Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

K.O.Kiki

Finally bought this, played about 2hrs last night.

Combat & level design is clicking with me WAY more than Dark Souls
I'm definitely getting some mild Tenchu-vibes, too!

YouSavedMyLife

Doctor Nick wrote: »

So beat

Corrupted Monk phantom. Not looking forward to fighting her with three deathblow markers

.

Made my way back to

Ashina Castle

and OMFG. Was doing bad enough against one

Purple ninja and ninja dogo

when two more of each jumped in. Switched off. When I get back to it I'll be munching down candy.

Cake, I like it a lot. I do be dreading putting it on but when I do I can't get away from it.

That section is rough. But you can make it through that whole area with stealth. I think you only need to fight 1, maybe 2 enemies.

There's also an item that makes you even harder to detect. Makes stealth feel like a Metal Gear game

nozzferrahhtoo

TitianGerm wrote: »

Really? And your getting decent FPS? I'm really surprised by that!!

Deleted User wrote: »

You can get an innocuous number in the corner really easily through steam. Press shift +tab. Click setting along the bottom and the option is there somewhere.

Alternating between 45 and 60 the whole time. Mostly however between 52 and 58.

nix

Apparently the game is fps and vsync locked and you need to turn it off in Nvidia control panel.

I also just downloaded FPS unlocker for the game, saw someone using it on twitch so said id give it a go..

nix

Just defeated mini boss

Spear guy on top of steps

, the most difficult yet, his range and ability track you with his weapon is infuriating. Whats annoying is i had him dead to rights a few times but from getting in the habit of dodging in and out so much, when the finisher open popped up, i wasted it from dodging away and then he recovers quick

Now where to go next, to go for the boss at the

top of the castle

or explore the

dungeon

a bit before returning, im one pearl away from an upgrade.

brianregan09

Well I finally beat the Shinobi Hunter and my 1st time ever doing a youtube video aswell happy days, I'm on to the big E-honda look alike now

also some bad language so beware

Retr0gamer

Mikri counter helps so much. Timing is very lenient. You can press the button way before the attack connects. Makes spear bastards much easier to handle.

I'm finding spamming the deflect button is viable in some situation too. Is anyone on Xbox getting horrific screen flicker? It's not always there but very obvious on the inventory screens when happening. Thought it was just on that screen but a blinding headache told me other wise.

brianregan09

Beat the Drunkard fella on the 2nd go much easier than the Shinobi fella

What happens the NPC there? He got involved in the fight and after wards started walking away and got stuck in the water so I couldn't speak with him. Does he appear later on?

brianregan09

Well basically what I did was sneak attacked all the goons till they were gone , Sneaked the drunkard to take his 1st health bar away , Straight away ran down the npc and he tagged in and we battered him together , would have beat him 1st time except when i sneak attacked Ju ju or what ever his name is I ran too far away and reset him

I'm onto Lady Butterfly now but I'm heading out so I'm gonna leave it till tommorrow especially with all the horror stories I've seen on here about her already

nix

Deleted User wrote: »

What happens the NPC there? He got involved in the fight and after wards started walking away and got stuck in the water so I couldn't speak with him. Does he appear later on?

Took me two tries to do that fight, first time i talked to the npc and he ran in and pulled everybody and died and then so did i, took a break from the place and returned a few bosses later.

When i returned i killed everybody without interacting with the NPC at all, after you kill the drunk, he just runs in with a battle cry prepared to fight and then is confused and asks where everybody went, he then just kept repeating the same short sentence (cant remember exactly what he said, wasnt memorable) and then thats the last ive seen of him..

My guess is he isnt meant to impact anything, id say triggering him before the fight will just result in him dying no matter what, as he died pretty fast the first time. :pac:

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm finding spamming the deflect button is viable in some situation too. Is anyone on Xbox getting horrific screen flicker? It's not always there but very obvious on the inventory screens when happening. Thought it was just on that screen but a blinding headache told me other wise.

