Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

So, I went on holiday then didn’t play for another week or so and decided to start again from scratch.

Obviously the previous experience helped a lot but i also reckon more distance from Dark Souls is letting me get into the fighting groove more. Sailed through the early parts, including the minibosses I’d struggled with the first time. Got quite a shock when Lady Butterfly was still like a brick wall. Did eventually manage to get past her without taking much damage.

Genichiro took a lot of time and effort to get past. Funny that his second phase is so much easier than the first.

They really love monkeys in this game. I’m not a fan and found them extremely frustrating. However, looking back it’s probably during the second match that I really started to get the hang of things. Did that classic DS trick of taking something that seems insurmountable and then turning it into a regular enemy. First time I won by grinding him down, running in circles to bait a particular move. By the end of the second I was taking him down in 30 seconds before getting stuck into his pal.

Owl was probably the most enjoyable fight so far. Possibly because I expected another Genichiro style kicking but I actually found him relatively easy. Well, after the other classic DS trick of letting me get one deathblow and half his second healthbar on the very first attempt then not getting a hit in the second time as he pulled out a bunch of absolutely brutal moves he hadn’t even hinted at before.

Getting close to the end now. Just had my arse sliced neatly off by the old Sword Saint for the first few times and finally looked up some stuff about the endings to find that I’ve completely missed out on the opportunity to do any of the alternates because I didn’t cheat early enough. Bah.

Beat the Demon of Hatred last night. Felt quite proud of myself for figuring out the in-story rationale for one weapon being more effective against him.

Only took me about four hours altogether. By which measure, I presume I’ll beat the last boss sometime around Christmas.

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Took down the big man last night.

Pretty satisfying in the end. His first two phases are initially overwhelming but you soon get to grips with them. Never really got a handle on his lightning phase. The victorious run was a cavalcade of utterly botched attempts to get a reversal where I would flukily jump through, around or underneath him instead. Lucky I still had a full gourd when I got there.

He was too fast for the old Shinobi axe so went with a nifty jumping on his head when he does the big special move sweeps then mid-air Mortal Draw strat. Big posture and health damage puts him right on the back foot.

Still hopping mad about missing those two prayer beads and seeing how few souls you get for killing standard enemies in NG+ has me wishing I’d done a few more runs through the burning castle bridge to grind out some extra skills. It’s going to be a long time before I can afford any Senpou kicks now.

Been having a lovely time running around NG+ battering the absolute shit out of everyone. Thought I’d try one of the Headless.

Oh dear.

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Nobody else still playing?

So. NG+ is pretty easy…

As in: I know you expect to sail past the early bosses, but you also expect that to come to a halt at some point. Headless aside, both Monkeys went down at the first time of asking, Owl and Monk were both tough but half an hour tough not teeth-grinding tough.

Obviously going to get smashed up by the Dragon now.

Yeah I gave up on NG+ because it was too easy to be fun. Was missing the magic of the first playthrough because you can just brute force stuff.

Just dropping by to say this is pretty accurate right up until the old Sword Saint. Took me about 25 hours to run through NG+, doing all bosses and minibosses, including the extra ones I missed the first time. It then took me another 12 hours to beat the old man. Could be I’m just shite but it felt like an insanely high difficulty spike.

Now thinking that NG++ might be the more satisfying challenge as the increased enemy damage will negate the maxed out health and posture.

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Get wrecked Kuro! Finally did the Shura ending and got the platinum last night.

Emma was a really cool fight with a markedly different style to most others and Isshin was sufficiently different to the normal version to be a challenge. In particular, there’s a snakehip shuffle he does that continually punishes my too eager attacks and fucks me right up. Can’t tell if both would’ve been easier if I hadn’t fought them for the first time on NG++.

It’s definitely a lot tougher at this point. Even standard early game enemies can wreck you if you let them in and any mob can be a killer. Think rebalancing the scaling in NG+ would go a long way to extending the life of the game. On the other hand, now that it’s confirmed there’s no DLC I guess it’s being quietly forgotten.

That’s such bullshit

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Agree. There are a couple of obvious directions for it to go (Isshin vs Shura, Sculptor and Ape) that I’m amazed they’re going to pass.

Maybe they’re focusing on something with a bit of multiplayer Co op and a variety of different play styles? I wouldn’t complain

Apparently the whole company is focusing on Elden Ring, which is promising

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Oh is that the George RRRRR Martin thing? Really hope that it sees the light of day and isn’t a horrible let down

Yeah it’s the George RRRRRRR Martin collaboration thingy. Apparently the number of staff at From has grown massively and there’s about 300 people working on it. I don’t know anything about the size of vidya games staff but I assume that’s quite a lot.

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Thread is a good read

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