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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice |OT2| Domo Arigato, Mr. ROBERTOOOOO!!!
- Thread starter janusff
- Start date
It was the same for me as well. There was one boss so far that took me awhile to get past, but It never felt unfair. I just felt unable to react properly to their offense. Now I'm able to calmly get my hits in and also block/dodge and get that posture to break. Learning the way to win, getting it to "click" is so true to my experience so far.
I defeated also very easily
Genichiro
My strategy:
Not to be too aggressive with him, try always to hit his health a couple of times... in particular you can dodge the shuriken and land an hit, and when he throw the bomb that prevent you to healt, avoid it going behind him and you should be able to land a couple of hits. There are also some times when he is very slow before attacks and you can land an hit or two. Then when health start to be around 60-70% parry every blow to deplete his posture quickly. Second phase is not much harder than the first one.
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Late game spoilers
Does beating Demon of Hatred or beating the final boss drops any Prayer Beads? I've upgraded my health/posture 9 times so far, I'm guessing that 10 times is the max. I know that I missed a couple of prayer beads by not activating the extra fight with Owl, but I can not find the other two prayer beads to complete the 4 for the last upgrade.
So I feel a bit odd saying this, the game fully clicked for me during the last boss, and I feel like I went from SSJ to SSJ2.
Man this game is awesome.
So for me most of Sekiro has been pretty standard difficulty wise with most bosses and minibosses taking 1-5 tries with some nearing 10 for the more challenging ones.
My first wall in the game was the Shinobi hunter. Until him, I have been mostly playing the game like a Tenchu game where stealth as much as possible and bait out attacks for parries. Shinobi hunter was the first enemy that made have to practice the perilous attacks. I lost to him about 7 times before I decided to practice countering perilous attacks on the dummy guy at the hub.
I found having mikiri on the sprint button a bit weird, so I changed up my controls to have attack on the X button, deflect on LT and sprint on LB. Then came back and managed to beat him first try after learning to properly Mikiri and using jump to counter sweeps.
I got used to having Deflect on the trigger and X for attack and B for prosthetic (shuriken) fairly quick since it is basically Ninja Gaiden Black controls.
I went until the end of Hirata Estate until I found the locked room and went back to the normal game (I missed the key somehow and walked right past Owl). Encountered Gyoubu and destroyed him first try. After reaching the castle I was curious about the starting area and progressed all the way to Mibu Village and cleared Senpou temple all before I even got to the top of Ashina Castle. The Centipede guy at senpou taught me how much you can get away with just mashing deflect for the rapid attacks, so I adopted a little deflect dance for most new enemies with pretty good success.
I was progressing pretty easily by deflecting super telegraphed moves and just mashing deflect for rapid attacks. Owl put up some good resistance, since the parry dance wasn't really working on him, but I got him when i noticed his shuriken x2 into overhead was super punishable. The rest of the game was fairly smooth after Owl. Only other roadblock was DoH, but even he went down pretty easily after 8-10 practice runs of being super aggressive.
And then I get to the final boss.
My first wall in the game was the Shinobi hunter. Until him, I have been mostly playing the game like a Tenchu game where stealth as much as possible and bait out attacks for parries. Shinobi hunter was the first enemy that made have to practice the perilous attacks. I lost to him about 7 times before I decided to practice countering perilous attacks on the dummy guy at the hub.
I found having mikiri on the sprint button a bit weird, so I changed up my controls to have attack on the X button, deflect on LT and sprint on LB. Then came back and managed to beat him first try after learning to properly Mikiri and using jump to counter sweeps.
I got used to having Deflect on the trigger and X for attack and B for prosthetic (shuriken) fairly quick since it is basically Ninja Gaiden Black controls.
I went until the end of Hirata Estate until I found the locked room and went back to the normal game (I missed the key somehow and walked right past Owl). Encountered Gyoubu and destroyed him first try. After reaching the castle I was curious about the starting area and progressed all the way to Mibu Village and cleared Senpou temple all before I even got to the top of Ashina Castle. The Centipede guy at senpou taught me how much you can get away with just mashing deflect for the rapid attacks, so I adopted a little deflect dance for most new enemies with pretty good success.
