Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro is a great game with one of the best combat systems in any video game ever. And I’m glad to have played and completed it—and to have platinumed it. It is definitely in my top 10.
The Combat
The most important part of the game, is obviously the combat, and the bosses as well—they go hand in hand. Sekiro’s combat is often described as a dance, and that’s not wrong I don’t think. In the start the abilities at your disposal are basic, but you really don’t need much more to beat the game, there is one ability that should be in your default kit, though I know why it isn’t… that is the Mikiri Counter ability. It is the first ability you will ever get probably and it serves as a way to teach the player about the ability system, so it makes sense that it’s not in your default kit since for most players it will be the first ability they ever acquire.
Endgame combat
Endgame and NG+ combat when compared to how you started out is such a vast difference, with so many abilities at your disposal—you can choreograph fights to basically become cool-ass anime fights, if you’re good enough of course. I’m not that good but I’ve gotten some awesome fights here and there, though if you really wanna see some badass gameplay the YouTuber ONGBAL has a lot…
The amount of abilities at your disposal allows for the most cinematic fights that you’d think came straight from an anime sakuga animator but, you’re literally playing it! It’s actually so fucking cool.
The Bosses
Long story short, there’s only like 3 bad bosses in the entire game in my opinion. I consider a boss bad if it’s just simply not fun to fight. If I’m not looking forward to fighting a boss during a playthrough then it is a bad boss, a good boss I look forward to fighting right from the beginning!
Those three bad bosses are, maybe you’ve already conjectured a guess…
- The Guardian Ape
- The Folding Screen Monkeys
- The Demon of Hatred
Yeah, who would’ve thought that the three bosses in the sword fighting game that are not about sword fighting would be the worst bosses in the game…
The Folding Screen Monkeys boss fight is just bad and annoying as fuck.
And while I don’t think the guardian ape isn’t the worst it’s still pretty bad… it goes against literally everything that makes this game fun in my opinion and it is stupidly difficult when you first fight it.
And the demon of hatred… there’s not much to say—I cheesed him and then never fought him again.
The Story
The story serves its purpose. It’s not the best but it is great for what it is! Obviously the setting is absolutely awesome and the environments and all of that are amazing. Lord Kuro is cool and the other story characters such as Emma are also awesome.
My main gripe would be with the endings and how one of them specifically is like impossibly hard to achieve without looking anything up. You may have not known this but you can eavesdrop on some of the conversations between Lord Kuro and Emma, and this is required for one of the endings… that’s not the bad part though—you can stumble into it, I think I actually did in fact… what is incredibly hard to figure out is that at one point you have to eavesdrop on Emma and the sculptor by going behind the hut in a very specific spot! It wouldn’t be an issue if you didn’t have to be in such a specific spot, but there’s just no way to know that if you don’t look up a guide or SOMEHOW end up stumbling upon it at the right time.
The very last ending (and the one in my platinum video) is the hardest to achieve as you have to kill a secret boss and to do that you have to figure out that you have to backstab and use the puppeteer ability on the enemy in front of the kite in Senpou Temple in order to reach that secret boss—and then you have to know what to do with the Divine Child of Rejuvenation… I don’t know how people originally figured this shit out man.
Yeah that’s it. Bye.