Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Catch-All

So far feels like a comfy old sweater. I really like the jump kick off an enemy. You can do a sweet death blow that way too.

Re: What I was saying earlier about 21:9.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/MVem0Mm.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/RQlRJfn.jpg)

Blind_Evil wrote:

The parry mechanic in Sekiro is way more generous and it’s easy to use your superior mobility to get out of sticky situations.

I'm full-on lousy at one-to-ine combat, but Wolf's mobility makes hit and run tactics really powerful against mobs. Patrols reset fairly quickly and hiding is as easy as breaking line of sight. You can ambush a patrol to one-hit kill an enemy, run away, hide, and then ambush them again for another one-hit kill.

I'm really enjoying this game. My only disappointment is with the skill trees, but hopefully they develop into something interesting.

Early thoughts are extremely positive, feels challenging as expected (less so than Bloodborne so far), some of the mini bosses are extremely tough but Wolf is nimble & light on his fight so it does seem like your agile enough to deal with more perilous situations or escape to safety altogether.

The visceral feel of the combat just constantly amazes & feels as good as ever, breaking an enemies guard then plunging a sword through their chest for the deathblow feels like a Mortal Kombat finisher.

Great being able to sneak through parts of levels too, bit of diversity from From

Shadout wrote:

I did kill this boss, but still, that was frustratingly difficult. I just hope it does not go up from there, I think that was close to my skill ceiling
On the positive side, it is one of those bosses where I felt I got better. Not every try, but slowly. Which is how the bosses should be. I actually think it is a very well designed boss. I can see how I might get to a point, if I played enough, (and wasn't completely incompetent), where I could do that whole fight without taking damage. She probably has the "easiest" to read attacks of the bosses so far. She is just doing them really fast.

I went back and finished this boss off before calling it quits for the night. Even coming back stronger, she took me 15-20 tries, but I never found it frustratingly difficult. It's a very tough fight, but like you said, it's well designed. Nothing about it felt cheap, just unforgiving.

By the end, I had a good grasp on her attacks. It feels pretty incredible to counter a flurry of incoming attacks one after another.

bnpederson wrote:

That one enemy with the Reckless Attacks is hard. I feel bad for, y'know, dying all the time. But I gotta figure him out, probably. I dunno, this is my first FromSoft game so maybe I don't? I'm going to try again tomorrow, though.

You shouldn't feel bad for dying. This game is really difficult. I am about 10 hours in, and I'm only just starting to feel like I can reliably counter the perilous attacks without dying multiple times first. There are a few elite enemies early on that are especially tough. You might look to see if you can just stealth or grapple by them for now.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I got about two hours in yesterday during breaks and lunch (worked from home). I’m guessing I haven’t gotten to any of the hard stuff yet, but it doesn’t seem like From’s most challenging game to me. Bloodborne was harder out of the gate for me.

I felt the same for my first couple hours, but things picked up pretty quickly. Some of the elite enemies and early bosses make you learn how to properly counter or die (I'm looking at you, spear man in white garb).

I can't use the thrust mikiri counter. On the training guy its fine, I can get it close to 100% of the time. But got to a boss now that seems to require you use to the counter repeatedly. Only managed one counter so far, out of, I dont know, 40 spears to my face. I don't see any clear tell at all on when to use it.
Not an example of slowly feeling the improvement for sure.

I knew going in I probably wouldn't love the combat. Souls is still best. It gives you so many more options on how to handle things. This game is more narrow in its focus - which is not necessarily a bad thing. Doing one thing well in game design often beats doing a bunch of things decently.
Just about everything else about the game is great though. From Software unsurprisingly still got amazing level design.

This snake part sucks

*FIST PUMP* Boss fight spoiler embedded:

Spoiler:

This boss also took me many, many attempts, but I was really happy with the kill. Rather that slowly whittling down his health, I learned the fight well enough to go on the offensive and proc the first death blow at 60% life and the second at 40%. So satisfying.