I was progressing pretty easily by deflecting super telegraphed moves and just mashing deflect for rapid attacks. Owl put up some good resistance, since the parry dance wasn't really working on him, but I got him when i noticed his shuriken x2 into overhead was super punishable. The rest of the game was fairly smooth after Owl. Only other roadblock was DoH, but even he went down pretty easily after 8-10 practice runs of being super aggressive.
And then I get to the final boss.
So in total I spent about 3-4 hours on this boss, Its about tied to doing Darkeater Midir and the final boss of Ringed City DLC for the first time on NG+4. Genichiro is a chump, but sometimes get gets a few good hits in where I just want to restart and go in the Issin fight with all my gourds.
And through trial and error, I found out my control scheme and some of the bad habits I picked up from the last 20+ hours of gameplay made the last boss way harder than it should have been.
Problem 1) Having Deflect on the trigger.
For most of the game it works great, I can parry big attacks no problem, and it is much easier to mash for me than the RB button. So after an hour of having a hard time deflecting Isshin, I did some testing and I noticed I can miss deflect inputs if I dont press the trigger far enough and it kind of has a lag time compared to using a button, Probably because it triggers inputs on an axis and not a button. After moving deflect to the Y button (swap prosthetic formerly) I spent the next hour and a half unlearning 20+ hours of muscle memory. Perfect deflects are now much easier for me and I font get the odd missed parries I was getting on Isshin.
Problem 2) Forgetting Dodging is a thing.
While I used dodging a few times early game, I quickly realized this game wants you to parry and not side-dodge like in souls games. I relied more on sprinting around attacks than just the plain dodge. During the Isshin fight I was parrying every attack and had a hard time finding an opening to attack. For his big jump attack I always perfectly deflected it, but when I accidentally dodged it I saw that left him open for a good poke. It also made the first bar much easier since i could sidestep the sword beams and ichimonjis instead of trying to deflect / sprint around them.
Problem 3) Never learning to use Block.
So, up until hour 3 of Sword Saint Isshin, I never really learned how to use blocking in this game. I used it occasionally to block projectiles and to lower posture damage, but that was it. It didn't help that my block button was also on a trigger so it had a delay when trying to block from coming out of sprint or other actions. Through out the entire game I never blocked since I didn't want to be posture broken. So I always went for deflects and getting accidental blocks when I do the parry dance.
Problem 4) Learning how relatively safe it is to just hold down block.
So after learning to block after like 30+ hours into the game, I realized it is super easy to do setup parries like in Dark Souls 3 during phase 2 of S.S. Isshin. Blocking the first few attacks to see what combo he is doing and then deflecting the next few hits is waaaay easier than just trying to deflect all of the combo.
During the very same fight I started to hold down block for the first time in the entire game, and the very same fight I started to do setup parries Phase 2; I got to Isshin's 3 Phase for the 2nd time ever with no healing left.
I popped my Divine Grass and then just using the same strategy I just came up with along with sending the lightning right back at him, I beat him...
It was a big brain moment where I was like "what?????!" I was not expecting to beat Isshin with such a small adjustment in my play style.
And through trial and error, I found out my control scheme and some of the bad habits I picked up from the last 20+ hours of gameplay made the last boss way harder than it should have been.
Problem 1) Having Deflect on the trigger.
For most of the game it works great, I can parry big attacks no problem, and it is much easier to mash for me than the RB button. So after an hour of having a hard time deflecting Isshin, I did some testing and I noticed I can miss deflect inputs if I dont press the trigger far enough and it kind of has a lag time compared to using a button, Probably because it triggers inputs on an axis and not a button. After moving deflect to the Y button (swap prosthetic formerly) I spent the next hour and a half unlearning 20+ hours of muscle memory. Perfect deflects are now much easier for me and I font get the odd missed parries I was getting on Isshin.
Problem 2) Forgetting Dodging is a thing.
While I used dodging a few times early game, I quickly realized this game wants you to parry and not side-dodge like in souls games. I relied more on sprinting around attacks than just the plain dodge. During the Isshin fight I was parrying every attack and had a hard time finding an opening to attack. For his big jump attack I always perfectly deflected it, but when I accidentally dodged it I saw that left him open for a good poke. It also made the first bar much easier since i could sidestep the sword beams and ichimonjis instead of trying to deflect / sprint around them.
