The Sekiro Critique - The Most Replayable Fromsoft Game 

After reading the comments I've been rethinking my reasoning behind certain arguments in the critique, as well as realizing some of the mistakes that I have made, so I've created a Comment Response video to give my updated thoughts and opinions on Sekiro. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pTkf7YbQsyo.html&ab_channel=FeebleKing

It's crazy how someone can make it all the way to Corrupted Monk and completely miss the fact that posture regeneration is tied to HP damage.

I'm always surprised that it's such a commonly held opinion that using items in souls games is cheese, they're so obviously intended to be used in specific instances.

I don't really understand your aversion to killing basic enemies. I absolutely adore this game's combat, and I love feeling like a god after mastering it, so I go out of my way to kill every single enemy in my way just because I can, often without taking any damage. It's immensely satisfying. It also gives me a reason to use all the different skills.

"I have played through all endings and went through all the trials and know everything about the game to give this review." Proceeds to complain that the tutorial text boxes have too much info, didn't bother to read them, then doesn't know health affects posture recovery lol. Also, "I took the absolute worst path to play the game because it clearly hints for you to go to the top of the tower after defeating the bull and I ignored it completely and ran off in a random direction. I will now complain that these mid game enemies are too tough for my beginning skill level."

The chained ogre exists to teach the player the importance of eavesdropping. This is why he's not meant to be defeated by deflecting, you're meant to eavesdrop and learn about his weakness to fire.

It seems like almost every problem you have with the game comes from you putting artificial limitations on yourself and then criticizing your game for being difficult without the mechanic intended for that moment

Your opinions on prosthetics, consumables and stealth are... Genuinely bad. Money is important. It allows you to upgrade prosthetics and buy said consumables. This does give plenty of reasons to fight enemies. The consumables in sekiro (besides maybe balloons) are mostly very useful. Especially sugars (and infinite sugars from headless). Prosthetics meanwhile are insanely good as counters to a multitude of mobs and boss attacks - and integrating them into combat can make certain encounters like Demon of Hatred hella enjoyable. Stealth work quite well. And you do usually have more than one approach to most stealth sections. You clearly underutilized ceramic shards, gachin sugars and the variety of stealth takedowns. Also - game literally directs you to the easier paths. You just... Completely ignored Kuro and everything he said. Roofs made out of straw are not grapple-able. The game never let's you grapple onto those roofs - so mist noble enterance is not as bad as you describe. (It is dumb that you can't grapple to the tree tho). Your take on corrupted monk is also bad imo. It's an apparition with the fastest posture regen in the game. You made it more hard just because you view using game mechanics - like snap seeds or consumables as cheese. Then again. You viewed money as useless. So I'm not surprised. Seasons don't change in this game. Only the time of day. And both "teleports" have an incantation on the ground. Explaining the teleport. Besides that - love the vids. Keep it up.

You don't have to die to the snake after using the mind control on the monkey. He sorta jumps up and screams, snake gets distracted, you grapple and run past.

I scrolled through so many comments to see if anyone mentioned it, but eventually gave up... The freaking umbrella! So god damn O.P. for so many reasons. It can deflect, it can block, it can attack, it can make the Demon of Hatred so easy. Also the spear for Headless after you deflect the big horizontal attack. HUGE posture damage... Generally going through this game without using, at least, prosthetics, is just making the whole experience worse.. You have so many options and tools that makes each boss encounter so much more fun and engaging, and you just ignored most of them, and then even complained about them being poorly designed. Never have I played a game this fun to master, and robbing yourself of most of it's mechanics is just a downright shame.

Lone shadow duel boss is only duel boss if you choose enter from the window which is the wrong way. Game punishes you for skipping important places by making it 2v1 if you ran past and grappled everywhere. But it doesn't take the option away from you. The correct way enter is from the behind(from the inside of the castle) and stealth kill the first one. You may choose to use ninjutsu on that guy to make it 2v1 against the boss.

