SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE 💀

King of Posters
#1318

Dark Souls build variety is so complex and varyingly balanced that both your intepretation and Tulpa’s can be true at the same time, depending on which build category and which boss we are thinking about. I just raised another one about the shield stability stat above. “those ignorant of some deep mechanical lore will be lost in a whirlwind of misdirecting numbers” is precisely what happened to me there (and it interlocked with a problem about the more famously arcane poise stat).

And in part this stereotype is centered around magic builds, which are the clearest realization of it. I see the secondaryness of magic as a failure of Dark Souls’s intended design rather than a deliberate virtue.

#1319

While I agree that most all builds are viable, I think the order of stats and using them as weapon gates are fairly subtle hints From didn’t fully understand. Demon’s and Dark have characters that exist to tell you about the powers of clerical and arcane magic, which makes it feel first-class to me. The truly strong backstop they use is the defense stat buff that increments no matter which stat you buy; I think this is how they got over guessing what health players might end up with.

It’s also notable that stat builds give players an out to blame their difficulties, which can be helpful; in Sekiro, one must blame themselves or god.

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#1320

Maybe don’t quote my text, out of context, without my permission, to strawman me on your blog

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#1321

Agreed, this isn’t academia and I agree that blog post seems to express a weird, unwarranted contempt towards Tulpa’s thoughtful opinion. I agree that Dark Souls discussion is filled with myths but Tulpa, and this forum in general, is really not very representative of that problem. If you wouldn’t use this much invective against someone’s position in person, then please don’t do it on your blog either.

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#1322

that said, feel free to engage in good faith now that you’re back and apparently following along

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#1323

I think if the game just told me, very early on, “TRY TO PARRY EVERYTHING” and “MASH DEFLECT”, my experience would have been a lot different. My first playthrough was largely me avoiding doing this because the game doesn’t clue you into this, particularly against the bigger bosses, and so you try to play smart or creative and you end up getting punished for it, when just playing janky works a lot better when you haven’t memorized all the patterns (which will take you tons of hours and isn’t worth it unless you want to play to NG++++).

Because almost always the answer is just one button. It’s so reductive and frustrating when you want to play creatively and the game just throttles you for trying to do so.

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#1324

Yeah I read a post on here early on saying “mash deflect” is a sane thing to do and that probably changed my whole experience of the game. It’s hardly obvious that this is an intended strat.

If not explicitly “try mashing deflect”, it should’ve at least explained the obscure facts that “blocking has a time window after you release the button where it continues to apply. Secondly, deflecting in proximity to a block will make the deflect harm your posture, unlike isolated deflects”.

#1325

No One’s Ever Really Gone

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#1326

Yeah - also the “hold block to recover posture” which is also really important and completely not obvious. And frankly just weird to perform.

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#1327

Yep, except where a danger symbol appears, many bosses can be beaten almost purely with the L1 and R1 buttons, barely touching any other part of the controller except to close in if the boss ran off. They even made Combat Arts a combination of the buttons because it would be too much hassle to press any other button, apparently. The punch-out comparison is really apt

#1328

Agreed - aside from those reds, pretty much all the combat is a very linear back and forth (and I’d argue the reds and movement are just an extension of that - I’m not sure I’d call it deeper for it, though I’m sure many here will disagree). Technically you can do more, but it’s largely unnecessary and I’ve seen it harm people as much as it helps them, due to interrupting their typical cadence.

Sekiro is going to jam you into that round hole, no matter how square you want to be.

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#1329

'Course we can’t easily divorce the Soulsborne past pre-Sekiro, but I keep thinking it’s worth considering: how the response would’ve been granted it had the same audience reaching potential, and everyone was left to gauge praise and criticize without those expectations or reference points.

Also my reheated take, this is a leaner cut than the meat trays before and everyone’s still thinking how it’s the same restaurant. Get at me

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#1330

No, that’s honestly pretty fair. But it’s kinda hard not to.

#1331

Oh man that image is absolutely perfect. The deepest secret of the shinobi arts: sword wiggling

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#1332

Yeah I found it a bit odd that all four phases of Sword Saint, for all their nominal variety, ultimately could be reduced to punch-out. On the other hand, fire Isshin actually does require dodging and zoning

#1333

“Praise” and “criticism” inherently involves reference points though. Fully removed of context, a work is just itself and is neither good nor bad. Even in the rare case that a work is so distant from everything else that it is incomparable, typically such a work is either praised precisely for that reason, or criticized because it carries no virtues in any of the accepted frames.

#1334

No argument there. Lemme remain metaphoric…I’m making the case that there’s a lot fresher chew, less cud and other pastures worth grazing. Away from this core set of touchpoints.

All over the place I’d like to see more on this relating to Tenchu, Ninja Gaiden, Nioh, Way of the Samurai, tons more adjacent works of varying quality and accents to contrast and compare.

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#1335

Yeah, for instance Astromech’s detecting influence from the Shadow of Mordor series, which he is probably one of the only people to notice. From’s influences have always been way way more varied than they get credit for – I would even go so far as to claim that they are a great studio because of their unparalleled ability to synthesize disparate influences (mechanically, in art direction, in emotional effects)

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#1336

It’s the synthesize that’s really hard. Plenty of stuff comes out with new pieces glued together but so rarely are they pushed into something that actually works. We’re in the midst of a golden era of almost-good-ideas that don’t quite turn into real games in the endless waves of gorgeous, inspired indie titles that don’t quite gel. AAA tends to stick to established modes because those have become games over the years with loops that are workable and satisfying. From has been able to change meaningful stuff, 2, maybe 3 times since and including Demon’s Souls (but Demon’s was such a leap in its own right, absolutely astounding) and it pretty much works and that’s incredible. Like meauxdal says, these are big, big changes (posture pretty much replacing health is odd and its consequences are so well thought out it’s remarkable).

I think From gets a lot of mileage out of being willing to push their design to demand out of players. Requiring performance tends to clarify everything and restrict the player’s ability to muddle through; much of Sekiro’s tightness comes from the restricted player palette, but with their added tightness they are able to ask more from players.

My personal experience (and I’ve told this anecdote before but it was eye-opening) was coming to Shadow of War, a huge buffet table of a game with some real interesting bits trapped under a restrictive combat system and a weedlike growth of systems, and building myself a difficulty mode, just for me, to push myself to use every situational trick and player skill. And what I ended up with was the first time that game could sing to me; the first time I was running scared, was getting the triumphs and tragedies every bit of dynamic difficulty was supposed to bring.

But it was exhausting to play and required the knowledge you only get from knowing those numbers and systems intents for years; our game couldn’t bring up millions of people into the world where it really should live. It just has to live in the world as a glimmer seen briefly, potential in moments.

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#1337

i would say the combat has made me draw more mental comparisons to God of War than Souls fwiw, what with the stun bars and unification of parrying/blocking.

i feel like I’m less convinced of this idea than i used to be. the point of reference for whether a game is good is the alternative of not playing it. I’m tempted to say certain qualia (jumping, striking, accelerating) are inherently enjoyable, even if they can be overstimulated. my favourite games would still be fun if there were no other games.

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