An Over-Analysis of FROM Software Boss Design: Sekiro - Shadows Die Twice 

one thing about Shirahagi: if you beat the guardian ape before shirahagi, about half of the gunners will be killed off-screen by the ape returning to it's burrow

Sekiro has the best boss quality in the whole series imo.

Fun fact. You can litterally instakill the shichimen warriors with the anti air deathblow since the float arround so often. And the small versions of the long arm"centipedes" you can also just instakill by jumping yourself.

A touch I absolutely love about Demon of Hatred is that you fight Gyobu, who is literally nicknamed ''the Demon''/Oniwa, as the first major boss of the game in that arena. You then fight an *actual* demon in the same arena at the end of the game. The game starts in a pretty sober realistic take on the setting, and by the end of the game major supernatural aspects have become a huge part of the world and feel like they fit in naturally. There's actual dragons, demons, vengeful many-faced spirits, immortal dancing swordsmen and a carp the size of a plane. It feels like such a great twist, going back to where you started with all the magical- and *dangerous*- aspects of the world fully revealed and paying off that journey with the reveal of the Demon of Hatred. You can even go back to the little old lady in the back of the building where you meet Isshin in disguise, and throughout the game her dialogue will change, and she'll warn you that she feels a demon is coming. The foreshadowing is there, but no part of the game will prepare you for how explosively powerful the payoff is. Just a fucking excellent fight, an absolutely gorgeous design, amazing music by Yuka Kitamura that gives the fight an incredible emotional atmosphere. His moveset being inspired by kabuki movements is just such an incredible inspired touch too. He's such a perfect demonstration of From Software's art department being able to take these ideas that sound crazy on paper and yet still managing to give them a sense of dignity and melancholy, which is something that the DS1 artbook's interviews established is something Miyazaki really pushed for with the art team. Despite his body being deformed, there's no sense of grotesque gore. It's a design that's scary at first, but becomes tragic the more you look at it. All that, while looking like it walked straight out of a historical tome of demon illustrations like the Hyakkai Zukan. I may struggle with the fight sometimes, but aesthetically it's probably one of my favorite boss designs From Software's ever made. Also, as an aside, I love that Genichiro effectively gates off the second act of the game, and Owl gates off the third and final act. They both serve as exam bosses to test your understanding of the game's mechanics; Genichiro is all about dealing with a balance of all attacks, mix-ups, learning to recognize what response a Perilous Attack requires not from the warning over your head but also from the enemy's stance (e.g. his jump slam having 3 different follow-ups), and learning pattern recognition (e.g. he always backsteps before he does his rapidfire arrow barrage). Once you master his fight, you feel like an absolute god. And then comes Owl, who is SO much more aggressive and oppressive. He covers distance extremely fast (teaches you to stay on him and be aggressive), does immense posture damage with his sword strikes (teaches you to block to actively recharge posture quicker), uses environmental hazards (teaches you to mind your spacing), and most importantly, he's just such a bastard that it's really fun to fight him and win despite how tough he is. You hit the nail on the head with Father Owl too, and I hope you tried or plan on trying Inner Owl in the boss rush mode and had a good time fighting him too. But yeah, tl;dr, I fucking love this game. It may be my favorite singleplayer game of all time. I made a Sekiro weapon mod for DS3 as a tribute because I just love it that much.

Playing blazing bull like a matador, parrying his charge and hitting his face in between, makes the fight one of the most fun in the game

I love Owl's attitude during an intense duel. Him saying "One, the parent is absolute, their will must be obeyed! Yet I sense some insubordination" is so funny because yeah, I guess you could call a violent duel to the death between father and son "some insubordination", but that might be underselling it a bit! Absolutely love all three of his fights, and the difference in atmosphere between the Hirata and dojo duel, but the character makes me so angry lol

The last of "seven ashina spears" is easy when you know the trick, and the trick is to use the whistle on the general and then puppetear ninjutsu on him, when he turns his back.

Was sad that Sekiro never got a proper DLC and nothing mentioned about a sequel. The stuff about journeying to the West to take the Divine Dragon back to it's place of origin would have been a great setup. Also getting to see Tomoe before she got repurposed into Malenia would have been great. Know it isn't confirmed that's what happened, but come on. The jump she does for Water Fowl? Pretty much begging to have lightning crash down on her blade and for you to engage in some ridiculous midair back and forth lightning deflections.

All I want is a new game with a final boss as good as Glock Saint.

Shigekichi of the Red Guard also gets a point or two because he is one of the few enemies whose armor can be stripped by the Spear prosthetic.

I don't think you gave Shura Isshin enough credit. The big fire beam can be consistently dodged if you keep moving sideways, allowing a counterattack. His giant fire attack makes you pause, carefully move on the ground to a safe location, and prepare to parry. There's a surprising amount of time to prepare if you don't sprint and just walk.

