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Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (22 March 2019) OT - Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4 . . . (Update: GOTY Edition coming October 28!)


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11 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

I just read through the Gamespot article and it has details on how death and resurrection works. There is a revive mechanic that is integral to the game's flow but there is quite the heavy punishment for an actual death, including respawning at your last bonfire equivalent. 

 

You lose half your gained cash and experience points apparently and unlike Souls, it seems to NOT be a recoverable item drop. So you lose, you lose if I'm reading that correctly. 

jesus. even worse. 

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4 hours ago, atom631 said:

jesus. even worse. 

 

It is and it isn't... from the P.C. Gamer article:

 

Quote

You can resurrect yourself once or twice after death, essentially giving you a mulligan in some of the game's toughest encounters.

Sekiro's linearity and revival mechanic caused some unrest in the SoulsBorne community. Had From Software gone soft? I mean, a Miyazaki game without constant corpse-runs? How could this be? Well, after two hours with Sekiro, and approximately one trillion deaths on a mini-boss called the "Chained Ogre," let me be the man to put those fears to bed.

 

The Chained Ogre can go to hell. You will meet him in the first chapter after the prologue, and he will gatekeep the hell out of you just like Bloodborne's Father Gascoigne and Dark Souls' Capra Demon once did. The Chain Ogre is a red-eyed, bearded giant plucked directly from the torrential battle scenes of medieval Japanese art. His moveset, however, takes cues from Macho Man Randy Savage. Massive elbow-drops, big boots, diving tackles. I'm surprised he never hit me with a piledriver. The ogre is deceptively quick for his size, demanding lightning reflexes to get out of his range. One hit drains about half your lifebar, and if you get caught in one of his bigger moves, you're almost certainly dead. 

 

It was there, as the Ogre was driving my head into the dirt again and again and again, that the central tension of Sekiro became clear. The reason that this game doesn't saddle you with an extreme death penalty, and instead buffers your mortality with that resurrection ability, is because the protagonist is extremely fragile. You simply can't take that many hits without keeling over, and you won't be able to rely on kindled bonfires or blood vial farming either. The Healing Gourd, Sekiro's Estus Flask stand-in, came with exactly one charge. Why has From Software given us some more leeway around death? Simple: From Software expects us to die more than we ever have before.

 

So there it is...

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7 minutes ago, Chris- said:

You can’t play BB like DS, the health recovery mechanic and lack of poise/shields completely changes things. You also need to master parrying, whereas I don’t think I parried in DS3 once. 

You didn't play Dark Souls like Bloodborne... that doesn't mean you couldn't.

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1 hour ago, Bacon said:

Only bad people say this.

 

Plenty of people sword and board or poise through Souls games; if you think they are 'bad' that's fine, but that doesn't change the fact that Bloodborne severely narrowed and changed the scope of adequate play styles.

 

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

You didn't play Dark Souls like Bloodborne... that doesn't mean you couldn't.

 

I never said otherwise.

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Ah, sorry. I read it backwards that you couldn't play DS like Bloodborne. Yeah, Bloodborne severely limited the possibility scope of how you could play, which I think is functionally a net negative. There should be more natural ways to encourage aggressive play than just destroying options. If you happened to already play super aggressively, then yeah, it played like Dark Souls, but for people who tend to find big tanky builds more fun, like me, it was like... great. Now I HAVE to play a different way.

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1 hour ago, Chris- said:

Plenty of people sword and board or poise through Souls games; if you think they are 'bad' that's fine,

If you use a shield you aren't bad, but if you need a shield you are. I played two handing my weapons because I'd just dodge. Of course I wasn't always like that, but by the time BB came out I was. I didn't have to play BB any differently. I just two handed the axe until I got the Great Sword and then I two handed that. The only thing I had to get use to was the new dodge. The health  gain shit just let me continue to play the same way I had been playing, but I just didn't need to heal as much. You said you can't play BB like DS, but you totally can. Which is why I said if you can't you are bad, because you haven't even mastered the basics that persist through out the series.

 

Yep, that sounds totally elitist and idc. You just need dodge until you can attack. If you need the shields, and poise, and magic, then that's fine. I don't care how you enjoy your game. But if you can't play BB and DS the same way then you aren't good enough.

 

Edit: "You just need dodge until you can attack." Yeah, I get that you can say that about a bunch of other shit.

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2 hours ago, Chris- said:

You can’t play BB like DS, the health recovery mechanic and lack of poise/shields completely changes things. You also need to master parrying, whereas I don’t think I parried in DS3 once. 

Yeah I don't think you're supposed to play BB like DS by design... the game was designed to incentivise aggressive play. This game seems designed to incentivise stealthy play sense you're a ninja and all.

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And I don't necessarily want to be able to play SDT just like I play all the other Soulsborne shit. I wouldn't mind if I could, and I totally will if I can, but having to play differently is fine as well. As long as I like the differences that is.  Like, I liked Nioh, but I'll never play it again so I hope SDT doesn't play like that in the slightest. 

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On 3/6/2019 at 10:51 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

Just from the videos I've watched it doesn't play like Nioh... you really can see the Tenchu influences in the game.

The impressions I've read from people who actually got their hands on the demo at various events said the combat has a much different flow due to it being focused on parrying and your character being very nimble, including the obvious jumping and rope mechanics. Apparently the parry is much more akin to a secondary attack in speed and timing, as in, it's more or less instant much like a sword attack rather than Souls or Bloodborne's huge wind-up windows to parrying. You can even parry projectiles in mid-air and all kinds of shit so it appears it's designed for speed to go tit-for-tat. 

