Multiplat Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - 2019 Game Awards GOTY

[Struggle]

There's about 5 different ways I can go at the moment and they all end in me getting my arse handed to me

 

[Long Live HFC]

well, jesus christ. what an amazing yet punishing fortnight or so. 54 hours steam tells me (but a reasonable portion of that is me reading fextralife or similar 'help me im s**t' sites). i've exhausted all content up to the ape boss, other than the various headless (as i ran out of confetti at some point). after reading complaints and watching a couple of vids i might leave the ape for a couple days and re-explore the world to make sure i havent missed anything.

been frustrated at many turns but no more than DS3 i guess (the only FS game i've played for decent hours). overall i love its gameplay design but some of the tech issues still annoy me, in particular the camera. i managed to fix the framepacing/rate issues by changing my TV to 50fps; steam tells me 60 my TV tells me 60 but with the windows setting on 50 no more occasional framerate dramas. no idea if this makes the game slightly easier or not but * it, like others here im pretty old now anyway haha.

still not convinced i have the talent to finish the game but * i'll spend a bunch of hours being pissed off trying. only cheesed one boss so far, but lady butterfly can GAGF.

There's about 5 different ways I can go at the moment and they all end in me getting my arse handed to me

strong username to sekiro performance ratio!

 

[LukasTheGreat]

It's insane how quick you can blow through this game when you've done it once. NG+ and got up to and defeated

Spoiler

Guardian Ape

within an hour of starting.

 

[Purple Suit]

It's insane how quick you can blow through this game when you've done it once. NG+ and got up to and defeated

Spoiler

Guardian Ape

within an hour of starting.

I suppose a lot of the mini bosses can be skipped, although maybe they turn into trash mobs once your fully maxed?

Hearing bad things about that Boss, not looking forward to it, although can report the old hag died tonight so have had 5 minutes of smiling between struggles.

 

[dwwaino]

It's insane how quick you can blow through this game when you've done it once. NG+ and got up to and defeated

Spoiler

Guardian Ape

within an hour of starting.

 

[LukasTheGreat]

I suppose a lot of the mini bosses can be skipped, although maybe they turn into trash mobs once your fully maxed?

Definitely the latter. Once some of the later bosses force you to learn the game, the mini bosses are cannon fodder.

 

[Purple Suit]

Just beat Genichiro after thirty attempts, jumped to my feet and did some involuntary hip thrusts. What a crazy difficult early game boss.

Was fighting him last night. Got to the final phase but couldn’t get him after an hour of trying. I do like the quote in the cut scene leading up.

“This won’t take long”.

Yeah, right...

 

[Purple Suit]

He’s dead. Only took another 2 hours. Pro tip, put in some headphones and listen to music to not get too angry after the first hour, worked for me. God it feels so good to lunge that sword in when you’ve finally done it (at the same time praying a fourth phase doesn’t start).

 

[Red Black and Blue]

He’s dead. Only took another 2 hours. Pro tip, put in some headphones and listen to music to not get too angry after the first hour, worked for me. God it feels so good to lunge that sword in when you’ve finally done it (at the same time praying a fourth phase doesn’t start).

I listened to podcasts, not getting tense seems to be a big help

 

[Drummer_19]

Mess around for a bit on NG+ for the first time since I beat it. Mystifying how much better I am at it having gone through the game than I was at the point I just stopped at. Just completely crushed everything up to and including Genichiro.

 

[Purple Suit]

Got up to the ape, what a prick of a boss. Definitely a dance.

Spoiler

even worse was when their was two of them 30 minutes after I finally beat the first one. Thankfully took me less than an hour as I already knew the dance.

 

[Mr_Moogle]

Got up to the ape, what a prick of a boss. Definitely a dance.

Spoiler

even worse was when their was two of them 30 minutes after I finally beat the first one. Thankfully took me less than an hour as I already knew the dance.