About Blazing Bull: The fight is actually a meme, you can win in like 5-6 deflections without much horsing around. It's a bullfight. If you run away, perfect guard his charge attack, smack him in the face two or three times, then repeat, he'll posture break himself and skip phase 2. It's maybe a 45-60 second fight like that. Get it? Toro, toro! That doesn't solve the problem of this being... unintuitive, though. Seriously, who would think to try that, especially after the burn status build up dissuades you? I can't even remember who taught me that trick, but it does turn a tedious fight in a hilariously simple one.

Sekiro has my favorite combat system of all time and it seriously isn’t even close. The satisfaction of perfectly parrying a crazy combo is unmatched in gaming and the boss lineup is just so solid. Finally beating Genichiro and later on Ishiin for the first time among so many others makes you feel like a god because your build didn’t defeat him, your mastery of the mechanics did. So good and we need a sequel.

Sekiro is my favorite rhythm game

47:16 There actually is a way to stealth off one of O'Rin's health bars, which is most definitely a glitch/exploit. In order to do it you do not talk to her and jump on her head while she's not aggressive, this will for some reason make her register as an enemy and you can backstab her. I learned this through TheDeModcracy's Sekiro mini-boss ranking

I really think that you're meant to do the Sunken Valley section before you go to the Senpou temple for a couple of reasons: 1. It makes no sense for Wolf to not use the Mortal Blade on the Monkey's centipede if he has it at this point in the game 2. In the Inner boss rush mode The Monkey is the boss directly after Genichiro, and that is generally listed in the order you face the main games bosses, hinting that it was the first intended boss after rescuing Kuro 3. If you beat him first he will retreat back to his layer in the poison swamp which will also kill half of Snake Eyes Shirahagi's gun women, making that fight much less frustrating

The hero returns. Best fromsoft essayist ive seen. The speed that you exhibit putting these out it crazy.

Video game melee combat distilled to perfection. That 'clang' you get from getting the timing right on parries is effing glorious!

why does no one understand how ape duo work? i’m not the biggest fan of the boss but they don’t just attack you at the same time, the headless ape will determine what the brown ape does. tbh its one of the better duo bosses in the series

HESITATION IS DEFEAT

Ah Sekiro, one of my favorite games of all time. While I might not get the same levels of excitement that I had on my first playthroughs, those memories were something else. Beating Isshin will go down as one of my most hype experiences a few years back.

Found your channel recently and just finished binging your other boss analysis videos yesterday. So pumped to see this drop today at the same time I am replaying Sekiro!

video!!! Especially at 1:44:50 - Isshin Ashina, The Sword Saint, in which you mention the fact that among Fromm Software's games when fighting the final boss we're not just fighting a "Boss", as on other Fromm Software's titles, I guess I couldn't agree more! The human aspect Sekiro has, in which the story and narrative create are what makes this game their best! This adds a motivation to the game the other titles lack. And it's not just fighting endgame bosses, and characters you might connect with feelings (which is awesome), but Sekiro provides us a motivation from the start. with a story context and a purpose when we're in charge of taking care of a boy, our master. This makes Sekiro the best of their games, no matter how harder the rest. Good job mate!

Hope the algorithm blesses you up man these videos are supreme quality. Subbed

You should play the Resurrection mod! It makes some very interesting boss design changes, it feels like the true Sekiro new game plus imo. Gyoubu and Lady Butterfly's changes are specifically very good, as far as I can tell every problem you had with them is addressed. The recoil counter system (very cool stuff, introduced in the mod's tutorial) even makes blazing bull feel good to fight head on.

Fantastic video so far. Love your content man you do a great job

23:20 Your suppose to attack the Bull on the head. The Bull gets constantly staggered after a few hits to the head. Parrying his charge will give you and opening for more attacks towards his head. His HP is for player(unfortunately players will always to the safest thing possible even if it’s tedious) discouraged attacking from behind. You basically fighting like a Bullfigher, bait a charge to parry. The fight goes by extremely quickly alongside using the firecrackers in tandem.

