FromSoftwares latest release and winner of the game of the year for 2020 did not disappoint. I am currently on my 4th playthrough and going for the platinum trophy. I never replay games, but needless to say I really love this game and is easily in the conversation for one of my top games of all time.
One of the big differences that Sekiro has over the other FromSoftware titles is that the story is far more direct. There are more cutscenes and it involves less of putting the story together for yourself. Although Bloodborne and Dark Souls has its own charm, this is a welcome addition for those looking for a more direct story. I’m not going to say the story is as good as God of War or Spiderman, but it does offer a similar kind of experience as those types of games.
Let’s start with the biggest thing that we all know Sekiro does: its difficulty. This game is tough, like really tough; it’s the only time I ever felt like crying from frustration. The reason why I feel this game is harder than Dark Souls and Bloodborne is because there are no real stats and instead all your experience is used for skill points to further a skill tree. This makes it so that you cannot fall back on the option of grinding away to increase your stats.
However, one way that Sekiro is incredibly forgiving is the checkpoints. Sekiro offers sculptor idols as checkpoints and fast travel points, however the placement of these idols are incredibly forgiving which makes traversing the areas far less terrifying as after you find one, it is not too much farther for the next. These idols allow you to fully heal yourself and restock consumables, however the price for doing that is that all the enemies in the area will be revived. Since dying causes you to lose all the loose experience that hasn’t been converted to a skill point this adds an amount of strategy where you need to decide if it is worth it to rest and heal.
The standard enemies are tough in itself, but the real challenge comes in the bosses. These bosses are so incredibly challenging and can be so mentally exhausting that you need to just drop the controller for a couple hours. With all that being said the bosses in this game are amazing. They each offer their own flair and offer a different experience. You can face a master swordsman or a giant ape. The reason why this makes it so difficult is that you absolutely cannot address every boss the same way because if you do you will not survive. Every boss involved me losing several times just to learn the movements. However, once you finally beat the boss you feel a giant sense of relief and accomplishment, I remember beating a boss that took me days and then going straight to bed with a giant smile on my face.
The one downside to these bosses is that I have seen online ways to cheese bosses meaning taking advantage of some potato A.I to defeat the bosses easily. Although I did not use these methods because I wanted a more satisfying experience, it is unfortunate that you can abuse the programming to make the game far easier.
The game offers not only bosses, but mini bosses. These are also incredibly challenging but many of them can be stealth attacked to cut the health in half. Some of these are mandatory, but many are optional, however the reward for beating them is almost a necessity. As I mentioned earlier there are no real stats in Sekiro, however defeating bosses give Sekiro the opportunity to increase his attack power by 1 and defeating mini bosses often reward Sekiro with a pearl bead and 4 of these pearl beads allow him to create a pearl necklace which permanently increase his vitality, a.k.a a bigger health bar. I loved this because I made sure never to miss any mini boss because I needed that reward to forgive my clumsiness.
The star of this game is simply the gameplay. First off, this is a stealth game. The combat, which I will get into later is designed to be a one on one confrontation so when you see a giant group of enemies you need to find a way to separate them and take them out one by one. The stealth mechanics are incredibly forgiving as if you just leave the area and wait until the music stops you can return for your opportunity for a stealth kill. This made me always survey the field to see where I could grapple too to see if I could eliminate the enemies without being seen.
The next mechanic unique to Sekiro is the posture system. I absolutely love this system. So basically, along with your health bar you and your enemies have a posture bar. The more you parry attacks successfully and the more aggressive you are with your attacks the more the enemies posture bar will grow and if you manage to deplete it all the way that is an instant take away one health bar. However, this works for the enemy also it won’t result in an instant kill, but it will make you temporarily vulnerable for an attack for an opponent. This makes it so that you want to be super aggressive to take care of the bosses quickly, however you also want to watch out for your posture and manage your distance when you need too.
Another gameplay mechanic that Sekiro offers is ninja prosthetics. These are essentially ninja tools that offer a variety of differences from shurikens to a firecracker. These prosthetics do require a form of currency called spirit emblems, however depending on your playstyle it may not be an issue. I have read of a lot of people running out of spirit emblems, however me personally I found myself only using these prosthetics on bosses for specific situations so I never found myself running out of spirit emblems. With all that being said I loved these prosthetics, it made specific bosses a lot easier and offers a different form of combat.
Another very small game play mechanic I loved was the eavesdropping. If you see the eavesdropping mechanic it usually offers some form of information to help you get through an enemy. For example, I was struggling to get through these two shield wielding enemies. However, right before these shield wielders were two enemies who stated using an axe would get right through and out came my axe ninja prosthetic. Eavesdropping can make the game far easier if you just listen to what they are saying carefully.
My biggest problem with the game was actually the camera. A few times when facing the bosses, I would find myself behind something where the camera wouldn’t focus and I couldn’t even see Sekiro which would often lead to my death. As you can imagine this was incredibly frustrating when facing some of the super difficult bosses. Although it didn’t happen very often, it did happen enough for it to be a concern. Due to the camera I would find myself just running away for a better view point instead of being aggressive as I would have liked.
PROS
- More Direct Story
- Great Stealth Mechanics
- Amazing Combat that differs from Soul games
- Posture mechanic
- Ninja Prosthetics
- Forgiving placement of checkpoints
- Rewards for beating bosses and mini bosses
- Incredible Boss fights
- Very difficult, but so satisfying when you win
- Eavesdropping
CONS
- Camera can get wonky
- Boss A.I can make it possible to cheese for easy victories
CONSENSUS
Some wonky camera moments and the ability to cheese bosses was not enough to take away from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. This game was well deserved of the game of the year award with its amazing stealth, innovative combat and challenging gameplay. Sekiro is now my favorite FromSoftware title, just barely passing Bloodborne and in my top 5 of all time.
RATING
10/10: MASTERPIECE
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