Spoiler

It's funny, I thought the great ape was pretty hard for a while but those repeated attempts trained me pretty well. By the time I made it to the 2 ape fight, I was a pro at fighting them and got it in the second try with little to no healing. It helps that the brown ape doesn't have 2 health bars so you can dispatch him pretty quickly.

I'm 63 hours and have been taking the game really slowly and grinding to buy out all the merchants etc. I'm now up to the Demon of Hatred which is a classic tank style Dark Souls boss. It's kicking my ass atm but that's mostly down to be being way too greedy on offense.

I'm still pretty hopeless at jump dodging. When I see the red kanji symbol I instantly go looking for the Mikiri and this works out badly a lot of the time becase I end up getting hit by sweep attacks. I'd estimate 80% of all sweep attacks hit me which is pretty atrocious. I need to work on reading telegraphed attacks. I tend to rely on my reflexes instead of being smart and reading the actual animation patterns.

Cool, I'll keep that in mind. The hardest thing to adjust to is having to be aggressive as it's natural in a From game to be conservative. When I try to be I end up tunnelling and miss the tells. That's the practice I guess.

You kind of have to play with your finger over L1 even when your smashing R1. If you're anything like me you'll have a bad habit for spamming R1 but you should try to train yourself out of this. You need to be always open to deflecting and spamming R1 tends to give people tunnel vision as you mentioned. If anything in Sekiro, it's L1 that you want to spam.

Also remember that holding down L1 will reduce your posture bar more quickly. Managing your posture properly allows you to attack more. This game is about getting the momentum and keeping it. Get used to deflecting as well because the dodge/roll mechanic was intentionally designed to be crappy and difficult to use. You can't dodge roll your way through Sekiro.

These are mostly just general tips but I'll tag them anyway:

Spoiler

Regarding prosthetics, I've found the Shuriken and Firecracker to be the most useful. The Axe is really fun to use but it's really only useful against a handful of enemies. I've barely used the spear, shield or any of the others. Later in the game you can get a poison blade which is really handy in the later stages of the game where enemies are vulnerable to poison.

Regarding skill point allocation, I would focus on latent abilities over combat arts because many of those are style over substance. There are a couple of really good ones like Ichimonji Double but for the most part I prefer latent abilities over combat arts because they are more useful in general gameplay. I feel like combat arts in general are better for veterans or people in NG+ who are at the point where they've mastered the game and want to experiment.

Try to find as many prayer beads as possible to increase your vitality and posture.

 

[Struggle]

Finally got through those final two bosses. I reckon they took 3 weeks to finally beat. Them send the ape were the absolute worst. 54 hours all up I think

 

[Upgrayedd]

So i suck

Dark sounds Fanatic, Game just hasnt clicked for me yet, Armored warrior giving me a bit of grief.

Overall really enjoying it.

 

[DapperJong]

Almost GOTY for me. I love it. This is the challenge I wanted God Of War to be.

 

[Long Live HFC]

the good thing about being really bad at sekiro is you get so much bang for your buck 91 hours in the end for me, though of course a fair bit of that comprised time spent on I'm s**t at Sekiro sites. even managed to beat

Spoiler

isshin the cheating sword saint of infinite campaignerness

without cheesing and got the

Spoiler

dragon's homecoming

ending which is apparently the most complicated. i didn't really care about that, was just after the most content i could find but missed the second fight against

Spoiler

owl

. but * me there's only so much one old man can manage.

fantastic game but i never did make peace with the camera and i'd really like them to spend more time on mouse/keyboard controls (yeah yeah i know, but i stopped using controllers before thumsticks and triggers became a thing).

unfortunately the next game in my library is cuphead so i expect my neighbours will keep thinking im a loud, agro psycho.

 

[FISTO]

Started playing this.

Lady Butterfly is a campaigner.

 

[DapperJong]

Started playing this.