I'm convinced that Long Arm Centipede Giraffe was supposed to be named Kirin (a mythological creature) as like. A NAME. But that it was translated to Giraffe since it's also the Japanese word for Giraffe. This might just me coping for how silly he is though, but I find him so fun even if he's a pushover. **EDIT** I did go back into Sekiro, and double check Long Arm Centipede Giraffe because the name had been BOTHERING me. I fact checked myself, and honestly just got more mad lmao. It would be LESS weird if his name was 麒麟 (Kirin). But nope, I double checked and his name is in katakana, which is a bit odd since its usually used for foreign loan words or foreign names. His name is written as 長手の百足 (Centipede of the Long Hand) then ジラフ which is in katakana and transliterates into English as Jirafu. The phonetic reading of Giraffe as a loan word, as opposed to the 'local' word that can also be used for giraffe. Sadly, without kanji, any estimations of what else could have been intended with Jirafu would just be overanalysis that leads to nowhere. Another odd example of this occurring is with Emma who's name is written エマ (Ema). So. From Soft was just being kind of silly? **END OF EDIT** I will say, something that I found interesting but threw me off is the different order of encounter you had for the list vs what I experienced personally, especially for the early game. I cleared out basically everything possible before Genichiro because of how much trouble I had on my first playthrough and a fear of 'missing' anything. Kind of related, I do think it's just a difference in personal experience and playstyle, but I never really had much of an issue with any of the bulls or the ogre and I loved the Snake Eyes Shirafuji encounter. I still get stomped by Demon of Hatred, though. Placements like the ogre and Outskirt Masanaga never bothered me, but I think it's because of how I explore areas. I noticed that i couldn't use the teleport and that raised a flag in my head to check out the area, plus whenever there were major area changes it prompted me to double back and re explore. I think after all my playthroughs, my favorite fights are Owl (Father) and True Corrupted Monk. Sword Saint Isshin is amazing, and I honestly think a "better" battle, I just like Owl (Father) more. My favorite aspect of the Guardian Ape fight is how it moves like a centipede in it's second phase. Demon of Hatred is polarizing from what I've seen over the years, and while i love his narrative I just tend to find the fight frustrating. I think as far as gimmick fights go, the Divine Dragon is my favorite in the FromSoft catalogue. I feel like Sekiro, of all of FromSoftware's works, has the best "Exam Fights." The minibosses are solid checks on prosthesis use and swordplay mechanics. Genichiro and Owl feel like perfect tests of overall competency. That said, fuck the Headless. All my homies hate the headless (though the underwater ones are SO much easier once you get in the flow). I can clear them out pretty well now, and did them "when intended" my first run. But GOD I hate them and if I do bother to kill them again I just wait until I have the ring upgrade to speed up the process. I don't mind the Shichimen, but the one in Fountainhead feels very out of place in terms of design and whats been established in the story, especially with the Fountainhead Waters being the SOURCE of the power of the divine confetti that destroys spirits so bad. Looking forward to Demon Souls and Elden RIng!

The first Great Owl fight was so hard it made me quit for a while. I had gotten that far without perfect deflecting, only dodging with my years of casual dark souls muscle memory. When I returned to the game months later, Owl made me learn to deflect as a trial by fire. From that point I made it to the end of the game at a decent pace.

been looking forward to this video my man! might be time for another replay tbh…

Great delivery, I had to double check the sub count, video quality is right there with tens or hundreds of thousands sub channels

Good quality long form video of someone rambling on about bosses? Instant subscribe

32:01 I had no idea you could use the spear on him, I'll have to try that now. Great video as well!

Loving these videos man keep it up

We've been blessed once again

The false monk is my favorite fight in large part because, in my opinion, it's a fight that teaches you the importance of dodging. At that point you've probably grown accustomed to sticking solely to deflects, getting pot shots in to slowly drain the enemies vitality. But the Monk has very few openings, most combos end in pushing you back, stomping the sweep makes her do a very quick jump slash to gain distance. Add in the biggest posture regain in the game, and it is a brutally long struggle. However, there are many openings if you ignore your built up instincts and dodge during combos, the upwards swings are delayed enough and vertical enough to dodge behind her to get 3 or 4 free hits in, the jump slash won't come out if you land without stomping the sweep. It forces you to unlearn how near every non-beast fight had conditioned you fight. Also, SAS Oniwa gets too much flack, and it's all because of one little tool that single handedly flips the fight around that every forgets about: the Whistle. You can use the whistle to draw their attention away from each other, turning the fight into a repeat of the Vilehand encounter, just with one extra step.

1:07:49 I thought this exact same thing too, I malded at this one singular move for so long. Until I realized how tight the hit boxes for the fire burst was, you can stand in between most of them that have decent spacing between the others and they’ll completely miss you allowing you to completely deflect every single one of the hits in the chain, even the One Mind flurry. The fact he stumbles if you deflect the final hit after the flurry like the first hit in his Ichimonji is just narratively perfect.

great channel, great personality.

Loving your stuff, this is my favorite fromsoft game too. Keep at it!

The sword saint Isshin fight is my favorite boss in all of soulsborne. He's built up as a badass during the story, The 3 phases are distinct in their movesets without being unfair, You fight in the same field as you did at the beginning of your journey, and the storm and wind and music become more intense as the fight progresses. What a perfect boss fight

Awesome video series, thanks for doing these! Sekiro is my favorite of these games. It was a painful learning curve but oh boy once you have if figured out it's the most exhilarating and satisfying combat in any game. Genichiro is my first love when it comes to fromsoft bosses and for that he may be my favorite; the flow of attacking and deflecting is perfection, like, it is just so in the pocket and does not miss a single beat. It feels like playing a piece of music I love. Looking forward to the Demon Souls and Elden Ring videos!

