Everytime I prepare to play a new game I expect to see one of three aspects. The first is gameplay, because every game should at least have some type of gameplay to engage the player. The second is a good story, if your game is narrative focused I hope the writers put a good amount of time into the plot. The final aspect is the most important in my opinion and that is the challenge. You have to at least build up the challenge throughout a game. If the game becomes too easy, the player loses their interest and the game no longer becomes fun to play. By scaling the difficulty at a consistent pace you keep the player coming back for more. Each failed attempt is another way for them to learn from their mistakes, and once they get past the challenge and overwhelming odds they feel rewarded. It feels good knowing that after failing so many times to beat a hard boss, that you finally triumph over it and get to experience the rest of the game. This thrill is what pushes you forward.
Challenge comes at a cost, two factors being difficulty and accessibility. Some players who hop into a game may have a hard time understanding the mechanics or rules of the game, and the developer's answer to solving these problems is toning down the in game difficulty. Some games have one set difficulty and these games force the player to adapt. However gamers and critics have complained these games aren’t highly accessible, because without the ability to change the difficulty they are forced to struggle. Personally I like having one set difficulty. Sometimes the challenge in a game can be blamed less on the game’s design and more on the player's knowledge. Did they rush into a dangerous situation without knowing what would happen? Did they analyze their surroundings carefully? Did they learn anything new? Questions like those help the player to improve. And if you are going to have multiple difficulty settings I suggest starting on normal mode and unlocking harder modes once you beat the game. For example in Dead Cells you start off in normal mode, but once you beat the game you unlock hard mode. Once you beat it in hard mode, you unlock a harder difficulty and so on from there. It’s basically telling the player they can either play it the way it’s intended to be played, or take it a step further and try out hard mode.
Some of my most favorite games have one set difficulty, but there’s no better example of difficult games than FromSoftware. In 2011 they created Dark Souls, a game heavily praised not only for it’s world but it’s steep learning curve. Dark Souls helped establish that modern games can still be fun without removing the sense of challenge. Dark Souls would go on to inspire several other games, and FromSoftware would later make several entries related to their masterpiece. Dark Souls became a trilogy, and one title that took the core mechanics of the series and put a twist on it was the lovecraftian inspired Bloodborne. Bloodborne was the first FromSoftware game I have ever beaten, and it soon became one of my favorite games of all time. Unlike Dark Souls which focused more on being defensive, Bloodborne focused on being aggressive. There were no shields or sorceries in the game, just a blade and gun. Players would have to learn how to dodge enemy attacks and strike at the right time, something Dark Souls didn’t do a good job teaching the players. Once I beat Bloodborne I went back to Dark Souls. I played it just how I played Bloodborne and finally they all clicked for me.
Sometimes a change in pace is what’s needed to take steps towards the right direction. So when FromSoftware released Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice in 2019, a game that would take us to ancient Japan and make us face off against ferocious foes with badass samurai combat, I was generously excited. I poured dozens of hours into Bloodborne and I wanted to see what FromSoftware had next to offer. When I finally dove into the world of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice I was both pleased and disappointed.
The game’s design was drastically different from the action RPG format of Dark Souls or Bloodborne, and compared to how well paced FromSoft’s previous pieces works were this game had the steepest learning curve of the bunch and some of the steps that have to be taken aren't exactly fun. However, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice isn’t a bad game. The new playstyle they force onto the player was interesting, this is one of the very few games out there that understands how to do samurai combat, and it still feels delightful to overcome a challenge. Critics praised the game for being FromSoftware’s “best piece of work," and it was considered by many to be “Game of The Year” for 2019. Does Sekiro truly deserve all these titles or am I just a grumpy man who doesn’t like change? Today we’ll be talking about why the highly acclaimed Sekiro wasn't to my liking, and what makes it so different from the Soulsborne titles. So sharpen your katana, strap on your prosthetic, and prepare to venture through Ashina.
Story
Long before the game’s main events, an epic war occured in the land of Ashina over who would control it. Thousands of civilians died during the war, but the one who claimed Ashina for himself was none other than the ruler Isshin Ashina, the warlord of the land who skillfully took down the enemy side’s leading general. In the ruins of one of the battlefields we find a young boy who is contemplating over the tragedy the war brought. He is alone, cold, and has no guardians to look over him. A shinobi named Ukonzaemon Usui, nicknamed Owl, encounters the poor boy and takes him in as his own. Owl names the poor boy Wolf, and for the next few years he would train him to become a professional shinobi. Decades pass and Owl decides to give Wolf a duty. Wolf is tasked to look over a young boy named Kuro, who has some weird power that everyone wants. Wolf promises to look over Kuro, and protect him at all costs.