Lady Butterfly is a campaigner.

spam block, get her posture bar up, don't let her get too far away from you

 

[FISTO]

spam block, get her posture bar up, don't let her get too far away from you

Got through it using different tactics (saw this post after beating her, thanks tho). I don't know if I'm playing it right but I tend to chip away at bosses health bars with quick precise strikes after learning their move sets rather than go for posture kills. Its worked on most but totally ineffective against a couple.

That feeling when you beat a boss you've been stuck on is total euphoria.

 

[DapperJong]

Got through it using different tactics (saw this post after beating her, thanks tho). I don't know if I'm playing it right but I tend to chip away at bosses health bars with quick precise strikes after learning their move sets rather than go for posture kills. Its worked on most but totally ineffective against a couple.

That feeling when you beat a boss you've been stuck on is total euphoria.

Yeah that does work too. Some battles just take time if their patterns are too hard to get. Not sure how far in you are but there is a certain mid game boss that I just couldn't beat unless i just chipped away. Trying to parry just ****ed me up.

 

[FISTO]

Yeah that does work too. Some battles just take time if their patterns are too hard to get. Not sure how far in you are but there is a certain mid game boss that I just couldn't beat unless i just chipped away. Trying to parry just ****** me up.

I assume that fight is coming up soon. I'm up to Genichiro Ashina which is the last fight in this area (the other fights available to me is a headless from earlier who rapes me and another dude who uses terror balls in the well who I guess I'll also go back to later).

This guy is a bit of a campaigner but my run around like an arsehole and slowly chip away tactic is showing signs of progress. I just wish I was better at parrying and countering it seems so much more effective.

Would you say its wise to run around for a few hours mindlessly killing grunts to level up skills or not worth it?

 

[DapperJong]

Would you say its wise to run around for a few hours mindlessly killing grunts to level up skills or not worth it?

Not worth it. You can only gain other skills and not increased def/att.

My little tip for Genichiro, try this pattern as your base method to get some deflections happening - Attack once then block x3. Then he usually does 3 different things. If you can start to predict it you will blast through the first 2 phases.

 

[FISTO]

Not worth it. You can only gain other skills and not increased def/att.

My little tip for Genichiro, try this pattern as your base method to get some deflections happening - Attack once then block x3. Then he usually does 3 different things. If you can start to predict it you will blast through the first 2 phases.

Roger that. Gonna get stuck in now I'll report back in 6 hours or however long it takes to beat him.

 

[Drummer_19]

Biggest thing imo that will carry you throughout the game is to remain aggressive and being able to recognise when the enemy parries you, you'll notice this happens when you're clanging swords on the attack and there's a huge spark from the swords, that's an indication that they're about to go on the attack so then you can be prepared to parry and build up their posture and then go back on offense, it'll also get you used to his attack timing/patterns. Genichiro is a great fight for feeling this stuff out, if you can go through the learning pains of being comfortable parrying you'll get through the rest of the game fine, I think.

Obv play your own way but I really think in the long run you'll end up having a much easier time if you focus on getting good at parrying and building up posture vs turtling and trying to find your spots chipping away at HP (which also has value at times since the lower the red bar the quicker enemy posture will build up)

 

[FISTO]

Biggest thing imo that will carry you throughout the game is to remain aggressive and being able to recognise when the enemy parries you, you'll notice this happens when you're clanging swords on the attack and there's a huge spark from the swords, that's an indication that they're about to go on the attack so then you can be prepared to parry and build up their posture and then go back on offense, it'll also get you used to his attack timing/patterns. Genichiro is a great fight for feeling this stuff out, if you can go through the learning pains of being comfortable parrying you'll get through the rest of the game fine, I think.

Obv play your own way but I really think in the long run you'll end up having a much easier time if you focus on getting good at parrying and building up posture vs turtling and trying to find your spots chipping away at HP (which also has value at times since the lower the red bar the quicker enemy posture will build up)

Having beaten Genichiro I have now adapted this mentality. That was my eye opening, game changing experience.