Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

[Nyerp]

wait so you can only circumvent the 4 playthroughs with savescumming?

[Samus Aran]

wait so you can only circumvent the 4 playthroughs with savescumming?

yes, as there are four endings and a trophy for each one

granted, this game is even shorter than a typical souls game, with a ton of bosses and minibosses being optional (or only necessary for one ending or another) so ng+ and higher runs are very fast

like, despite my initial playthrough taking me a while, i did my ng+ run in a day

[Nyerp]

um i wish the symbol for perilous attacks appeared above the enemies' head and not sekiro's. it kinda takes my focus away from the enemy when i'm supposed to be carefully watching their attack animations.

[Samus Aran]

um i wish the symbol for perilous attacks appeared above the enemies' head and not sekiro's. it kinda takes my focus away from the enemy when i'm supposed to be carefully watching their attack animations.

you'll get used to it

the one complaint i actually do have about perilous attacks tho is i wish the symbol actually differed to indicate which type of attack it is. granted, that miiight make it a bit too easy but still

[C.Mongler]

i should play this again i am on thunder samurai

[Nyerp]

i'm impressed by how nonlinear the game is so far. there are at least 4 different paths i could take right now and i don't if there's a "correct" one. it reminds me a lot of dark souls 1 in that regard, only without the lack of warping. however, i've found a couple of shortcuts that seem almost completely worthless, which is strange for a fromsoft game.

[Nyerp]

genichiro ashina is the hardest second(?) boss in any video game. i gave 4 npcs dragonrot while throwing myself at him lmao

man this is the most "FUCK YOU for dying" souls-esque game ever. half your money? gone. want to go pick those souls up? nope they're gone. like that npc? they have cancer now. eat shit.

[TooB]

genichiro ashina is the hardest second(?) boss in any video game. i gave 4 npcs dragonrot while throwing myself at him lmao

man this is the most "FUCK YOU for dying" souls-esque game ever. half your money? gone. want to go pick those souls up? nope they're gone. like that npc? they have cancer now. eat shit.

I guess, at the very least, you don't lose "everything."

Just half

[Samus Aran]

genichiro ashina is the hardest second(?) boss in any video game. i gave 4 npcs dragonrot while throwing myself at him lmao

man this is the most "FUCK YOU for dying" souls-esque game ever. half your money? gone. want to go pick those souls up? nope they're gone. like that npc? they have cancer now. eat shit.

genichiro is the true "skill check" of the game. no other boss ever seemed as hard to me as genichiro did when i was still new to the game. he's pretty much a test of your ability to properly deflect and punish. however, i really love that fight and kicking his ass in one try upon playing ng+ felt so good.

i'm still unsure of how i feel about the game's approach to losing experience/money. on one hand, it's nice that you only lose progress toward the next skill point - once you have a point locked in, you can't lose it. likewise, losing money isn't a terribly big deal overall since there aren't that many things worth buying in the game and you can bank your money before bosses by buying coin purses. aaand dragonrot is a nearly useless mechanic with no real repurcussions, which is both a good and bad thing lol. basically, while it seems like losing all that matters a lot right now, trust me it really doesn't matter much lol. losing massive amounts of souls in dark souls games was way more heartbreaking.

overall i definitely prefer the souls style for death punishment but sekiro's isn't bad, it's just kind of weird and feels a bit...underdeveloped?

[Nyerp]

likewise, losing money isn't a terribly big deal overall since there aren't that many things worth buying in the game and you can bank your money before bosses by buying coin purses.

oh fuk i didn't think of that thanks

[Nyerp]

OH BOY AN INSTA-KILL STATUS EFFECT

OH BOY TWO MINI-BOSSES SO FAR THAT DO NOTHING BUT INFLICT THAT STATUS EFFECT ON YOU

i sure hope i can somehow become immune to terror at some point or i don't think i'll ever kill these things lmao

anyway the exploration in this game is god-tier

[Samus Aran]

OH BOY AN INSTA-KILL STATUS EFFECT

OH BOY TWO MINI-BOSSES SO FAR THAT DO NOTHING BUT INFLICT THAT STATUS EFFECT ON YOU

i sure hope i can somehow become immune to terror at some point or i don't think i'll ever kill these things lmao

a few things can really help with this. one is using a pacifying agent, which are consumables that help you resist terror (and empty your current terror gauge). these are highly necessary for these fights.

the second consumable you really need to have before fighting any terror minibosses is divine confetti. these are extremely rare until late game (after you beat corrupted monk i think), at which point they're suddenly available from merchants. you can't really even hope to damage headless much without divine confetti, so it's pointless to fight them until an ample supply is available.

there are two prosthetics that are also very handy: the purple lilac shield and the malcontent finger whistle. both of which you probably won't have until late game. purple lilac shield blocks all terror moves when you have it out, and i don't actually use it a ton except to block shichimen warrior's beam attack, but its a comfort to have and you may want to whip it out once in a while if a huge terror ball from shichimen seems unavoidable at the time. malcontent is super late game, and basically makes all apparition enemies stagger up to three times so you get a bunch of free hits. you absolutely will want to have this for a certain hidden boss at the end of the game, but it also makes headless fights trivial.

personally i think it's somewhat pointless to bother with any of the shichimen warriors or headless until you have AT LEAST divine confetti available for purchase. fighting headless is basically just a DPS check with divine confetti, you have to whack them relentlessly with your confetti'd sword and try to kill them before they can do much. shichimen warrior is much more of an "actual" fight, but it's still nearly impossible to damage much without the confetti.

an exception: the two underwater headless can be fought without confetti and really aren't very hard at all, but confetti still helps. i imagine the reason that they don't have the same resistance is because you can't use consumables underwater. nothing's stopping you from using them on land and then diving down to the fight, tho.

[Nyerp]

folding screen monkeys down lmao wtf

[Samus Aran]

how'd that fight go for you? i pretty much never ended up killing them the "intended ways"

[Nyerp]

I think I killed one of them the intended way (using the rushing water to hide the sound of my footsteps) and maaaaybe the secret monkey using the room with books on the ground to figure out what was happening (most satisfying part of the fight tbh). But the purple one just ran at me in some room and I killed it instantly, and I brute forced the orange one by randomly happening upon it because I had no idea what to do lol.