Honestly it feels like a lot of your complaints come down to personal preference. You think stuff is too hard but then get upset at the tools the game gives you to work around the difficulty, several characters tell you “hey who cares how you win as long as you win.” The whole point of items isn’t to carry you through the game, they’re supposed to be early on crutches (along with stealth and to a lesser extent prosthetics) to give you more opportunities to progress and actually play the game to learn. You mentioned earlier that the samurai generals are good training for Genichiro, but you also said you were off put by the game when you first started. Geni will always be a better teacher of the mechanics and how to beat Genichiro than any other enemy, so it should be better to not slam your head into a brick wall and walk through him later in the game (story reasons and otherwise.

Owl actually leaves while you fight Emma to kill Genichiro and then places his head next to him in the cutscene.

In Sekiro, enemy posture depletes slower when they have less health. The corrupted Monk is much easier if you focus on getting its health low before going for a posture kill. There were multiple instances in your footage where I saw you deflecting instead of taking an opportunity to attack. For example, you can sidestep the jump attack to get a few hits in instead of deflecting. Maybe you figured this out on your own but just didn't use any footage.

Looks like you were not using the mikiri counter or jump counter for the Corrupted Monk’s thrust/sweeping attacks. I can imagine how that would have made the fight substantially harder

To your question "Why FromSoft fans are still okay with all the boss cheese for unskilled players ?", I think the answer is given by Genichiro when he cheeses you in a cutscene "A shinobi would know the difference between honor and victory".

About the dual line shadow fight, you can literally puppeteer the one on the side of the room to flip the odds and turn it into a 2v1. That fight is definitely there to teach you the importance of that ninjutsu. It's not very hidden either, not sure how you missed that. With the corrupted monk, you know damaging the health bar slows posture recovery right? The lady butterfly fight told you that. If you just go for perfect deflects the whole fight, of course your not going to make any progress. Also seems to me as you almost completely disregard skills and prosthetic tools, for whatever reason. These can be so useful and look fucking sick most of the time. A good example would be the lazulite axe in the lady butterfly fight. This acts as an unlimited use snap seed in that regard while also doing incredible damage. The lazulite flame barrel can harm spirits such as the corrupted monk or the shamans. Any poison blade is a free kill for the people in the divine realm as they are INCREDIBLY weak to poison. High flying kick, can dodge sweeps and counter them at the same time, sakura dance can lightning reverse, living force is just a straight dps upgrade and so many more. Experimenting with different options is one of the best parts of this game so it's just hard to believe you kind of ignored it. Also you make a point of ignoring enemies the whole time because theres no point in killing them. But this would have changed if you used skills and prosthetic tools as you would want the upgrades and skills which you need XP and rare resources found from killing them. Overall good review but some of the, "issues" you had with the game are completely unfounded and simply due to lack of common player knowledge. Edit: The flame umbrella allows you to not take any fire damage from demon of hatred while also having a great follow up attack if you got that skill in the tree. Man you really should play through, but actually use the tools and skills, you'll have a better time.

One note: the mechanical purpose of the Lady Butterfly illusion attack is an opportunity to refill a bit on spirit emblems. When I first fought Lady Butterfly I still sucked at the game and wasted a bunch of spirit emblems because I let the fight drag on and let posture recover. It also doesn’t help that you start with a low amount of maximum spirit emblems.

So like. I'm at the corrupted monk part of the video and I was really confused as to how you found it so hard. I might regret commenting this before watching the rest of the video to confirm but did you not know bosses slowed their posture regeneration the more damage you did to their health bar after all those hours?

1:24:00 the solution to the multi fight is to enter from the other direction and stealth kill the other enemy, which also gives the opportunity to use puppeteer to turn it into an ally for the fight, you’re supposed to think “wow this fight feels impossible right now” and then use the tools at your disposal to problem solve and make the fight manageable

Chained ogre was supposed to teach you 1) Some items are very strong on certain enemies, and you can learn what that is from clues in the game . 2) You can grapple some enemies, just like the dude on the horse or the first monke.