Answering my own question here, I had to disable freesync on my monitor. The framerate goes south but my eyes couldn't take the flicker any more.

petes

Just beat Genichiro, bloody shaking after that ha

daheadonu

Has anyone used the puppet skill on the big lads, it's hilarious watching them take out mobs

When I finished off last night I was at Seven Spears. Mikiri didn't seem very effective against him, certainly not as effect as it is against other spear carriers.

The one time I got him worn down to near victory I let him lead me down the stairs and agro the others I hadn't bothered to take out in my 5th attempt at it

brianregan09

I'm at the stage now where to progress I've to beat Lady Butterfly or the massive horse shouty fella and I'm dreading both

I did beat General Tenzen though 1st thing this morning for the 1st time and did the Snake part too

nix

Deleted User wrote: »

When I finished off last night I was at Seven Spears. Mikiri didn't seem very effective against him, certainly not as effect as it is against other spear carriers.

The one time I got him worn down to near victory I let him lead me down the stairs and agro the others I hadn't bothered to take out in my 5th attempt at it

Heh, 5 attempts is nothing on that fella, i spent an evening and afternoon shouting my head off in rage trying to kill him.. i kept pulling him to the side of the pagoda, which isnt alot of room but its better than constantly having to clear a load of mobs. It would be alot easier if the tree wasnt there, kept obstructing my vision, or he would unexpectedly jump around it and wreck me

I find the mini bosses the hardest, standard bosses are a lot more manageable for me

At the moment im just exploring everywhere, i keep finding different paths to take and then bumping into a mini boss and giving them a few attempts. Then i decide to return later haha, its probably a bad idea as ill just be going from tough mini boss to tough mini boss :pac:

Are mini bosses too frequent ya think? I suppose I'm not far enough to call that for sure. At the moment I think I'd rather go longer before I see one, despite that asshole on the stairs that section was one of my favorites if the game so far.

Really liked stealthing it. Not seeing a few enemies and redoing it so I did it clean with no alerted enemies.

EDIT: I forgot about the horrific camera for the next mini boss so many deaths because of it.

nix

Deleted User wrote: »

Are mini bosses too frequent ya think? I suppose I'm not far enough to call that for sure. At the moment I think I'd rather go longer before I see one, despite that asshole on the stairs that section was one of my favorites if the game so far.

Really liked stealthing it. Not seeing a few enemies and redoing it so I did it clean with no alerted enemies.

EDIT: I forgot about the horrific camera for the next mini boss so many deaths because of it.

Yeah i think thats part of why im finding the boss fights easier, you have big open rooms or fields when fighting bosses (so far), with mini bosses its like they are mostly placed in enclosed spaces and/or surrounded by a lot of other mobs, and they are more relentless and full of moves you cant deflect/parry

Xenji

I came across my first glitch today with Juzou, manged to clear out the area and he just disappeared, went to talk to Norgami and at the end of the conversation he said "Looks like this place is clear" but the fog was still there, restarted and now every time I try Norgami is dead in the same spot.

Decided to back track a bit from the castle and check some other routes, found a bell and decided to ring it. What could possibly go wrong

it basically enables hard mode

:eek: but you can just use the item and all is well again and

you can ring the bell again to get it back

I'm seeing a use for that.

EDIT: Also something that didn't occur to me for what ever reason was to question why merchants sold coin purses. Now it's obvious, to save your money. They cost 10% more than they sell for but better than losing 50% to a death. Wasn't really thinking about money until now when I see some more expensive items coming up for sale.

johnny_ultimate

(Late game spoilers below)

So two bosses down in quick succession.

Great Owl

was a helluva fight: there's a lot of great battles in this game, but the ones where it's just a duel between you and another master swordfighter are the best of the best. Initially thought the 'debuff' skill and the poison spray were a bit cheap, but after a few goes I was dodging them fairly handily. Brilliant dance between parrying and sneaking in those few hits to inch away at the health bar.