I'm so hyped to get into this. Let's go

YESSSSS IM SO EXCITED FOR THIS VID

Damn, prefect timing. I'm not subscribed and I got here fast.

on release i had got to sword saint after a month died a hundred times easy ended up losing my whole game save and not going back to it for a long time 2 weeks ago i ran through it all again finally beating isshin an getting the ps plat may be my most satisfying gaming moment. just a beast of a boss. great video man loved the rankings

The spear hint was for the taro troop with the bell. And the spear description mentions that the spear can tear away loose armor and the hint was that the taro troop was forced into armor that didn’t fit

1:02:10 - 1:02:26 editing error w script 😮 These vids have been amazing I give major praise. Can’t wait to see more.

I had a surprisingly easy time with Isshin on my first playthrough, what have come to love so much about him is that every single playthrough he feels like a consistent challenge, never do I feel like I can just no brain my way through with muscle memory like the other bosses.

32:40 isn't both the spear and that eavesdrop in Ashina Reservoir, pretty far from Armored Warrior in Senpou, or am i misremembering??

Lone shadow longswordsmen is not required, you can skip him by taking the tunnel in the abandoned dungeon that brings you to the Shichimen warrior in that area. You can also have a conversation with that lone shadow in the well

my favorite detail with Isshin is how phase 1 feels like he’s teaching a class. he’s doing these very basic, clean swings, showing off the core principles of the style he developed. he’s not doing any crazy leaps or anything just yet, just solid footwork and powerful follow-throughs. cut out the wind effects and i could totally see him doing these same moves in a dojo in front of a crowd of students, walking them through each step and slash. it’s a great escalation of Owl’s fight from earlier, too: Owl says “show me what you’ve learned,” while Isshin says “sit down and pay attention, i’ll show you how it’s done.”

I dont think that the boss name is Sakura I think that the species of the bull is just called Sakura Bull. For all sakura tree related aspects in the design (and the lack of a comma in the name of the boss)

I have finally finished playing Sekiro after dropping it initially 2 years ago. I don't know what it is, but I wholeheartedly agree with Isshin, Sword Saint being one of the best bosses both as a story character and his fight. I actually felt bad having to kill him, due to all the conversations I had with him when I brought him all the different sake he's definitely one of a few souls npc's which really felt lived in. I've no idea when was the last I got so engorged into a game that so much that I decided to spend 3 whole days just straight playing. I also went out of my way to do as much of the content as possible; doing as many side missions/stories that I ended up getting the "Return" ending on my first playthrough. Now I gotta get all the achievements in the game, thank you for your insightful analysis and the clear love you have for these games.

I never figured out that you had to do all that crap to the monkeys. I just ran around on the roofs. All of the monkeys popped up eventually and I just wailed on them.

This was a nice watch but to say you have to clear mobs every time for Juzo in an "over-analysis" feels slightly disingenuous since if you approach the arena from the left side of the courtyard from the right side of the leftmost house, there is a small area where only Juzo can see you and not the other mobs and you can fight Juzo 1v1 by the pond (edit) Also the mobs for the Senpou Long Arm Centipede fight become meme tier mobs once you learn they instantly show a death blow if you jump above them