Problem 3) Never learning to use Block.
So, up until hour 3 of Sword Saint Isshin, I never really learned how to use blocking in this game. I used it occasionally to block projectiles and to lower posture damage, but that was it. It didn't help that my block button was also on a trigger so it had a delay when trying to block from coming out of sprint or other actions. Through out the entire game I never blocked since I didn't want to be posture broken. So I always went for deflects and getting accidental blocks when I do the parry dance.
Problem 4) Learning how relatively safe it is to just hold down block.
So after learning to block after like 30+ hours into the game, I realized it is super easy to do setup parries like in Dark Souls 3 during phase 2 of S.S. Isshin. Blocking the first few attacks to see what combo he is doing and then deflecting the next few hits is waaaay easier than just trying to deflect all of the combo.
During the very same fight I started to hold down block for the first time in the entire game, and the very same fight I started to do setup parries Phase 2; I got to Isshin's 3 Phase for the 2nd time ever with no healing left.
I popped my Divine Grass and then just using the same strategy I just came up with along with sending the lightning right back at him, I beat him...
It was a big brain moment where I was like "what?????!" I was not expecting to beat Isshin with such a small adjustment in my play style.
Learning to block and setup parries made the last boss so much easier for me. I didn't even have time to practice it since I literally started using that strategy during phase 2 and ended up defeating him. I was not expecting to beat Isshin with such a small adjustment in my play style.
I guess all of the muscle memory from setup parries Dark Souls 3 and counter attacks in Ninja Gaiden Black all came back to me. I was beginning to think that the last boss was a bit unbalanced, but it was just me all along.
I guess all of the muscle memory from setup parries Dark Souls 3 and counter attacks in Ninja Gaiden Black all came back to me. I was beginning to think that the last boss was a bit unbalanced, but it was just me all along.
Regarding Abandoned Dungeon.
I've only gone through it to the Senpou Temple, and I died once immediately when I tried to kill that dark magic miniboss. Should I be ignoring him for now or do I need to go through that way?
There's an alternate entrance to the dungeon that allows you to go around that mini boss. You do get a really good ability for killing him though.
That was actually the first entrance I found, saw him beneath me and left to leave it for later. Didn't realise it continued straight past him.
Might be forgetting something important, but the impression I got was that the partner he talks about was that woman. Also might be the reason he got full of hatred?
I'll have to recheck the item descriptions and the drink conversations again.
I'll have to recheck the item descriptions and the drink conversations again.
Thanks for the reply, I'm pretty sure I fought all the mini bosses up until this point, no idea where else I can look.
You are either missing some prayer beads found as treasure through out the world, or maybe you didn't check all of Ashina Castle again after the fire.
I rember 1 bead on top of the budda in the poisin pool area and 1 in the pond at Senpou temple after you get the Mibu Diving skill.
I rember 1 bead on top of the budda in the poisin pool area and 1 in the pond at Senpou temple after you get the Mibu Diving skill.
There's a very well hidden mini boss in Ashina Castle behind some folding screen in some corner before you go upstairs to the dojo idol in case you're missing him.
Thanks!! I did this but I still got slaughtered by Mr. Pokey. Thankfully there are other places to go and practice or simply grind for skills.
Any tips on using shurikens or flame arm? I never want to waste them.
You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
You didn't grow.
You didn't improve.
You took a shortcut and gained nothing.
You experienced a hollow victory.
Nothing was risked and nothing was gained.
It's sad that you don't know the difference.
I am guessing Im near the end game now.
Ashina, third map refresh.
Enemies are super tedious with high HP, poise and damage. One of any two is fine but all three.....fucking just kill me. Shame too because the palace map was one of my favorite maps in the game and then to come back to not only the same Ashina map a third time but with even more annoying enemies....ungh.
Enemies are super tedious with high HP, poise and damage. One of any two is fine but all three.....fucking just kill me. Shame too because the palace map was one of my favorite maps in the game and then to come back to not only the same Ashina map a third time but with even more annoying enemies....ungh.
