SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE 💀

[vikram]

for me the Holding Block position was a natural response in the very first midboss battle in Ashina Outskirts.

you approach him and he pulls his sword out and his default position is Block, slowly meandering around and toward you, gauging your position, waiting to strike

I saw that and said “oh yeah? well I’ll do that too” because it seemed like the Honorable thing to do, while also looking Bad Ass.

pretty sure I read later that it recovers Posture in one of the loading screen hints. I powered through those hints early on (you can cycle through them by pressing X during the loads) and I gotta say they told me a lot of Important Stuff about the game, so I kinda have to lol seeing complaints about the extensive load times while simultaneously criticizing the game for not overtly explaining its mechanics…

[anothersphere]

I moved while guarding a lot early on, later here and there especially w/certain swordsmen. But yeah it was overall not my default, even though that slow strafing “Square up…Shinobi” is pretty tight!

SSD kinda turned those loading meditations to 5-6 second exhales at most. I was not looking to rush…just very punchy with Sekiro; it has subtleties I texture more like window dressing to a simpler (not mundane or boring) exercise. At least compared to the tankier set of obstacle courses it sprung from, now swinging their craft more to Action.

I really don’t find the entire game elegant much as I find it uh, tidy? Even the half realized or short of fully scaled ideas aren’t really jank jonk junk either. It’s just sparse implementation given the scale populace and variety of the world that I knock it for. The games would greatly improve by providing more opportunities and incentives to experiment with its depth - just don’t spell it out! Keep some stuff opaque.

Since I place it between crazier action games and yeah the preceding solzbornz, I just want the next with each’s strength better realized.

Give me kusarigama chains that can neck hold three opponents a foot off the ground, and yes more dots for connect the lore.

[talbain]

There’s a delay before the recovery actually becomes significant (effectively, it forces you to stop mashing for a bit) - you have to be standing and holding block for a bit before it actually starts to recover.

[talbain]

It’s not that they’re challenging, it’s more that they’re obtuse. The game simply doesn’t make it clear how you’re supposed to approach combat.

And has been mentioned a lot, if you approach it with a Souls mindset you’re going to be very disappointed. The longer you hold onto trying to be creative, the more frustrated you’ll be. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.”

[Felix]

I don’t think you’ll hear much argument there from me, but I was deliberately using neutral language because it’s clear that there’s a lot of variance in people’s experience there. I shared the mike thomsen tweets above because I did find it somewhat deliberately, cruelly, and not entirely confidently counterintuitive, but I’ve said that enough times by now.

[Decinoge]

Personally, I found those tweets to be easy.
Easy comments, with a “easy game design” rule book right next to his keyboard.

I agree with @talbain as they keep combat “kinda” obtuse.
I believe that it could be explained in much depth, but looking at this thread is enough proof that it would take more time than one would ever want to spend reading text to play an action game.
One nice way of making everything clear… actually, of simply stating that a functionality exists, are those loading screens @vikram mentioned. I actually think those are better written than the huge pop-ups (and less annoying).

Still, all this leads me to talk about exploration.
Not on the typical sense of video game exploration, of the player’s avatar moving around a virtual space. But since it is all virtual anyway, also conceptual ultimately, so is the gameplay.
It’s a think I’ve always knew, but wasn’t truly conscious until playing DS.
I do want to know what I can do around the game, and I want some indications of it.
But don’t just put a huge map on my screen, say step by step where to go.
Same with these combat systems, I like to figure them by myself. I see many people annoyed for a game giving away too easily the places you can explore, but hardly about exploring the nuances of the gameplay.

Does FromSoft does the best possible job in keeping those obscure, yet allowing the player to know them? No… it’s always possible to make it better (design works pretty much like engineering in that).

But I personally believe that they would probably do an even better job at making that discovery and exploration more fun, if the videogame design rule books were not fixated on giving them away easily.

This reminds me of a level design dev that I knew in Krakow, he was trying out my tech demo for the GBA engine. And one of things he said was “You should always show where the player can go”. I couldn’t stop thinking “how boring, no way for a player to lose a life because he risked to jump into a pit to check if there was something there, and failed? It’s just a video game”.

But ultimately I think Sekiro does a good job at obscuring how to master the system, which is not simply a matter of timing memorisation. Get your hands dirty, die a bunch of times, and learn your way through the system. It’s just a game, anyone can learn if you keep trying.
I personally think that discussing about “the correct amount of deaths to pass the game” is as much of a ridiculous discussion as the discussions around a few years ago (probably not here) that games should not stop the player’s progression.
Sure… if that is the kind of game for that. But I can’t really even call it a game, but more of a virtual experience, or something else entirely.