(I'll comment mostly on the main bosses, maybe minibosses if they stand out enough) MY NAAAAAME IS GYOBU MASATAKA ONIWA: I kinda disagree on the camera, it routinely fucks itself up when he does his big jump attacks lmao Otherwise yeah, he's a great first Actual Boss. Lady Butterfly: I like to think of her as the first boss where you can get into what I call the parry zone. When she blocks 3 times, she's guaranteed to counterattack (she can do it on the second hit too, but it's not guaranteed). So you can get into the rhythm of parry > parry > parry > she attacks > you parry again > repeat. And you *can* actually hit her with a shuriken while she's on the wire, it just has to be a charged gouging top/lazulite shuriken. She blocks the first few hits, but gets hit by the last one, so she falls down. Maybe not as useful for new players (who the hell will have either of those upgrades on hirata 1 lmao), but for anyone doing the boss rushes, it's a good tip. With this and the aforementioned parry zone, you can just keep going at her and she'll be literally helpless. On phase 2, you can kill her before she summons her illusions, even. As for her shortcomings, yeah phase 2 just sucks. And I'm not even talking about the clones, it's her regular attacks. Making those projectiles do damage *through deflects* is just bad, straight up. As for the clones, i'll be brief. They completely break the flow of the fight, and having to either run around and waiting for them to time out or using a VERY limited consumable for that point of the game to dispel them is just..... WHY. Geni: Ahh yes, the point where the game stops fucking around and you start to find out. The embodiment of the "humanoid enemy that's 500x tougher than an eldritch monster" meme. He's the guy that properly teaches you to look for little tells in an enemy's stance; for example, if he dashes backwards, it means he's gonna shoot you. On phase 2, parrying the last hit of his Floating Passage is pretty much guaranteed to make him thrust -- and thus giving you even more free posture damage. There's not much for me to tell that you haven't said, except for how cool Lightning Reversal is as a mechanic. It's woefully underutilized (come on, only Geni, the Okami Warriors in Fountainhead and the final boss use it!), but it's *so* awesome. It has massive The Last Airbender vibes, and Inner Geni *reversing your reversal* with Sakura Dance is one of the coolest things this game ever did. My one criticism is that Reversals make the final boss's third phase way too easy, but honestly, if you just dash through the lightning instead of reversing it, this is a non issue. Monkeys: Not much to say here, really. They're probably the weakest Memory boss, and even though it's fun to figure them out on your first run, subsequent runs are just gonna use the Gachin strat because it's less obnoxious. Fake monk: Very fun moveset to learn, but her tankiness and nigh-infinite posture might make her one of those difficulty spikes for new players. Her voice is very funny to listen to, however. Also, if you want an easier cheese than the firecracker-ash one, here you go: Get contact medicine and the mist raven. Enter her arena while crouching and stick to the left wall. Sneak up behind her, lock on, use the contact medicine, and use the mist raven *without touching the left stick.* This will make you teleport upwards, and if you do it just right, you'll see the red deathblow marker and instakill her. If you do this as soon as you're able to get to Mibu (aka, right as you kill gyobu and arrive at ashina castle), you'll easily get 6-8 skill points, a free memory (and thus more AP), and the mibu breathing technique, which will then allow you to get some extra prayer beads and more easily kill golden carps. Guardian Monke: You said pretty much everything I had to say about this boss, so here's some miscellaneous stuff: For anyone who doesn't know how to make phase 1 free as hell, do the following: Get the mortal blade. Get the Mid-Air Combat Arts and mid-air prosthetic tool skills. Optionally, get the Ceremonial Tanto from the shichimen warrior past the Abandoned Dungeon. Get either an Ako sugar or a Yashariku, if you're feeling bold. Use the tanto, eat a candy, run up to the boss, and right as you're close to him, jump and use fire crackers. Now jump again, and use mortal draw. Make sure the sword's blade connects with the monkey -- it has its own hitbox and does hella damage. Do more jumping mortal draws until it dies. I say specifically jumping MDs because MD has this weird trait where the first slash does as much damage as a charged Empowered MD if you jump first, for some reason. As for phase 2: I love its animations. It seems as if it's a puppet on strings, which is actually true! It's being controlled by a centipede. And speaking of, if you parry the big overhead swing that makes it fall down, you can then use the Spear prosthetic to yank out the centipede! It does a ton of vitality and posture damage. Also, you can interrupt the screaming attack by hitting it with an MD. Emma & Isshin: The part where you mentioned that "giving in to shura" and going on constant aggression is the best way to beat Emma legit impressed me, I had never noticed that before. And there is nothing that makes you feel more like a god than deflecting all of Isshin's One Mind attack. Great Shinobi Owl: If I had 50 cents for every fight atop ashina castle that denoted a huge turning point for the story, I'd have $1,50. This man fights dirty, and isn't afraid to show it. He's a Shinobi like Wolf, and Shinobi fight dirty. Deathblows from above, distracting enemies to get them separated, spamming firecrackers/ash, etc are all things you've done, and Owl does the exact same to you. He naturally has access to things you do, like Mikiri-ing you if you dare to thrust attack (with one singular exception), and even deathblowing you if he breaks your posture. If Geni was a test to see how much you understood how enemies fight against you, Owl is a test to see if you can handle someone like you. Great Father Owl: Not much else to say that hasn't been already said, this guy is *great* (lol). Now he can use even more of your own tricks, namely Shadowrush/Shadowfall (which you can mikiri) and the mist raven. Inner Father being the final boss of the Shura boss rush makes for a great adrenaline activator. You've gotten past Emma and Isshin, and ran the marathon that is the demon of hatred. Losing to this guy would mean doing all THAT again, so you're gonna be on edge for the whole fight, pretty much. True Monk: Again, just like the fake monk, an overall really solid moveset that's full of little quirks. The scream she does when she does the terror attack on phase 3 gives me some Orphan of Kos vibes, ngl. Divine Dragon: The dragon actually mirrors yours and kuro's injuries. Sekiro lost his left arm, and Kuro made a slice across his chest with the mortal blade to draw out his blood for the incense, and the dragon's chest has a huge gash on it. Both sekiro and kuro are connected to the dragon, so that's a pretty cool detail. Also, I find it really funny how Sekiro is up against this literal GOD -- this giant fucking dragon who wields a legendary, gigantic sword made of energy, and he can just parry it with his Completely Normal Katana. Double monke: Spam mortal draw to end phase 1 quickly, then use firecrackers + MD to kill the brown monkey asap. This fight is bullshit, there's practically no upside to it lmao You CAN skip it if you reach mibu village before beating guardian ape, but like you said in the video, double apes hold way too much loot to skip on a first playthrough. Shichimen Warriors: Fun fact, you can more or less cheese them by waiting until they do one of their aerial attacks, jumping in, and doing an anti-air deathblow. This, of course, requires you to not only have the anti-air deathblow skill (which you buy from Blackhat Badger in ashina castle), but it also requires Divine Confetti to be active. And I kind of disagree on their rewards, I think all 3 are decent to great: The tanto is all around a great item if you're using emblem-heavy attacks like mortal draw, the malcontent ring trivializes apparitions (and yes, also the demon of hatred; it gives you two MASSIVE opening to lay on him -- the third whistle use is a fakeout, and he immediately counterattacks when you use it) and lapis lazuli gives you the ultimate forms of some prosthetic tools, although it is extremely scarce and you'd need two full playthroughs to get every lazulite upgrade. Shigekichi: A little fun fact, you can rip off his armor by using the Loaded Spear on him twice :D Demon of Hatred: Another fun fact, DoH counts as an Apparition, for some reason -- meaning Confetti does really good damage to him. Isshin Ashina - The Glock Saint: Well, you've said everything there was to say about the boss itself, so here's some fun stuff about this absolute monster of a man. Isshin never trained to use the Lightning of Tomoe like Geni did. So how is he able to use it in his fight, then? Well, he simply *catches natural lightning in midair before it touches the ground and throws it at you.* This dude's reaction time is *faster than lightning*. Even as he was very old and dying of (presumably) pneumonia and decades of battle injuries, his mere presence is what kept the Interior Ministry out of Ashina. They feared him THAT much. "Oh but if Isshin killed so many, why isn't he Shura?" Because Shura kill for pleasure, and Isshin only focuses on perfecting his craft, his swordsmanship. He doesn't kill for the sake of it like Shura does. His title, the Sword Saint, is "Kensei" in Japanese. Only three men in history were awarded that title, one of which is none other than Miyamoto Musashi himself.