Love the review but your struggles with the corrupted monk were almost entirely created by your lack of information about the game and I don't think she should change at all. First of all, idk if you misspoke but bosses posture regain is based on their health bar not their posture bar. At 50% bosses posture recovery is slowed, and at 25% health bosses will stop recovering posture entirely. (I think this is why chained ogre exists, to make you chip away at health bar and observe it's relation to posture. His posture also wont recover while hes burning, which some npcs tell you to try.) About her recovering posture too quickly, because you mostly ignored prosthetics you might not know the shuriken is great for keeping up posture damage from a distance. There's also a skill that gives you a follow up slash which comes out way faster and has more range than a dashing light attack. Just by the way you talked about the experience system I would bet you probably undervalue all the skills and tools available to wolf. I'm not even gonna mention snap seeds because realistically most players won't recognize the monk is a spirit, but the point is I think most players severely underestimate the power of certain prosthetics and skills. And more importantly how fucking sick some of them look High monk is the only way I dodge sweep attacks now lmao

Watching him complain about the corrupted monk's posture, while not doing any makiri counters on her, hurt my soul

I'm also venturing a guess here that you never used any of the prosthetic tools and just deflected and R1 spammed your way through the game? Did you even try using the fireproof umbrella tool in the Demon of Hatred bossfight? It's the perfect tool for surviving his massive fire attacks. Bro, not to be mean, but I don't think you are the right person to be making these critique videos.

During that entire Corrupted Monk rant I was just like "Did he forget that enemies also have a normal health bar, and that Corrupted Monk only has one health bar?"

This man completed Senpou Temple, Ashina Depths and Mibu Village before fighting Genichiro. I love the shit out of this game and this is unheard of to me. I respect it.

32:34 'HIS NAAAAAAAAAAAAAME! IS ON THE TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP LEFT CORNER OF YOUR SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Something i learned that i didnt expect to work is you can actually mikiri counter the purple shinobi's unblockable forward kick. Youre stoppin a kick by stompin down on their shin

18:30 sounds you didn't bother to explore the ninjustsus or even try any of your other options there's plenty of ways to even the playing field bloodsmoke is good for a group of enemies backstab 1 blind them with smoke and take out there others quickly or have puppeteer to get a temporary Ally to fight alongside you.You also have a whistle prosthetic to lure enemies away from the group and backstab them.The game gives you options you just don't use them. As for the lone Shadow guy it's not that hard to take care of the ally with stealth kill him first and he want be a bother.

Tengu names you Sekiro then later Ishin calls you that first time you meet him if I remember correctly. It blew my mind, how clever it is

You saying ‘I dont wanna look up how to make the minibosses easy because then victory feels hollow’ paired with Tyrannicon cheesing a boss had me dying

I spent a while on corrupted monk but once someone told me use a divine confetti it was over

I kinda disagree about the Isshin 4 phases being the artificial difficulty. Because as long as there are many phases, the phases arent as long as for example 2 phases in owl father. As long as youre aggressive against isshin, it should take you as long as owl father with 2 times less phases. However his posture goes pretty fast, so it encourages you to be aggressive against him, cause otherwise its gonna last forever. But I agree about the lightning reversal making the 4th phase easier, Isshin should be a little bit harder on that one

"I don't know how to pronounce his name so we're gonna call him Horseman" this is a small moment, but really encapsulates a lot of the problems I and many others seem to have with your approach. You're so focused in on the point you're trying to make you're just ignoring things the game tells you right to your face. Whether its posture relating to health, the Chained Ogre's teaching moments about fire weak red eyes, eavesdropping, etc., or just Gyoubu telling you exactly how to pronounce his name.

owl father is the fight of sekiro's conflicted feelings. It ties in with the purification ending beautifully.

Actually if you kill the headless you get permanent sugars it’s kinda awesome actually

It's crazy to me how you didn't learn gyoubu's name because he screams it at you when you enter

It's no wonder you had so much trouble with the corrupted monk, you played the whole game before fighting the 2nd to 3rd REAL boss, because you apparently forgot you had a grappling hook, I hope you at least realized you could increase your attack power, I know how much the souls community hates reading after all

The fact that you never used mikiri counter and the goomba stomp frustrates me. 😩😩😩

