
That
Spoiler:purple ninja hidden away in that secret area
in Hirata Estates is a bloody nightmare to fight. I was at it for about 2 hours last night, trying about 15-20 times.
Which one?
The regular one stood on the pagoda (protecting the prosthetic upgrade) or the mini-boss one with the 3 dogs? Because you're going to love the one with the 3 dogs. The regular one can be cheesed easily.
That
Spoiler:purple ninja hidden away in that secret area
in Hirata Estates is a bloody nightmare to fight. I was at it for about 2 hours last night, trying about 15-20 times.
I was getting much better at deflecting but even still the Miraki counter didn't register when it should have a few times & I got caught behind a little statue a couple of times. Its just relentless though, pure frustrated I ended up being. I watched a video of someone beating him with ease too. I think I need to come back when I'm a bit stronger. I'll go off to fight 'that bull is on fire' that should be much easier after that experience.
I found ashes to the face was pretty helpful when I faced him early on.
Spikeout wrote:That
Spoiler:purple ninja hidden away in that secret area
in Hirata Estates is a bloody nightmare to fight. I was at it for about 2 hours last night, trying about 15-20 times.
I was getting much better at deflecting but even still the Miraki counter didn't register when it should have a few times & I got caught behind a little statue a couple of times. Its just relentless though, pure frustrated I ended up being. I watched a video of someone beating him with ease too. I think I need to come back when I'm a bit stronger. I'll go off to fight 'that bull is on fire' that should be much easier after that experience.
Spoiler:I found ashes to the face was pretty helpful when I faced him early on.
I believe I ended up succeeding after leading off with oil + flame vent. Still took me several tries though. Didn't get back to him until I was done with pretty much everything else in Hirata.
Spikeout wrote:That
Spoiler:purple ninja hidden away in that secret area
in Hirata Estates is a bloody nightmare to fight. I was at it for about 2 hours last night, trying about 15-20 times.
Which one?
Spoiler:The regular one stood on the pagoda (protecting the prosthetic upgrade) or the mini-boss one with the 3 dogs? Because you're going to love the one with the 3 dogs. The regular one can be cheesed easily.
He's on his lonesome. Really can't wait for the other one now :p
Thanks for the tips guys, I'll be making that long darting run back to him, skipping all the enemies inbetween later tonight.
So, between yesterday and today, I think I've managed to do quite a bit within the game.
I found an important story-related tool
The Mortal Blade
, and managed to kill a certain undying NPC, which provided me with an interesting item that is a version of the Bite Down (iirc) consumable, but doesn't run out. These items allow Sekiro to kill himself and revive without using up a resurrection, reviving with 50% HP. If timed right, it basically - hypothetically - allows Sekiro to have near-infinite resurrections. Has worked well for me so far.
I managed to get chomped off a bridge by
the great serpent
and ended up in a particularly toxic area with those annoying monkey enemies. Eventually, I stumbled onto a boss.
The Guardian Ape. Wow. This was quite the frantic fight. I often forget that, no matter how big the boss, more often than not I can deflect their attacks. This eventually sunk in and I killed him... only to have him resurrect, headless, and almost wreck me. Believe it or not, I managed to beat this guy on my first attempt, though just barely. This was a rush, but I think I may either have gotten really lucky, or I'm finally getting good at the game.
There seems to be a real dearth of bosses, compared to other FROM games of the recent past, but they make up for it in mini-bosses, which are pretty darn hard. It's interesting, to me, how they've designed the world in this game.
Damn, on your first attempt? That one took me a bit for sure.
Good work!
By the time you’re facing the bull, you’ve got access to three skill trees. Other than the obvious pointer of “get the Mikiri counter,” deeper in those trees are abilities that give you health back on deathblows, that improve the healing potential of your gourd, and that improve the amount of posture damage you deal by deflecting (and immediately after deflecting). There are others too, but those three will almost universally make any boss fight easier regardless of your play style.
