Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Catch-All

DanB wrote:

> Which makes it extremely safe, with almost no downside outside of your posture meter getting too high or one of those rare unblockable attacks.

Yeah, but it does start to get hairy as you get bosses that can fill your posture meter. And in NG+ the charmless mode means that you take chip damage from every block so you have to perfect your parry timings. Charmless is where the game really came alive for me.

Even then, the party window for this game is VERY generous, especially compared to DS. Think like i-frames in DS rolling but without having to guess as much about the timing because there is no animation or directionality. Parrying in Sekiro is always as quick as tapping a button, so you usually have plenty of time to react.

In fact, Sekiro parries are nothing like parries in DS. I’d actually call them more like, perfect blocks, where you block at just the right moment. Unlike DS where a parry has a long windup and cooldown animation, leaving you exposed, as well as giving potential for a finishing blow. Sekiro has none of that in its parry system.

Anyway just thinking out loud here. It’s remarkable how well designed the combat system is as soon as you can wrap your head around it.

DanB wrote:

> Which makes it extremely safe, with almost no downside outside of your posture meter getting too high or one of those rare unblockable attacks.

Yeah, but it does start to get hairy as you get bosses that can fill your posture meter. And in NG+ the charmless mode means that you take chip damage from every block so you have to perfect your parry timings. Charmless is where the game really came alive for me.

There's one skill that's amazing for bosses that fill posture. It lets you attack twice quickly in a row and restores your posture. It's amazing for bosses. It also hits like a truck. Usually stunning/interrupting them twice. Getting that skill made things much more straightforward for me.

jamos5 wrote:

Instead of stressing my brain trying to decide between parrying, dodging, and jumping, what I do instead is spend like 95% of all fights just mindlessly blocking and attacking. Block and attack. Block and attack. That's it.

That doesn't make it sound very interesting either

jamos5 wrote:

And then, even if you fail to hit the parry window, unlike DS where you are left totally open and exposed, Sekiro instead simply has you block. Which makes it extremely safe, with almost no downside outside of your posture meter getting too high or one of those rare unblockable attacks.

That does sound like an improvement. I pretty much never parry in DS because it is difficult for me to time and so punishing to fail.

jamos5 wrote:

Then beyond blocking/parrying, the game wants you to attack relentlessly. Just whack and whack at the enemy nonstop, unless you see a flare effect that looks a bit more pronounced than normal. When that happens, it means that the enemy has the animation advantage and will be able to hit you before you can land your next attack, so you need to switch to blocking. Then you just block and parry until you see an opportunity to start attacking again. Rinse and repeat.

I don't think I even noticed the flair effect. If I play more I will need to try and pay more attention.

jamos5 wrote:

If the "git gud" combat part of Dark Souls doesn't appeal to you then yeah stay away.

Actually that part of DS does appeal to me. I must have failed 100 times when I first encountered Ornstein and Smough and I kept on trying until I succeeded. It can get frustrating but feels so good when I finally succeed.

I made some progress - beat the first mini boss after the dilapidated temple and got to the next 'bonefire'. I just hit the 2 hour mark so I need to decide if I want to play more or not. The fast pace with a lot of parrying / blocking is definitely a different feel than Dark Souls and I definitely prefer the slower pace.

Not sure if I want to refund yet. Maybe I'll think about it over lunch.

robc wrote:
jamos5 wrote:

Instead of stressing my brain trying to decide between parrying, dodging, and jumping, what I do instead is spend like 95% of all fights just mindlessly blocking and attacking. Block and attack. Block and attack. That's it.

That doesn't make it sound very interesting either :-)

There are some more subtleties to it than that, like hitting a flow state where you can consistently hit parries rather than just spamming block, or learning how to sneak in a couple hits here or there depending on what sequence the enemy is in. But yeah, on a broad scope that 95% part of the combat is pretty mindless/automatic.

But honestly I think that is a good thing because it frees your mind up for the remaining 5% of the time where something interesting happens, like with unblockable attacks. And even better, the game designers play with that game loop where sometimes you have to parry like a crazy mofo, while other times the enemy uses big broad attacks where you'll actually need to rely on dodging more often. Or they use ranged attacks, or weird ghost spirits you have to dodge, etc etc. So while it all stems off that base combat loop of blocking and attacking, the variation is what makes it interesting.

But I get it, gaming time is a precious commodity so choosing to spend it elsewhere makes total sense if it doesn't seem to be clicking. I will not say this is a game for everyone, but if it seems like the kind of game you should probably enjoy but it isn't working I think its worth sticking with it for a bit.

I just beat Sekiro, and now I feel empty inside

jamos5 wrote:

I just beat Sekiro, and now I feel empty inside

Time to do it again!
I'm usually not one to extend the experience with a new game plus, but I got through NG++ before I was done with Sekiro.

benign1 wrote:
jamos5 wrote:

I just beat Sekiro, and now I feel empty inside

Time to do it again!
I'm usually not one to extend the experience with a new game plus, but I got through NG++ before I was done with Sekiro.

