The part about looking at the box was me trying to be cute, not patronizing (also, it isn't an uncommon problem that people are running up against, as so many people came from Souls first). So, my bad if it came off as patronizing (I can see that). The last comment was maybe a TINY bit patronizing, but I do think that criticism does come from people not experimenting with the tools enough (some of the best tools seem to be flying under the radar, like the Mist Raven).
Fair enough I guess. Considering how
some streamers are already doing meme runs like Axe Only, I know it's at least possible to use nonstandard approaches without getting destroyed. It's just that trying to incorporate a wide variety of different tools into combat, especially on your first playthrough when you're learning the game, is a big chore. You have to choose your attack windows carefully, and many prosthetics and combat arts leave you wide open to counterattacks, to little immediate benefit.
The effective use of your combat basics and the handful of prosthetics and combat arts I mentioned earlier demands a certain amount of enemy pattern memorization and brutal failure -- but nothing like what you have to go through if you're interested in switching up your approach. Why rely on stuff like Mist Raven or Floating Passage when Firecrackers can reliably stun or interrupt almost anything, and Ichimonji deals heavy posture damage while recovering your own?
Maybe if spirit emblems weren't so limited I'd want to keep Mist Raven in my second slot to supplement my evasive options. But there are all these factors that push you toward efficiency and the least risky path: Every prosthetic costs ammo, dying makes you lose stuff, many enemies are damned hard, enemies can interrupt you much more easily than you can interrupt them, and almost every enemy type deals massive damage to your health and posture.
All I'm saying is you shouldn't have to be a seasoned Sekiro player to enjoy a lot of combat variety. I'm not an amazing player myself, but I've almost beaten the game. It's quite difficult enough without handicapping myself by replacing stuff that works with stuff that
might work if I spend twice as long or longer trying not to get killed. I've experimented plenty, because that's one of my favorite things to do in action games, but just about every time I stray away from the basics I get broken in half and skinned alive. Some of that is on me and my reactions when I'm playing, but a lot of it is on the game's design.
Coming off of a game like Devil May Cry 5, where the higher difficulties make enemies super hard-hitting but I still have room to burn through eight different Devil Breakers or swap between eight different Devil Arms if I feel like it, Sekiro's combat feels stifling. I don't want Sekiro to be a stylish action game, I just want to feel confident that most of my tools will help me win battles, and won't get me killed.
