Sekiro Shadows Die Twice - PlayStation 4

I have been playing Souls Games since Demon's Souls first released 10 years ago. I love them to death and have platinum trophied all of them.When I started Sekiro, I was very skeptical. To be honest, I wasn't even that excited about it, and I only barely remembered to preorder it. I heard it was much harder than Dark Souls, and when I first started playing it, I felt like that was true. Where Dark Souls is all about rolling and shielding, Sekiro is all about stealth and parrying. It was punishing in the beginning, and it took me a while to understand how combat worked.But boy, let me tell you, once you really nail down how it works this is one of the most satisfying games you'll ever play in your life. I'm about halfway through the game now, and I think I may very well love this more than any Souls game that came before it.CombatSo, to the reviews complaining that this is more difficult than Souls in an "unfair" way. I understand why it might feel that way at first, but I would urge you to keep in mind that this is a battle system that we haven't seen before. Souls was really well suited for fighting large monsters, but Sekiro was built for one-on-one sword duels. The parrying system is brilliant. Instead of whittling down your opponent's health, you're trying to wear down their posture so you can take down an entire bar of health at once. Posture is a new mechanic that allows you to land a killing or critical hit when it goes down. You and your enemies both have posture, and it will restore itself over time. This means that you can't really fun and hide- you have to keep up the pressure and strike any chance you get. Even if your opponent blocks your attack, it still wears away their posture damage.ExplorationSekiro is a very open game. If you enjoyed the exploration aspect of Dark Souls, you'll find that in spades here. Having a character that can jump and grapple all over the place really opens things up, and I was finding so many new, diverging pathways to go down at various points of the game that if I ever got stuck on a boss or mini boss, I could easily take a break from it and try something new.Another big win for the exploration is that you can now kill EVERY enemy (save bosses and minibosses) in one hit using stealth. This is HUGE. No longer do you need to run through crowds of enemies o avoid the tedium of fighting them all. Even big monster enemies can go down in one hit if you sneak up behind them. And if you're bad at stealth, don't worry. You can stay hidden very easily in Sekiro.Leveling UpIn Souls games, if you ever got stuck, you could always grind to get more powerful and try again. That's not really the case in Sekrio. In this game, all of your skill points can only be applied to new combat techniques or passive skills that increase your battle capability. If you want more health, you have to kill 4 minibosses. If you want more attack power, you have to kill a boss.This may sound like a negative at first, but I found it to be a positive. This system FORCES you to learn the combat system, because, honestly, your attack power and health are almost irrelevant compared to how good you are at combat. So long as you can block and parry your opponents (which does get easier, I promise), you'll barely notice how much health you have left. I found myself learning enemy attack patterns and anticipating their moves in ways I never did in Souls games. Every move I made felt like a true counter to their last attack.The StoryI love the story telling method of Dark Souls, and since Sekiro is more straightforward, I was worried it would lose a lot of that "story without telling a story" that made Souls lore so much fun. I'm very glad that this was not the case. Sekiro does have a more straightforward story, and it's pretty enjoyable. This is due in part because they combined the Souls style of storytelling with classic storytelling. I know what's going on in the world of Sekiro, but there are plenty of clues about the world I can piece together on my own based on the npc dialogue, environment, and item descriptions.CreativityJust a small note here. Not all of the boss battles in Sekiro are "battles" I've had a couple bosses now where I had to win through untraditional means, like sneaking through a valley while being hunted by a giant snake, or figuring out how to kill kimono-wearing monkeys in a world of illusion. They add nice variety to the regular combat. Don't worry though, there are still plenty of traitional challening boss fights.Final WordSekiro is very punishing in the beginning. You start with very little health and almost no healing items. But that's not so bad. As you keep going through the game, you'll find it gets easier and easier- not because the difficulty has gone down, but because YOU'VE gotten so much better. If you like Souls games, definitely pick this up and DON'T put it back down just because it doesn't feel like Souls at first. It's not Souls, this is true, but it's every bit as satisfying to master what this game has to offer.

I played all the DarkSouls / BloodBorne games. This is a refreshing turn from the developers. It's similar but different than the previous FromSoftware games. There is really no multiplayer so no one can help you on the bosses. You can jump and grapple across buildings. The games just came out so some of the critics reactions are negative because the learning curve. You need to unlearn how you played previously. The fighting is more based on reaction time, rock/scissor/paper, being more aggressive pays off. It's fast paced fighting and making mistakes will hurt you. There isn't the cheap deaths like the other prior games, falling down a pit won't kill you and no really one shot kills. The game forces you to focus, remember enemy move sets and chose the right button. No senseless button smashing like the previous games. After the learning curve sets in then the game plays fluidly and beautifully, that is until you reach a boss and get beat up. Every fight is fun and exihilarating. Landing a deathblow feels soooo good and that is primary goal each battle, getting that death blow. It's definitely not a game for kids, it more for gaming adults. The story is simple and easy to follow, more direct than FromSoftware prior games. As you can see the ratings are love it or hate it. Giving a 1 because of difficulty isnt a fair rating. Music, graphic, controls, story and amount of gameplay is top notch. You should be prepared you die. Is it difficult as the previous Dark Souls/ bloodborne? I'd say most people figured out how to play the Souls game so the difficulty wasnt as apparent, players adapted. For this game, the game fighting mechanics are new and people are still to figuring it out so the ratings will improve. The game is difficult but fair, you will need to practice to get better. It is incredibly satisfying as you progress, something rare in most of the nowadays. Plenty of people have beat the game Would I recommend the game to my casual gamer? Probably not. However, I would still tell that casual gamer that this game is a masterpiece and if they have time then you will be in for unforgettable experience.