Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

[Broker]

5 hours ago, Minion said:

 

Hmm ok you need to learn the mikiri counter for that guy, he is a tough roadblock probably the first to be honest, do you have mikiri counter (where you press forward and circle and you stamp on their weapon when they do a thrust attack)? Hirata is quite tough how far are you on the other path? Anyway it goes without saying like the souls games you need to get rid of the minions around him, best way to do that is to stealth in the bushes to the left and take them down one by one, if the main dude catchs on run away back the way you came, like run a lot until he properly de-aggros (his health stats and boss bar should disappear. The objective here is to be able to use the bushes on the left to get a stealth deathblow on him to take one of his bars off straight away, then it's a case of parrying or backing off until the kanji comes up the mikiri counter him, it's not easy and if you really are struggling I suggest trying to proceed in the other path of the game but you do need to get him down. the start is very tough to be fair, you're weak and have few skills. failing that watch a video or read a guide if you're really stuck as it's better to do that than give up on the game. I gave up but I came back a couple of months ago and now realise it is a From masterpiece it just needs to be played accordingly and one can't really describe how until it clicks. It's a mixture of being stealthy and super aggressive and occasionally running away!

Thanks for the tips  I’ll buy that counter move tomorrow and give it one more go. I usually avoid games which require me to do research and stuff nowadays, if I’m enjoying a game I’ll go looking for more info on how to play better, but if it’s necessary I usually don’t bother. I think I might have to stick this one in the same category as Dark Souls 2 and accept that I just don’t enjoy it and move on though. Life is too short.

 

5 hours ago, squirtle said:

I was first playing it on Xbox 1X and found the frame rate a bit of a pain. I switched to PC and a steady 60fps made it a lot... Not easy... But more reliable when it came up counters and parries. 

 

If it was a bit cheaper I’d probably grab the Xbox version and switch to the series S but it’s still £40 and I can’t really justify spending that much on a game I already own and don’t enjoy
 

2 hours ago, Vemsie said:

It's interesting because there are those who find this the hardest modern From games and those that find it the easiest. Certainly, it you nail the parry rythm and the timing of the Mikiri counter, it becomes so much easier. It really is a rythm game, in a way.

That would make sense as I’m pretty shit at rhythm games. It feels weird because I’ve got four platinums and one is Bloodborne and two are Dark Souls, so I feel like I should enjoy it, but it’s been about 40 hours overall now across two attempts and I’m still not clicking with it at all. 

[Alan Stock]

That spear guy is a major pain, I struggled a lot on him as well. It's flung at you before you really get a sense of the flow of combat and before Mikiri counter is properly taught. Also its incredibly tedious having to stealth kill his minions each run. Once you get the counter you can practice it with the guy at your home temple if he's there yet.

 

I played a bit at the weekend and discovered a new mini boss:

 

Spoiler

 

I'm still at the invaded version of the castle and up to where Owl is, but got fatigued with the roof guys and couldn't be arsed trying Owl or the mini boss guarding the respawn shrine there more than once. So I went around the back and discovered the inner passage leading to a chained red eye guy, who I killed pretty easily. I also revisited the first memory zone to explore the river outside the burning estate, and got some more fish scales, enough to buy a new fancy combo art.

 

Then I decided to head down to the demon bell from the castle and discovered unexpectedly a new mini boss, one of the poison ninja guys. But he's damn hard and the camera and collision is a bitch in these small pagodas. The camera's always jittering around thanks to all the pillars and geometry, and the bugger can hit you through walls which is just plain broken. If you lure him into the open he's hard to see and read. I was getting close to beating him after a bunch of attempts when I realised he had an evesdrop, and that cottoned me on to the fact I might be able to stealth and get a free backstab. It actually worked! You just have to sneak around the edge of the pagoda. Unfortunately in phase 2 he powers up and wrecks, so it still took me quite a lot of goes but I eventually beat him. You have to be really aggressive and run away when your posture runs out. He is also one of the few bosses where sideways dodges really help. My reward was another prayer bead giving me enough for another health up, which will be a big help when I eventually get round to tackling the castle again.

 

I have to say the game has lost me in interest again, the current bosses are not very fun and too similar to each other, and getting to them via the bastards on the roof is a recipe in frustration. It's hard to summon up the willpower knowing you will spend at least an hour or two for each roadblock, with limited free time to game.

