TLDR: I was too hard on Sekiro because Sekiro was too hard on me. It's a brilliant, special game, but it sometimes overshoots the "tough but fair" mark.
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After beating Sekiro back when it released, I pretty much relegated it to the "one and done" category. In fact, it even feels strange to say I "beat" the game, since I think it'd be more appropriate to say we beat each other. Six plus hours on Isshin and that was it for me. I won. I killed him. I was out, never to return. I was free.
But as a huge From fan, it never sat well with me having such mixed feelings about one of their biggest games. So I came back, last week. And I came back with a vengeance. It all stayed with me, somehow, over the last six months. I could still dance with these goddamn bosses like I was Neo in his final form..... Beat the game once, then again, and again, and again, and again. I beat the game five more times in the past week, collected all the trophies, and really came to appreciate how much I had overlooked in my absolute frustration the first time I fought through it.
There's been enough praise aimed at the combat that I won't harp too much on it, but suffice it to say I think it's the best sword fighting system that we've ever had, and certainly at its best when you are doing just that.... sword fighting. Against mobs of enemies, monsters, or big heavies, things aren't so nice, but when it's you and a single foe locked in a death match..... man, it just shines. Having recently played Jedi Fallen Order (which I enjoyed, but don't want to focus on in this thread!), it really highlighted how much experience From has in the third person combat arena and how even a "simple" system like Sekiro's has a lot more going on under the hood than I might have given it credit for. Even things that are easy to take for granted like the audio feedback and the framing of the executions is quite literally perfect.
Playing the game multiple times in a row also helped me see how well designed the world is. It's different than their other games though. Here, checkpoints are much more prevalent, and meaningful shortcuts are few and far between. The interconnections aren't so much there to help you in the short term (ie; in one playthrough), but they are just a godsend for multiple runs. The hub like nature of the world, the potential for skipping and sequence breaking.... it all feeds in to make repeat plays of the game stay lively. I would never qualify myself as a speedrunner in any capacity, but it was amazing to see how quickly (~3 hours) I was able to blast through the game in my most recent runs because I knew my way around so well.
More than anything, though, I love how the structure of the game and its levels really tell the story of Ashina Castle's downfall. It's the geographical center of the game, and it's a place than changes each and every time we come back to it. It's always full of enemies that push your comfort zone in terms of challenge, and your route through it changes in small ways each time you return. And while it's character might not be as obvious visually as certain venues in Bloodborne or Dark Souls, it's a place that feels lived in, withered, and well past its golden age. The more I played Sekiro, the more sad it felt to see what happens to it.... under siege, toppled, sabotaged. The soldiers who you died to so many times in the early areas now simply kneeling in defeat to the Ministry forces.
All that said, I still feel that the game is flawed in one major way:
It is too hard.
At this point I'm fairly comfortable saying I'm very good at the game. It took a long time, I got very frustrated, but eventually, yes I "got good." And still.... still, I can die almost instantly in one single mistake. Still, I backpedal and frantically try to heal while I'm hit again and again in the process. Still, I get a little jolt of anger when I die and lose HALF of my coins and experience.
The way I see it the game is sort of an overly harsh double whammy of difficulty. (A) it is extremely hard in the short term, with many bosses and enemies that will quite literally kill you for one small error, if not kill you in one single hit. And (B) it is also very hard systematically. When you die, you lose half of your things (with no recourse) while also accruing Dragonrot on NPCs, and finally, also lowering your chance for Unseen Aid. Loss leads to more loss which leads to more frustration, and yes, even if things like Dragonrot are mechanically not very impactful, it still feels like a failure every time a new NPC gets hit with it.
I think that together these systems nudge the game just out of "tough but fair" territory into the "really fucking hard" zone. With Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, I would feel comfortable saying that anyone could beat those games. It took some grit, some determination, a little cheesing, some help from a summoned stranger, maybe some grinding. Whatever. But if you wanted to beat them, you could, one way or another.
Not so with Sekiro. Here, there are very few options. The prosthetics are largely not very helpful (plus, run on finite ammo) and there is no leveling, no summoning, and very little potential for grinding. Ultimately if you reach a hard boss there is one way (and one way only) to get past: head first. You must, MUST, memorize the parry timing, learn the attacks, and dominate aggressively. And in the end, I think there are a subset of players who will just not be willing or reasonably capable of doing this. It's a shame that there are no real ways to circumvent or mitigate the challenge because, while it can be very satisfying when you overcome it, it also wore me down quite a lot during my first run through the game.
In any case, those are my thoughts. I'm glad I gave it another chance and came to love it, but I do hope that for Elden Ring the focus is less on brutal, aggressive challenge and more on a the methodical style of play that characterized From's other titles.