Nvm, the area design is not good, it is amazing. Currently exploring what has to be one of the best, uh, SoulsBorneTwice? SoulsBorniro?, areas ever.

And it had my favorite boss of the game so far. Relatively easy when you figure it out, but cool, and different from everything else.

Spoiler:

The Mountain Temple that is

I started to explore instead of focus on bosses, it is impressive how open the world is, you can explore multiple large areas without meeting any required bosses.

Beat that one bosses after leaving for a bit and fighting elsewhere. I will say the majority of bosses and mini bosses have been a bit meh for me. Most the time it feels like I have to spam dodge and attacks to win. Not nearly as fun as dark souls bosses.

That said the world stuff and levels are great. Love running around and fighting normal dudes. That's keeping me in the game so far.

I have a feeling this game will appeal to the dark souls hardcore who will love it. The rest of us will probable be more mixed.

zeroKFE wrote:

Re: What I was saying earlier about 21:9.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/MVem0Mm.jpg)
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/RQlRJfn.jpg)

Zero, no issues with 21:9?

WSGF members have been working miracles with 21:9

Hacked exe allowing 21:9
mod to unlock FPS
Mod to run higher resolution window mode
mod to remove damage and stealth on screen indicators

So now I'm running 21:9 at 80 FPS. I'm still getting a weird FPS dive that others are experiencing which is annoying. Cut scenes are still tiny though.

Dyni wrote:

*FIST PUMP* Boss fight spoiler embedded

Yeah, at him now. That is a good fight. The attacks are easy to read, it is just a matter of executing it, so the feeling of progress is there. Also a nasty surprise in the fight, making it more, uh, fun.

Downloading now. Is anyone else amazed it was only 15 gigs?!

Made some good progress today:

Spoiler:

Beat Butterly Lady
Killed Horse Rider guy
Killed the Freaking Bull

This might be worth posting, one of the comments over at Eurogamer regarding reading of the combat & type of attacks:

The Samurai Generals actually switch stance, and the stance they are in decides not only the moveset, but the unblockable they can perform.
From my experience so far...

Sword held up on the side: Sweeping attack, so you counter with jump kick. (Double jump on enemy)
I think they also do a grab from this stance but very rarely so just dodge that.

Sword down by waist: Thrust attack, so counter with deflect or sidestep or that amazing special thrust counter from the ability tree. They also have a very nasty powerful attack from this position where if they are at medium distance, they can close the gap with a dashing upward swipe in the blink of an eye that deals heavy damage and knocks you up and then leaves you vunerable on the ground (Roll out if it!). This is their worst attack imo and as soon as you see them move when at that distance, deflect.

Hope this helps, good luck and as the guide says, keep away and observe a difficult foe.

Balthezor wrote:

Zero, no issues with 21:9?

The mods JC mentioned above pretty much address everything that matters to me, yeah.

Worth noting, though, if you rely on either the low health or the stealth shader overlay, you will have to choose between losing them entirely or keeping them only covering the center of the screen. Eventually someone might put together a mod to stretch them but that hadn’t happened the last time I checked. Thankfully, though, neither seems terribly critical to me.

Now I just want 21:9 cut scenes and I'll be happy.

In engine cutscenes are 21:9 (for example, that second screenshot above and one other slightly more spoilery one I posted in the Digital Shutterbug thread are captured during cutscenes) -- you're only missing pre-rendered ones, and addressing that is usually a much bigger pain in the ass.

Anyone have any this for doing damage to bosses. It seems like the only reliable way to hit then is to evade hit. Otherwise they block perfectly.

I know parrying will break posture but if they have too much health left that doesn't help.

Currently Fighting

Spoiler:

ghost girl

who is just way too tanky for me. Also think I accidently skipped an entire zone. Probable didn't help.