 

 

Re: Ape

Spoiler

When I saw you guys talking about fighting the ape again I thought you meant phase 2. But now it sounds like you fight him again in a seperate boss fight? Number 28 said you can skip it if you go to the depths earlier, I bet I have done that because after the poison lake there was this huge cave which looked very boss arena, but no boss inside. Have I skipped him then? And what did I miss? And what is the reason he can be skipped (is there a lore reason? Is it because I had the sword that kills undead so you kill the parasite first time?).

 

[Number 28]

Re: Ape

Spoiler

Nah, you don't kill him the first time if you have the mortal blade. I don't think there's a special lore reason for anything, but the poison pool area changes slighty (broken huts, dead enemies and blood everywhere) after the ape has passed through post the original fight, which is a nice touch. You'll still be able to go do that fight @Alan Stock just warp to the poison pool idol. All you missed was a cracking fight and the boss memory for +1 attack power.

 

[Broker]

6 hours ago, Alan Stock said:

That spear guy is a major pain, I struggled a lot on him as well. It's flung at you before you really get a sense of the flow of combat and before Mikiri counter is properly taught. Also its incredibly tedious having to stealth kill his minions each run. Once you get the counter you can practice it with the guy at your home temple if he's there yet.

This is what I can’t work out really. I bought the counter move, practiced with that guy. I can nail it every time. There’s a guy with a spear near where the chained ogre was, I can hit the counter every time. I’ve managed it on the spear guy on the estate once in 20 attempts. He’s got another move that makes the kanji appear which I think is a sweep, so can’t be countered like that. The windups look identical to me, or at least what I can see of them that isn’t covered by a big red kanji that offers me literally no useful information about the attack. 
 

Every direction is the same, there’s the long distance through loads of identical enemies to get to a big enemy, then there’s the dull process of stealthing through that area eliminating the minions one by one, occasionally running away because there’s one who can’t be stealth killed without a guy 50 meters away immediately being alerted. Then trying to find some way to stealth the tougher enemy to remove one health bar, on the occasions where that’s possible. That’s often five minutes of dull, repetitive work to get one shot at the enemy I’m trying to learn to fight, only to be killed in two or three hits without making any meaningful progress. I play for an hour or two at a time and every single time I load up I’m in one of three places, either near Enshin Misen, Tenzen Yamauchi or Juzou the Drunk. It literally makes no difference, they all feel exactly the same, impossible fights that I don’t have the skill to even attempt. I know I could go past Tenzen, past the snake and towards the horse riding guy, but that will just be the same as well. 
 

The key thing is that I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. I practice on the guy at the temple, I feel like I can do the parries, counters etc but when I get to the actual enemies I die immediately in the exact same way every time. In a game I enjoy I like to feel like each death was something I learned from, ideally something with other options (weapons, builds etc) to try out. Here I’m learning nothing, just repeating the same failures until I get angry and turn it off. 
 

Knowing that I’m not supposed to play it like Dark Souls and Bloodborne is all well and good, but I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to play it. I’m very clearly doing it wrong, but I’m not learning or improving and I think it’s time to call it and stick it in the trading folder. It’s a shame but either I’m just not good enough to play it or the way it teaches just doesn’t work for me and I don’t feel like there’s any effort I can make with it to change those things. 

[Mogster]

If you're really not getting it, maybe watch a bit of a Let's Play or something to see it played well?

 

I would say I found it incredibly hard to try and time the parries at 30fps on the console version, but when I tried it at 60fps on PC it transformed the game for me. I don't know if it's had a next gen patch or anything, but it might be worth giving it another try in the future if you get the chance. Once it clicks, it's amazing.

[Minion]

3 hours ago, Broker said:

I know I could go past Tenzen, past the snake and towards the horse riding guy, but that will just be the same as well. 

 

No dude, that path is easier and I would recommend getting past the snake and killing that boss as you get a bit of a power up, then go back to Hirata.

[Number 28]

Yeah, the Ashina Outskirts direction is easier than Hirata. Juzou is a massive bastard without a strat. I would suggest stealthing along the walkway, picking off the henchmen, backing off behind the outermost hut till he de-aggros, return for the steatlh deathblow, then recruit the samurai bystander for the final deathblow, plus use the axe plenty for decent posture damage.

