#also shout out to the combo dude; the heck is their deal

[rascal-rose]

also that one chef task in john gutter where you gotta go speedrunner mode

[strangeaegis]

Sekiro: A Step-up From SoulsBorne Games

The subtitle is actually “Shadows Die Twice;” Don’t be confused, but I think it’s deserving of the former title just as much as the latter. So let’s get in to the nitty-gritty and see why.

For those that don’t know, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a game developed by FromSoftware, a company who have become quite well-known after creating the Dark Souls games, as well as Bloodborne. This style of game (fairly challenging action RPG with dedicated and uninterruptible animations) has been lovingly referred to as “SoulsBorne” since then.

Sekiro does something that SoulsBorne games haven’t completely managed to do for me yet though- and that’s force me to accept and learn their style of combat.

I’ve played through the first Dark Souls at least 15 times, and I’ve gone through Bloodborne maybe more, but beside an absurdly small number of them I couldn’t tell you the basic move-set of most bosses or enemies in the games.

See, I’m an avid fan of flailing, rolling, blocking and cheesing enemies or bosses until I’m strong and arguably overpowered enough to decimate them with pure muscle. Shadows Die Twice stripped that away from me, and I’ll admit that I didn’t go down without a fight.

I spent hours standing up in front of my TV, dashing and shouting and mashing the L1 button to “parry,” by definition, but moreso just hope and pray to a higher power that I deflected anything that came near me. After countless agonizing deaths and a couple NPCs suffering from Dragonrot (a disease afflicting those that fraternize with your player character as you die more and more), I learned that I really couldn’t just brute force my way through this game like I could with all the others.

As much as I tried, I realized I was basically corpse-running my way back to an enemy to give them another opportunity to hand my head to me in ten seconds- and oh man, did I try:

•Standing on the other side of fire to see if they’d walk in to it.

•Attempting a stealth kill to take out one HP segment, and then hiding until they stopped searching for me, before I realized that their HP fully regenerates if the fight ends.

•Looking up ways to boost stats earlier than usual to buff my character up.

Each time, Sekiro and FromSoftware wagged a finger in my face and said “nuh-uh, stop that.”

Eventually, I gave in, and that’s when I started appreciating the game even more than I already did (which was a lot).

Now, in Sekiro, the main focus of combat is parrying and wearing down a “Posture Bar.” Damaging posture is just as important as damaging health, if not more. These successive parries throw enemies off balance quicker and allow you to strike them down. The timing is just generous enough to let you freak out just a little bit, but excellent timing rewards you by dealing heavy posture damage and sometimes allowing an immediate execution of foes.

Reduced invincibility frames also encourage being more aggressive with your parries, rather than dodging and dashing your way through a fight most of the time like in Bloodborne.

Armed with this knowledge, I … continued treating this like Bloodborne for just a bit longer, dancing around and spamming parries while trying to mash the R1 attack button to beat enemies down. After having my ass delivered to me promptly each time, I really started watching my opponents’ movements, and learning how their weapons moved and struck. I started piecing together combos and pauses and openings in defense, and I became one with the Shinobi spirit this game encourages you to have; Blasting through tougher enemies with well-timed parries and counter slashes, and collecting their useful loot like it was candy held by a wimpy, defenseless and postureless baby.

The thing that Sekiro does with stats and stat-boosting items is a genius move for the SoulsBorne series, in my opinion. Gone are the days of tedious power-leveling (mostly), as are the days of frantic corpse-running. To boost your maximum HP and Posture, you need to collect prayer beads dropped by the tougher, mini-boss like enemies in the game, and to boost your attack strength, you have to defeat big bad bosses. There’s no avoiding those stronger dudes if you want to be stronger your self.

A very cheesy thing I’ve done in older Souls games was fight fodder enemies repeatedly or even use those frame-perfect glitches to “GET 40000 SOULS IN ONE HOUR” so that I could level the heck out of my stats and “Incredible Hulk” my way through the game from there. If someone was a bit too tough for me, I’d skip past them, and if I died and dropped all my Souls in a fight, I would sprint past everything in a desperate attempt to regain my stuff before even thinking about engaging a foe.

In Shadows Die Twice (and eventually thrice), you can’t raise your stats unless you face those strong opponents and overcome them- a mantra that SoulsBorne games like to emphasize, but Sekiro forces upon you. Sure, you can learn new skills and combat techniques; Something akin to the Weapon Arts of Dark Souls 3, but these things won’t carry you through a tough encounter. If you want to become stronger, you WILL learn enemy attack patterns and you WILL defeat them and triumph. You WILL become more inherently skilled at this game in the process, not just overpowered.

If you die, you’ll lose half of your experience points (used to net you a Skill Point automatically upon reaching the level up threshold), as well as half of your currently held currency. So, you won’t lose everything you have, like in the older games, but …

There’s no getting that back.

Yeah, that’s gone for good. You can run back to that guy that killed you, but you won’t regain anything previously lost other than maybe some dignity.

I prefer this, honestly. I feel that It makes you calmer in a weird way. Instead of running back to that tough guy- knees weak, arms heavy, with vomit on your sweater already- mom’s spaghetti- hoping you can run over to your Souls and mash (X) fast enough to pick them up before anything goes wrong, you just need to accept that what you’ve lost is gone and move on. You can return to your foe with a calm mind, not worried about that potential gain-back.

I might not be explaining my sentiments as well as I’d like. I just feel that I don’t get as depressed over dying in Sekiro as much as I did in any other SoulsBorne title. They keep death scary while somehow managing to also make it less discouraging.

I like that shit, that’s all.

In conclusion, I believe that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice teaches you to accept your losses and keep trying, more than Dark Souls or Bloodborne ever did, and in a much better way.

I believe that FromSoftware is taking a much-needed step in the right direction with their new IP, and keeping things fresh and exciting in a world full of Japanese history games and Dark Souls clones.

Also, thank Buddha for that free jump button. How did FromSoftware go from the worst jump in a video game to one of the best?