If you're sure you encountered all minibosses, there are some that are simply hidden away in chests or other locations. It's hard to guess which ones, since there are 40x total, but you should be able to find a list online.
Lmao noooo, did he disappear into a wall or something?
That's a bit sad because it's such an incredible fight though. It was so satisfying to beat him!
That would be true if I did something to game, but game did that to me. :D
I weirdly just ran out of gas on this game and haven't played it for like a week. I was progressing just fine, getting through bosses in about 5-10 tries usually. But after getting through the Guardian Ape boss and then jumping into the Depths and immediate fighting the Ape again but with two of them, I just sort of stopped wanting to play and haven't been back :/
Hopefully the urge will hit me sooner or later.
Hopefully the urge will hit me sooner or later.
I was just using a now popular meme, a glitched win is perfectly clean, if the game decides to spazz out, it's not our problem.
Most likely. It is shame because I really wanted to beat him the intended way. Here's the video:
The two it took me ages to find were hidden ones that you pick up as loot.
They were:
the one in Ashina Castle, behind the secret wall near the Antechamber Idol, and the one of you go through the hole in the floor where you fight the Centipede in the Gunfort.
the combat is finally starting to make sense. i still don't like how many mini bosses there are.
Same here. Seriously thinking about just putting it down and just watching the ending on youtube
I have completed every single Souls and Bloodborne several times. This is WAY harder
I had tried Genshiro only one time before and didn't really have a chance. So I decided to do other stuff first which culminated in the Snake Eyes fight at the Gun Fort. I found that mini boss extremely difficult. It is easy to make small mistakes (the littlest timing error) that he will punish hard. It took me about a dozen tries to get him. Then I went to Genshiro and thought: "just one try and see how it goes", and I got him in the first try. I think that the way you have to evade and dodge Snake Eyes is a perfect training to evade him. I never had never seen Genshiro's second phase before and escaping his lightning attacks was no problem at all.
Is it just me, or is he significantly easier when you have mastered bosses like the Snake Eyes or Lady Butterfly?
Is it just me, or is he significantly easier when you have mastered bosses like the Snake Eyes or Lady Butterfly?
Mr G is there to make sure you take off the training wheels and rid yourself of crutches like relying on Soulsborne muscle memory, imo. Up until that point you can coast by with a combination of grit and cheese tactics, but this is where I finally had to learn the finer points of Sekiro combat, and adopt the mindset of always pressing the attack. Even the endurance aspect of the fight ties into preparing you for what's to come, teaching you to minimize damage taken instead of outhealing boss damage and beating them through sheer attrition.
I didn't kill any of the two snake eyes mini bosses before Genichiro, but I did kill Lady Butterfly and I kind of think you're supposed to? Her moveset favors dodging and countering + mobility much more than Genichiro, so you can still get by on your old skills when dealing with her.
Shuriken are a great all-around tool that I always keep active in one slot. They destroy airborne enemies (like the game tells you), including the fucking roosters. But also: jumping dogs, jumping ninjas and jumping bosses. They can interrupt enemy combos and abilities (one particular mini-boss can be made a lot easier like that), and the upgraded versions can rack up reasonable vitality damage at no risk to you. The Flame shooter I've found best to use sparingly because it costs a lot of Ninja Juice for each gout of flame. It's best used on certain enemies who are weak to fire. YMMV though. I think the overall best prosthetic is probably the firecrackers, it trivializes some bosses/boss phases, but generally works for literally everything despite the description sounding a little underwhelming.
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Quick question about game progression now that I'm in NG+:
If I go and beat both Corrupted Monk and Guardian Ape even before I reach the top of the castle, what happens? What's the trigger for the Owl to show up at the top? Does he show up immediately after Genichiro?
You'd need to at least do
Folding Screen Monkeys and get the Mortal Blade.
Can you get to Guardian Ape before Genichiro though?
Can you get to Guardian Ape before Genichiro though?
It is probably that. I feel now comfortable to press the attack and I retreat less and less to heal. In other words I don't seek defense when my health is down which gets punished swiftly in Sekiro. There will always be room to heal when you stay in the fight. I really like Sekiro's fights right now.
True, completely forgot about the Mortal Blade and all that! Will try to see what happens if I try to reach the Guardian Ape before Genichiro.