Game implies the probability of losing. How much “lose” a person is predisposed to endure to finish that game, or even master it, tells more about the player itself than the game.
Ultimately the videogame is just a proposition from the developers. No one is forced to play it.

But the discovery for finding those conditions for “not losing” is as interesting to me as travelling through those virtual, interesting, beautiful (or not to all) places.
Learning the gameplay is an exploration in itself.

Also… there is one mindset you should keep from DS and BB.
Keep trying, it will click eventually.

[disestablished]

If anything, From has gotten worse at training the player.

Demon’s Souls is the best at training you, because it offers an intro level where you can’t die until you fight the boss and the enemies are less aggressive and it has hint messages all over the intro level, to inform you.

and then you go to the nexus, where you can take further time to familiarize yourself with controls and take in the mood. and there are more hint messages to read. and you can get aquinted with messages from players and whatnot.

You basically get to breath a whole lot, at the beginning of Demon’s Souls. and then the first proper level is the only place you have access to and initially, you can only path through it in one direction. Until you complete the one direction. So it pretty carefully ramps you up. That’s just the start of a whole lot which they got right, on the first game.

Dark Souls funnels you straight to a boss, before you get your starting gear. And if you played Demon’s Souls, you may not realize you can/are meant to escape him. You may not notice it, anyway. Its clearly a joke on the player. But at the same time, probably pissed off many new players. And then it only briefly offers training messages and some low level enemies, in a very confined space, and then puts you right back at that boss again. Where you at this point have a rudimentary understanding of the controls. after that, it plops you into the hub area and says ok go for it. and you have 3 ways to go if you don’t have the master key. two of which you aren’t really meant to go to, in terms of difficulty. But once you get going the “right” direction, the pacing is pretty much perfect for the difficulty ramp. With the master key, you can access half the game right away. Super daunting.

Dark Souls 2 isn’t bad. You get to breath a lot. You start in a pretty safe area. and then move to a low complexity maze of sorts, where you meet a varied assortment of encounters and can learn through paying attention to those encounters. Then It just plops you into that game’s hub and says ok go. and there are a lot of places to go, right away. Pretty daunting. But pretty good.

Dark Souls 3 starts you out in a small area with low aggression, low health enemies. and then when you go to exit, if you turn right, you meat a very powerful, very large, very fast enemy, who is probably comparable in difficulty to Ornstein from Dark Souls 1. Upon properly exiting the start area, you meet more of the same enemies. But now they have more health and you might die, not expecting to have to hit them more.

and then you meet a boss who is no slouch and has a second phase where he changes form and move set (which is a new thing for Dark Souls). and I don’t recall any hint messages up to that point. I am certain a lot of new players were very frustrated with the start of Dark Souls 3.

[Decinoge]

DS3 had messages. But yes, much less obvious than DS1, and definitely a much less interesting environment for learning the basics. But imo it was DS2 that was actually more textbook tutorial, giving you 3 sections on a bigger area as tutorial. Always wondered if if a proper explanation for power stancing was left out on purpose. I guess texting about stats in that environment would feel greatly out of context. But ultimately I think DS2 did fine with the tutorial, kinda not too much textbook-ish, which in right the first time I saw as “this is kinda uninteresting”. Still fine.

But Sekiro feels different. First the presentation of what you can do is absolutely textbook AAA tittle. You read again the explanations now, and you see they are not even that obtuse.
But the thing is that words can’t simply express the depth of the combat system. There are layers to it, which start to open with that friendly undead trainer. But ultimately are discovered with bosses and mini-bosses through practice.

But even more than on DS, I feel Sekiro is about practice. Not just memorisation and muscle memory, but actual practice.
It would always (to an extent) be possible to present more iterations of challenges for the game. But the ones presented there are very good for you to form a “self” with how you work with that combat system.

It’s just important to pay attention to the limit of this self. Since customisation is out of the table, it’s not as obvious as a simple use of a different weapons, weight and what not. The nuances are very subtle. But after watching other people playing this game, I can see how different they play for me.

I think this is “ok” done, a bit over that (no… I won’t say it is a work of genius), for a game of this sort that proposes no customisation (and I am conscious that there is even the stealth part to mention, but I’m purposely keeping it outside).

One last detail. I think people who played this game “just to finish” it will miss mostly, if not completely, this entire aspect of building a self through practice and not stats/build.

[edit]
Btw @disestablished, I really liked those descriptions of the early areas of those 4 games, specially DS1. Made me feel as I was doing a nostalgic visit.
[/edit]

[disestablished]

I haven’t played Sekiro yet. But from what I have heard, it seems fine with how things progress. Including how some of the arm attachments offer enemy specific opportunities. But I don’t know the starting moments of the game, to be able to compare/contrast with my Souls game descriptions.