I feel like the chained ogre actually had a lot of utility in where it was placed. Firstly, as other comments pointed out, teaching you about the usefulness of eavesdropping and clue hunting, and also teaching you that the prosthetic tools are useful in combat. But I also want to add that the ogre teaches you that deflecting may be the main mechanic, but dodging is still just as important. A lesson that I feel comes in handy when going against the Ape and the Demon of hatred. This is something I don't actually hear very often in discussions surrounding the game

sekiro is a game that broke me and I thought I would never be able to beat it. Beating the sword saint for the first time was probably the largest opium rushes I had In my life so far. It might have broken me but I came back stronger and prouder

When Sekiro says "One who opposes the Buddha?", I interpreted the way he said it as one of contemplation, like he was slowly repeating what the dying man was saying to try and deduce who "the one who opposes the Buddha" might mean. Especially since it ends up being someone he never mt before and only had an adjacent knowledge of as it was pointing at being the person causing the fog in the valley. I never heard that line as meaning that Sekiro was taken aback by the idea of anyone ever daring to stray from or question or not believe in or be otherwise diametrically at odds with the principles of Buddhism. The way he repeated what the dying man was saying was very contemplative in delivery, the man being near death makes sense as to why Sekiro would vocalize his thoughts about finding the culprit with any other hints the dying Buddhist can give before he dies. But it seems like a contemplative statement where Wolf was solidifying the new lead in his mind by vocalizing it with slow, deliberate articulation and so the dying man can hear that Sekiro is indeed taking interest in pursuing the man's dying wish. H was trying to deduce the identity of the man through careful thought and allow for the mortally wounded man to be able to add any further leads, hints or contemplations of his own as easily as possible in such a state of death throes. The river noble village he was about to visit next was completely devoid of true Buddhists, as the village populous had all but completely abandoned the core tenets of Buddhism, wherein residents had rejected restraint from desire and excess, rejected the pursuit of self-improvement and they had absolutely rejected the idea of reincarnation by pursuing its polar opposite in pursuing the immortality of the rejuvenating waters. So considering Wolf is a Shinobi that is well acquainted with Ashina and its people, especially its biggest and most prolific areas like Mibu village and the Mibu Nobles, its likely that the Mibu may have been first to come to his mind as he rearticulated the hint the dying man gave about who was causing the fog was "One who opposes Buddha", it is very likely that Mibu came to mind first within Ashina. And in less words: Wolf said it out loud and thought deeply about who best fits the description as 'opposers of Buddha', and with the slow and deliberate vocal cadence of Wolf's words, it sounds like he is both in deep contemplation about the culprit, as well as deducing who the culprit indeed is. Wolf comes off as deeply contemplating the potential candidates based on the defining characteristic the dying man gave to wolf, but the slow and deliberate speed to the cadence makes it sound as though Wolf was in fact making that connection between the heretical abuse of the rejuvenating waters by the Mibu and the dying man's guidance that Wolf should seek out "One who opposes Buddha" and deducing that it is a Mibu noble who is in fact at fault for the depravity and illusions plaguing the valley they stand in.

As someone who’s never played sekiro, I agree.

54:18 some bosses require you to get in a few hits, since the lower the vitality (HP) the slower posture will heal, this is also true for the player character (though you can accelerate posture recovery by holding down the block button) since you already were at Ashina Castle at this point, I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this, since the sword wielding miniboss general is there to teach you that some enemies will have extremely good posture recovery, so in addition to deflecting you will need to attack aggressively as well, taking away as little as 30% of a bosses vitality will significantly slow down their posture recovery

This is definitely my favorite Fromsoft game without any doubt, and one of my favorite games of all time. Still hearing that you first time beat Genichiro hurts me because it took me 9 hours across three days.

Gaachins Sugar literally makes it to where you can sneak around easily without getting seen and combined with the blue ninjutsu on mini bosses (specifically the last Seven Spears of Ashina mini boss with the other samurai) can make the fight so much easier

Dude, you can defeat the chained ogre with fire, the blazing bull with firecrackers, and you can look for clues in your environment to make your entire run easier. Using items is a part of the game, why would you not use them?

