People like customization. Create your own character, choose your weapons, fighting style, skills, armour, accessories, level up your attributes the way you imagine your character, all that stuff.
More options are always good, right? No.
Sekiro has almost none of that and I'm sure that's the reason why it is the first From Software game that "clicked" with me. I've played all Souls/Bloodborne games except Darks Souls 2, and eventually dropped them due to being too slow, tedious or having too many gameplay mechanics that bloat up the whole experience, like a million different upgrade paths for each weapon, or that game-y stamina bar.
One sword attack costs X stamina. Every second you regenerate Y stamina. You have Z stamina points in total. Now calculate your attacks, blocks and sprints. I hate it. It adds nothing for me. It feels game-y in a bad way.
Luckily, the developers modernized and streamlined Sekiro a lot.
The game has a beautiful, timeless art style, the menus don't look like it's From Software's first attempt to create a video game anymore, and they modernized tons of gameplay systems as well. Simply moving around and exploring the world feels actually fun now. You can sprint, jump, swim, strike as you like, you don't have to worry about stamina, and you don't receive damage from falling down a 3 feet deep cliff. The grappling hook eases things up further. It's game-y, but in a good way. It makes moving around a really enjoyable experience.
You don't have to worry about which equipment to use and upgrade.
You have your trusty katana. Sticking to your gear feels so much more natural - especially given the Shinobi setting - than changing equipment every 30 minutes just because you find new "loot". You have a tool that works. A super-sharp katana. Katana are like the pinneacle of swordcraft. Swords don't get more lethal than that. So you stick to it. Makes sense. Not from a game-y point of view - players always want to be rewarded with cool new gear - but realistically speaking, it makes sense sticking to a tool that you're familiar with.
When you have a katana in your hand to fight demons, you don't need another sword, okay? There is no such thing as a katana that adds 20 more damage. This is just bloat and Sekiro has none of that.
Plus you don't have to distribute level up points to your attributes. Sekiro cuts all the crap and just lets you play the actual game without having to worry about this kind of micromanagement.
I've heard many people say Sekiro is the hardest From Software game to date, much harder than any Souls game.
I don't know what to make of this. I never beat a Souls game. I still have to finish Sekiro as well, but I already played it farther than any Souls game. Demon's Souls in 2009 was my first Souls game and I always found them tedious, slow and hard since then. Not hard in a good way, more like archaically hard. I didn't like the death traps that highlighted the trial and error nature of the games, the slow and clunky movement, equipment load, or the unfairly distributed save points, which made your way back to the bosses unnecessary long and tedious. These games had bosses that killed me with two strikes, after 15 seconds in total. The main character moving at the speed of an ant, with the grace of a tank didn't make things any better.
When you spend 15 seconds with a boss before getting beaten, there is not much to learn from that encounter, like how to deal damage or how to dodge more effectively. And now you have to go all the way back to this boss. 20 times. Until you beat it. That always frustrated me. I called it bad game design. Sekiro isn't easy, but it lets me easily move my character the way I want for starters, without running out of stamina, and it has fairly placed save points. That really helps to keep the motivation up.
You could say the movement in Sekiro doesn't feel restricted like in Souls games. It lets me move around in what feels like an appropriate, modern way for such a game. Playing the new Demon's Souls really highlights this. I don't want to run out of stamina every 10 seconds. It feels archaic and restricting, when all I want to do is exploring this atmospheric ancient ruins.
Plus the actual fighting mechanics in Sekiro are insanely fun (to me).
Combat is simple on the outside, but often simple is best. You don't have tons of nonsensical button combinations for attack combos and such. Yet the game offers deep, satisfying and nerve-racking encounters. Yes, you have to learn how to parry and you don't have much choice otherwise. Maybe that's not what players expect from a (From Software) game, maybe they expect a certain degree of customization. But it's a completely viable way to design a game. And I love it. I don't want to try for half an hour if the dagger is better than the short sword, I don't want to handle equipment load.
In Sekiro I spend less time trying to figure out the best way to play the game and just play the game instead.
You just use your reduced combat options and have fun with them.
Games are bloated into oblivion nowadays.
They feature weapon trees, crafting incredients, attributes, skill combos, level up mechanics for every little thing.
When I played Far Cry 4 I eventually stacked a hilarious amount of skill point without spending them, because the skills all seemed so trivial. It felt like the only reason this game had skills was for the sake of having skills. I like roleplaying games, even turn-based slow ones. But sometimes I don't want to deal with customization and micromanagement, and that's why I like games like Sekiro, that are bold enough to keep it simple in this day and age.
I haven't quite finished it, but I already beat a good amount of bosses, more than in any other Souls game, and I'm doing really well. There are bosses I even beat on the first attempt.
For years I thought Dark Souls would be way cooler if these games cut all the crap and played more streamlined and focused, like the classic PC Hack'n Slay game Severance. Sekiro does exactly that. I definitely see why the game has won so many accolades. What for it tries to accomplish, it doesn't get any better than that.
TL;DR:
Sekiro lets you just play the actual game without having to deal with superficial, bloated, game-y mechanics such as weapon and character customization, stamina bars or inventory micromanagement. The controls and movement mechanics for exploring the game world have been modernized and are just plain fun. It's one of the rare games that keep things sweet and simple in this day and age and that's why I like it a lot. And on PS5 you can enjoy the fantastic art style at wonderfully smooth 60fps.