Well I guess the opposite happens, because we find Wolf sitting in a dark isolated cell and Kuro has been kidnapped. Wolf ventures out of his cell and finds Kuro stuck in a wooden shack. Kuro arms Wolf with a katana, and after fighting his way through a group of soldiers, Wolf secures an escape route for Kuro. However things go horribly when they are attacked by Genichiro, the adopted grandson of Isshin Ashina. Now that he is in control of Ashina, Genichiro wants the powers Kuro has and he’ll do anything to gain them. Wolf tries to fight Genichiro, but he fails to do so and his left arm is cut off. Kuro is taken again and Wolf’s body is dumped into a river. Several hours pass and Wolf wakes up in a temple, and the only one inside is an old retired shinobi named Sekijo. Sekijo is a sculptor who carves Budda statues, but he gives Wolf the Shinobi Prosthetic, a wooden arm that allows Wolf to grapple towards ledges and mod it to perform special abilities. He tells Wolf that Ashina Castle is nearby, and without hesitating Wolf sets off to storm the castle, defeat Genichiro, and save his master Kuro. But there is a much deeper story behind this, something Kuro is hiding from Wolf.
Gameplay
Unlike Bloodborne and Dark Souls which were at best action games with RPG elements, Sekiro is purley just an action game. It’s much more intense and requires a lot of quick time reaction from the player. Much like any FromSoft game you explore each area fighting enemies and dying over and over again until you get everything right. When you die you respawn at a checkpoint, you lose some of the experience points you earned, and all the enemies respawn besides bosses and minibosses. I just said Sekiro isn’t an RPG yet I mentioned experience points? Well there is a reason why there are still experience points. If you gain enough experience points you earn a skill point and skill points can be used to purchase new skills from a skill tree. These skills can include new attacks, movement upgrades, and different types of counters.
Countering enemy attacks plays a big role in Sekiro. Sekiro is a unique blend of Dark Soul’s defensiveness and Bloodborne’s aggressiveness. Enemies have two meters this time, the first is their health bar and the second is their posture meter. If you continuously strike an enemy their posture meter goes up and when it’s full you can open them up to perform a death blow on them which instantly kills them. Another way of filling up their posture meter is deflecting, which is where you block their attacks at the right time. Be warned that you too have a posture meter and if that fills up you're stunned and left open to attack. Finally there is countering, which can only be used on certain attacks. When a red symbol appears over an enemy it means they are about to perform one of three attacks, a grab, a thrust, or sweep. You either dodge from the grab and strike them afterwards, jump over the sweep and hit the enemy in the head, or mikiri counter the thrust. It feels pretty badass countering dangerous attacks, but it sucks when you're not given enough time to see which of the three they're about to do. In earlier sections of the game most basic enemies only have one of three attacks, but later on they start having combinations of all three and it’s hard to predict which one they're about to do because all three attacks use the same red symbol. If they were to use different symbols or colors then it would feel more fair on the player.
Luckily unlike Bloodborne and Dark Souls, Sekiro doesn't have a stamina meter. Which means I can attack, dodge, and deflect all I want. However you can’t just spam the same action over and over because you will be punished. I tried playing it like Bloodborne where dodging was more effective than blocking, but soon I learned dodging was ineffective because you don’t have as many I-frames as Bloodborne so enemies can hit you even when you dodge. This forced me to adapt to Sekiro’s world which is pretty good but I didn’t want to stick with deflecting for the whole game. Besides the removal of a stamina meter Sekiro is a hartsdown a single player game. You can’t get any online messages telling you of secrets or summon other players to help with a boss fight. There are no longer random players invading your world which is good now that I think of it. This forces the main player to learn everything on their own.
Another new aspect to Sekiro is the Shinobi Prosthetic. You can unlock tools for it and use them out in the field. There’s only like two to three that are probably useful, so I won’t go any further into it. Bosses are different this time around, rather than kill them once you have to perform multiple death blows on them until you can finish them off. It’s cool knowing when you're close to killing a boss, but frustrating when it lags on too long. If you fall during battle you have the option to revive yourself, but this comes at a cost. A disease known as Dragon Rot spreads if you use it too much and it’ll affect NPCs around you. You can’t continue any of the sidequests you are doing unless you cure the Dragon Rot. Finally there is leveling up your health and attack power.