*****************
After beating Sekiro back when it released, I pretty much relegated it to the "one and done" category. In fact, it even feels strange to say I "beat" the game, since I think it'd be more appropriate to say we beat each other. Six plus hours on Isshin and that was it for me. I won. I killed him. I was out, never to return. I was free.
But as a huge From fan, it never sat well with me having such mixed feelings about one of their biggest games. So I came back, last week. And I came back with a vengeance. It all stayed with me, somehow, over the last six months. I could still dance with these goddamn bosses like I was Neo in his final form..... Beat the game once, then again, and again, and again, and again. I beat the game five more times in the past week, collected all the trophies, and really came to appreciate how much I had overlooked in my absolute frustration the first time I fought through it.
There's been enough praise aimed at the combat that I won't harp too much on it, but suffice it to say I think it's the best sword fighting system that we've ever had, and certainly at its best when you are doing just that.... sword fighting. Against mobs of enemies, monsters, or big heavies, things aren't so nice, but when it's you and a single foe locked in a death match..... man, it just shines. Having recently played Jedi Fallen Order (which I enjoyed, but don't want to focus on in this thread!), it really highlighted how much experience From has in the third person combat arena and how even a "simple" system like Sekiro's has a lot more going on under the hood than I might have given it credit for. Even things that are easy to take for granted like the audio feedback and the framing of the executions is quite literally perfect.
Playing the game multiple times in a row also helped me see how well designed the world is. It's different than their other games though. Here, checkpoints are much more prevalent, and meaningful shortcuts are few and far between. The interconnections aren't so much there to help you in the short term (ie; in one playthrough), but they are just a godsend for multiple runs. The hub like nature of the world, the potential for skipping and sequence breaking.... it all feeds in to make repeat plays of the game stay lively. I would never qualify myself as a speedrunner in any capacity, but it was amazing to see how quickly (~3 hours) I was able to blast through the game in my most recent runs because I knew my way around so well.
More than anything, though, I love how the structure of the game and its levels really tell the story of Ashina Castle's downfall. It's the geographical center of the game, and it's a place than changes each and every time we come back to it. It's always full of enemies that push your comfort zone in terms of challenge, and your route through it changes in small ways each time you return. And while it's character might not be as obvious visually as certain venues in Bloodborne or Dark Souls, it's a place that feels lived in, withered, and well past its golden age. The more I played Sekiro, the more sad it felt to see what happens to it.... under siege, toppled, sabotaged. The soldiers who you died to so many times in the early areas now simply kneeling in defeat to the Ministry forces.
All that said, I still feel that the game is flawed in one major way:
It is too hard.
At this point I'm fairly comfortable saying I'm very good at the game. It took a long time, I got very frustrated, but eventually, yes I "got good." And still.... still, I can die almost instantly in one single mistake. Still, I backpedal and frantically try to heal while I'm hit again and again in the process. Still, I get a little jolt of anger when I die and lose HALF of my coins and experience.
The way I see it the game is sort of an overly harsh double whammy of difficulty. (A) it is extremely hard in the short term, with many bosses and enemies that will quite literally kill you for one small error, if not kill you in one single hit. And (B) it is also very hard systematically. When you die, you lose half of your things (with no recourse) while also accruing Dragonrot on NPCs, and finally, also lowering your chance for Unseen Aid. Loss leads to more loss which leads to more frustration, and yes, even if things like Dragonrot are mechanically not very impactful, it still feels like a failure every time a new NPC gets hit with it.
I think that together these systems nudge the game just out of "tough but fair" territory into the "really fucking hard" zone. With Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne, I would feel comfortable saying that anyone could beat those games. It took some grit, some determination, a little cheesing, some help from a summoned stranger, maybe some grinding. Whatever. But if you wanted to beat them, you could, one way or another.
Not so with Sekiro. Here, there are very few options. The prosthetics are largely not very helpful (plus, run on finite ammo) and there is no leveling, no summoning, and very little potential for grinding. Ultimately if you reach a hard boss there is one way (and one way only) to get past: head first. You must, MUST, memorize the parry timing, learn the attacks, and dominate aggressively. And in the end, I think there are a subset of players who will just not be willing or reasonably capable of doing this. It's a shame that there are no real ways to circumvent or mitigate the challenge because, while it can be very satisfying when you overcome it, it also wore me down quite a lot during my first run through the game.
In any case, those are my thoughts. I'm glad I gave it another chance and came to love it, but I do hope that for Elden Ring the focus is less on brutal, aggressive challenge and more on a the methodical style of play that characterized From's other titles.
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