You have disgraced the schichimen warriors with your critique of them. They are some of the best mini bosses in the game. Their design is wonderful and the terror mechanic actually makes you feel more scared as it builds up do to the increase in tension. Their attacks are varied and can be eventually dodged easily and the anti air death blow allways feels great to pull off. Im not a great argument maker so I will end this with saying I just think they're neat.

Its been awhile since i replayed sekiro, but a few things here off the top of my head: Im pretty dang sure you can damage headless without divine confetti. It takes a long time, but it is doable. Shishimen warriors can be instantly taken out with the aerial takedown. They jump around a lot and can be dispatched quickly with this. The thrusting spear removes armor, which you did mention briefly. It also forces the parasite out of the headless ape for huge posture damage, which I thought was worth mentioning.

Finally love for Emma, battle and OST are exquisite

"At most 2 other memory bosses" is not correct. You can go through the Ashina depths to mibu village and kill the phantom corrupt monk before Genichiro, and I nearly always do when I replay this game because having the breathing technique early saves on backtracking, and defeating O'Rin on the way gets you the "life back on deathblow" passive which is very useful on charmless playthroughs. It's actually surprising how much content you can complete before fighting Genny, like 4/5 headless, to a secret npc in Senpou where the monkey fight is.

32:18 ok that's on you because the mob they are talking about is not even 50 feet away from where that convo takes place. Hell its impossible to miss him because of the gaint bell he has the the four wolfs while also being in the main path to Mt. Kongo. They also talk about how the armor barley fits while the knight obviously fits in his.

Idk about you but i would put the armored warrior at A, i go for deflects on him at every opportunity which i think makes the fight very fun, his combos just make deflecting quite satisfying

Love to see guardian ape get his kudos, was my fav boss for a few years

One thing I really love about this game is that the devs made it so you can "coward strat" your way through almost every boss. Thanks to the infinite stamina, you can run literal circles around all the bosses and take pop shots at the end of the bosses combos to whittle them down. This is my play style and it works very well. It's a minimal deflections, vigor kills only, strategy and it is very strong. After the mid game, no boss took me more than 10 tries. 7 tries for Hatred and 2 for Glock Saint. It's not how the devs intended but they let it be possible.

HEADS UP, Monk second phase is perfectly fine if you insteads of going for the deathblow dont run in circles. The shadows are designed to appear in the direction you face, meaning you can see their attacks and parry them flawlessly. Extends one of my favorite fights to go on much longer which I enjoy

I’ve never done the monkey fight without a gaachins tbh because I was never able to figure out the little gimmick except for the room where you can put out the candles for the sight monkey

Fighting the headless can be done easily enough without divine confetti by using the Lilac Umbrella with the projected force skill. Also allows you to easily block their attacks and avoid terror buildup.