I guess the game never clicked for me then. I never hit that spot since i hit many walls during my first play through and couldnt beat last boss myself. And in NG+ i just left the game at a late game boss, i am just like fuck it, the game will never "click" for me and i wont get good enough to get over that bump anyway.
owl (father) at hirata estate
During my first run, I couldn't beat Genichiro either, so I told myself "rah fuck that, I'm gonna explore and come back to him later". Then I landed in the Ashina Depths and fought a boss that I wasn't "supposed" to fight at that moment (Corrupted Monk). That fight was very, very difficult for me, almost lost my shit against that boss, but I wanted to beat her so badly lol. After that, I fought a very challenging mini-boss (O'Rin) in the same area. Tough fight, took me some time. Then, I came back to Genichiro and I kicked his ass quite easily! Fighting that boss and that mini-boss taught me a lot to "git gud"
I don't know if you can.
You need the key to the Gun Fort which Kuro gives you after the fight with Genichiro and when you have talked to Isshin in his watchtower. As for when Owl invades Ashina Castle. That triggers the moment you picked up the last ingredient for the Incense Burner which can either be the flower behind Guardian Ape or the rock behind the first Corrupted Monk in the wedding cave.
After defeating Owl you and Kuro make sure that you receive the fragrance of the burner (you need the mortal blade for this) so the big straw thing in the wedding cave can pick you up and lead you to the real Corrupted Monk fight.
After defeating Owl you and Kuro make sure that you receive the fragrance of the burner (you need the mortal blade for this) so the big straw thing in the wedding cave can pick you up and lead you to the real Corrupted Monk fight.
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Have you realized though that you can attack the enemies til they deflect you (golden sparks), where you start deflecting or dodging them yourself? This is the part most people don't notice at first which changes the whole game because you can anticipate every attack everyone has. There is no surprise anymore. The red kanjis are nothing more than having to jump on the enemies head like in Mario, pressing the dodge button for thrusts (without moving) or running away/jumping at certain grabs (running in Ogres case, jumping in DoHs case e.g.). Everything else is just you having to be patient and not stressing yourself out which is the reason people always make simple mistakes e.g. "God damn it I saw that he thrusts, but I still jumped!" which is a typical "I am under stress and make easy stupid mistakes" thing.
How does NG+ work, in terms of difficulty and enemy scaling, and is there any real point of taking my time through it, or should I just blow through it and go from boss to boss?
Got the final boss into his final phase now for a couple of tries. Even got him nearly down one time. Definetly getting better but still lose to much for doing dumb shit in the first phases. The repitition is making me sloppy.
More Vitality/Posture damage
Increased difficulty (NG+ is harmelss though, NG++ is way more difficult)
Heavy coins instead of Prayer Beads if you got them from the coresponding mini bosses
Posture does not regenerate as quick as the run before by holding block
Key items are replaced with other more rare items
There is one art that you can only get through the bad ending
Also you receive Kuros Charme which you can give back to him at the start of the game which increases the difficulty further because you will start taking chip damage all the time when you just block. You can reset this once, but not get the difficulty back after that.
So...do the boss rush and laugh at their faces. :)
I just started. Combat is very satisfying, moreso than souls/BB, must be the right pace for me.
Have gone in completely blind since the reveal trailer so could someone be nice enough to explain the death mechanic to me? Seems quite different.
Have gone in completely blind since the reveal trailer so could someone be nice enough to explain the death mechanic to me? Seems quite different.
Sounds lovely. This is the next location on my list. Will go there next.
Ah, OK. That doesn't sound too bad, and chip damage is OK, as I generally either deflect everything, or just deflect it with my face.
Briefly put, you can revive once (upon revival, you are only at half health but you can heal back to full). You must kill enemies and do deathblows to earn that restoration power back, if you want to revive again without resting (resting of course gives that resurrection power back instantly). If you die the second time and not have gotten that resurrection power again, you die for good and lose 50% acquired skill exp (you don't lose any earned skill points tho) and gold. You can fall to pits as many times as long as you have more than 50% health. You have a chance to not lose any skill exp or gold upon dying with "unseen aid" (you can see the chance-% in menu).