 

You are unlocking the Hirata shortcut right? So you can just bomb along the main route? Spear guy is not that far from the idol if you run. Also, General Tenzen is a lot easier to approach from the idol behind in the canyon too, in case you didn't realise.

 

Another general tip, spend all your cash stocking up on spirit emblems at the start of the game, until you need to buy something. Do you have all the currently available prosthetic tools?

[Broker]

1 hour ago, Mogster said:

If you're really not getting it, maybe watch a bit of a Let's Play or something to see it played well?

 

I would say I found it incredibly hard to try and time the parries at 30fps on the console version, but when I tried it at 60fps on PC it transformed the game for me. I don't know if it's had a next gen patch or anything, but it might be worth giving it another try in the future if you get the chance. Once it clicks, it's amazing.

I watched sone videos but to be honest I don’t really understand what they’re doing. There’s swords moving and clanging sounds but I don’t know how those people are doing what they’re doing. It really looks like a different game to the one I’m playing, they just run up to the enemies and kill them

 

60fps unfortunately isn’t an option for me. It’s 30 on PS4 and Series S, and I can’t play it at my desk on the PC because I’m playing with my girlfriend.

 

26 minutes ago, Minion said:

 

No dude, that path is easier and I would recommend getting past the snake and killing that boss as you get a bit of a power up, then go back to Hirata.

 

It took me so long to beat the guy on the horse last time, it felt like a nightmare, though I struggled through and did it eventually. I guess I might give it another crack going that way.
 

16 minutes ago, Number 28 said:

Yeah, the Ashina Outskirts direction is easier than Hirata. Juzou is a massive bastard without a strat. I would suggest stealthing along the walkway, picking off the henchmen, backing off behind the outermost hut till he de-aggros, return for the steatlh deathblow, then recruit the samurai bystander for the final deathblow, plus use the axe plenty for decent posture damage.

 

You are unlocking the Hirata shortcut right? So you can just bomb along the main route? Spear guy is not that far from the idol if you run. Also, General Tenzen is a lot easier to approach from the idol behind in the canyon too, in case you didn't realise.

 

Another general tip, spend all your cash stocking up on spirit emblems at the start of the game, until you need to buy something. Do you have all the currently available prosthetic tools?

 

I’ve got the shuriken, flame thing and the axe. I’m not really sure when to use them though. They often just seem to do nothing when I try them out. Spear guy doesn’t seem to respond to any of them at all for instance. 
 

I’ve opened the gate, but unless I’m missing something I can only run past the first four guys. After that there’s two by the gate, then three on the stairs (two with shields), then four around the spear guy. I can’t seem to run past any of them because they all follow and it stops me from being able to stealth kill the four around him.

 

Similar with Tenzen, there’s seven or so in his area approaching from behind, which I can handle pretty quickly. But I cannot get a stealth attack on him from any direction no matter how hard I’m trying, which means I’d need to take of both bars through regular combat and I’ve tried him 30-40 times and never managed one. I also can’t work out how to stealth Juzou, he’s always sat with his back to the fog.

[Number 28]

You should be able to dispatch those guys along the path pretty fast with either a jumping deathblow from above, a backstab or a quick one-two with the sword and a deflect or two. The shield guys are a walkover with the axe.

 

Once you've isolated Tenzen, you should be able to drop down behind him and get the stealth blow. Back off and allow him to return to his starting position. Juzou is pretty tricky to backstab, but you can get behind him once you've cleared the shield guys. Juzou will be on you pretty quickly so do them one at a time if you must.

 

I only really used flame vent for ogre because it explicitly tells you to. Again, axe is great for the shield guys, shuriken is good for knocking enemies out of the air, or disrupting their posture regen. There's another prosthetic you can buy from the crow mob on the outskirts near the woman who gives you the bell which is super useful against animals, although it actually stuns almost everything.

[squirtle]

Yeah you need to get the Firecrackers. 

 

I'm stuck again at the top of the bloody castle. Wolf or that kicking poison dick. I do like the combat in this but no one can argue that its very unfairly balanced. You take so much damage and do so little. I know you all think its amazing but it can get pretty boring pretty quickly doing a millimetre of damage at a time. 

[Mogster]

The "millimetre of damage" is just a way to help deal more posture damage. Once you trigger a deathblow I don't think you can argue about balance.

 

Combat in Sekiro is all about posture and deathblows. Dealing damage does help, as it means event posture bars will take longer to drain, but your deflections and counters are far more effective. Even bosses can go down in no time once you learn all their patterns.

[squirtle]

Except the posture goes back down so quick on the bosses until you've done decent damage that it kind of makes it pointless in the opening stages of a fight. This means you do have to do damage to get to a point where the posture damage sticks. And you can't keep hitting them because you're posture goes up way quicker than there's. 

[LaveDisco]

Best advice I got was:

 

Spend your first runs just trying to survive as long as possible. Don't even try and attack.

 

Just survive with blocks and dodges, being sure to hold block in free moments to get rid of posture, (as it's backwards to shield stamina and I still find myself forgetting) and working out when you can heal. Watch their moves and get used to what to jump etc.

 

Eventually you'll get frustrated with this and start seeing the openings you are ignoring. Try and resist for a while, but then start adding them to the mix. Just a little heath chip here and there. But again, your not going for a kill, just to survive. Experiment with firecrackers etc.

 

You'll also start to get a feel for the attack patterns, so start to parry the easiest ones.

 

Now two things will happen, either you'll keep layering on more parrys and more attacks as you feel comfortable and eventually the boss will drop. Or you'll decide to go for an attack run, where you really pressure the boss, constantly flowing between attacking and deflecting, with your knowledge  from before. You get these wonderful moments when it clicks and you know half way through 'this is the one'.

 

I get the criticism over the last few pages though. I bounced of this hard and felt much the same. Now it's one of my favourite games ever, but I coudn't tell you why. Maybe leave it alone for two years. That worked for me!

[Alan Stock]

Its worth pointing out that after you get past those boss hurdles I enjoyed the game a lot more, it really opens up after horsey man and you get more powered up which gives you more leeway in fights. Still, I do go back to being fatigued with it from time to time, the punishing bosses just don't have the same draw for me as in Souls and there is less secret and optional stuff to discover. It might be worth having an extensive explore of the estate and other areas just to see if there are any hidden routes or secrets you might have missed. Quite often I will give up on bosses and just go for a wander, and sometimes find new places, items or at least in doing so farm up some cash and emblems.

[Mogster]

4 hours ago, squirtle said:

Except the posture goes back down so quick on the bosses until you've done decent damage that it kind of makes it pointless in the opening stages of a fight. This means you do have to do damage to get to a point where the posture damage sticks. And you can't keep hitting them because you're posture goes up way quicker than there's. 

It may feel like that sometimes, but it's really not. I've just watched back some of my final boss fights, and this was the difference in health and posture when I got a deathblow on one of the stages:

 

 

A lot of fights need to be learned, but once you do you'll be deflecting way more than you are dealing damage and that posture bar will be shooting up. It's obviously good to get hits in when you can as it all helps, but ultimately it's all about that posture bar.

[Broker]

Yeah fuck this.

 

The horse guy is exactly the same. My dodges don’t work, his attacks last longer than a dodge. Parrying does nothing to his posture bar. Hitting him does fuck all. He constantly runs off and I keep losing lock on. I don’t understand and honestly I’ve got to conclude that I’m just not good enough. I’m trying all the tools at my disposal and the all feel completely ineffective. I’m dead in three hits, which with the crazy amount of stun lock on all his attacks is often more like one hit. 
 

I looked up where the firecrackers are and I don’t know what it’s talking about. Every area looks exactly the same and so do all the enemies. I can’t process it, or the combat and I’m sick of it. It makes me feel like a fucking useless moron. 
 

Thanks for trying to help guys, but this one’s a loss for me. I can’t do it and I don’t have the energy or motivation to just be shit at it for two hours a day. 

[Minion]

Perhaps 60fps really did help as when I went back to it on PS5 I found it a lot easier, horsey dude for example went down first time and I was deflecting his attacks easily without even knowing his attack patterns. Maybe it's one to come back to in the future.

[Petrousgyre]

1 hour ago, Broker said:

Yeah fuck this.

 

The horse guy is exactly the same. My dodges don’t work, his attacks last longer than a dodge. Parrying does nothing to his posture bar.

 

Out of interest what TV do you have and what mode are you playing in? I've watched some of your Bloodborne vids over the years and you've clearly got the ability but I'd say Sekiro is very timing dependant and if you're playing with much lag it must be very frustrating. 

[squirtle]

1 hour ago, Broker said:

Yeah fuck this.

 

The horse guy is exactly the same. My dodges don’t work, his attacks last longer than a dodge. Parrying does nothing to his posture bar. Hitting him does fuck all. He constantly runs off and I keep losing lock on. I don’t understand and honestly I’ve got to conclude that I’m just not good enough. I’m trying all the tools at my disposal and the all feel completely ineffective. I’m dead in three hits, which with the crazy amount of stun lock on all his attacks is often more like one hit. 
 

I looked up where the firecrackers are and I don’t know what it’s talking about. Every area looks exactly the same and so do all the enemies. I can’t process it, or the combat and I’m sick of it. It makes me feel like a fucking useless moron. 
 

Thanks for trying to help guys, but this one’s a loss for me. I can’t do it and I don’t have the energy or motivation to just be shit at it for two hours a day. 

Firecrackers: after you encounter the first mini boss, you get to an area with a few soldiers and the first big, flabby giant guy. If I remember right, just after the guy and the woman who gives you a bell there is a tall pillar of rock with trees hanging off it. You should be able to grapple up the trees and get to the top where the guy selling the Firecrackers is. They are useful on the horse guy. Also, are you grappling towards the horse guy when getting the option? Do that and it will stun him allowing a couple of hits. Then back off and run away. His attacks are fairly easily parried and if you use the Firecrackers it will stun the horse and again you can attack. 

 

I'm not gonna lie though, he's the easiest boss I've fought in the game so... I don't know. 

[Broker]

2 hours ago, Minion said:

Perhaps 60fps really did help as when I went back to it on PS5 I found it a lot easier, horsey dude for example went down first time and I was deflecting his attacks easily without even knowing his attack patterns. Maybe it's one to come back to in the future.

Yeah apparently the series S version is still 30 so the only hardware I’ve got that might play it at 60 is the PC and it’s getting old enough that I don’t know if I could run it. 

 

1 hour ago, petrolgirls said:

 

Out of interest what TV do you have and what mode are you playing in? I've watched some of your Bloodborne vids over the years and you've clearly got the ability but I'd say Sekiro is very timing dependant and if you're playing with much lag it must be very frustrating. 

It does feel unresponsive. I feel like I’ve pressed the button to dodge but get hit, I feel like I’ve hit the parry but it doesn’t work. That said it’s a new 4K Samsung TV which is substantially better than the one I played Bloodborne and Dark Souls on. I’m not sure what mode it’s on, or if it has multiple modes. I’ve never really looked at that kind of thing. 

 

1 hour ago, squirtle said:

Firecrackers: after you encounter the first mini boss, you get to an area with a few soldiers and the first big, flabby giant guy. If I remember right, just after the guy and the woman who gives you a bell there is a tall pillar of rock with trees hanging off it. You should be able to grapple up the trees and get to the top where the guy selling the Firecrackers is. They are useful on the horse guy. Also, are you grappling towards the horse guy when getting the option? Do that and it will stun him allowing a couple of hits. Then back off and run away. His attacks are fairly easily parried and if you use the Firecrackers it will stun the horse and again you can attack. 

 

I'm not gonna lie though, he's the easiest boss I've fought in the game so... I don't know. 

Yeah I chop his arse a bit, dodge his attacks, grapple toward him and land a few hits when the icon appears, but I just can’t consistently nail the dodges, parries or hit timings. If this is the easiest of 13 bosses I’m clearly not going to make it through so I think it will probably be easier to just let this one go. I’m just disappointed in myself really.

[JPL]

11 minutes ago, Broker said:

That said it’s a new 4K Samsung TV which is substantially better than the one I played Bloodborne and Dark Souls on. I’m not sure what mode it’s on, or if it has multiple modes. I’ve never really looked at that kind of thing. 

Oh god, I’ve just got a picture of your TV having motion smoothing and all the other nonsense that introduces lag on.

 

It’d be well worth going through the settings and turning all of that stuff off, as it really is a game based around timing, so any extra lag will be felt.

 

I’ve got an LG, so can’t really help, but I’m sure other will have Samsung TVs and could advise you on what to switch off.

[Number 28]

Dodge is pretty much useless in this game bar for two or three instances which I can't think of off the top of my head. Stand your ground with the bosses and attempt to deflect everything, no matter how scary looking (perilous not included, although strangely you can deflect some of them). When you nail a deflection you get a large orange spark and their posture will go up as fast as if you hit them. If they run away, close the ground ASAP, only retreat to heal. If you get those firecrackers, use them on the horse and hack away until he recovers. Remember you can't spam them, you have to wait about 30 seconds before you can successfully use them again.

[jonamok]

There's absolutely no shame in binning off Sekiro.

 

...he still tells himself in the small hours of the night, crying quietly into his Miyazaki pillow.

[Benny]

For the love of God at least check you've put the TV in game mode.

[Mr. Gerbik]

22 minutes ago, Benny said:

For the love of God at least check you've put the TV in game mode.

This^ Even if you have no idea about any of that stuff @Broker or any interest in researching it, at the very least go into the screen/video options and switch whatever the setting is currently ("movie" probably or "custom") to "game". That will already turn all the crappy lag inducing effects off automatically. Beyond that is the realm of fine tuning to get the "perfect picture" but no need for that if you don't want to. Just turn on game mode for every HDMI input connected to a console. It will improve literally every game you have drastically.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Also, even though I beat that horse dead, afterwards it all gets even more difficult. As much as I love Dark Souls and adore Tenchu, I just wasn't having any fun with this - I don't have the skills and that's okay. I gave up.

 

 

 

[Benny]

All recent Samsung sets have a dedicated game mode option in the inputs menu usually, rather that in the Movie, Dynamic etc options. It won't be on by default if it's anything like mine.

[CheekyMonkey]

I admitted defeat with this too. It's the only Soulsborne game I haven't finished, and I even got as far as OF (the Hirata Estate version ie, it's even an optional boss fight) - so I managed to get through a lot of the difficulty spikes most people quit at. The game did actually click at one point but this version of OF was just another brick wall for me, only a solid one. I resorted to watching videos of how to bait attacks, what to block/parry and what to avoid and saw all the people in the videos completely destroy him without so much as a scratch. I don't know what it was I just failed again and again and again I seriously have no idea how many attempts - I had it must have been hundreds. I even left the game for a couple of months and went back fresh but same damn thing!

 

After the gazillionth defeat and literally steam coming out my ears I just calmly quit the game, realised I wasn't enjoying it anymore and called time on it.

No matter what anyone in this thread says, I think it is a shade too hard - not only that, I feel like there's something bizarrely odd in this game that doesn't quite resonate with some people's brains. For me it was the timing required for parrying. For example - I got stuck on the samurai in the castle (just before Genichiro) who just keeps does the fast sword draw. I just could NOT find the right timing to deflect it, I knew exactly what to do I just did not seem to have the reflexes and it was absolutely infuriating. After 50 or so attempts I literally destroyed him in 5 seconds it was like double parry x 3, then deathblow and and it was all over. It's almost as if my brain temporarily went into a different mode, and it became insanely easy for just a few seconds. Could have just been luck too, but it didn't feel like it.

 

Shame really, because I thought it was superb, and I love the idea behind it that you just have to be razor sharp, and not rely on spamming or upgrades etc. Plus I am a huuuuge fan of the setting and theme (Tenchu was one of my all time faves). Maybe one day I'll go back to it but I think within 10 minutes that feeling of utter uselessness will rear it's head again. I think that's the thing about it - you know what the game wants you to do, but you can't do it so you just feel like a total loser, and completely deflated. It really is the video game equivalent of being kicked in the nuts. 

 

[Number 28]

Man, if you quit there instead of simply sacking him off and continuing to face the end boss, you missed out on a cracking fight... OF is possibly the hardest boss in the game, I only managed it with pure cheese tactics. I didn't even find that area on my first playthrough. 

[Orococco]

Quitting Sekiro is a blow to your self-esteem at the time, but by the weekend you'll be