Pretty proud of my takedown of Genichiro. This fight took me less attempts (by far) than Lady Butterfly did.
As soon as I switched over to the Ashina arts overhead attack instead of the whirlwind, the first two stages became significantly easier.
That was cool. I've not seen someone fight Genichiro this way before. How long did it take for you to find the sweet spot to use the ichimonji effectively?
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:Pretty proud of my takedown of Genichiro. This fight took me less attempts (by far) than Lady Butterfly did.
As soon as I switched over to the Ashina arts overhead attack instead of the whirlwind, the first two stages became significantly easier.
That was cool. I've not seen someone fight Genichiro this way before. How long did it take for you to find the sweet spot to use the Ichimonji effectively?
Once I started using it, the timing didn't take long to wrap my head around intellectually. It took a couple of tries to not get jumpy with it and to learn to only make the swings when I knew he had completed an attack sequence.
A nice thing I found just prior to the run in the video is that if I slowly backed up prior to each swing and kept my distance from him just at the edge of Ichimonji's range, he wouldn't block it. It would also keep him from making moves because he wants to attack at range (with the bow) or when he's in your face - not when you are splitting the difference. All of this was great for nickel and diming his health.
My initial impulse with the tactic change was based on Ichimonji's ability to shred through posture, so it was nice to discover that I could use the attack throughout instead of just waiting until his health bar was low enough to begin filling the posture meter up.
The double Ichimonji counter after dodging the General's jump attack is a pretty standard move. But using it as a standard attack is kinda different.
I find it easier to time counter attacks in Sekiro by swinging first and then countering their counters. Waiting at medium distance for open windows is a very Dark Souls kind of move that's hard for me to pull off in this game, esp. against twitchier enemies. FWIW.
I don't even have double Ichimonji yet! This guy is pretty much the only one I've approached in precisely this way. Medium distance felt super weird at first, but for this encounter, it worked far better (at least for me) than my usual aggressive close-range katana & axe spam. The start of his second phase in the video is probably the best example - I managed to get several nice hits in a row and he basically did nothing but eat them. If I had been closer, he'd have started one of his flurries, farther and he would have probably gone for the bow and charge move.
Yeah, that's the first time I've seen Ichimonji used as a standard attack. It looked surprisingly effective, at least for that fight. I grant thee three points for ingenuity!
You can really manipulate all the bosses by setting your distance. Pretty much all the bosses have move sets for near, mid and far range and you can more or less just pick a distance you feel comfortable at and goad/trigger the moves you want. Both iterations of the Giant ape can essentially be played like a Dark Souls boss by just staying at far range. Even the final boss can be made kind of trivial by just picking the range you want.
I wrote about Sekiro and From games for GameCritics.com. I hope you all enjoy the piece.
Really solid piece, Harpo. It's fascinating what a good piece of media can do if it's presented at just the right time. Best wishes.
Great article TheHarpoMarxist.
So I’ve never played a FromSoftware game before, but have been thinking hard about this one (and I did hear Hollow Knight get a lot of comparisons to Dark Souls). Are there any other, similar types of games that I could use to gauge if I’d like this?
Hollow Knight feels very much like Dark Souls to me in terms of it’s gameplay philosophy. It has similar challenging but rewarding exploration and bags of charm. It also has less background stress than the From games (I love playing them but do find them stressful.) I highly recommend it.
Thank you to everyone who checked the article out!
I'm also going to second the rec for Hollow Knight as a good canary in the coal mine - with the additional clarification that, as a 2D platformer, the game plays significantly differently from a From game. But if you like the tone, storytelling, and overall atmosphere you will likely connect on a similar level to a From game.
That was a great and really thoughtful article, thanks for sharing!
I made the comparison to Hollow Knight mostly because of the challenge, and because of the bosses that force you to adapt, and often to attempt them several times, and learn their patterns and how they can respond to you, before you can triumph. Also the exploration felt really rewarding. I know it's not stealth based and it's 2D rather than 3D but I liked the challenge and the really tight gameplay, which made me think I might like a Fromsoft game (and Sekiro is really tempting me).
I had gone the entire game without using fistfuls of ash. Then, after half a dozen attempts that barely nabbed a quarter of the corrupted monk's health, I decided to experiment with them.
They have suddenly become my new favorite item.