More options are always good, right? No.
Sekiro has almost none of that and I'm sure that's the reason why it is the first From Software game that "clicked" with me. I've played all Souls/Bloodborne games except Darks Souls 2, and eventually dropped them due to being too slow, tedious or having too many gameplay mechanics that bloat up the whole experience, like a million different upgrade paths for each weapon, or that game-y stamina bar.
One sword attack costs X stamina. Every second you regenerate Y stamina. You have Z stamina points in total. Now calculate your attacks, blocks and sprints. I hate it. It adds nothing for me. It feels game-y in a bad way.
Luckily, the developers modernized and streamlined Sekiro a lot.
The game has a beautiful, timeless art style, the menus don't look like it's From Software's first attempt to create a video game anymore, and they modernized tons of gameplay systems as well. Simply moving around and exploring the world feels actually fun now. You can sprint, jump, swim, strike as you like, you don't have to worry about stamina, and you don't receive damage from falling down a 3 feet deep cliff. The grappling hook eases things up further. It's game-y, but in a good way. It makes moving around a really enjoyable experience.
You don't have to worry about which equipment to use and upgrade.
You have your trusty katana. Sticking to your gear feels so much more natural - especially given the Shinobi setting - than changing equipment every 30 minutes just because you find new "loot". You have a tool that works. A super-sharp katana. Katana are like the pinneacle of swordcraft. Swords don't get more lethal than that. So you stick to it. Makes sense. Not from a game-y point of view - players always want to be rewarded with cool new gear - but realistically speaking, it makes sense sticking to a tool that you're familiar with.
When you have a katana in your hand to fight demons, you don't need another sword, okay? There is no such thing as a katana that adds 20 more damage. This is just bloat and Sekiro has none of that.
Plus you don't have to distribute level up points to your attributes. Sekiro cuts all the crap and just lets you play the actual game without having to worry about this kind of micromanagement.
I've heard many people say Sekiro is the hardest From Software game to date, much harder than any Souls game.
I don't know what to make of this. I never beat a Souls game. I still have to finish Sekiro as well, but I already played it farther than any Souls game. Demon's Souls in 2009 was my first Souls game and I always found them tedious, slow and hard since then. Not hard in a good way, more like archaically hard. I didn't like the death traps that highlighted the trial and error nature of the games, the slow and clunky movement, equipment load, or the unfairly distributed save points, which made your way back to the bosses unnecessary long and tedious. These games had bosses that killed me with two strikes, after 15 seconds in total. The main character moving at the speed of an ant, with the grace of a tank didn't make things any better.
When you spend 15 seconds with a boss before getting beaten, there is not much to learn from that encounter, like how to deal damage or how to dodge more effectively. And now you have to go all the way back to this boss. 20 times. Until you beat it. That always frustrated me. I called it bad game design. Sekiro isn't easy, but it lets me easily move my character the way I want for starters, without running out of stamina, and it has fairly placed save points. That really helps to keep the motivation up.
You could say the movement in Sekiro doesn't feel restricted like in Souls games. It lets me move around in what feels like an appropriate, modern way for such a game. Playing the new Demon's Souls really highlights this. I don't want to run out of stamina every 10 seconds. It feels archaic and restricting, when all I want to do is exploring this atmospheric ancient ruins.
Plus the actual fighting mechanics in Sekiro are insanely fun (to me).
Combat is simple on the outside, but often simple is best. You don't have tons of nonsensical button combinations for attack combos and such. Yet the game offers deep, satisfying and nerve-racking encounters. Yes, you have to learn how to parry and you don't have much choice otherwise. Maybe that's not what players expect from a (From Software) game, maybe they expect a certain degree of customization. But it's a completely viable way to design a game. And I love it. I don't want to try for half an hour if the dagger is better than the short sword, I don't want to handle equipment load.
In Sekiro I spend less time trying to figure out the best way to play the game and just play the game instead.
You just use your reduced combat options and have fun with them.
Games are bloated into oblivion nowadays.
They feature weapon trees, crafting incredients, attributes, skill combos, level up mechanics for every little thing.
When I played Far Cry 4 I eventually stacked a hilarious amount of skill point without spending them, because the skills all seemed so trivial. It felt like the only reason this game had skills was for the sake of having skills. I like roleplaying games, even turn-based slow ones. But sometimes I don't want to deal with customization and micromanagement, and that's why I like games like Sekiro, that are bold enough to keep it simple in this day and age.
I haven't quite finished it, but I already beat a good amount of bosses, more than in any other Souls game, and I'm doing really well. There are bosses I even beat on the first attempt.
For years I thought Dark Souls would be way cooler if these games cut all the crap and played more streamlined and focused, like the classic PC Hack'n Slay game Severance. Sekiro does exactly that. I definitely see why the game has won so many accolades. What for it tries to accomplish, it doesn't get any better than that.
TL;DR:
Sekiro lets you just play the actual game without having to deal with superficial, bloated, game-y mechanics such as weapon and character customization, stamina bars or inventory micromanagement. The controls and movement mechanics for exploring the game world have been modernized and are just plain fun. It's one of the rare games that keep things sweet and simple in this day and age and that's why I like it a lot. And on PS5 you can enjoy the fantastic art style at wonderfully smooth 60fps.