This. While it's true that you can no longer grind for raw stat upgrades, some skills that you can acquire are just as impactful, if not more so. I mentioned Mikiri and health on deathblows a few pages back. Here are a few other skills I have found to have a significant impact on either my playstyle or effectiveness:
Shinobi Arts - Supress Presence and Suppress Sound: These improve stealth. They are optional, but you're going to have a much more difficult time if you don't get them.
Ashina Arts - Descending Carp and Ascending Carp: These increase posture damage after a successful deflection.
Flowing Water: Reduces posture damage to you from enemies using a sword.Prosthetic Arts - Projected Force and Living Force: Transforms the Loaded Umbrella from a powerful tool to a downright broken one. Also lets you light your sword on fire with the flame vent or fan. Use an oil first, then go to town.
Senpou Arts - Devotion: Increases the duration of all candies and Spiritfall items by 50%.
Along the same line, build diversity is certainly not as much of a thing as previous From games, but it's still present in the form of skill trees. I had maybe slightly over half of the available skill points when I finished the game the first time. You are NOT going to be able to get everything during a single run unless you spend a significant amount of time grinding. I'm almost to the end of my second run, and my play style has changed significantly because of my skill point choices.
You will also get access to more gourd seeds and prayer beads, which will categorically make everything easier in the game.
I had 4 gourd charges when I fought Genichiro during my first run. I explored in other directions before fighting him in my second run. When I finally fought him, I had 9 gourd charges. There are so many possible routes you can take once you hit Ashina.
But even still, my hand eye coordination is and always will be terrible, and I really only manage to deflect maybe half of the time even after learning enemy patterns.
It may sounds silly, but if you aren't confident of the deflection timings on a particular fight, try spamming the block button. You'll block everything you would from holding down the block button, but you'll also parry some of the attacks. If you watch the video of me fighting some early minibosses a couple pages back, you can see me doing that on a couple of the fights where I take no damage. If you have to choose between trying to parry early or trying to parry late, always parry early.
May well take zeroKFE advice on exploring a bit more. Had a few goes at Genichiro last night and ultimately failed every time. I’m fairly consistent getting him to the final phase, but it seems one mistake there just ends it. I’ve come very close though! One part of struggle with is some of his perilous attacks, particularly the sweep. In the first phase when he does his jump attack followed by a perilous, the dust makes it hard to see whether he’s doing the sweep or the lunge forward.
FINALLY! They have a mod for the deathblow sound. Option to reduce it or turn if off entirely.
https://www.nexusmods.com/sekiro/mod...
Now I just need a mod to kill..
Owl(father) in Hirata Estate.
May well take zeroKFE advice on exploring a bit more. Had a few goes at Genichiro last night and ultimately failed every time. I’m fairly consistent getting him to the final phase, but it seems one mistake there just ends it. I’ve come very close though! One part of struggle with is some of his perilous attacks, particularly the sweep. In the first phase when he does his jump attack followed by a perilous, the dust makes it hard to see whether he’s doing the sweep or the lunge forward.
Yeah, more exploration will definitely help, but if you do want to push on and worth through the challenge:
I found that well timed rolls (or double rolls) any time he jumped or started a perilous attack were generally very helpful. Yes, every once in a while his sweep would catch me, but there is a (somewhat tricky) timing where you can get behind him and not only be safe, but get a (relatively speaking) huge window to chip down his health with unblocked hits from behind. Also, if you save your ammo until then, grabbing a few hits then dropping some fire crackers followed by a few more hits turns each of his jumps or big, committed attacks into a huge opportunity to get his health down. (And if you are dodge countering his jump attacks well, you much less frequently will be in a position to even have to worry about managing his perilous followups.)
Additionally, and this might be less true if you don't have the skills from Ashina arts that improve posture damage, but if you've got his deflect timing down, I found that I was able to shift to a hard aggressive push on his posture earlier than I expected -- like, at half health or even earlier. Not sure why, but for whatever reason his posture regen really isn't great.
