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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | OT | Borne of Souls

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
For my NG+ run I used the demon bell and man, some of the the bosses do so much more damage and some moves just straight up on shots you. Also I finally went and beat both headless and shichimen warrior that I ignored my first playthrough.
 

wzy

Member
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidt...ts-players-and-add-an-easy-mode/#d0e880216393

Game needs an easy mode, apparently.

I didn't realize I was being disrespected. All this time I thought I was being challenged.

What causes this?
Is it just the "participation medal" attitude where people want mediocrity to be rewarded and then proceed to big up that reward as "my personal experience is just as valuable as yours".

I always think of this in the context of marathon running. You pay your entry fee months in advance. You train and train and train. Then you show up on the day and you give your best performance and you get an official finish time and a medal at the end.

Nobody is owed this experience. Unless you fancy an 8 hour walk with a medal at the end you literally need to work to get to the goal.

Similarly, why does a game owe anyone a free pass to the next stage or the next bit of storytelling or the next item or whatever? Shouldn't players earn that?

I don't get the argument that reducing the difficulty doesn't affect the "prestige" of completing a FROM game. Of course it does.
Instead of being forced to earn the right to complete the game players know they don't have to do that anymore.
Basically, if everyone get's a trophy then the trophy loses it's value.
If FROM decided to do Bloodborne 2 and it was as easy as, say, The Last of Us or Assassin's Creed then I'd like to think it would be reviewed negatively on that basis.

"And this is what I'll never understand about From's fanboys and their continual, aggressive insistence that the mere presence of an easy mode would somehow compromise a special experience. It's worth saying, time and time again: an easy mode does not have to change the core experience in any way, at all, period. Playing a version of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that had an easy mode would, theoretically, be completely identical to playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice now. The continued insistence that an easy mode would somehow affect the normal mode seems to represent a players lack of respect for themselves, an idea that they would not be able to play the game that they want without ruining it for themselves.

And so I'd say to From fans: believe in yourself. Know that you can play the game you want to play, even if others are playing the game they want to play."

What a prick.
I don't think FROM "fanboys" are the problem here at all.
Rather, I think it's twats like this who want to bang on about how much they love videogames because it's trendy but can't handle the fact that people like to measure actual ability in some ways.

Like imagine being that sad that you want to be able to say "I completed the game" so badly that you demand the devs themselves go in change their game so that you can complete it? That's so fucking needy and pathetic.

Lads, why can't I ride my motorbike in the London Marathon? I can't actually run 26.2 miles! Come on!
Jeez, runners need to get a grip just because I completed the marathon on my motorbike doesn't take away from their own achievements.
My medal is just as valuable as their medal! Elitists!

His entire argument can dismissed out of hand because he doesn't mean a word of it. Game reviewers play on easy because apparently any hardship at their job is too much hardship. Sekiro doesn't have an easy mode, so his job is now to whine about that fact. What's really disgusting is that he's piggy backing on otherwise well-meaning ideas about inclusion and accessibility in society (where it might matter) to make his complaining about From games seem less juvenile and embarrassing.
 
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If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have died like 100 times to the same boss at the top of Ishina Castle.

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have had to practice over and over, reading every cue of my opponent, only to end up either slashed or stomped by his attacks

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have shouted at the top of my lungs when my sword finally pierced through the final defenses of this motherfucker, putting him out of his misery.


So, fuck no. Don't ever put an easy mode on From Software games.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Man, Snake Eyes Shirahagi sure is a giant piece of shit.

from the poison pool idol you can leap twice, then quickly kill the two dudes on the island, then sneak around to the left and get a stealth DB on him. this starts you with half his health gone. true there are some other guys left in the area but every time i went for them also i just ended up aggroing everyone in the area and that ended my run pretty quick.

once he's down to half health all that is left is a tough fight (lol) but it can be done. when the danger symbol shows you need to JUMP out the way. other than that, just keep up the pressure, and don't let too much distance get between you or he'll shoot at you with his gun. this is where using the little corner with the fog gate comes in handy, you can use it to avoid his shots by ducking around the corner.

good luck! this was me last night =)
 
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Man, Snake Eyes Shirahagi sure is a giant piece of shit.


