Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
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Took a little break. Killed "The Boss" after about an hour of retrying. Cool fight, i enjoyed it. But. I just don't feel invested or immersed in the world. The great pull of soulsborne for me was the world, i'm not feeling it here.
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It's pretty well imagined (and feels very real), but I agree that the setting isn't as evocative as Souls.
Spoiler: -
Hah yeah i found that. Seemed completely pointless.
I think i will take a break and play something else for a bit, it's a good game, i am super fussy if i dont LOVE a game i generally stop. -
I prefer the setting over Dark Souls, but not over Bloodbourne. Stuff like how Fountainhead is dealt with is very similar to BB and Souls though, perhaps just couching it in more obvious mythology gives it less of an impact to people. The logic of how the Dragonblood works its way around their world is something that I think is done really, really well though, but it's potentially easily to miss some of the connective tissue.
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Interesting - I prefer Souls setting to Serkio, which I prefer over Bloodborne. I like the way that the Souls world feels dreamlike, in an every repeating cycle over truly countless eons.
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Everyone's going to be different, but for myself Trad Fantasy is the bottom of the fictional pile. I appreciate how Dark Souls is an outsider's view of that setting, but it's still something I just don't love, whereas Samurai shit and fucking Victorian Cosmic Horror is my bag.
Re: SekiroSpoiler: -
I barely notice any of these narrative details even after playing for ages. All that stuff there about Sekiro is news to me. And I didn't have a clue what was going on in BB until I read up on it, which made it much more interesting but it's a shame I never noticed it in the game itself. I think with Dark Souls it's more obviously visible in the geography. You can't miss the layers of civilisation in the journey down, for instance.
They're all fascinating places - just sometimes a bit too opaque for me. -
I'm not getting any of the 'depth' from the Sekiro world. Not saying it's not there, i might be being dumb and just not seeing it. Souls and Bloodborne much more obvious to me. I think Bloodborne is genius and has most interesting subject matter but i have a soft spot for Dragons and Swords and stuff. I quite like Japanese history but i dunno, just not feeling it. *shrug*
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I mean it's definitely there, they're a Japanese dev and they've got a vested interest in their own history and myths which they've blended together to create Ashina. But the story is more straightforward so I guess it's easier to gloss over the other stuff.
@JonSpoiler:
If Elden Ring is as Norse as it looks, I am very excited for it, cos there's a real opportunity to carry on exploring this kind of stuff via those myths. -
Djornson wrote:I'm not getting any of the 'depth' from the Sekiro world. Not saying it's not there, i might be being dumb and just not seeing it. Souls and Bloodborne much more obvious to me. I think Bloodborne is genius and has most interesting subject matter but i have a soft spot for Dragons and Swords and stuff. I quite like Japanese history but i dunno, just not feeling it. *shrug*
That's because you've only seen Ashina outskirts and the castle. The following sections give exposition on why things are happening in the way that they are, and it's done in a much more obvious way than for either Souls or BB. -
Honestly I appreciate the straightforward nature of it. A lot of people bang on about all the supposition and piecing stuff together, but it's not the only way to tell a story, and it's good that From aren't just sticking to the safeness they know.
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Not well read enough to know how all their stuff filters into myth and stuff but I do like how they all follow similar structures of
Godly Realm
Anor Londo/Nightmare of Mensis/Fountainhead
Mortal Realm
Undead Burg/Yharnham/Ashina Castle
Lower Realms
Abyss/Old Yharnam/Sunken Valley
I guess it's probably fairly ubiquitous among mythologies, but it makes for good game design. -
Cool. Maybe i've just made it past the initial dress code entry barrier. I will get back to it, gonna play some other stuff for a bit first.
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I found the story and setting to be excellent and intriguing - the usual high standard expected of From - what ruined it for me was the endless restarting after defeat. It just killed the game for me. I made it through the infamous Genichiro battle, but the experience just sapped the life out of me so much that I couldn't really be bothered with the rest of the game.
I used to be an advocate for the difficulty in From games, but my time with Sekiro totally changed my mind. The difficulty adds nothing to the experience, and just led me to fuck the game off. There would be absolutely no harm in having an easier setting for a game like this and it irks me that I spent money on it and didn't see it through. -
I found it the most balanced and accessible of their games, it interesting how people find it harder.
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With other Souls/From games there is always the opportunity to grind and make the game easier, with this game, there's none of that. You either play it exactly as From intended, or lose. That rigidity in the combat just wore me out, compounded by the restarts and run backs to bosses.
There's no room for imagination during fights, nor is there much emergence or variety to make encounters interesting. You just get the timing right and win, or fail and try again and again. It's a draining way for someone my age to play a game. -
I found plenty of imagination to be had with the prosthetics and move sets myself. Me and a pal chatted a lot during our way through the various bosses, often finding totally different tactics to answer various parts of fights. I can understand people finding it rigid, but I was glad not to have the fuzziness of levelling there. Much prefer those action game roots.
