Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

[Moribunderast]

Here's my fight, for anyone who's finished it and has any interest.

https://youtu.be/TOd1o5qsgnU

Phwoar - twatted him! Nice stuff.

[Timothy]

Impressive Boston! Great fight!

One question: How did you manage to get your health bar back to full health with just one gourd? In my game it's always just a little bit of health when I used the gourd.

[The Boston Crab]

Cheers, lads. I obviously don't quite have the timing with that one attack but glad to have hit one to finish him off. Looking forward to seeing him again!

As for the gourd, I got a couple of upgrades in the skill tree (but not the one for 5 points) and I got another gourd boost as a latent skill for killing some mini boss, maybe the second bull from memory. I'd say it got up to about 50% heal. I also had every prayer bead from killing all the mini bosses, etc. so my vitality was maxed out. I think I'll go for the shorter ending this time to fight the last unique boss and then I'll put it down for a bit.

[Thursday]

Question, once you do the final boss, (ITSS) you don't get a chance to go back to DOH do you? Does it take you straight to credits/NG+

Would much rather come back to DOH, but it's such an irritating fight. It basically feels like you're fight a Dark Souls boss but without "dodge forward through an attack iframes." I'm not seeing any way around certain attacks.

[The Boston Crab]

You don't go straight to NG+, no. I imagine DOH is still an option. I hope you see what I was moaning about. It's a neat nod to Souls but because of the status effects, I don't think you can reasonably fight him without some boring strat unless you're amazing at the game.

My advice is to actually hang back in front of him, just outside the projectile range. Bait and punish. I tried to fight him close up for hours and never made meaningful progress.

[Thursday]

I've done the first phase quite well now, getting close to him does work for that, not got past the 2nd phase although it seems doable, but reading up on the 3rd phase, sounds like that's where the bullshit happens. I've got malcontent ring, so seems that might help a bit if I can save all 3 uses for that phase.

The thing is, I've got the item that allows you to put skill points into attack power (well it's 5 skill points) I've already done that a couple of times, and I guess I'll do it a couple more times. Which is maybe not fully engaging with the mechanics, but it's within the game and not a bug so fine.

I think I've done every miniboss now, including all bloody 5 versions of headless.

[The Boston Crab]

Save all your Malco and you'll shred him with confetti in phase three. It's not as bad as I thought, either, from what I'd heard about his new attack. It's not constant so not too different to phase two. It was the least enjoyable boss for me, probably, and I almost quit the game. So happy I didn't.

[Thursday]

DOH IS #CANCELLED

Malcontent did make short work of that final phase, although I very nearly managed to fuck it up right near the end. It's happened for a lot of bosses on this actually, knowing a revive is there tends to mean I play recklessly.

[Thursday]

ITSS remains a cunt, even with all the extra power I have. I still can't beat the WOT with that much consistency. Angry at the game, but angry at myself, because there's some attacks I just will not learn. When the perilous attack symbol appears, I just suddenly revert to hammering L1, but that's not the thing to do. I am a really thick cunt.

[Thursday]

Anyway here's my DOH fight if you'd like to compare notes. Lots of mistakes, not exactly high level play but there you are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3E3oF2_EAA

[Timothy]

Saw a Sekiro speedrun yesterday. 29 minutes. The guy wasted bosses like they were nothing with minimal health bars.
Meanwhile I was stuck at them for hours while using gourds.

Sigh.

[brat-sampson]

Fucking Growl is such a dick. I know what to do and have gotten close to beating him, but the punishes are harsh as fuck. I *will* beat him, but it's getting annoying to me that it's taking this long. It's been hours. HE'S NOT THAT HARD!

[Thursday]

At least I've finally got to the final phase of ITSS.

Here's the thing with this game, souls games have always had this input delay meaning once you've pressed to do a move you can't stop it, you can't cancel. Sometimes in this it feels like you can a little bit, but not really, not consistently. Because this game is so much faster what often seems to happen is I start to commit to one move, literally just as a perilous attacks starts up but because you've started to commit it's too late to reverse this, even if you have pressed the right counter at the right time. That's how it feels anyway.

And again the rules for flinch from attacks seems inconsistent and bizarre, sometimes I seem to be able to recover and deflect, other times I just seem stunlocked. It doesn't feel consistent, all feels too fast to read what's actually happening and why.

Let's be honest here, most people aren't learning to deflect attacks, they're just hammering L1 and hoping for the best because chances are you're hitting the window which isn't very satisfying. But deflecting doesn't feel fair either, why am I taking more poise damage than the boss when I am hitting the deflect timing perfectly? I guess it would encourage people to turtle up essentially, but it feels like too much, there are times when deflecting is your only option so what are you supposed to do?

[Timothy]

I agree. That's exactly what I meant with my post a few weeks ago. It doesn't always feel fair even when it is.