In comparison, the

True Monk

was a pushover. Pretty sure it's the first main boss I completed in my first attempt. Super easy to build up substantial posture damage compared to the boss above. This fight was actually one of the few pre-release videos I saw for the game, with no idea about how the various mechanics worked. Remember watching it and thinking 'holy **** that looks monstrously hard'. Immensely satisfying to land that shinobi execution without breaking a sweat :pac:

One bit I really liked a little before those two fights was the

'mist lifting'

sequence in Sunken Valley. That's the sort of mysterious, sinister spectacle that From does best.

johnny_ultimate

Deleted User wrote: »

I think the biggest problem I'm having with it as a game is it's too similar to their other games in terms of every thing but the combat. They say it's not Dark Souls/ BB but really it is despite the combat.

I certainly agree with out that it's another Soulsborne game in ways perhaps more overt than I was expecting. There's a lot of DNA shared, right down to idiosyncratic design choices like the bonfire and the Estus Flask having direct equivalents here. I didn't quite know what to expect from this other than something different, so seeing quite a few familiar elements was definitely surprising.

Where I'd depart from your view is that IMO the fact that the combat is different changes pretty much everything. I can't really make a direct comparison to anything else, but it's an invigorating experience seeing something that's familiar in some key respects but utterly foreign and new at the same time. It has made me relearn or abandon five games' (plus DLC, plus whatever the **** Scholar of the First Sin was) worth of habits, good and bad. I navigate the world in a completely different way than I did in the Souls games. I view bosses very differently - where powerful strikes are no longer something to run away from, but to run right into and fight the **** back immediately. The streamlined / absent RPG mechanics means this is all about the pure mechanics of the thing rather than grinding or trying to adjust your build on the fly. It's empowering and it's fresh: a familiar formula dismantled and put together in a way that's thrillingly alienating.

I don't know if you've ever played Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, but there's a moment halfway through that where the game shifts gears. You have the same basic tools, but now the context you use them in is startlingly different than it was previously. To me, Sekiro is kinda like that - it, like Bloodborne before it but pushing some of that game's philosophy even further, shows a peerless developer unwilling to sit still (a feeling I had with the excellent but overfamiliar at times DS3). It takes ingredients we recognise, but dares to mix in a whole heap of new things to the point where it's a very different deal than we started with.

If it doesn't work for you, that's fair - there have been times for me when From repeats an old trick to mixed effect (another bloomin' poison swamp, lads?!). But generally I'm having an absolute blast - the comfort of the recurrent Fromisms, but put in a game where I started from scratch and had to learn a whole new heap of compelling rules.

johnny_ultimate

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

(Late game spoilers below)

So two bosses down in quick succession.

Great Owl

was a helluva fight: there's a lot of great battles in this game, but the ones where it's just a duel between you and another master swordfighter are the best of the best. Initially thought the 'debuff' skill and the poison spray were a bit cheap, but after a few goes I was dodging them fairly handily. Brilliant dance between parrying and sneaking in those few hits to inch away at the health bar.

In comparison, the

True Monk

was a pushover. Pretty sure it's the first main boss I completed in my first attempt. Super easy to build up substantial posture damage compared to the boss above. This fight was actually one of the few pre-release videos I saw for the game, with no idea about how the various mechanics worked. Remember watching it and thinking 'holy **** that looks monstrously hard'. Immensely satisfying to land that shinobi execution without breaking a sweat :pac:

One bit I really liked a little before those two fights was the

'mist lifting'

sequence in Sunken Valley. That's the sort of mysterious, sinister spectacle that From does best.

I choose the other option and you end up fighting

Emma and then her father. I felt really bad about killing Emma but couldn't change my decision once it was done. She's really easy to beat too which makes the guilt even worse. I've yet to beat her father. Really hard.

J. Marston

Is it as bastard hard as I keep reading it is? I love the Soulsborne games and looked forward to the challenge but the more I read about this it just puts me off.