Everyone’s gonna find this stuff different though. -
The prosthetics did seem to be a way to mix things up at first, but I soon found many seemed to be added to the game specifically for an encounter. Some were just useless. They were also extremely fiddly to use, and subject to the same unforgiving timings as the rest of the combat. I also found the consumables to be a pain to integrate in to the frantic boss battles - so much so that I just gave up using them completely in the end. I'd go so far to say that it would be a better, more streamlined game without the prosthetics and item usage. I'm assuming the game has been beaten without the use of both at this stage??
I'm finished with games that require that level of reactionary timing in my life. Such a shame because Sekiro really is awesome. -
Probably. But if you were bored with them, you'd be even more bored without them?
I dunno, found that overall they filled in gaps in the sword based combat. Didn't really use consumables all that much, felt the prosthetic attachments were a good step away from all that nonsense in that they did take a resource to use during encounters, but they were essentially unlimited during the span of the game given the amount of seals you got.
As i've said a bunch of times, my final run through the game coincided with an article I wrote on it about its combat and so it needed illustrated examples. To get the gifs looking nice I had to play without a HUD, but was also playing with Kuro's charm which made you take damage if you didn't block. I didn't find it anywhere near as tough or frustrating as my time in Souls or Bloodborne, but we're all wired differently. -
The prosthetics could've added more and like a lot of stuff in the game outside the main swordfighting mechanics just felt a bit undercooked.
When you get, say, the spear to pull armour off enemies, you think there would be bosses with bits of armour you could remove to expose a weak point or something. The one time the spear was useful on a boss it was for something different and I wouldn't have figured out on my own.
It mostly comes down to using firecrackers occasionally or the umbrella for later bosses. That did really help with a few encounters. But a lot of the time it just didn't seem worth the bother trying to use any of it, since you really had to learn the combos and parry timings in the end.
I'm sure people have found creative ways to use all the prosthetics, but it didn't feel naturally integrated into the combat for me. -
They're definitely undercooked. I feel like they wanted to move away from a lot of things but were hesitant to totally throw out a lot of Souls stuff given their fanbase. It was a small but confident step away from a bunch of things in my eyes, but it could have been better. Still, I enjoyed the prosthetic stuff a lot.
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Amazed that you found Sekiro easier than the others, totally the opposite for me. I don't play many action games though i guess
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JonB wrote:I barely notice any of these narrative details even after playing for ages. All that stuff there about Sekiro is news to me. And I didn't have a clue what was going on in BB until I read up on it, which made it much more interesting but it's a shame I never noticed it in the game itself. I think with Dark Souls it's more obviously visible in the geography. You can't miss the layers of civilisation in the journey down, for instance. They're all fascinating places - just sometimes a bit too opaque for me.
Same here - I find there stuff intriguing on the surface level but put almost none of it together by myself. Subsequent plays are fun in a different way, having read wikis and watched videos and the game being somewhat less difficult.
Agree with Stone Challis, really don't think Sekiro would lose too much from being a touch easier. Game was a really positive experience on the whole but there were a few fights in that game that took several nights to beat.When you got movies like Tom Cruise in them, you can't lose -
The problem with easy / not so hard bosses is that they’re not as memorable. I spent so long trying to beat GApe that it’s etched into my memory. And I love(d) it.I am a FREE. I am not MAN. A NUMBER. -
I think that BB and DS3 had harder bosses than Sekiro - I'm thinking Chalice Dungeon watchdog and Sister Friede specifically. It depends though, as both games had the option to summon people.
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I rarely ever summon people in Souls types, same with Nioh. I just don’t like doing it on my first run through as I get far less enjoyment from watching a level billion player big dick his way through a boss than I do for finally beating it myself - even if there is a lot of frustration in between.
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something something elfbell -
Your mumI am a FREE. I am not MAN. A NUMBER.
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voices wrote:Yeah it's cheating.
Hahaha. For my own bloodpressure I feel it's perfectly fine, but i'm stubborn as a mule. As I said to Chalice, I prefer it when there is a challenge in front of me and I know I have the tools to deal with it instead of wondering whether I have specced wrong, have the wrong gear, or should just summon in the X GONNA GIVE IT TO YA crew.
When I spent ages fighting *scary big optional boss!* in Sekiro, I never got too annoyed, mad or frustrated cos I knew there was nothing else to do so I clearly had the tools to deal with it, it was just a matter of patience and performance. But in Nioh I frequently got annoyed because I knew I could have just powerlevelled, got more gear, or summoned in some kind of madman to one shot them.
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