[The Boston Crab]

Brat:


Is that Growl 1 or 2? I'm looking forward to fighting him again for the first time because I totally bullshitted that fight first time legging it around, punishing his jump.


Thurs:


I understand what you're saying absolutely. I did watch something about attack cancelling though where you can hit L1 to block cancel your attacks as long as you don't spam R1. Might help, not that you're spamming.

[Thursday]

I probably am a lot actually tbf, although not in the situations I'm thinking of.

[The Boston Crab]

Just seen your extended post. L1 spamming is fine against normal enemies, I'd say, or if you're cornered but I'm sure there's something about it being less effective on posture damage if it's not timed correctly. You're much more likely to inflict posture if you try to time each hit and don't just hammer it, even if you don't deflect each attack.

Deflecting successfully doesn't mean that you inflict more posture damage than the attacker because they still have the advantage, but you're tipping the scales for when you have an opening to attack. You also have certain attacks which will help you quickly recover posture like the Ichimonji or Prayer whatever.

If a boss has you at half posture damage and they're on zero, by the end of their combo you may well be on 99% posture but they'll be on 33% perhaps. You would need to either back off to recover or do some attacks that recover posture. If you both start at 0% when they do their combo and you deflect well, you would probably still be at some disadvantage (50‰ to 33%, say) but now's your chance to press on and hopefully get them up to 80% or whatever and then keep their posture high by being in their face. It recovers more slowly the higher it is so as long as you keep yours below half (obviously, as close as possible to zero) you're on the way to a deathblow if you keep it up.

[Thursday]

By the way, has anyone got any good film recommendations that might feel a bit Sekiro?

Anything that focuses specifically on Shinobi rather than Samurai? Or something that just get's a bit mad and fantastical with this kind of era the way Sekiro does?

[The Boston Crab]

I would recommend Sword of Doom as a slightly unusual lesser-known classic. Pretty sinister and violent for the time, amazing protagonist. Fuck, I need to watch it again.

In terms of the fantastical, hmm. Have you seen Versus? Not a great film but I seem to remember quite enjoying it.

[Sin Agog]

There aren't many good fantasy jidaigeki, but an anime called Dororo wrapped up a week or two ago based on an old Osamu Tezuka manga about a limbless, eyeless, skinless swordsman who battles demons to lift a curse.  Really sober and well done.  Kwaiden is a great horror anthology from the '60s about samurai blighted by ghosts and demons and whatnot.  The Daimajin trilogy is like a samurai version of Godzilla, except with a giant stone samurai warrior instead.   And Takashi Miike's Blade Of The Immortal is clearly heavily influenced by the aforementioned Sword of Doom, but is surprisingly great from a dude who churns out a million movies a year.

[Moribunderast]

I watched an anime titled Sword Of The Stranger, which was recommended in a thread I was reading about Sekiro. Pretty good - and there were elements that seemed almost directly lifted by the game. Doesn't get too fantastical, though.

[Thursday]

For anime, I've watched Samurai Champloo from the guy behind Cowboy Bebop which was pretty good.

[Space ghost]

If you want an anime to flick your sekiro switches then you should definitely take a look at 'Moribito guardian of the spirit'

There's a trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-4eF5NCVtU

[The Boston Crab]

Loving all these recommendations, lads. Thanks very much.

[Swoz_MK]

On Owlboy now. I THINK I've got all the key item bits so far. Not sure when I get to fountainland, I think the last piece is there?

[TrenterPercenter]

So anyone give me a hint.

Just killed the guardian ape (1st one) and also killed thee corrupted monk, haven't killed the 2nd ape but also haven't killed the headless or that weird thing with the terror balls, or rang that demon bell.  I can't pray in the little cart thing at wedding cave door and I can't get back into Ashina castle..........is it ring the bell time?

[TrenterPercenter]

Btw loving the game more and more so now, someone said they were underwhelmed past the ashina castle naaaaah, its been really good.  From really give you great value for money.

[brat-sampson]

Hint:
You have everything you need, so just get back to Kuro. You can't go in the front door anymore, but maybe there was another route...

Bigger hint:
You can still enter from the abandoned dungeon.

I knew Growl wasn't that hard! Beat him 2nd attempt yesterday and now I'm at the final boss. I haven't done much optional stuff I don't think, nor am I even sure how to, but if NG+ is optional I might go back and do it later. Or if I just can't get anywhere with Final Boss, I could go investigate, get more prayer beads etc. Got fully maxxxed gourds which is good.

[Thursday]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/04/23/sekiro-version-1-03-patch-notes-what-was-introduced-in-the-latest-update/

Some of these patches make the game... easier... Unbelievable. Never thought FROM would kotow to the SJW's! is nothing sacred?

[The Boston Crab]

I'll always be able to say I completed it on actual hard man mode not faget patch 'difficulty'.