I had to use all 8 of my gourd glugs, all three pellets, and I also used a pair of snap seeds at the very end of the fight. I hadn't used those AT ALL and I was down to my last sliver of health when I read the description of the item and decided to give them a whirl and preserve the possible win. I LOVE that these games let you piece this stuff together. I also took the whirl on the fistfuls of ash because the Mibu zombies were dropping them like crazy, which was clearly From's way of nudging us.
All in all, the design of this whole area has been tremendous. It had multiple jump scares, several knock-it-out-of-the-park creepy NPCs, and some great mini-bosses to go along with a super challenging boss that was solved by paying attention to what the area design was telling me to do.
The items in this game are universally useful. My only complaint about the fistfuls of ash and other throwable items of is Sekiro's insistence on kind of tossing them halfheartedly from the left hip; too many times have I tossed a ceramic shard from behind a wall and watched him just sort of smash it into the wall because he can't be bothered to adjust the height of the throw. Derp, dude!
That's interesting, Harpo. It's fun to see how different strategies worked out probably better than your own. I think I just used some regular sugars and stuff for that fight. I may have used the confetti as well? It's hard to remember.
I was tempted to use confetti, as I did for the woman playing the instrument (O'rin, I think), but between that NPC and a couple failed stabs at the weird guy in the abandoned dungeon, I had used a healthy chunk of my supply. I was planning to bring it into the fight once I was consistently getting "close" but thankfully I managed to actually win that experimental run without it! I suspect that had used the confetti early on I wouldn't have had to rely on the snap seeds at the very end.
The items in this game are universally useful. My only complaint about the fistfuls of ash and other throwable items of is Sekiro's insistence on kind of tossing them halfheartedly from the left hip; too many times have I tossed a ceramic shard from behind a wall and watched him just sort of smash it into the wall because he can't be bothered to adjust the height of the throw. Derp, dude!
The ceramic shards aren't very good as free fire items. The only times I found them useful were when I was hugging a wall and could lock onto an enemy to hit them directly. There was one room near the start of the Upper Tower Antechamber with three blue samurai. Ceramic shards were invaluable for clearing that out safely.
I continue to be surprised and delighted by this game. I'll spoiler this, just in case, but it is for the Sunken Valley area.
Made it all the way to the gun fort, to the area where you have to jump down and then you get sniped at from all directions and basically have to mad dash. There is an island in the center of the mad dash with a "snake eyes" sniper boss.
By way of background, the previous sniper boss in the poison area was a huge wall for me. Probably the second most time spent on anyone in the game so far. I ended up cheesing her, by luring her out into the poison lake and letting her health piddle down. So imagine my dismay upon seeing a new.
I opted for the Brave Sir Robin method and just fled. Avoiding their attacks until I figured out how to make it above them and located the bridge. I started scrambling across the bridge, gunfire ringing around me when I noticed that Snake Eyes's health bar disappeared. I made a split second decision to double back DESPITE being under heavy fire from the other enemies in the fort. I went into stealth, dropped down to her level.
Holy sh*t. I realized I could get a stealth kill for one of lives. Figuring that poison worked well on her double, I switched to the sabimaru, which I hadn't yet used at all.
After I stealthed her, I stabbed her a bajillion times and poisoned her as she was getting up from the sneak attack. THE SPAM ATTACK IS GREAT! WHY HAVE I NEVER USED THIS? Then I kept my distance and jumped around until I got an opening and spam attacked her again. I was shocked at how easily I filled her posture bar. And because she was poisoned the health drain kept her from regenerating quickly.
It is an absolute pleasure to just make some intuitive connections (poison lake location for first/sabimaru for second) and transform an enemy that just wrecked you into a complete push-over.)
I can't get over how much variety they've managed to put in each encounter.
imbiginjapan wrote:The items in this game are universally useful. My only complaint about the fistfuls of ash and other throwable items of is Sekiro's insistence on kind of tossing them halfheartedly from the left hip; too many times have I tossed a ceramic shard from behind a wall and watched him just sort of smash it into the wall because he can't be bothered to adjust the height of the throw. Derp, dude!
The ceramic shards aren't very good as free fire items. The only times I found them useful were when I was hugging a wall and could lock onto an enemy to hit them directly. There was one room near the start of the Upper Tower Antechamber with three blue samurai. Ceramic shards were invaluable for clearing that out safely.
