though after a certain point the benefits are minimal. IIRC, there's 40 beads in total. If you missed any permanently they should pop up in the offering box to the side of the Sculptor's hut beside where Hanbei the zombie sword dummy's first seen. Any you can still pick up will have to be visited in the world.

 

Some are pretty well hidden, I wouldn't balk at using a guide to hunt them down. Oh, and pretty sure there's 10 gourd seeds in total.

[Gigawatt]

On 17/09/2022 at 08:28, MardiganX said:

No other action game I’ve ever played has made defending the core mechanic of its system, no doubt because it’s a very difficult thing to get right, but even harder to make enjoyable. Sekiro has redefined action games for me and I’m now worried I’m not going to enjoy other games as much as I would have had I not (finally) played Sekiro.

 

I see you’ve been dabbling with playing Elden Ring next, which just might be the best game ever made. If you want something where the defending mechanic is key though, I’d suggest Sifu, which I played straight after Sekiro on a recommendation from this thread. That game really nails the ‘feel’ of being a kung-fu master which was what I was still craving following Sekiro. 

[MardiganX]

11 minutes ago, Gigawatt said:

 

I see you’ve been dabbling with playing Elden Ring next, which just might be the best game ever made. If you want something where the defending mechanic is key though, I’d suggest Sifu, which I played straight after Sekiro on a recommendation from this thread. That game really nails the ‘feel’ of being a kung-fu master which was what I was still craving following Sekiro. 

Cheers man. I have already finished Sifu and absolutely loved it. Sekiro nails defence being the vital mechanic in the combat, but Sifu clearly takes a lot of inspiration from that and does it really well.

[squirtle]

I'm up to the corrupted monk on the bridge and after the chore that was Owl, this game is just wearing me down with it's tedium. The fights are really boring. Block, try and get a hit, block, dodge, wait for a particular move. Get hit, see half your health go down, hit them, see 2 pixels of their health disappear, repeat ad nauseum. Then, just for a laugh, let's give him three lives with the equivalent of Toxic or Frenzy as the bonus on the third, and if you die, yep, do it all again! I get that you're supposed to be offensive, but enemies hits chew through my posture, meaning I have to back off otherwise I get hit and then half my health goes. It is so unbalanced and just not enjoyable. I'm going to finish it, but I'll never go back to it. Are you supposed to feel more of a bad ass as you progress? I've upgraded everything I can, killed all the mini bosses got all the pearls and faced all the bosses to get their powers, but I still feel incredibly weak against anything. Even those blue robed guys in Ashina castle tear me a new one if they get a hit in and I have to hit them about 6 or 7 times to take them down and they're dressed in a fucking robe! I really don't understand this game.

[HarryBizzle]

You need to break their posture by parrying. If you parry perfectly you don’t take any posture damage, and if you parry imperfectly you take less than if you just sit there and block or do nothing.  Blocking is mostly useless.
 

Kind of incredible that you’ve made it as far as you have without understanding that. 

[Benny]

Start by "feathering" the block button while holding it, and you'll start seeing the parry rhythms.

 

The idea about being more offensive doesn't specifically mean getting more hits in like in Bloodborne: you need to be using the block button to actively parry attack strings before punishing them at the end. The enemy health bars are a bit of a red herring: the posture bar is effectively their real "health", and that only goes up when attacks are parried.

[squirtle]

I'm not just holding down L1, I'm tapping it as they are about to hit. Isn't that parrying?

[squirtle]

I know the mechanics. I know to get their posture bar filled, and that it goes down slower as they take more hits. I know all that. I get how to play it. I just think it's dull, but it's the last From game I haven't done so I'm going to do it and then just moan like fuck every step of the way in here.

[stir fry]

4 minutes ago, Benny said:

that only goes up when attacks are parried.

It also goes up when you take hits back though.

 

iirc there's something in the particle effects or sound queues that lets you know if your opponent is about to take their turn back and that you need to parry. There's some very subtle tells in this game I think

 

It's a cool game, but I found it really linear and dull in its combat. More interesting to watch someone else play and figure out than to play personally I think.

[Benny]

As a counterpoint, once I had learned what the game expected I found the combat to be exhilarating. Taking on three soldiers at once, parrying all attacks and then slicing through them all like butter became incredibly satisfying

 

It's a lot more rythm action game than Dark Souls, but then I love rythm action.

[squirtle]

Oh, standard soldiers are nothing. Those red guys that appear half way through I can take out without issues. Blue robed guys and those purple fucks, though. Absolute dicks. But they're over in seconds. The boss fights are just a chore.

