Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (From Software)

skribble said:

Completed it and avoided all threads etc as didn't want spoilers, and for once wanted to take my time with a fromsoft game and try to find everything i could

Went pretty good, missed the final two prayer beads of course, bit salty about that. Also the fish corpse location, dunno why the fuck he's eventually at ape, I guess it links somehow and thats how people got sick? Maybe i missed the item that elaborated on that, but I didn't get it.

Overall I thought the quests were easier to progress than others in the series, maybe thats because the grapple makes it easier to return to areas you struggled with before. In the end I was a bit disappointed with the conclusions, i spawned a small fish from the pot guy who kept asking for more scales to become bigger, and I thought this would eventually lead to me fighting the big carp and bringing him the final scales (I also bought everything from him), but nope, just a small fish now. Nothing special from that entire thing. Pretty shitty. Blackhat just gives a balloon that combines all the effects. Rat catcher guy/Issin at least gave me some art. Killing all five headless doesnt seem to do anything. I really thought that room near the start of senpau temple past the monks where you grapple up into the hole in the roof, which has all 5 there and one of the guys is holding like a bell thing, would do something once I killed them all. I also thought killing all the infected guys with the mortal blade without resting would do something too, but apparently not (or I missed some but didn't see in wiki). Disappointed black scroll was just a lore item.

I also found the game a lot smaller in scope than the others. Like it suddenly dawned on me that this was probably all the areas I was going to visit, and whilst fountainhead was a lot bigger/better than expected, I never felt like I actually got away from Ashina, though this was probably by design. I was just so sick of the place in the end, three times we're back there now. Ending (dragons homecoming) was just a cutscene, absolutely nothing of importance.

Having said all that , I did still love the game. The way it turns a more or less linear path into making you feel like you have discovered something special is still great, and plenty of nice surprises. The combat grew on me a lot (Swapping eavesdrop and flask buttons helped), i just wish there was another couple of areas to explore.

In terms of difficulty, found it like all souls games: rolled at start, fine the majority of the way through, last two bosses I found challenging though Ebretias is still #1 for fucking me over.
Don't agree that its not a souls-like game, I actually thought it was very souls like and my eyes rolled so hard when i saw the 'treasure carps', but at least they were elaborated on later with the swimming. Anyway 9/10 or so, loved it despite my criticism, no game makes me pay attention like fromsoft games.


Also, one thing I don't think I saw mentioned in this thread despite someone talking about the Mortal Blade is that you can go back and kill the guardian ape's corpse properly, for an extra attack power.

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