She would be, if there werent a nice workaround for dirty cheating shinobis like us. It goes like this:

- Jump in the middle of the area, get everybody's attention

- Run away and climb up the rock behind the altar you came from

- Get yourself seen by the enemies though in such angle that they cannot hit you, despite being firing at you. By doing this, the enemies will enter the poison pit and die. Same goes with the boss, but that takes a bit longer. Once her lifebar is depleted, you climb down and deliver the deathstroke. Rinse and repeat.
 
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Ivellios

Member
If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have died like 100 times to the same boss at the top of Ishina Castle.

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have had to practice over and over, reading every cue of my opponent, only to end up either slashed or stomped by his attacks

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have shouted at the top of my lungs when my sword finally pierced through the final defenses of this motherfucker, putting him out of his misery.


So, fuck no. Don't ever put an easy mode on From Software games.

Yeah, this is the first time i could not summon anyone to help me defeating a difficult boss. Either i did it alone the hard way or it was all over.

What i mean is i complained about this on this very thread, but in the end i managed to advance on the game by myself without the help of others or an easy mode, because i really liked the game and put the effort toward learning how to play it.

I did not think i could get very far on Sekiro, but right now i reached the last area and im almost finishing the game.

Also the adrenaline i feel during and after finally beating a really hard boss is something i only get on games from From.
 

Codes 208

Member
She would be, if there werent a nice workaround for dirty cheating shinobis like us. It goes like this:

- Jump in the middle of the area, get everybody's attention

- Run away and climb up the rock behind the altar you came from

- Get yourself seen by the enemies though in such angle that they cannot hit you, despite being firing at you. By doing this, the enemies will enter the poison pit and die. Same goes with the boss, but that takes a bit longer. Once her lifebar is depleted, you climb down and deliver the deathstroke. Rinse and repeat.
Unless he’s talking about the other one near the gun fortresss which doesn’t have that workaround
 

Grinchy

Banned
Unless he’s talking about the other one near the gun fortresss which doesn’t have that workaround
I forgot that it's an enemy you face multiple times. I'm currently dealing with the one in the Depths. I only tried a couple times to beat it, but damn were those some stressful attempts :messenger_tears_of_joy:

I'm trying to do it without cheese, but I may go with the slow poison strat.
 
Talking about cheese, don't get me started on how I beat the corrupted monk (true form). I have taken back all the crap I was given on my previous fight (Ashina castle)


Very beautiful area the one after that fight. Gorgeous. The art direction is on par with the Souls saga, though a notch below Bloodborne.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
good times were had exploring the cliffsides & temple rooftops at Mount Kongo. i suffered little difficulty dispatching the cool Centipede mini boss in that one side dungeon full of weird spider dudes. pretty fun fight tho it was basically entirely about deflecting until he DB'd himself.

back home i treated my man to some Monkey Booze. he starts talking about a whistling ring something or other, sounds dope. will have to keep my eye open for this legendary ring.
 
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Gamernyc78

Banned
I probably won't use that. I already almost killed him dodging and slashing him. But I got my fill for today.

Blocking is your friend especially until the red sign pops up and you can grapple to him and hit him several times. His pattern is easy to memorize, then he is quite easy.
 

Grinchy

Banned
I'm sure I'm way too far in to not know this, and it's probably been asked a million times, but what are the pink circles above your HP bar? I know that at least one of them is for your resurrection, but I'm now up to 3 pink circles and I can still only seem to resurrect once. So I have no idea what the other pink circles are for.
 

Ivellios

Member
I'm sure I'm way too far in to not know this, and it's probably been asked a million times, but what are the pink circles above your HP bar? I know that at least one of them is for your resurrection, but I'm now up to 3 pink circles and I can still only seem to resurrect once. So I have no idea what the other pink circles are for.

I got confused about it too, but the way i understand you have 3 resses as long as you can give a deathblow after dying once and they are not on cooldown.
 

nkarafo

Member
I'm sure I'm way too far in to not know this, and it's probably been asked a million times, but what are the pink circles above your HP bar? I know that at least one of them is for your resurrection, but I'm now up to 3 pink circles and I can still only seem to resurrect once. So I have no idea what the other pink circles are for.
They are extra resurrection but you can't use the extra one immediately. You have to kill a few enemies first. You can see a black ink of some sort on top of them, it means you can't res. But after a few kills it gets away. Also, if you use the extra res you need to fill it up (by killing again) in order to use it again.
 

Grinchy

Banned
That makes sense. I rarely die in the areas themselves while killing enemies, and die very often while trying to kill bosses. So that explains why I thought I could only res once.
 