You level up your attack power by using Memories, which are earned from killing main bosses. Health is leveled up by collecting at least four prayer beads, which are earned from killing minibosses and exploring the world. At first I thought this was a good thing, because now I wouldn’t have to grind to unlock the experience points I needed to upgrade my skills. Rather I go for a heart container progression system like Zelda. But then I remembered Sekiro ditches the RPG elements that Soulsborne had, so I didn’t really have that many choices when leveling up. What happened to earning enough blood echoes of souls, so that you can choose from a wide selection of stats and forge the playstyle you want? Also I hope you like having the same katana swings, because unlike the Soulsborne games you can’t change your armor or weapon. So you’ll be playing as the same guy with the same weapon for twenty hours. Outside of that there isn’t much else I can say about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Thoughts
Sekiro may not be as worthy as Bloodborne or Dark Souls, but deep down it’s still a good game. There is actually a clear narrative this time around that constantly reminds the player what they are working towards and where they are supposed to go. However it loses the sense of discovery and wonder Bloodborne and Dark Souls had. What I like about Bloodborne and Dark Souls is that they were able to build up a strong world without having to constantly stop the player and explain things to them. The player would have to research the history of the world themselves if they wanted to find out what was going on. This search for knowledge is what kept the player engaged with what was around them and it felt so satisfying to find out who was who or what was what. Basically what I am saying is that the story in Dark Souls and Bloodborne was an adventure you had to discover, while the story in Sekiro is just an average story. FromSoftware has proven that you don’t need to explain things to the player to make them care about what is going on, and Sekiro seems to contradict that belief.
In my opinion the bosses in Sekiro, while exhilarating to fight and are rewarding once you beat them, aren't as memorable or imaginative as what Bloodborne and Dark Souls pulled out. They fit in with the setting, but maybe that’s the problem. They felt at home and weren’t experimental enough. They may be memorable to a majority of players, but they don’t feel as extraordinary as the giant wolf carrying a sword or a mutated orphan using his own guts to fight. A good chunk of the minibosses are reused to fill the world up and I find this pretty lazy. Well what is at least one good thing I can say ?
The combat is good and something new for FromSoftware. Clashing your sword against another enemies’ blade, exchanging hits between each other, and opening them up for a killing blow. It all feels like an actual sword fight. The posture meter took some time to get used to, but what troubled me most was the removal of the stamina bar. Sekiro is a more action focused game, so of course they need to remove it. However, with the stamina bar players had to decide when to perform what actions at the right time. Finding those windows of opportunity. Here in Sekiro you feel like you can spam the attack or dodge button over and over without any limitations. There are punishments for spamming the same action, but not as much. The environments are extremely detailed and this is the brightest world FromSoftware has ever made. There is this one cool section where you navigate through a dark lit tunnel full of crap only to go up towards the surface and find yourself at a mountain full of colorful trees and buddhist temples. The voice acting and audio is pretty good. The audio and impact for each attack and prosthetic tools feel fantastic. Some of the areas have more verticality, but it’s done in a right way where they make use of the grapple arm you now have to traverse the environment. The main character Wolf is a really badass in general and the characters are really hard to hate as they all play an important role.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is good enough, but I think I can understand what makes it the toughest among all of FromSoftware’s work. I think the reason why Sekiro is hard is not because of how aggressive the game can get or the playstyle it forces onto the player. It’s the amount of choice the player has available when approaching a given problem. In Dark Souls you can take on whatever playstyle you want as long as you know how to use it. You can dual wield katanas and flip around in light clothing, turn yourself into a tank by wearing heavy armor and wield a massive greatsword, fight afar with a list of sorceries, etc. Sekiro would feel less restrictive on the player if they at least gave them some more options on how to approach fights.
I don’t hate Sekiro because it’s hard. I actually like how FromSoftware made another game focused on the motto of improving and growing stronger. However, they have strayed very far from the action RPG formula that Bloodborne and Dark Souls have perfected. It’s not a bad game and I can see people having a really good time with this game. Out of all the Triple A games of 2019 this probably deserved the GOTY award the most and luckily it got just that. To me, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is somewhat of a beautiful disappointment. A game with great intentions and good ideas, but was targeted towards a more general audience. The type who play generic action games and hate anything that involves numbers and leveling. In the end I have decided to give Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice a 6.5/10 for being passable enough. For me at least.
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