Finally, there might be other good choices, but I found one combat art really useful -- however, it's one you're unlikely to have available yet if you haven't explored significantly more than you need to at that point.
Somewhat hidden at the very end of temple area is the temple arts skill tree, and for whatever reason the palm strike ability from that tree was really strong against him. It's actually quite good in general, actually, since has very little wind up time and moves in a way that's predictable and easy to control.
Boss fights in this game are a weird contrast with Souls games for me, and I don't just mean the mechanics. There are some fights where it is literally a stone wall for several attempts, and then one attempt, it's like I found an open door in the middle of the wall and just walk right through it when I figure it out. These bosses don't really let you fudge your way through, whereas some Dark Souls fights could be... worked around. You can block and heal and R1 spam through a lot of them.
I managed to beat Seven Ashina Spears and the Lone Shadow Longswordsman last night.
Beating them both was satisfying but these were my least favourite fights so far. Spear boss was too much of a return to DS where it was way too easy for him to 1-2 hit kill you. The sword boss fight would have been fine without the cramped quarters and constantly fighting with the camera.
Exploring the other areas around there has been pretty great though... No idea which direction to go.
ughhhhhh Owl(father) in Hirata Estate is killing me... literally.
Err would you mind spoiler tagging that?
Boss fights in this game are a weird contrast with Souls games for me, and I don't just mean the mechanics. There are some fights where it is literally a stone wall for several attempts, and then one attempt, it's like I found an open door in the middle of the wall and just walk right through it when I figure it out. These bosses don't really let you fudge your way through, whereas some Dark Souls fights could be... worked around. You can block and heal and R1 spam through a lot of them.
That is why I restarted the game while I was on the last boss. The boss felt like a stone wall after only a few attempts and I knew that I wasn't capable of understanding what the path to victory was. The open door you feeling describe is really close to how I felt when I got back to the end of the game. It still took me a few more tries after I could see the path to victory but maybe only 3 or 4 more attempts.
In Bloodborne it was obvious that dodging was the way to play in contrast to how the Dark Souls games were. Dodging was viable and at times preferred to blocking or parrying in the Souls games. In Sekiro the paths are much more narrow and parrying is quite often the only reliable strategy to numerous encounters.
On a separate topic does anyone have a favorite fight they'd like to discuss? I talked with Dyni on PSN while we were on 2nd playthroughs and I'm interested to see what fights other people particularly enjoyed. I think that any replies to this might be best as spoilers just in case.
I think that for me it is the first real boss fight in the game. Gyoubu Oniwa (the horseback boss) just feels really cool as an encounter. The player isn't really required to get by through parrying and using the grappling hook to close the gap reduces the types of attacks the boss can make. If you are confident in parrying the boss your positioning is different because they are on horseback. I like that you are to the side or behind the boss and deflecting attacks rather than standing in front of them waiting.
'Combat design'-wise I think one boss is alone in front. But plenty of good ones.
I think my favorite is Genichiro. Difficult, but felt reasonably fair, and there is a bit of everything in the fight. It is the fight that best showcases the combat of the game imo. The only bad point is the lightning mechanism in second phase, it just feels weird imo, but then you can just ignore it.
Also liked the 'Real' Corrupted Monk fight quite a bit. A much slower boss, but that is hardly a bad thing!
The Armored Warrior got a fun mechanism to him, having to kick him from the bridge. I liked that.
Headless Ape takes the price for best boss concept - even if I dont like the first phase. Him running around with his head is great.
Horseman boss was a nice concept too. He is probably one of the easiest bosses in the game, but he is well placed, by giving you a feeling that you are learning to parry early on. Which is always nice, since the game want to destroy that feeling so much later on.I really dislike the last boss fight on the other hand. It is just too long.