JohannCK

Member
https://www.frontlinejp.net/2019/04...his-vision-and-how-it-was-conceived-part-2-2/

How observing enemies before engaging them is important is brought up, and Miyazaki says that the game allows players to approach situations in multiple ways, such as by using the grappling hook to get a good position, or with stealth, and that they purposely made situations where the player can go about this naturally. He says that their idea of ninja combat is facing the enemy with anything and everything- From the environment, to your own tools- At your disposal. He says that as Sekiro is different from Dark Souls, players may first find it to be difficult, but as they learn new ways of fighting and new tactics and get better, they should feel the pleasure of getting better, which is part of their usual unchanging theme of gaining catharsis through overcoming hardship, and thinks this would be similar to experiences that people had with Demon’s Souls.

The interviewer says that boss battles are especially difficult, and to this Miyazaki says that this should result in great feelings of accomplishment when players manage to defeat them, saying that when they were playtesting the game, people would yell out in glee when defeating a boss.
 

wzy

Member
She would be, if there werent a nice workaround for dirty cheating shinobis like us. It goes like this:

- Jump in the middle of the area, get everybody's attention

- Run away and climb up the rock behind the altar you came from

- Get yourself seen by the enemies though in such angle that they cannot hit you, despite being firing at you. By doing this, the enemies will enter the poison pit and die. Same goes with the boss, but that takes a bit longer. Once her lifebar is depleted, you climb down and deliver the deathstroke. Rinse and repeat.

This is way too much effort if you're trying to fight dirty.

Use the Puppeteer Ninjutsu.
 

Bryank75

Banned
Second fight at the top of Castle was not as bad as people made out, took me 4 or 5 attempts to get everything pretty good.
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have died like 100 times to the same boss at the top of Ishina Castle.

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have had to practice over and over, reading every cue of my opponent, only to end up either slashed or stomped by his attacks

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have shouted at the top of my lungs when my sword finally pierced through the final defenses of this motherfucker, putting him out of his misery.


So, fuck no. Don't ever put an easy mode on From Software games.

If an easy mode had been there, everyone would have finished it then bitched it was too easy.
 

GenericUser

Member
Blocking is your friend especially until the red sign pops up and you can grapple to him and hit him several times. His pattern is easy to memorize, then he is quite easy.
Thanks for the tip, but I already (temorarily?) gave up on the game days ago. I can't figure out how it works, maybe my reflexes are too slow.
 

tassletine

Member
Interesting game. Now I'm almost done, it feels more like a puzzle game than a combat title. It kind of feels like every level is Lost Izliath, but in a good way.
 

isual

Member
fought the demon. took me about 7 tries, not bad fight.
red umbrella, 3rd whistle helped.

i'm at the final boss now (true form). just gotta practice his phases.
 

InterMusketeer

Gold Member
Just beat the final boss. I was stuck on him last night, but beat him today after another few tries.

I had difficulty dealing with Isshin when he gets the spear. He can switch between fast, short range attacks with his sword and slow, long range attacks with his spear so quickly, and he has many gap closers in this phase. It was hard to deal with. Fortunately I got lucky in phase three with some lightning attacks that I was able to reverse pretty easily.

I got the severance ending I think. I didn't even know it was possible to eavesdrop on Kuro and Emma... So I'm going for that ending next, because I feel bad for the little girl with the centipede in her. I also want to do the extra boss(es?) for that ending.
 
If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have died like 100 times to the same boss at the top of Ishina Castle.

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have had to practice over and over, reading every cue of my opponent, only to end up either slashed or stomped by his attacks

If an easy mode had been there, I wouldn't have shouted at the top of my lungs when my sword finally pierced through the final defenses of this motherfucker, putting him out of his misery.


So, fuck no. Don't ever put an easy mode on From Software games.

Yeah, I personally find the game too frustrating due to my lack of twitchy timing skills, but at this point "From Game" is a genre, and the genre is defined by "fucking hard". So saying, "I like this game, but it's too hard" is kind of like saying "I like Forza, I just don't like the driving cars part."
 

Grinchy

Banned
Yeah, I personally find the game too frustrating due to my lack of twitchy timing skills, but at this point "From Game" is a genre, and the genre is defined by "fucking hard". So saying, "I like this game, but it's too hard" is kind of like saying "I like Forza, I just don't like the driving cars part."
I was getting really frustrated early on when I was doing what the game said to do (block at the moment the enemy attack lands) for getting deflections. Then I finally realized that you ignore what it tells you to do and block way earlier than that and you get deflections and mikiri counters easily.
 