Posture regen is tied to vitality. If a boss is at full life, you're not going to be able to build their posture quickly enough to outpace the regen without deflecting perfectly. By slowly chipping away at their health, you reduce the speed at which they regen posture. While you're still learning early on, this might mean you need to fully deplete their health bar before you can deathblow, but as you improve and are able to successfully deflect more reliably, you should be able to set up a deathblow when they're still above 50% life.

The boss you're on right now is very tough. If that's the first or second boss you've encountered, you should explore in a another direction for now and return when you've acquired some skills and items to make you stronger.

The area design is so good. And the world is really open after you finish the first few zones.

More rambling about the world design, not truly any spoilers (no names or anything)

Spoiler:

I dont know how big the game is of course, but it feels like you can go in pretty much any direction and do most of the bosses in whatever order you want to. More so than any of the Souls games.
Went back to a zone I thought I was pretty much done with, only to find a new area of that zone, and a path to two other zones.

The game does not really use the connections within areas as much (but it happens) of the previous games, like where you open a door and get a shortcut. Maybe because you are so mobile anyway, it would feel silly if a door in a low wall was the thing that prevented you from going somewhere. A bit more linear movement from area to area - always forward (except forward here is in multiple directions), never going back.
Actually, it might be closer to DS2 than any of the other games in that regard. But not in the area design of course.

zeroKFE wrote:

In engine cutscenes are 21:9 (for example, that second screenshot above and one other slightly more spoilery one I posted in the Digital Shutterbug thread are captured during cutscenes) -- you're only missing pre-rendered ones, and addressing that is usually a much bigger pain in the ass.

I know, I know. But me wants it!

Played more Sekiro today & I adore the game, the depth of the combat really shines through, once you start to master the deflections you really feel you've earned your deathblows.

Once you start learning the timings to consecutively deflect against various enemies you feel really adept, its such a skilled based game & mastering each new combat technique feels like an aha moment.

I've used sneaking fairly well & found some paths around the levels that take you to the side of or behind enemies, that you'd otherwise be coming head on with. Nicely setting up some stealth kills. I actually love the fact that when your spotted & the enemies are in search mode that even if you escape to a roof or wall where you'd previously be unseen they actively spot you in that mode, its like the devs have given them the command to look up, you actively need to break the line of sight.

Jumping off rooftops or higher ground down onto unsuspecting enemies is another amazing touch, the red circle icon does such a good job of letting you know if your in the right path of the enemy your descending upon.

I've just started unlocking skills & have a couple of new prosthetic attachments that I can't wait to unleash on a certain enemy.

I've a couple of quick questions for those in the know, is there any way you can aim the ceramic shards? Or do they simply get thrown the direction Wolf is facing?

Lastly what are the two modifiers that come up above your health? I think you lose them if you die, haven't found out what they are yet.

The red circles? They are your resurrections. If you use them you have to get them back, through combat. Or get one back by resting.

The Shadowrush skill is amazing. Totally worth the grind I did today to unlock it.

Being able to grind skill points allows me to feel I'm progressing my character, like souls farming in other games. It can be fun to go back through the initial area and be a badass ninja.

I've already come across something that From could never have done with always-on multiplayer. I'm looking forward to further surprises.

So I didn't skip one zone. I skipped three. That's pretty impressive in openness. Went back and wander around and go to zones I missed. Progress the story a bit too. I got this one skill which is standard kendo strike twice in a row. It's actually great. Made the last boss fight much more manageable.

I did a little farming for money. Found a decent spot to grind that.

Spoiler:

Ashi gate, just kill the three small hat people

Feeling much better with the game. Still gonna wait on that last boss I was complaining about for some time though.

Still experiencing FPS issues. Goes from 80 FPS down to 20 for no reason. The inter webs report I’m not the only one. Waiting for a patch.

Shadout wrote:

The red circles? They are your resurrections. If you use them you have to get them back, through combat. Or get one back by resting.

Yep. Thanks for that just checked into it further & it seems one is tied to killing enemies while other you have to rest at the buddha shrines.