 

Tenchu influences look massive and are really exciting to me, I loved even the jankier entries in that series myself. 

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1 hour ago, Man of Culture said:

The whole argument of "You can play Bloodborne like Dark Souls so you should be able to play Sekiro like Dark Souls/Bloodborne"

It isn't that you should be able to. I never said you should be able to. It is that you can. And I don't care if it is unimaginative if I play them in the same way. I'll play in the way that is the most effective every time.

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6 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

ouch will ferrell GIF by Paramount Pictures

Is it supposed to be as obtuse and unforgiving as those games are?  From what I've read and seen it looks like it's easier to understand and generally less punishing.  Dark Souls and Bloodborne seem like incredible games, but I don't have the time or the motivation to replay a section over and over or not understand how anything works until I'm dozens of hours into a game.

  • Haha 1
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31 minutes ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Is it supposed to be as obtuse and unforgiving as those games are?  From what I've read and seen it looks like it's easier to understand and generally less punishing.  Dark Souls and Bloodborne seem like incredible games, but I don't have the time or the motivation to replay a section over and over or not understand how anything works until I'm dozens of hours into a game.

 He's laughing because you're probably setting yourself up for disappointment. The Gameplay will be different, but the basic design philosophy will be similar. You'll probably be just as punished playing this as you would the other games... based on what I've read, maybe more so because your player character is very fragile.

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2 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 He's laughing because you're probably setting yourself up for disappointment. The Gameplay will be different, but the basic design philosophy will be similar. You'll probably be just as punished playing this as you would the other games... based on what I've read, maybe more so because your player character is very fragile.

Oh alright, well maybe it's a pass then.  I really don't mind hard games, and I prefer to be challenged, but the other From games seem to intentionally obscure systems and mechanics to add difficulty, which really put me off of them.  It was sounding to me like Sekiro is going to be challenging but clearer and easier to understand going in.  I played Ninja Gaiden on Xbox and loved it, and was hoping for something similar but deeper.

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41 minutes ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Is it supposed to be as obtuse and unforgiving as those games are?  From what I've read and seen it looks like it's easier to understand and generally less punishing.  Dark Souls and Bloodborne seem like incredible games, but I don't have the time or the motivation to replay a section over and over or not understand how anything works until I'm dozens of hours into a game.

The games really aren't very punishing at all. There's only one lesson you really need to learn to "git gud" and that's be patient. There are specific things that can be obtuse, but for general gameplay, observe and react once you know what you're doing. That's it. They're not puzzle boxes, they're action RPGs in the end. Just not hack n slash. They're also pretty damned forgiving. The whole meme of Souls games being super duper hard, unforgiving and obtuse is way overblown. The games are fairly easy once you know what you're doing (and what you're doing is being patient) and with summons even a novice can breeze through the whole series. The obtuse parts are mostly the story and the occasional joke stat.

 

A lot of the secrets and some of the side content can be really obscure, but the main path is always pretty damned clear and spelled out for you.

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Yeah, Dark Souls is only hard if you aren't willing to learn or can't learn. And even if you lack basic brain function you can still beat the game. There is this popular streamer and he is fucking dog shit, and basically refused to learn anything about the game and yet he still beat it. 

 

 

I am not saying to watch all of that, but you can skip around and just see the bad if you want. 

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1 hour ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Oh alright, well maybe it's a pass then.  I really don't mind hard games, and I prefer to be challenged, but the other From games seem to intentionally obscure systems and mechanics to add difficulty, which really put me off of them.  It was sounding to me like Sekiro is going to be challenging but clearer and easier to understand going in.  I played Ninja Gaiden on Xbox and loved it, and was hoping for something similar but deeper.

None of the systems are really obscure at this point for Souls/Borne series, a player whos never heard of the series could run thru 10 min you tube primer and be set to play. The game does reward those who are willing to go deep with weapons and boss fights but you can complete the game without doing it.People talk about the extreme difficulty of the series but its not hard bit does punish fairly (mostly). The game boils down to 

Swing pokey stick at enemy

block/dodge enemies pokey stick

repeat until finished.

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2 hours ago, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Oh alright, well maybe it's a pass then.  I really don't mind hard games, and I prefer to be challenged, but the other From games seem to intentionally obscure systems and mechanics to add difficulty, which really put me off of them.  It was sounding to me like Sekiro is going to be challenging but clearer and easier to understand going in.  I played Ninja Gaiden on Xbox and loved it, and was hoping for something similar but deeper.

 

You've got a strong opinion on DS games never having played one. Maybe you should play one first. :p

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58 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

You've got a strong opinion on DS games never having played one. Maybe you should play one first. :p

Yeah, you're probably right.  Every time I think about getting into them I end up deciding to play something else, because I don't get to play very often anyways and they seem like a pretty intense time commitment.

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On 3/12/2019 at 10:54 PM, ShreddieMercuryRising said:

Yeah, you're probably right.  Every time I think about getting into them I end up deciding to play something else, because I don't get to play very often anyways and they seem like a pretty intense time commitment.

Actually, Souls and Bloodborne all save constantly so they are shockingly pick-up-and-play friendly to me at least. As in, I often popped in for 30 minute bursts  to take a swing at bosses, get a handle of a particular area or similar. 

 

The games literally save constantly so you can just exit at any time and start where you were, there aren't savepoints nor checkpoints. 

 

I'm guessing you mean more that they are in-depth games with tons of lore and so forth but in reality, their core gameplay loops are fairly simple and basic. Not in a negative way but a very old school, addictive fashion. 

 

Overall, I think you'd be a bit surprised. It's more like playing a Zelda game than some intense mega-RPG in my opinion. 

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