[PikaStu]

After too much time away I’ve picked this up again, and slaughtered the big drunk guy. However Madame Butterfly can go fuck herself 😂

 

At the other end of the map, I just can’t get past the flaming bull. I get him to about half energy then it just falls apart. 

[Kayin Amoh]

It's easily some of the best combat ever made and the defence-as-offence is absolutely inspired, but hey. Can't please everyone.

[MardiganX]

Delighted to see the thread alive again and not sure how I didn’t see it earlier. Anyway, as above Sekiro is the greatest action game ever made for me and echo the points about how your treat defence. It turns combat on its head because being really good at defending is the essence of it all.

 

The biggest issue I always had @squirtle was not knowing what to do but what NOT to do. You have to get comfortable being essentially on your back foot deflecting and countering 90% of the time and be ready for those small moments where you can attack and as you build up you create more attack windows for yourself.

 

The Corrupted Monk is a toughie, but there is a very easy way to get a instant death blow on his 2nd phase releasing the pressure a little so hopefully you’ve figured that out or progressed by another means

 

I want Sekiro 2 more than I’ve ever wanted a sequel to any game!

[squirtle]

I did kill the Corrupted Monk finally. I've made it through the next section and up to the Dragon God. I managed to get him down to the last bit of health and then all the lightning trees disappear and I just couldn't see what I was supposed to do next. Thought it was going to be A Bed of Chaos type thing, so got round the back but no doing and kept getting wiped out and having to do those boring mini dragons each time... So I looked it up. You just have to do nothing but dodge for a minute or so until a tree appears. Ok. The game does nothing, that I could see, to tell you this. The game wants you to go on the offence but not here. This is bad signposting for the player. I'll do it next time, but I just think this game's bosses all have issues of some kind.

[squirtle]

Anyway, Dragon God done. 

[squirtle]

Also, Enfeebled. That actually made me laugh quite a lot.

[Shindig]

Yeah, that's a good, dumb status effect.

[MardiganX]

I don’t think the game really encourages you to be aggressive @squirtle it’s only something you can do when you learn how to defend / evade first. Being aggressive from the first time you encounter a new enemy or boss will get you very quickly smashed.

 

Same with the boss you are up against. It’s not an overly difficult encounter but assumes you have learned a very specific technique by that point. Even going so far as to labour that point on the approach to the boss.

 

There is only one boss in the entire game that wasn’t perfectly in line with everything Sekiro is trying to do. Luckily it’s optional. I still have nightmares about it.

 

 

[squirtle]

26 minutes ago, MardiganX said:

I don’t think the game really encourages you to be aggressive @squirtle it’s only something you can do when you learn how to defend / evade first. Being aggressive from the first time you encounter a new enemy or boss will get you very quickly smashed.

 

Same with the boss you are up against. It’s not an overly difficult encounter but assumes you have learned a very specific technique by that point. Even going so far as to labour that point on the approach to the boss.

 

There is only one boss in the entire game that wasn’t perfectly in line with everything Sekiro is trying to do. Luckily it’s optional. I still have nightmares about it.

 

 

It's that lightning jump. I still have no idea how to do it properly. That dragon God boss just sort of did it automatically.

[MardiganX]

Just now, squirtle said:

It's that lightning jump. I still have no idea how to do it properly. That dragon God boss just sort of did it automatically.

I never used it apart from that boss. Even later on where a particular fight allows you a healthy damage / posture bonus if you can use it, I ignored it. The windows and signposting for pulling it off are much kinder in that boss fight too.

[squirtle]

16 minutes ago, MardiganX said:

I never used it apart from that boss. Even later on where a particular fight allows you a healthy damage / posture bonus if you can use it, I ignored it. The windows and signposting for pulling it off are much kinder in that boss fight too.

I remember it supposedly being the key to Genichiro's third phase, but I just backed him into a corner and hacked away at him, dodging when he did a jump then just hacking away again. It was not pretty.

[squirtle]

My main beef with the game is the damage taken is disproportionate to the damage given. Even lesser enemies do so much to you. I just feel like I'm hitting them with a butter knife compared to a ruddy great sword.

[MardiganX]

11 hours ago, squirtle said:

My main beef with the game is the damage taken is disproportionate to the damage given. Even lesser enemies do so much to you. I just feel like I'm hitting them with a butter knife compared to a ruddy great sword.

 

That's fairly standard for every action game though, especially where the combat is based on you learning certain techniques to make you more powerful. Plus with Sekiro its actually more understandable because most of the time you are working to reduce posture and so the majority of your attacks get blocked in some way.