I've used them in tall grass to lure an enemy in, that works pretty well. But around obstacles the mechanics really fail. For instance if you're hugging a wall such that the cover end to the left and you're locked onto an enemy, you'll just toss them into the wall. Since he never throws with his right side (sword arm) the shards only work if your cover ends on the right so your left arm is on the outside. So this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrqD... works, mirror that and you just hit the wall.
So, I got to the Guardian Ape!
You can watch my first three attempts here, starting at about the 10 minute mark.
I'm really proud to have beaten that first phase on my second attempt. But. Um.
UPDATED: Got to the Ape, went on vacation, passed a kidney stone (the Dark Souls of Real Life), and jumped back into the game. Ape is down. The next boss (once all of the shrines need to be re-upped)... Seems to have a bit of a hike from the shrine I made it to (I'm at the one at the bottom of the stairs leading up to where the four riflemen and General were earlier.) Is there an easier shrine to approach from that won't involve a protracted rooftop skirmish? Also, is this the late game difficulty spike I've heard so much about?
Is there an easier shrine to approach from that won't involve a protracted rooftop skirmish? Also, is this the late game difficulty spike I've heard so much about?
Yes, the Upper Tower Antechamber shrine. It's the one that has all the blue samurai that use Ichimonji. There are some enemies outside of the window there, but you should be able to safely ignore them and grapple up to the top.
That fight is a spike in difficulty, but no. The big difficulty spike comes later.
I ended up back in the Dojo and found an [expletive] of a miniboss, whom I proceeded to accidentally cheese.
I felt zero guilt.
I've been cheese free so far, and I think stumbling on an exploit is the same as winning naturally. Its the new guy in the dojo who has a buddy in the corner, despite having the name "Lone Shadow Vilehand." More like "With BFF Shadow Jerkhand." I managed to kill the buddy and was mid-fight when I needed to close the game down to handle some life stuff. When I rebooted a few hours later, Wolf was outside the room. I went to sneak in and gank the buddy, but buddy was gone. So I got a free stealth kill on Jerkhand and had no troubles dispatching him from there. Also, incidentally, the flaming axe works great on that guy.
Anyway. Next up is Owl. Aside from his one hit kill of me in the first go, I haven't tried him yet.
Momgamer's front page article had me reflecting on Sekiro and difficulty.
I was really excited about Sekiro this year. I had the wallpaper on my desktop, I ordered the collector's edition with the cool statute, and I pre-odered the beautiful strategy guide that wouldn't show up for weeks. Sekiro has many amazing moments, but 2/3 through the game when I was funneled into yet another difficult boss, I was done. I promised I would come back to it, but I haven't yet. Fountainhead Palace remains a dream.
Meanwhile, this summer my 14 year old decided to play through the game. It was fun to talk to him about it, and share in his accomplishments. He soon surpassed my abilities, and in a fee weeks finished the game four times, earning a platinum trophy. On that day, I took the cool statute off my shelf and gave it to him.
We are all aging, and recently on the Conference Call is was mentioned that our "retirement homes" will be filled with video games. I'm not so worried about being able to mentally grasp a game, although that is a real and likely issue. I am more concerned about the physicality of games, and not enough people are talking about it.
We are all aging, and recently on the Conference Call is was mentioned that our "retirement homes" will be filled with video games. I'm not so worried about being able to mentally grasp a game, although that is a real and likely issue. I am more concerned about the physicality of games, and not enough people are talking about it.
This is why I don't win more at Apex Legends, but sometimes get carried by random tweens.
I had lost hope that Sekiro would get DLC, but maybe? Pretty please?
Would you look at that! I'd happily dive back into the game if DLC released for it. Not really compelled to at this time since I got the platinum, so this would do the trick, for sure.
There is a free Sekiro theme on PS4 at the moment. It's rather good.
I keep forgetting that I own this :/
I must get back to this before the end of the year. I really want to see where this lands on my GOTY list, its just the brutally hard difficulty requires a certain mindset I have to get into. If I can remember correctly the last boss I beat was the flaming bull.
Are there any tips videos anyone would recommend? incase I'm not taking advantage of a certain mechanic or skill. I'm even thinking I've maybe branched off into a more difficult area which has seen countless deaths to bosses/mini bosses.
I'm determined to beat this!
I though this was interesting from the three minute mark explaining the way to think about attacks blocking and dodging in Sekiro.
Yeah, the change from how to play from Dark Souls to this is drastic as dodge isn't what it was. It's all about block block block.
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