Also the red-eyed ogre boss was outright badly designed imo. Now that is a fight that does not showcase the combat very well.
So after Ashina I ended up in the abadoned dungeon. I think I might have taken the wrong turn at Albuquerque.
In my experience, there really is no wrong way to go when a path is opened before you.
In my experience, there really is no wrong way to go when a path is opened before you.
I've fought a lot of enemies that inflict terror and no items to help fight them.
Thought before I went off to do a bit more exploring, I should give Geniricho one or two more attempts, as I did get fairly close to breaking his posture a few times. I only managed to beat him! And what’s even better is that I didn’t even need to use a revive. The fight has deifnielty made me more confident in trading blows.
NSMike wrote:In my experience, there really is no wrong way to go when a path is opened before you.
I've fought a lot of enemies that inflict terror and no items to help fight them.
I found a useful strategy for headless is to bravely run away. You don't need to fight any of them, and they're better left to when you have a lot of offensive power and divine confetti.
Well, I kind of stumbled onto a certain serpent from a certain vantage point.
I took a very souls-like plunge - leap of faith - and actually did a shinobi kill on the frightful thing. For a bit I thought to my self "this can't be it, right?", but it was. I guess this is the protracted version of a souls puzzle-boss?
In any case, I'm thinking I won't see it again, since I got a trophy for it.
Well, I kind of stumbled onto a certain serpent from a certain vantage point.
Spoiler:I took a very souls-like plunge - leap of faith - and actually did a shinobi kill on the frightful thing. For a bit I thought to my self "this can't be it, right?", but it was. I guess this is the protracted version of a souls puzzle-boss?
In any case, I'm thinking I won't see it again, since I got a trophy for it.
This is not Dark Souls... But some things never change. That's all I'll say.
This is not Dark Souls... But some things never change. That's all I'll say.
Oh, most definitely! hahaha
Beat New Game+, went for the happy? happy-ish? ending, The Dragon's Return. Also found my way back to The Hirata Estate for a rematch with
The Owl (Father)
which gave me that frustrated by a boss feeling again. So that was nice.
A nice thing I discover is that the loaded umbrella is super useful. It deals massive posture damage against the Ashina elites when deflecting, and if you have the fire upgrade it terrifies red-eyed enemies in addition to protecting you.
Also, started a new game++. Thought I'd try sprinting to the Shura ending.
I've explored a land of monks, rung a bell (oops), fought an armored bludgeony crushyface, found and killed a larger flame tossing leapy mcstabbyhands, and found some additional lost knowledge. That seemed to lead to a dead end (for now?), so I went back to the main-ish area.
I discovered some information about mercantile exchange, poked my head into a castle, found some loot, got overwhelmed by a cluster of sword-wielding doofusi, and also took on an Evil Ghost of Sword-mas Past. That... did not go well.
Still enjoying the game, though it can seemingly present a wall for me from time to time when I just don't seem to 'get' the blocking mechanism. I mean, I understand the theory. But I seem to fail to properly interpret the correct timing from enemy to enemy. Can cause frustration to rise (and makes me pine for the JUST LET ME OUTLEVEL THIS DUDE mechanic this game doesn't seem to have).
I decided over the weekend that I would relent and show my oldest the sliver of Sekiro he's been begging to see, especially as I felt the Genichiro fight was at least relatively on par with other things he's seen (i.e. not just running around brutally murdering scores of humans and other creatures). Turns out a little learning by teaching was just the thing - got torn to shreds the first attempt while walking him through perilous attacks (i.e. demonstrating what happens when you fail to avoid them) and explaining the mechanics in general, then came back and triumphed in my cleanest battle ever.
Nice to have a partner to celebrate victory with, and I have to admit that I basked in the awed "how did you DO that?" reaction just a little bit.
So the overhead slash is not too bad. It is very situational against some quicker enemies. I like it against some enemies that spin jump at you.
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