I wasn’t gonna write a post just for Sekiro, but I love and hate this game so much that it deserves one.
First of all, if you think Dark Souls is hard. You clearly haven’t tried Sekiro yet. Not only it’s way more brutal than DS, it turns everything you learn in that game against you.
You wanna block against a boss? Dead. Maybe roll? Dead! Mindless spamming or cheesy tatics = 99% chance of dying. So you might ask, what am I supposed to do? Parry and you better git gud. The game is about swords clashing and it shows. Unlike DS that you just had to deplete your enemies HP, in this game, depleting his posture is by far the best way to kill him and you do that by parrying his attack at the correct time. Honestly, Sekiro is as much a Souls game as it’s a rythmn one. If you learn the flow, you learn the game… but it’s for fucking hard…. It took me around 15h just to learn this. I was around the 10th boss Genichiro when the combat finally clicked.
The game has some interestings improvements over DS. The first and biggest addition is the introduction of sub-bosses. They’re are as tough as regular bosses, but usually with less health. Honestly, some are harder than main bosses. Fuck those Ashina Spear guys >.<. Second, you don’t use souls to upgrade your stats. Only to acquire skills. Attack power is increased by killing main bosses and life/posture through sub-bosses and hidden throughout the map. Third, the inclusion of colors other than black and grey PRAISE THE SUN. Seriously, it’s so colorful and beautiful. Look at this: (Last picture might contain spoilers)
Btw, have I told you that the story/worldbuilding isn’t told through enigmatic items/conversations, but cutscenes? I didn’t have to watch any 2h long youtube video to understand everything that I missed!!!!! If that’s not an improvement, I don’t know what is. Seriously though, I always loved Souls games - and I think Miyazaki did an amazing job developing those games -, but imo Sekiro is clearly superior and harder, be warned! than all 3 of them. (Never tried BloodBorne, since I don’t own a PS4)
Edit: Ok, I lied. I’m too lazy to start another post, therefore, here are some other games I played this month: I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me xD
The Room 3: Bought and finished yesterday. It’s 3h long like the previous one. The first is still my favorite. It was a new and clean concept: a bunch of puzzles in a room. The third is still better than the second, but I’m into multiple endings in puzzle games because you’ll be doing the same puzzles 4 times if you wanna complete the game. That’s a nope from me.
Figment: Interesting puzzles that are repeted a bit too much and a phenomenal soundtrack. The story sometimes is really deep and sometimes very childish. It seems the devs didn’t know which path they wanted to take and decided to go for a middle ground. It didn’t work.
Smoke and Sacrifice:I found this game incredibly boring. It was almost a chore to play it. You click and missclick a lot. The story isn’t good enough to hook you into the game. The hand drawn art is nice. The game froze after I killed the last boss and died at the same time, so I decided to give up. I’ve played it enough.
I’ve been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on the Switch as well. 30h in and I’ve been enjoying it a lot! Amazing rpg so far.
I am not good with reading other ppls reviews (which you might or might not know by now). But! I saw you playing it! And now there is this review! So yep, I totally read it <3
Never played the Dark Souls games - even gave one away not that long ago. And I don’t feel tempted at all. Where as Sekiro IS on my wishlist. So yes, I want to play it. Even if it sounds… difficult. But difficulties are there to overcome them, right? \o/
I’m glad to see you enjoyed it!
Also yes, it looks stunning! Which is probably the main reason I’m into it :D
Usually DS2 is the best for starters, as it’s the easiest. However, Sekiro has nothing in common with DS, except the difficulty and most of it come from the need of a good hand/eye coordination and patience. I know you’re quite patient just by looking at your posts. I wouldn’t complete half of those games because my lack of it. Therefore, If you have a decent reflex, you should be better than me.
Ah, well, I sure hope I have a few reflexes.
Woho! I’m totally capable for this one!
Now… I only have to get my hands on it :D
Sekiro sure seems like an intimidating challenge, let me tell you that. From the few gameplay videos I’ve seen the combat seems really fast and reactive, parrying seems almost essential and I know how punishing that is if you get the timing wrong. The lack of character stats removes one layer to affect difficulty, as in DS/BB you have the luxury of leveling up a few times if a boss gave you a hard time.
P.S. I so wish Sony gives up the exclusive rights to Bloodborne one day, maybe when enough years pass. FromSoft fans on PC really need to have a go at it, and personally I’d love to play it again with better graphics and proper framerate. I can only dream, I guess…
(It is available on PS Now, but we all know that’s not the best option out there.)
Parrying is not only essencial, but 100% necessary if beat the game. Paying attention to the visual/audio cues is key. I actually prefer the game without stats. Acquiring skills is much more rewarding because you can use them and notice how much you’ve improved everytime you get a new one.
I really wanna try BB too. :/ I never tried PS Now. I don’t even know how it works tbh. I’ve seen an emulator, but it was unplayable.
I’ve been thinking about getting a second-hand PS4 next year, since they get a lot cheaper when a newer model is close to arrive. At least, that’s how I got my PS3. xD
It’s been a while since I played The Room 3, but I remember there being additional puzzles in each run. You should have found items that had no use in your first run. Although, I played on the Kindle and a while ago, so I might be misremembering some of this. Hmmm….I actually might have to buy this one on Steam and revisit it.
Crazy about Sekiro. I feel like I’m pretty good at Soulsborne games, but this one intimidates me a bit. I’ll definitely end up buying it at some point, but it scares me lol.
Xenoblade 2 might be my next Switch purchase (although technically, I’ve only ever bought one game for the Switch (Zelda), even though I also own a few of the tinyBuild games available there.
Xenoblade 2 is reaaally good. It’s a must have if you like JRPGs. It’s a mix of WoW, Pokemon and classic JRPGs. Its combat is a lot like wow raids. You choose 3 party members, usually a healer, a tank and a dps. Each one has 3 blades that you can swap in the middle of the battle. Blades are like pokemons, you catch them, train them, each of has a weapon/element. There are some very powerful rare blades. It’s a lot of fun. The story and music is great as well.
The only Switch game I’d avoid is Octopath Traveller. It’s incredibly repetitive. Even the amazing soundtrack couldn’t redeem that game. It wasn’t worth the $50 I paid for it. :/
Honestly, I think the reason sekiro is so difficult for us DS players is because it turns everything we learned from DS against us. I tried to dodge and block so many attacks before I understood that the game is about clashing swords and parry is must. Muscle memory is your worst enemy in the game. xD
Oh remember seeing you play Sekiro. Certain looks nice but the idea of it being anything like dark souls is a total put off for myself. I already lived that boring nightmare don’t think this change of art can make it better
Tbh the only thing in common with dark souls is the difficulty. Everything else is very different. Some, like the combat, is the complete opposite.
However, if you thought that DS was a nightmare, it’s definitely better to avoid this one.
It was a nightmare pure on how boring and annoying it was. I was using so many different guides trying to figure out what I was suppose to do in the game
If that was your only problem with DS, you should try Sekiro someday. It’s nothing like that. There is an interesting story, with cutscenes and all. It’s very easy to understand what’s happening and where you should go. Tbh, It’s almost linear with one big choice halfway through it.
Oh okay thank you for the info. Maybe I’ll consider trying to get it one day