I’ve also been a fan of character action games like Devil May Cry 3, Ninja Gaiden, and then the souls games. So I’m used to paying attention to delays and small variances on button input. Other gamers who haven’t played as much of those games, may have a harder time getting the hang of it.

[disestablished]

@talbain

One of the things that was enjoyable about the Souls games, particularly Demon’s Souls, was that random enemies could be really threatening, due to placement, environment, relative mobility, and numbers combining to create situations you had to be creative to get out of.

When I was made aware that Dark Souls has like 4x the amount of enemy types, I was pretty surprised. Demon’s Souls does more, with way less. and it doesn’t feel like less.

I think that overall, Dark Souls is still pretty good about setting up scenarios. But I did spend a fair amount of time wondering why the enemy placement in many areas is not very interesting or demanding of me. and that probably lines up with running out of time on development and also little in between areas of the connected world, which are kind of barely anything and just have some (often unique) enemies sprinkled for flavor.

[toups]

I actually feel that the stealth is remarkably well implemented and used for how minimalist its mechanics are. It’s one of the things I enjoy the most about this, the experience is generally a lot more dynamic as a result and it really streamlines segments where you’re stuck at a boss and maybe you don’t feel like taking down a dozen or so random enemies each time on your way to retry… so far at least you’re given an option to sneak past most set pieces with relative ease and speed. like it’s nice that you get to experience those set pieces as practice or when you’re just trying to explore and find items or alternate paths but once that phase of the game is done you aren’t left having to do it over and over again just to try again at the boss.

I also feel like random “mook” encounters can still be very threatening in this game? Maybe I am still just bad at it but the same principle holds true for souls games as well, even demons… once you really get a basic mastery of the way combat works you will sail through anything that isn’t a boss battle (and most boss battles too), unless you start getting careless.

[a_new_duck]

@toups

I also feel like random “mook” encounters can still be very threatening in this game? Maybe I am still just bad at it

Yeah, I’m still at this stage too. Regular enemies are major threats.

I’m learning a lot about my own lack of patience, tbh.

Beating Lady Butterfly was exhilarating. But now I’m hard throttled at the end of Ashina Castle and I’m really hoping I’m not gated here forever.

[bib]

you might not even be gated there now

[a_new_duck]

Oh. It would not be unlike me to have totally missed a branch that opens the game up somehow.

Can someone hit me with a spoilered tip in case I can’t figure out what to do that isn’t Ashina Castle/Hirata Estate?

[sleepysmiles]

The easy stealth is a real pressure valve for me. when i’m struggling on a boss, i can load up another area and rush through just obliterating everyone in it within minutes, and get a material ingame benefit (XP + sen) in addition to feeling psychically a little better

I do not play enough stealth games so the best thing i could compare it to was stealthiness in Bethesda games and realizing that you start off with a 60+ “SNEAK” score in this, and it only gets better. i totally understand the desire for more challenging stealth levels but at the same time, it’s fun as hell to be a literal ninja right from the jump.

People have mentioned feeling excited for Sekiro getting a sequel and getting iterated on, and i would love it if that tension between hard bosses and eminently doable stealth levels got played with more

[toups]

I mean you’re a freaking shinobi of course you are naturally good at stealth

[BustedAstromech]

The stealth mechanics and corresponding movement controls (ledge safety, marked climbing ledges, grapple nodes) are absolutely ripped wholesale from the past decade of Western 3rd-person action games. I’m shocked that From of all developers is one to take that influence (from games that are generally pretty sludgy and overly trying to please) and implement it in a recontextualized manner for their game.

[Felix]

yeah I went ewwww when I encountered the first “press button to drop down from ledge” prompt in the tutorial level

[BustedAstromech]

I think it’s best to think of automated stealth and platforming as tools enabling other games. They took the play out of the jumping and ambushing mechanics, but did they do so because the things you do after that couldn’t have been done otherwise?

It’s the an analogous lesson to Klei’s Mark of the Ninja; give people tools to succeed so they can focus on different problems. Now, Mark of the Ninja still wants to be a stealth game, so automating it weakens the game for me, but a 3D action extravaganza that wants occasional stealth to be a side-activity is well-served.

The alternative is ending up with Battlefield’s helicopters, or the more directly, the stealth sections of PS2 games.

[toups]

@BustedAstromech

The stealth mechanics and corresponding movement controls (ledge safety, marked climbing ledges, grapple nodes) are absolutely ripped wholesale from the past decade of Western 3rd-person action games. I’m shocked that From of all developers is one to take that influence (from games that are generally pretty sludgy and overly trying to please) and implement it in a recontextualized manner for their game.

I mean this is true but they are really well implemented. Movement in this game feels incredible and is very responsive. I don’t really see a drawback to any of this, though the constant prompts are definitely annoying.