Maybe I'm getting old and the "Git Gud" fun just doesn't have the same draw it once did.

K.O.Kiki

J. Marston wrote: »

Is it as bastard hard as I keep reading it is? I love the Soulsborne games and looked forward to the challenge and but the more I read about this it just puts me off.

Maybe I'm getting old and the "Git Gud" fun just doesn't have the same draw it once did.

It's different, sometimes it feels bastard hard but unlike Souls it's relatively easy to get out of dodge if needed.

johnny_ultimate

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I certainly agree with out that it's another Soulsborne game in ways perhaps more overt than I was expecting. There's a lot of DNA shared, right down to idiosyncratic design choices like the bonfire and the Estus Flask having direct equivalents here. I didn't quite know what to expect from this other than something different, so seeing quite a few familiar elements was definitely surprising.

Where I'd depart from your view is that IMO the fact that the combat is different changes pretty much everything. I can't really make a direct comparison to anything else, but it's an invigorating experience seeing something that's familiar in some key respects but utterly foreign and new at the same time. It has made me relearn or abandon five games' (plus DLC, plus whatever the **** Scholar of the First Sin was) worth of habits, good and bad. I navigate the world in a completely different way than I did in the Souls games. I view bosses very differently - where powerful strikes are no longer something to run away from, but to run right into and fight the **** back immediately. The streamlined / absent RPG mechanics means this is all about the pure mechanics of the thing rather than grinding or trying to adjust your build on the fly. It's empowering and it's fresh: a familiar formula dismantled and put together in a way that's thrillingly alienating.

I don't know if you've ever played Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, but there's a moment halfway through that where the game shifts gears. You have the same basic tools, but now the context you use them in is startlingly different than it was previously. To me, Sekiro is kinda like that - it, like Bloodborne before it but pushing some of that game's philosophy even further, shows a peerless developer unwilling to sit still (a feeling I had with the excellent but overfamiliar at times DS3). It takes ingredients we recognise, but dares to mix in a whole heap of new things to the point where it's a very different deal than we started with.

If it doesn't work for you, that's fair - there have been times for me when From repeats an old trick to mixed effect (another bloomin' poison swamp, lads?!). But generally I'm having an absolute blast - the comfort of the recurrent Fromisms, but put in a game where I started from scratch and had to learn a whole new heap of compelling rules.

I'm not being critical of the game or from as such just the familiarity of the elements in the hub etc. and me feeling I've seen this too many times.In another post I mentioned the frequency of mini bosses and a section of stealth being enjoyable I'd be curious on your thoughts there.

The combat does carry it above the other titles in many ways. Like in Bloodborne it took until the DLC for the pistol to gel with me, here I'm felling like I'm getting a much bigger range of stuff to get to grips with in a much smaller window and you need to get good there and then as opposed to over a course of a few section and I like that.

What isn't sitting well with me at the moment as I haven't found out the why or how is the dragon rot , seems like another way to punish you. Makes me realise previous games didn't really punish you at all as you could recover the souls on each attempt and here you can basically end up broke after 2 or 3 deaths

nix

J. Marston wrote: »

Is it as bastard hard as I keep reading it is? I love the Soulsborne games and looked forward to the challenge but the more I read about this it just puts me off.

Maybe I'm getting old and the "Git Gud" fun just doesn't have the same draw it once did.

Yeah the combat just finally fully "clicked" for me, and since it has, the game has become much easier. So until you unlearn everything soulsborne taught you and explore the nooks and crannies of this new combat system, instead of just trying to fight like you did in soulsborne by altering as little as possible, the game will feel very hard, nearly impossible at times.

But yeah, i bumped into a mini boss the other day

big sword guy on the bridge

, i only half ass attempted him as i had no healing items left and i knew i was doomed, so i went back with the new approach to the combat and i wrecked him, only had to heal once and that was just to be sure he didnt get a lucky hit.. turning from an ant to a god when it all clicks

So far anyway :pac: