So far my impression is that this game is hard in that it’s even more laser focused on making you play it a specific way and if you don’t adapt you won’t progress. I was banging my head against the Hirata estate only to realize I probably shouldn’t be there at that point and went back to the starting area and the enemies were a lot slower and weaker.

I like a lot of the changes but the party mechanic is certainly demanding and will take a lot of practice from me.

So not upgrades but skills. Which I've nearly bought all the skills and I've barely progressed into the game ;/.

Alright..took the night off. Cooled down. Beat the spear guy without being hit! I was not using the thrust counter skill correctly. I thought you just counter like normal but it's a different button... that certainly helped. Does a lot of damage to his posture.

Also turned HDR off on my xbox...swear it causes input delay to be much worse. Can definitely feel it in Metro Exodus. Beat drunk boss in less than 8 tries at least... didn't bother parrying much just whittled his health down.

I knew about this, but that's still a finite resource and I'd still have to go grind some more up if I run out. You wouldn't have to grind much, sure, but that doesn't make it suck any less, especially when the developers could have either just done the Souls thing or just have your character die and restart. Having to fight your way through regular enemies just to get back to the boss again is punishment enough.

I hate Lady Butterfly so, so, sooooo much. I can easily perfect/take just one or two hits her first phase, but then the second phase has the summons(which are easy to deal with, but while dealing with that her posture will completely refill) and the unblockable butterflys that just appear during her attacks just feel like suuuuch bullshit. I already used the 1 single snap seed they give you, which didn't help, and now have no idea where to get anymore, nor the desire for farm for it anyway.

@panfoot: So here's something important to note that isn't so apparent early on. Don't worry about posture refilling super fast on tough enemies. You need to concentrate on landing hits that reduce Vitality first since on bosses and enemies like them no matter how relentless you attack you probably won't be able to overcome their regeneration and in the process you make yourself really vulnerable by having that tunnel vision.

So when she summons and uses the butterflies just hang out around the room until they run into the pillars, then resume what you were doing in phase one.

Looks like Sekiro might be a honest to goodness hit, https://www.techspot.com/news/79334-sekiro-shadows-die-twice-has-best-steam-launch.html.

Also I’ve been noticing that for the entire weekend it has been at or near the top streamed game on twitch. I know it won’t stay this way, because single player games just don’t have the rewatchabilty as multiplayer games like Fortnight, but still to see a FromSoft title take the crown for a weekend is really impressive.

@darklingscribe: Was a little worried that maybe From had taken just.. a slight step too far because the game does go from reasonable to kicking your teeth in at a moments notice. I guess that's a fear I've had with most of those games though and people deal with it fine.

@darklingscribe: I mean, it's Froms next game, ofc it's gonna do well. The game would have to be really bad for people not go hard on it. The question is really how people will judge it a year or two from now. It's like The Last Jedi, ofc a ton of people went to see it, but the question is how many people are gonna see the next one.

(also, it's not like the number is some huge jump from when Dark Souls 3 was released, or somehow unprecedented for a big new game.)

To no surprise, I'm still pushing myself to play it. Making progress, maybe getting back into the combat groove. I don't know wtf constitutes a mini boss or just some random tough guy, but I cleared the Drunk after a bunch of deaths and essentially approached it like a puzzle. On my winning run (which I saved the recording of), I was able to carefully kill every single other nearby grunt with ninja-like hit-and-run stealth tactics and then got a free deathblow on the boss then brought in the AI guy to help and wrecked his shit. Felt like 20 deaths before I figured all this out and successfully executed on it. Currently at Lady Butterfly having a go at that and only tried horse dude a couple times because it sounds like I'm missing a tool I should have.

I think the fact that the combat and movement is faster in this makes it feel harder. It feels like you have to be much faster to read the enemies moves and react. Like, for the life of me, I cannot reliably react to those enemy deathblow moves and use the correct response (parry, dodge, or jump) because it happens so fast/randomly that I just panic and dodge, because that's what I'd do in Souls, which is often the wrong maneuver here. Jump didn't exist and I was never good at parrying.

Need to be a real stubborn mother effer to enjoy these games. But as Austin and others have said, when you do get those fights where you're on your A game, it's like a samurai/ninja movie. Swords clanging blow for blow, slipping under sword swings, blocking projectiles as you rush in and close the gap, grappling out of the way of a big move just in time etc etc. I also like the stealth element. Figuring out the route so when you inevitably die and come through again, you can blast through it quickly with a bunch of stealth kills and feel like a bad ass.

I'm head over heels for this game. I've been playing it every chance I got, now I'm roughly 15 hours into it, and 3 bosses down. Sekiro turned out to be not yet "another one of those," and that's exciting.

The Souls games have always had lean but mechanically-layered combat; Sekiro is the one to add complexity. When facing enemies, tougher ones, in particular, I feel I need to figure out quite a few things like which of their attacks punish retreating and which are "Perilous," which tools work best against them, how quickly do they recover their "Posture," etc. The swordplay has a high skill ceiling, and playing well looks good, which makes me think I might be playing the game long after finishing it.

The first few locations are sprawling with a multitude of branching paths. Had this not been the case, I would've found the game more frustrating, since I'm frequently up against a new roadblock. I mean, fuck the Blazing Bull. The boss you fight at the top of Ashina Castle is dope though.

The first few hours were an adjustment and a half from 8 years of Souls experience. It reminds me of the opening hours of Nioh in that way, as my bad habits of trying to play the game like Bloodborne led to a bad time. It turns out the dodge is kind of terrible, and you’re usually better off parrying, blocking, or jumping. And even knowing that, having to dial in the “flow” of combat, knowing when to stop attacking or how to counter, that’s something that feels significantly different from all of From’s other games.

I think I’ve gotten over the initial difficulty hump and it feels really satisfying. I’ve also started to run into some more nightmarish areas that would not be out of place in Bloodborne or Dark Souls, so it’s nice to see they’re going for a different kind of “weird mythological Japan” than Nioh. I was jumping back and forth between thinking Sekiro is brilliant or one step too far, and right now I think it’s kind of brilliant. We’ll see how that sentiment holds as I get farther in.

This might be the first one of these games I try. I was tempted with Bloodbourne but it still looked too intimidating and frustrating. I freakin' love ninjas and this seems slightly easier or at least beginner friendly than a Dark Souls or what not.

@not_a_bumblebee: Not to be too discouraging but this is absolutely not an easier Dark Souls and even less forgiving in the beginning because you don't just level up by killing enemies.

@not_a_bumblebee: Yah I think if anything this game is somewhat tougher than Bloodborne and all other Souls games. In the Dark Souls series you could grind out stats and get equipment to make some fights easier - just look at Vinny tanking his way through that game. In Bloodborne you didn't really get an equipment shortcut but the dash was generally pretty generous.

In Sekiro you have have a lot more movement options but that also means that now you have to contend with various types of attacks and the different ways of blocking or evading them. You have a boss that will do an unblockable sweep so you need to jump over it, then a thrust which you can dodge or counter, a grab which you have to dodge and regular attacks which you should block and/or deflect.

I'll say this: As someone that beat all the Souls games and in Bloodborne I even got the platinum trophy, Sekiro continues to be intimidating for me and I keep getting by the skin of my teeth on most of these encounters. In a few ways it's more generous but overall I think it's a lot more brutal.

After getting a couple hours into this, I am feeling good that people say it gets better because right now I'm not sure about it. I was happy to see some changes to the formula, but experiencing them so far I am not sure this is what I wanted.

Overall I don't like the philosophy you see in this game by comparison, especially combined with the difficulty I am seeing. It's not just that compared to the Souls games this one doesn't have the ability to grind, it's also a removal in the ability for builds and player choice of approach. To me the attack-sign type thing (ie the grabs you have to dodge, sweeps you have to jump over) are a perfect example of how this takes away something in the gameplay. It becomes a Simon Says exercise. I played Demons, and Dark Souls I through III and hardly ever parried in my experience, but in this game you just have to. That's indicative of the philosophy that in practice I am not liking with this game.

And by the way, couldn't they have a better way to display the "jump, dodge, counter" boss attack sign mechanic to an English audience perhaps?

Now that's mostly for the bosses. I am seeing in the gameplay more freedom but in the moment to moment normal enemy combat and exploring.

It seems like this is going to be a Dark Souls 2 or 3 level of bosses, which also I am not a big fan of compared to the more reserved number of bosses in a Demons or Dark Souls 1. So it seems a big part of the rhythm and I see it will keep going.

All this being said, it's early and I heard it gets better but I can't say I am thrilled with my purchase at the moment. I was hoping for something more like a Ninja Gaiden but so far I am REALLY seeing the old Tenchu gameplay in the regular level gameplay, which is interesting but I'm not sure the best stealth experience thus far with the levels I'm running through (I heard it opens up a lot later), and then the boss gameplay which is really not the type of gameplay experience I enjoy that much so far.

I think having the first real mini boss you hit being able to 1 or 2 shot you basically.... I just think From has made some bad balance choices in their games starting with Dark Souls II and more so in III. It's too hard and there are too many bosses.

If that's your reason, I would take a pause. It is definitely not easier at all. See my post above for some thoughts but I find it more difficult especially because, at least for bosses, you REALLY need to do exactly what they seem to want you to do or you will die, in a way that is different from the Souls games and this seems to have a lot of bosses. The first sub boss you run into hits you twice and you're dead, practically once. So be weary.

I'm also a sucker for ninjas and samurai so I jumped on this when I saw high reviews and with my love for From at their best, but I am not feeling good about my purchase at the moment.

I feel like I've finally hit the groove today after having busted up boss after boss after boss. I can't quite remember, but I wouldn't be surprised if the transition period was pretty similar to how long it took me to "get" Bloodborne, might've even been faster. Still feel like the combat is pretty sloppy at times though. Dunno how many times I've gotten grabbed doing the same exact dodge as I do every time, except this time I somehow didn't dodge far enough. Also had my fair share of getting stuck in geography.

It might just be because I've gotten deeper into the game and it's gotten easier (as these games tend to do), but I feel like much of the early game troubles people are having is probably mostly a knowledge thing. While the stakes are definitely higher early on due to the low health pool once you have the feel for how to approach the combat most of the early game enemies doesn't seem that threatening anymore. It just requires building up that "database" of knowing what to expect and how to deal with it first. Like, I took on a boss that I've heard a lot of people have struggled with, but after quickly realizing it functioned very similar to an earlier boss I beat it in like 2-3 tries and only used about half my potions.

I still wouldn't advice people that "the combat gets better as you go", it's still the same thing, you just learn to deal with it better as you play more.

Yeah. I'm done. This is just not enjoyable. It would be one thing if it felt responsive, but at least on consoles it controls like baked shit. It's hard enough to make frame perfect reactions without having to guess how long it will take for the game to actually read my input.

Plus, there just isn't that sense of reward from beating a tough enemy. You bang your head against a wall over and over again and get . . . a Prayer Bead. Woopy diddly fucking do. All I can think of every time I get one of those is "I need to do this three more times?!"

Unlike Dark Souls or Bloodborne, there isn't anything pulling me to push through either. All the environments are some take on "snowy Japanese castle." You're either on the path to the snowy Japanese castle, in the snowy Japanese castle, or in the caves beneath the snowy Japanese castle. There are no cool weapons or armor and the NPCs don't have meaningful or cool stories to go along with them.

This game feels like it was made by someone who played the prior From games and the only thing they took away from it was that they were hard, without thinking about all the other stuff that made those games cool, like the weapons, or the atmosphere, or the mystery, or the cool enemy designs. This is easily on my short list for "Biggest Disappointment" this year.

Games finally growing on me at least. If you are frustrated, at least get to the first boss. I think that's when it finally clicked for me. I just beat the guy on the horse in not too many attempts. Seems like it depends on the enemy whether you should parry more or just dodge... the horse boss can be made pretty quick work of if you just parry a lot. Definitely liken this game to Bloodborne more than Dark Souls.

Weekend over. Spent all the time I played today trying to get through Lady Butterfly. No luck. It seems like it should be easy, but I just can't execute on it. I don't like how enemies can use the deathblow maneuver things whenever they want. She'll do a combo, I'll dodge and close in to counter attack, land the hits but at the same time she just does the fancy move immediately into me and I can't do anything to avoid it because I'm already slashing her shit up. And it does massive damage so I basically give up on that run if it happens right off the bat.

In general, the game seems like all the others. Unbelievably frustrating but also great. No ones fault but my own, except for the various times where it feels like I hit the block button or the attack button and nothing happens. That's not stopping me from progressing though. It just puts a spotlight on my inability to play calmly and with a plan.

Dunno if you are doing this but the whirlwind attack helped me on her. Gets you 2 hits in rather than the usual 1 before she blocks. Not sure what fancy move you are referring to but if it's the leg swipe attack you can jump over it and then attack (the counter seems pointless against her so I'd just land and do the whirlwind attack).

Also, I never bothered parrying her until her posture bar became red. And in the 2nd form when she summons all the guys I just ran in circles until she turns them into butterflies and then hide behind a pillar. Or use shuriken which kills them in one hit.

@handlas said:

I beat the horse guy on the first try and also the flaming bull. The thing is that those fights are designed in such a way that the "mushiness" I'm finding in the controls is much less of an issue. They are in big wide open areas and where there aren't many objects to get hung up on and the game is better in communicating to you what it expects you to do - enemy tells are more obvious and they have clearer patterns to follow - it's just about executing on what you need to do.

Other fights, like Lady Butterfly and pretty much every samurai mini-boss are completely the opposite. They either have non-obvious tells followed by lightning fast moves, or you fight them in confined spaces and end up getting stuck on like, a pebble and being unable to move. I fought a spear-guy who is a perfect example of this. He's got three of the unblock-able moves. One is a thrust which can be Mikiri-countered one is a big sweeping slash that needs to be jumped, and the last is a big overhead slam that needs to be dodged. The problem is they all start from the same stance and there is enough of a delay in the controls that you need to execute your counter before you are entirely sure which is coming your way. Guess wrong and you are dead. Guess right and you still need to hope that the tracking on the attack doesn't hit you anyway.

Not a good time. Things do such much damage that healing is basically not even worth it most of the time and needing to whittle down multiple health bars when one hit pretty much insta-kills you just gets frustrating in a really bad way. Honestly, I think the game would be better if it were just a series of one-hit kills for both you and the enemies. It would up the tension and at least make fighting bigger enemies significantly less tedious.

Whatever, I won't drag down anyone else's enjoyment of it by complaining any more. Suffice it to say this game is definitely not for me. I really hope From goes back to Dark Souls or Bloodborne after this because this is not a formula I would like to see from them again.

@handlas said:

Yea, I'm using the Whirlwind thing when I can. And the leg sweep is the specific deathblow thingy (are they called Perilous Attacks?) I'm referring to. Obviously its one thing when you can see it coming but when she does a flurry of attacks that I dodge/parry/block and then I immediately close in like I always do, she can just pull off that leg sweep without any regard to what I'm doing (usually mid Whirlwind) and there goes 75% of my health. This goes for any enemy of course, not just a boss. IMO, they should be staggered if I counter them/get an opening and start landing hits.

As I said, the fight seems like it should be fairly simple. I just can't do it. Whenever I take a break from the game and go back in, I tear it up pretty good because I'm relaxed and not tense. I take my time and just wait for openings. The proper way to play these games. Of course, after a couple annoying, seemingly stupid deaths, I'm tense, my fingers are hurting, and I'm mad that this should be easy but I can't get it done.

I want to ask for a hint on a tool so I'll spoiler this: Where should I be looking for the Firecracker attachment? Seems like I should have that for the horse boss but I didn't see it on the way or I missed it.

I've spent 10 hours with it, and I hate to say it but I think this might be the first From game since Demon Soul's I don't like. Unless something drastic happens, I don't like the way the combat flows in this game. I know, I know. I'm one of those boring people that would have taken a Bloodborne 2 or Dark Souls 4 over this. Maybe it's just because I'm not quite fully used to it yet, but it feels frustrating in a way those games never were to me.

The parry system doesn't feel great, I dunno what it is. The Mikari counter or whatever it is isn't as responsive as I'd like, for how important it is. The grapple doesn't feel like I want it to, and some of the stealth mechanics are kind of just...bad. Once you are in combat it feels like certain enemies just laser focus onto you through walls, even though they should not be seeing you moving around.

I'm really hoping this clicks for me in the next couple hours, otherwise I'll probably just put it down and go back to DMC5, and wait for Nioh 2 and Ghost of Tsushima to get my samurai fix. It's weird, I was so confident I was going to like this game based on the reviews and the fact that I've absolutely loved every single Soulsborne game and have played through them all multiple times, especially Bloodborne. I'm actually shocked and feel like I shouldn't have bought this.

I finished my first playthrough a few of hours ago, and after being very skeptical going into it, I ended up liking Sekiro a lot. I platinumed Bloodborne and it's the only other From Software game I've played and I vastly prefer Sekiro, for what it's worth.

Coming straight from DMC5 the gameplay felt pretty loose, in a way From Software games tend to, I guess. But the structure built around the combat makes Sekiro feel better than Bloodborne. When the combat clicks and you're staying right in a boss' face parrying, dodging, and jumping with perfect timing and keeping the heat on, it's feels satisfying in a way Bloodborne never did for me.

Take a gander around Ashina Outskirts. For more info: There's a merchant in Ashina Outskirts that sells "Robert's Firecrackers", take those to the Sculptor.

In a weird way I think coming to this game from Souls almost makes it harder. Sekiro plays REALLY different from the Soulsborne games, and you really have to unlearn a lot of ingrained habits to avoid getting absolutely destroyed. There's definitely a learning curve to the combat, but man when it clicks it feels amazing. It really is like a samurai movie - swords clashing, jumping over blades, always just hanging on by the skin of your teeth and pulling out victory at the last moment. It's really cool.

Really liking the game a lot so far. The increased mobility gives you a lot of different ways to approach situations, and it ends up reminding me weirdly of the Arkham games a lot of the time. I'm really looking forward to what set pieces the game has in store, because I just got to the snake and it's pretty awesome.

Boy not to go into a lot of detail here but if anyone out there has a genuine issue with Snakes uh..

Be safe out there.

@seikenfreak: My advice for her is:

Dodge left attack attack

Dodge left attack attack

Dodge left attack attack

Just never stop doing this, don't let up on her, she'll never recover. If sparks come off when you land an attack on her, block instead of attacking or dodging, because she's just parried you and is about to attack. Only back off when your posture meter is filled up.

The idea of staying back and waiting for openings will just make the fight take 10x as long and means you have 10x as long in which to make a mistake and die. I really don't think backing off and reading her moves is how you are supposed to fight her, although it seems counter intuitive, since it's a big arena, because it's just too hard. You have to attack her and stop her doing her 3 and 4 combo moves, because you can't realistically block and parry them all successfully, you'll get too exhausted and she is too quick. Just never let her have the chance to do her kicks and attacks, go after her constantly, and you'll find she's lost a life bar after 2 minutes rather than 10.

The other thing to do is get the jumping overhead slash move, and just do that on her all the time. You can also do a lot of damage by waiting for her to jump up and hover and hitting her with the shuriken-follow up slash move.

Enjoying the game so far. I think Souls fans wanting to go in blind should be aware this is primarily a stealth action game instead of a Souls-like. Combat here works best one-on-one after thinning the herd with stealth, not designed for mob encounters like Spider-Man for example, because Sekiro will just get killed by offscreen projectiles. Maybe 1 vs 2 is a fair combat encounter for Sekiro? Depends on the enemy type really because I encountered a couple enemies who worked as a team to kill me in five seconds.

Liking that I can take advantage of the AI using stealth, including some bosses. There was a hidden enemy in the flashback guarding an item. Couldn't beat him one-on-one so I managed to lure him into a position where I could stealth kill him. Kinda felt bad when I did because he was the coolest, most-skilled enemy I've seen.

Oh and I don't think the red kanji symbol helps for the counters because they block the enemy animation and it's the exact same symbol for thrust/sweep/grab. Maybe having the weapon glow a certain color for different attacks or even button prompts would've been better.

@gerrid said:

This is the lesson I've had to learn about the combat in general. Every instinct in me is telling me to get a few hits in and back away to wait for an opening, but in this game all that's doing is giving your enemy a chance to recover their posture and ensure you never actually get the upper hand (and it's really hard to win a battle of attrition because of how much damage enemies do). I'm really having to force myself to play the game "properly" by staying in enemy's faces and constantly maintaining pressure. It's a very interesting change in philosophy.

Another thing I don't like about that system is that there are plenty of un-blockable attacks that don't pop the kanji. If you are going to make a distinction between blockable attacks and everything else, then it needs to be binary. The player can't be left to guess whether a particular "normal" attack is going to bust through their block anyway. Dark Souls and Bloodborne managed to do make this distinction intuitive without a big glowing icon mucking everything up.

Man. I don't think I've ever bounced off a game as hard as I have this one.

@therealturk: What are some examples you've seen that are unblockable but do not have the kanji? Because I don't think I've actually seen any to be honest.

@gazoinks said:

I think it just takes one good battle to understand that the combat is meant to be trading blows quickly (like a sword fight!), not waiting for a vulnerability moment (which never comes). Attack, block, attack, attack, parry, kill.

And then the bosses have these more complicated moves which demand you read the animation and react in the traditional way, but if you get the upper hand with the cadence of a battle (usually by attacking first), you will actually catch them before they even do the big move, and prevent it. It completely upends the philosophy of the fights, like you say. Instead of "wait for their telegraphed attack, dodge, hit them after", it becomes "attack them before they carry out the telegraphed attack".

The Madame Butterfly fight I think is meant to teach you this, because she is quite easy to stagger out of her attacks if you are on the offensive when she tries them.

@superjoe said:

You can usually read which type of attack it is going to be based on the enemy's sword stance, I think. If they have their weapon pointed at you it will be a thrust, if they have it pulled back away it will be a sweep, and if it is going to be a grab the movement will be with their off hand instead of their sword hand. Most enemies I've seen so far will change their stance ahead of changing which type of attack they will do, so you know what you will have to avoid when the symbol appears.

Doing well requires a pretty fine line of being very aggressive but..measured about it. If you spam your attacks they will just be deflected and that's just as bad for you.

@gerrid: Yeah the stances I get. To clarify, I'd rather have no symbol so the animation isn't obscured, but there still has to be a way to visually indicate an unblockable attack from blockable. The good thing is I haven't encountered an enemy that can do these moves ambidextrously because so far I've been conditioned that sweeps come from the right and thrusts from the left.

Was that the dude by himself at that tower on the cliff? Reminded me of the random red eye knights that you'd come across off the beaten path and be like.. nooope, can't go that way. After a couple really bad attempts, I tore his ass UP. He had zero chance.

As for the general suggestion of attacking and not letting up, I find that just gets me killed. She just blocks everything, which doesn't really build up her posture meter any meaningful amount and then she'll just do the Perilous move right through it all. Best luck I've had with her is keeping a medium-to-close distance, nail her with a shuriken every time she is mid air jump animation, zip in and land a hit or two, back off while parrying/block her response. Any time she does the attack combo with the leg drop shes open and whenever she does the perilous dive attack or just the regular one, she is wide open. She's wide open after most moves. Ignore her posture and just chip away at her health. You can absolutely wreck her this way. Whenever I go at her with a flurry of attacks I just get myself torn up. If she hits you with anything, your health goes way down and then your posture is screwed and she'll just overwhelm you. That gets doubly worse in the second phase.

Second phase? Phooey!

Finally got to have an extended session with this game and I can't say I've really felt a sense of accomplishment like this in a long time. It's fun seeing how vaguely limitless most of your options are, with a lot of level-to-level progression mitigated by skill rather than going any on way. When I got stuck on the drunk and the spear, I doubled back to the outskirts and wound up stumbling across the path downward all on my own. I was a little surprised how slow my pace with the game has been once I got the first boss trophy (about 43% of players had it already when I got it) but I suppose I did only play three or four hours in two small chunks.

Once I let this game come to me rather than forcing myself onto it, things really opened up. I'm still not great at this game and make a lot of bad mistakes, but I'm no longer terrible either and have mopped up a bunch of mid-tier bosses today. Having even a single extra healing gourd and dealing just a tiny bit extra damage is a real blessing too, I can feel the game opening up as it gets just a little less punishing from moment to moment. Just had my first attempt at Lady Butterfly and I can tell this one is gonna take awhile, which just means I'll double back to the battlefield and see what's behind that door I never opened.

I'm super excited about where this game is going, when you go on a run like I just did you feel the center of your chest humming like you just won a round of Apex Legends over and over and over again, it's almost overwhelming how much tension and release this game gives you. There are still parts of it I'm less than ecstatic about, but overall I think it's got it's fang in me finally.

And to anyone bouncing off this game aggressively, this game is so not my kind of game either. But as I've started looking at it more like a game where you hold defense until you find an opening for offense, but hold defense in the most pressurized, dangerous positions possible, mixed with a little bit of Spider-Man web zipping I've been having a real blast and completely turned around how poorly I was doing when I kept playing this game like Bloodborne, stubbornly trying to press onward with R1 mashing.

Look at that, new day and back from work, fired it up and gave Butterfly a few more shots. Since I was more relaxed, I realized that it seems successfully parrying a bunch of her attacks or maybe a specific set of them causes her to do the perilous leg sweep at the end of the combo. Knowing that, I kinda knew when to expect it and could dodge. Then I killed her.

Taking the earlier hint for the other tool, I went back to the outskirts and picked that up, and killed horse dude on first try without breaking a sweat.

Having struggled and surmounted those two hurdles, enemies in the open world feel less daunting and I feel more comfortable with the combat system. I've begun climbing the learning curve.

I'm enjoying the game but yeah this sucks, and as you progress further the price for these doubles, triples etc. It's just dumb. I also think it sucks that you get charged for upgrading the prosthetic arms, shouldnt the materials be enough? It doesnt make sense from a story perspective either, it's not like this guy is a traveling merchant, all he does is carve demented buddha statues, I guess maybe he needs money for that?

The prosthesis are too powerful to not have a limited resource like that.. I guess an alternative would just be to treat it with a strange mana bar that restores on a rest.

But the emblems also drop everywhere and let you refill between Idols so I dunno.

@efesell: Or they could have just treated it the same way they did spells in the later Dark Souls games, in which you have a limited number of times you can use them between resting. I would even accept having to commit to a loadout after using the idol if thats what it took.

It doesnt ruin the game, and I personally havent run into any problems with it but they took this thing that should have been a fun power and attached it to a resource, which means i'm only going to use them on boss fights since they would be wasted otherwise.

EDIT: I know some DS games had mana bars I just cant remember which, I think the other system is better though since there are less ways to abuse it.

I just don't think that mindset really bears out though. Like they're not for spamming anyway they're powerful but situational and I have never run out of emblems. They are refilled by minibosses and dropped by most enemies.

I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. Almost want to take off work some day this week to slam through it. I'm probably around halfway through. This world isn't as inherently interesting to me as Dark Souls or Bloodborne but at the very least it is satisfying that urge I have where I run all the way down a nook and cranny of the world and discover something, sometimes way earlier than the designers may have meant me to: e.g. I made it to the castle and then went another way for another 2 hours and multiple boss encounters before I even started to explore the castle.

@efesell: You wouldnt spam them though, just as you couldnt spam spells in Dark Souls, i'm not saying the system in Sekiro is broken just needless.

@boozak: I get what you're saying, but it's kind of a moot point in my experience so far. You never come even remotely close to running out of them, so it doesn't seem like something really worth complaining about.

@sethmode: Neither have I, because I havent been using them as much I wanted to. I had the same problem with DMC 5, I never even saw what half of the breaker moves or whatever were because I was too busy hoarding. It's more of a mental thing on my part I guess.

Man, Ashina Castle is stupidly dense. I'm done for the day but I'm super happy with myself for even making it this far and very curious to see what's beyond. Met the new Spear Guy and found out he's waaaaaaaay worse than the first Spear Guy, as well as some loner in a cave that's very uninterested in me having a good time. New bell swinging enemy is real son of a bitch too; I wound up following the rooftop clues, but made the mistake of not resting first and running out of health items near what I assume was the climax of that little adventure. Probably be the first thing I tackle tomorrow.

On the subject of grinding, personally I find the baseline combat fun enough that when I feel stagnated on a boss, I'm more than willing to do a run through Hirata Estate or the Outskirts from front to back earning money, skill points and picking up items just to remind myself how fun this game is and relax a bit by relishing in all the ways I've gotten better at this game and more relaxed/fluid in its combat. I watched Game Informer's podcast segment on this game and I kind of agree with Kyle Hilliard's assessment of the previous games and apply it to this one as well: most of the bosses are just hurdles to get to the things I truly care about, the lore and regular enemy fights, and maybe that makes me an odd fit for Sekiro considering it's turning out to basically be a boss rush disguised as a semi-open world game, but I find the dynamic between the two sides of this game really intriguing and well balanced.

@boozak: It's definitely a little bit of "I can't use this elixir to stay alive, what if I need an elixir to stay alive later?!"

@boozak: Ah, I get you. I've definitely been there. I've just been finding my inability to get the timing of parrying down yet has had me leaning on the arm abilities to make up for it. Hopefully my early dependence on them doesn't come back to haunt me later, but so far it's been fine even using them liberally in fights like the Chained Ogre and that giant drunken dude.