I am tempted to! I actually started NG+ yesterday and got past the tutorial area. I even did the thing where I now get chip damage if I don't block perfectly. Plus I am excited to try to get other endings!

But part of me feels like I should finally switch gears and finally let myself get Elden Ring, since I told myself I should first finish my backlog of From Software games and now I've done that. Although I also have Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order sitting in my backlog which I could use to keep procrastinating it

Also just to close my thoughts on Sekiro as a whole, I feel like it was a great game, but it didn't do enough to teach players the basic loop of attacking & blocking. I got over halfway through the game just using stealth and dodging, but it felt like a total slog. I got all the way to the big ape guy before I quit, because I just couldn't be bothered anymore.

Only once I beat Demon Souls, a game I thought was impossible, did I decide to come back and defeat my other regret which is Sekiro. This time I fully embraced whatever exploits, cheese, overleveling, and basically anything I could think of just to get through it. I finally let myself look up strategy videos online. And I'm glad that I did, because I finally learned how important it is to block and attack. And once I realized that you can safely attack as long as the enemy doesn't block with a larger flare, everything clicked together for me and the game became much more simple and enjoyable. Even the final boss, which took me a couple hours, was a joy-filled exploration of their unique combat mechanics and experimentation. What would have been a slog was now a happy medium for growth.

Anyway, its a shame that no DLC ever came out. And I will be forever saddened if they never decide to release a sequel. But for this one contained package it was a beautiful experience that I'm glad I decided to get back into.

I did:
NG twice
NG+ (to finish off all the achievements)
NG+ Charmless & with the demon bell

I can strongly recommend a charmless run. It really took the game to another level

I hope if you go down the Jedi Fallen Order route I hope you can enjoy it. I certainly couldn't.

I’ve just started the game after being wary of it for a long time. I‘d heard that I needed to avoid trying and play the game like Dark Souls and that it might take me a long time to grok the combat but, so far, after only a few enemies, I’m really feeling the parrying. Hopefully that bodes well.

Yea, it will be breeze. Please let us know how many pieces the disk breaks into when you smash it.

It’s a digital download but I’ll have an old game disc on standby for when I inevitably get that frustrated. I’m not expecting to finish the game. I just want to get a fair way in.

Higgledy wrote:

It’s a digital download but I’ll have an old game disc on standby for when I inevitably get that frustrated. I’m not expecting to finish the game. I just want to get a fair way in.

I hope you enjoy, and that it doesn't come down to indiscriminate optical storage media destruction! I'm sure I'm glossing over some frustrations along the way, but at this point I don't think there's another From game that I'd rather play again for the first time.

Higgledy wrote:

I’ve just started the game after being wary of it for a long time. I‘d heard that I needed to avoid trying and play the game like Dark Souls and that it might take me a long time to grok the combat but, so far, after only a few enemies, I’m really feeling the parrying. Hopefully that bodes well.

If your experience is anything like mine, you may find the early going fairly easy-going and then encounter a ramp-up a few hours in. The idea of letting go of what one has learned from previous FROM games definitely bore out for me, since it took a bit of getting into a rhythm game sort of mind frame.

Sekiro is one of the most challenging games I have every played, yet not frustrating in itself. I did become frustrated in a couple of points in the game but that was frustration directed at myself, since I knew what I needed to do and when, but was finding it hard to break some patterns I'd become accustomed to through play. I think the fact that I platinumed it on PS4 in the space of 5 weeks since initial purchase speaks to how much I enjoyed it.

My advice? Be patient with yourself and limit how many consecutive attempts you take with any boss if you start feeling aggravated in any way. I found, many times, that putting the controller down after 5 to 10 attempts - depending on how my emotions were flowing - would often help me do better when next I picked back up where I'd left off.

The thing I wish I’d known when starting out is that the game expects you to spam the parry button. Yes you could probably try to get the timing perfect, but honestly unless your stamina bar is filling up you should just hit hitting “block block block block block” non-stop. They very intentionally designed the mechanic to have very little downside for spamming it so you might as well do it constantly!

Next, if you aren’t spamming block, then you should be spamming attack. Just attack attack attack as much as you can until you see a big flare pop up. That is the signal that the enemy has the animation advantage and is going to be able to hit you before your next hit, so you should switch back to spamming the block button until you see an opening again.

There are other mechanics and refinements that work on top of this, but constant parrying and attacking make up the fundamental combat loop in this game, so you should work on mastering that before you get too far into the more specific content. Not realizing this really screwed me over mid game when things started to get harder. Good luck!

Brilliant. Thanks both of you for your advice.

Yep you'll learn the timing and event based combet eventually but like every thing I think can be parried. Also look up how to do max gold runs with balloons. Sekiro is oddly about gaming your consumables too.

Gyoubu Oniwa defeated. What a fight. Very cinematic. Turns out a) I can deflect pretty reliably and b) I find deflecting attacks extremely satisfying.