For a second I thought you missed out on the all powerful Mist Noble meme, you saved yourself from his 4th wall breaking wrath there, friendo.

Oh damn, you counted minibosses. I suppose that's fair, otherwise the list would be pretty short, but I only would've counted the main Memory bosses myself. Otherwise... well, good luck making the Elden Ring episode my guy.

I was also totally confused about the Armored Warrior and the eavesdropping.

The Lone Shadow Longswordsman in Ashina reservoir is not a required boss, as you can also enter the Ashina depths by just running past the Shichimen warrior in the prison. Also, you can obtain the Shelter Stone before the first Genichiro fight as there is nothing preventing you from reaching the False Corrupted Monk, whereas the Sunken Valley is behind a locked door, the key for which is behind Genichiro, and the bell for the Four Monkeys doesn’t even spawn until you’ve spoken to Kuro about the incense. This means that, if you are really dedicated, you can actually get a third Memory before Genichiro. It’s what I do every NG+ run and I even did it on a base NG file once, though False Corrupted Monk obviously took forever to kill due to my having no divine confetti and only two Memories.

I just started my first sekiro run and I was feeling the same way about the shinobi hunter!

Playing Sekiro Fourth in my first run of all Fromsoft games- Started with DS1, then Elden Ring, Dark Souls 3 (my favorite so far), and now Sekiro. I just beat the Guardian Ape, man what a fight that is. Love your videos! Ignoring the second half to stay spoiler free, but I really enjoyed your breakdown of DS1&3. What a series! Excited to ruin it all with DS2!

I have such fond memories of Isshin. He took me 8 hours straight to finally defeat, making me cheer for a good 5 minutes and feeling so relieved. I don't think I've since felt that feeling of victory since beating Sekiro for the first time. The closest that's come to that was in Armored Core 6 with Balteus and in Lies of P with Nameless puppet. But those still felt like hollow victories somewhat. Isshin felt like I truly conqured the game, especially since I often kick on Sekiro and beat his ass again in the memory mode. What a masterpiece of boss design.

I love sekiro, and the Resurrection mod makes basically every boss so much more fun. In my first playthrough I never fought ladybutterfly or Owl father though, I completely missed hirata estate as I went left and down the cliff to get to chained ogre rather than following the road to the right, missing the old lady and the wounded son.

56:14 a neat thing i learned is you can sprint directly left or right when the ape jumps at you for the grab attack and he will always miss i hate grab attacks and i always try to find the easiest and most consistent ways to dodge them 😂 Emma for example when she starts her grab attack sprint directly backward until she starts the lunge and then stop and swing. she will land right in front of you and get staggered. Isshin same thing. Or you could always dodge or sprint left or right but i find backwards is the most consistent to pull off once you get the spacing right

One thing i really enjoy about sekiro is the fact you a ninja, not a swordsmen or warrior, so finding ways to stealthly deathblow a mini bosses first health bar or use your gadgets and environment to "cheese" enemies fits so well with the game. Ik it may seem obvious now, but when sekiro released so many veterans tried to play it like dark souls however once the gameplay and mechanics click, its such a thrill to play. Ha by the time i beat sword saint isshin first playthrough i felt so much mastery and adrenaline that while he sat on the ground waiting for me to deal the final blow i contemplated jumping off the cliff just to fight him again.

Headless are easy enough if you stand behind them, attack once, stay at it’s back while it turns rinse and repeat. Shichimen warriors can be deathblown out of the air pretty easily making the fights trivial.

In general the lone shadows as a whole never really are placed where it feels like their movesets have the room to breathe. Almost every one of them is placed in a tight arena with the only one that actually had decent room being the one in Jinsuke's room, and a close second being the one avenging the one that Tengu killed at the serpent shrine idol.

Genichiro took me 9 hours across 3 days on my first run, and for it to engage me as long as it did and make me fall in love with Fromsoft games makes it so special to me

Just wanted to correct that you have faced at most two memory bosses before genichiro. On my first playthrough I didn't find him and therefore fought fhe corrupted munk and a bunch of minibosses first. The extra health and damage made him quite easy when I finally found him.

9:36 lol elden ring night’s cavalry ai be like

34:00 If you jump towards the little centipede mfs you can instantly kill them with a deathblow, regardless of whether they've spotted you or not. Same with the poison geckos. It makes clearing them before fighting the main Centipede trivial.

You're not the only one, I also thought the spear was meant to be used on the Armored Warrior. The Headless aren't immune to damage if you're not using Divine Confetti. They do take a little, and I actually beat my first one without knowing about the Divine Confetti. The Shichimen Warrior in the ape cave is pretty easy to find, since the Idol will be greyed out in the teleport screen, prompting you to check it out.