Makariel

Member
Didn't have the time to play the past few nights, looking forward to some gaming time over the weekend. Genichiro must die.

QLCM.gif
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
I was getting really frustrated early on when I was doing what the game said to do (block at the moment the enemy attack lands) for getting deflections. Then I finally realized that you ignore what it tells you to do and block way earlier than that and you get deflections and mikiri counters easily.

yeah a good mikiri counter is like, slam that button as soon as you see the symbol. right now i'm fighting gun shooters and find i have to block pretty early.

basically just mash that block parry button when you see an attack just start to come your way...
 
I played again for the first time in a while last night. Went through the Shinobi hunter (which was made unbelievably easy when you use the counter), and discovered a purple ninja on top of a cliff. He was tricky but rather than die, I opted to heroically flee and jump off the cliff into the river. Then I went back up and the dummy was retreating back up the hill. So I death blowed him from behind, haha.

Made it to my first two proper bosses. Tried the horseman briefly but ended up using the homeward bone equivalent to leg it. I've really been abusing that thing, actually.
 
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Jack Videogames

Gold Member
I have died like 10 times to the Chained Ogre... only since I got the Flame Vent prosthetic I've had half of a chance :(

Does Dragonrot block you from the best ending? As I don't usually do repeat playthroughs I'm probably going to follow a guide to get it, as I did with Bloodborne
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
i really love that levels are designed so that any really tough battles with bosses or mini bosses is always just a hop and a skip away from an idol. it's way more convenient than the old days when you would run past all the bad guys to get to the boss. now for a lot of them you just make 2 or 3 leaps and you're there. like Genichiro, that is literally three jumps and you're at the boss. makes retrying super easy.
 
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Grinchy

Banned
i really love that levels are designed so that any really tough battles with bosses or mini bosses is always just a hop and a skip away from an idol. it's way more convenient than the old days when you would run past all the bad guys to get to the boss. now for a lot of them you just make 2 or 3 leaps and you're there. like Genichiro, that is literally three jumps and you're at the boss. makes retrying super easy.
Yeah, I like it a lot more than previous Souls games. Bosses are hard, and you're expected to fight them a bunch of times, so why make it so tedious to get back to them.

The Ape, for example, is a tough bastard, but you're literally one jump away from retrying it over and over again. And on PC, with the game on a SSD, the load times are short too.
 

wzy

Member
i really love that levels are designed so that any really tough battles with bosses or mini bosses is always just a hop and a skip away from an idol. it's way more convenient than the old days when you would run past all the bad guys to get to the boss. now for a lot of them you just make 2 or 3 leaps and you're there. like Genichiro, that is literally three jumps and you're at the boss. makes retrying super easy.

It really is the most forgiving Souls-like game by a wide margin. I suspect we have a lot of former spellcasters hiding among the game too hard crowd.
 
Holy shit it took me around 30 times to beat this fat bastard Owl in hirata estate. Expression after beating his stupid ass was close to one from my avatar lmao. But man this feeling when you overcome some giant cunt like him is second to none in From games imo.
 
Killed the horse easily, then the bull after 5 or 6 goes. Just needed the Benny Hill theme playing while I imposed my will on the turd.

After activating a couple of idols in close proximity it seems like this castle is a lot bigger than I first thought.
 

Fbh

Member
I'm enjoying NG+. Feels good to go back to the early areas and dominate enemies that gave me so much trouble the first time around. I'm about to reach lady butterfly, time to see how much harder the actual bosses are in NG+
 

Grinchy

Banned
Holy fucking shit the Ape is down. That fight gave me more fits than Genichiro Ashina.
haha I just beat him and was gonna post about it too

I really, really liked this fight. It took me at least 10 tries, maybe more.
I got especially consistent with his second phase. For some reason that just felt easier to me to properly time out all the deflections. The first phase was rough every time.

I barely beat him and I may have only won because I happened to still have rice in my inventory.
 

decisions

Member
Probably about 20 hrs in now, love the game so far and I think it's my favorite From title.

However I just hit the
two spinny spear guys in the Buddhist temple after you kill the centipede boss
and have no idea how to approach them. But I'm sure I will figure them out, and conquer them like I have all my past foes. The game is super rewarding. Can't wait to get back to it after some studying.
 
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