I always found the Chichimen warriors pretty easy. Although I never noticed the one in depths only spawns after guardian ape, I could have sworn I usually fight him pretty early. Also, you can use the fire umbrella against DoH for his big fire attacks.

one thing about the little centipede guys is that since they’re low to the ground they can be killed instantly with a jumping death blow, the same as the lizards. Not only is this super satisfying but it also makes that encounter with the centipede giraffe surrounded by smaller ones quite a bit easier since you can jump on most of the smaller guys while staying in the rafters so the boss doesn’t see you, then you can aeriel deathblow the boss and boom easy!

Glad someone else appreciates just how stellar the game is! Great rankings, although I thought the apes were just whatever personally. Apparently you can aerial deathblow the Warriors? I never got it to work myself though.

The few repeated sentences sure caught me off guard lol

You can axtuslly stealth kill the general before facing the kast ashina spear, you just have to stand on the staircase to get his attention, then stealth through him by going left close to the area in fire and getting behind him when he gos up the staircase

Sakura bull also is nicer cause you have multiple ways to approach the fight. You can bait it into a stealth death blow, but you can also bait it into the open where the lightning noble can accidentally hit it or, even better, you can Way of Tomoe the bull.

About the divine dragon, the fight takes forever on attack power 1 so it is definitely dependent on your current attack power.

My fav part of the second ogre is getting him to beat up the ministry assholes.

It seems like people these days get very pissed when a game is linear instead of being extremely open Elden Ring is good, but Sekiro is such an incredible tight package from beginning to end

This was a good analysis, however in Sekiro everything turns on the first proper Genichiro fight, which was the only fight in the game that could be classed as genuinely unfair, and I am surprised more time was not dedicated to it here. It is stated in the video that he is the culmination point of everything learned before, and this is true, but only partially so. The unfairness in Genichro arises not from the fact that he is a culminating point of prior learning, but rather that he is the culminating point of prior learning plus a whole new system you have to learn on the spot, and only at the very end of an already extremely hard fight. The imposition of a new and completely unintuitive mechanic in the third phase is completely unfair. This is where the distinct unfairness arises with this boss. And I am speaking here from the perspective of an hypothetical first playthrougher, not someone who has played it multiple times. If the latter is the assumption, then the analysis in this video stands, he is a great and challenging boss. If not, then Genichiro is a completely unfair boss entirely because of the new mechanic. The new lightning reversal mechanic is bad and, worst of all, completely unintuitive. Jump mechanic - someone sweeps, jump over it. Mikiri counter mechanic - someone stabs at you, stand on their sword. Dodge mechanic - someone tries to grab you, move out of the way. All pretty simple and intuitive. Lightning Reversal mechanic - so if they use lighting, right, you jump just when they use the lighting, and then when you are in the air, okay, you kind of have to get struck by the lighting, or not, sometimes not, anyway you have to be in the air and they have to be at a specific point in the lighting animation, and then when you’re in the air and they are at that animation point you have to then press a second button to like take in the lighting and hit it back at them. Got it? Need practice? Ah, sorry, no practice. The only practice is if you drag your exhausted carcass through two phases of the hardest boss in the game so far. This is completely unfair. If the mechanic was introduced before, or if it was at least somewhat commonsensical and intuitive, then perhaps it would work. But it is not, and thus for the first playthrougher this fight is definitionally unfair and not deserving of an S grade

i died to lady butterfly and genichro so much. but by the time i got good enough to fight them it was like we were dancing in battle. it was pure epicnees.

48:22 this trick isnt too bad. Stay to the very left of her arena until you get behind her. next wait for her animation to finish. Then use three snap seeds get close behind her and use a bare minimum of 5 fistfuls of ash (but its easier with 10) if you miss one or two no worries you can use firecrackers and she will stagger backwards as well. Once you get her far enough back there’s a particular pillar/obelisk thats not too far from the doorway. Lock on to the fake monk put your back against the pillar jump and then leap off the pillar toward the monk and you should get the deathblow icon! I hope this helps in future runs :) Edit: the pillar is on the right side of the doorway when you are facing toward the door it should be almost directly behind the fake monk and there is a small lantern/lamp fixture just in front of it

Pretty sure the blazing bull is a free-camera / unlocked fighting test. Not that that necessarily fits very well but still I think that should've been considered

In the last of the Ashina Spears you can whistle the general while hanging off a ledge and backstab him after he looses interest

It's very possible to Gachiin Sugar stealthblow the Double Generals fight. This let's you puppet ninjutsu the sword general to double up on the Spear General miniboss. Pretty neat, though it feels cheesy and maybe unintentional.

Finally beating The Sword Saint with sword only and learning that his heavy attacks can be deflected perfectly while being right in his face was amazing.