About the first snake attack, what made you think it was an unfinished sequence? And about Corrupted Monk, I'm pretty sure it was balanced to be a longer battle until you get her HP to half, which then stops any posture recovery. And since it's an illusion, you can use fire, snap seeds, firecrackers... It's not that bad at all. Wait, Genichiro AFTER Corrupted Monk? That explains everything. The second Corrupted Monk was only easier because you met it at the appropriate time. And still, the first fight was only phase 1 of the second fight, so it is mostly a new fight. It won't be easier for most people. About the bosses making you feel like the boss through mastery, DMC5 does that and it feels incredible

29:10 fun fact. Rot accumulates even if you avoid the resurrection mechanic entirely.

I’m confused why he handicapped himself when he played this game, the game tells you to use items pretty blatantly, firecrackers, snap seed, divine confetti, your arm prosthetic are SUPPOSED to be used so you’re not trying to deflect a bull that punishes you for doing so

just wanna say that you can get like 8 of the gourd seeds before even fighting genichiro

No mikiri counters and ever time he jumps over a red attack he doesn’t jump on there head for extra posture damage , feeling like a lot of this review is just you not having enough info or good use off all the mechanics the game offers

Corrupted monk is brilliant dude, one of the best bosses in the game. I like how the fight takes forever, it just gives me more time to enjoy the fight lol. On first playthrough though it can be a little frustrating because divine confetti is limited and you may not know at the time that you’re supposed to whittle down her hp before stacking posture damage. That being said if worse comes to worst you can cheese her and come back later when you’re more prepared.

The Bull teaches you to use your prothesis against enemies and watch out for their weaknesses.

Good points overall but I disagree on some of the takes on the difficulty. This game WAS hard but after dying multiple times to Lady Butterfly, a boss you can't steal kill the first bar of health, there and then I realized there are bosses that you have to face head on and high head strong - something in that moment clicked in me that the another way to play this game is to be to be a samurai - AGGRESSIVE!. From there on, I was able to be the SAMURAI and to be the SHINOBI and the game was on easy mode. Fromsoft's game design signature is to make the game look almost impossible at face value (this is why a lot of players quit before they even get to 2nd encounter Genichiro) but the more you pick up the pace and gain more understanding the easier it gets. Part of the reason why you would see a lot of players say "I hope I can experience **Insert any Fromsoft game** for the first time again", as we humans yearn to crawl out from hardships and get to the goal only to miss the perseverance we have indulged by achieving what we want. Having the learning process to be more punishing in Sekiro served a great purpose since there is no way out of there - only to well yeah... git gud. Jokes aside, I can see why they have to enforce this strictly as to the point it becomes punishing as they needed the players to be able assimilate the fighting mechanics as soon as possible. The game becomes much more entertaining and visually crafted by your own gameplay. The more grasp on the fighting mechanics the more animesque the game becomes. You use more prosthetics, you counter more, you squeeze attacks before the stagger animation from the enemy is completed. Look at Ongbal's Sekiro videos; the guy has extensive understanding of the fighting mechanics of the game that he is basically producing top level anime type content already lol. Fromsoft tie in the connections of the player and the character with the parallels we feel both in fictional and reality approach. By the time you reach the endgame, You the player, and Wolf the shinobi has reached a mindset and skillset that is required to get you through there. I feel like most of your opinions are made based on how you approached the game rather than seeing it in a objective perspective. You are the only one holding yourself back by not using what is on your arsenal, you refused or rather obstinate your gameplay by not engaging in one fundamental mechanics of the game. Most of the time the weakness of the enemy are revealed way before you fought them. "I want the satisfaction of overcoming difficult odds". This is basically close to the Bushido code. Spoken like a true samurai! Fair. I do this too but you need to be able to switch in between, you can't just play Samurai style throughout the entire game without the element of Shinobi, and vice-versa. This is an equivalent of shooting yourself on the foot because as you said "Wolf is more like a samurai not a shinobi". It seems to me like you are speaking from your gameplay because on my gameplay Wolf is more a ninja. I stealth killed bosses' first health bar if I can because SHINOBIS DO NOT FIGHT FAIR. Also, Finding COLLECTIBLES was not a problem for me since it is often hinted through the "in game text", there's also the "player messages" scattered throughout the world and as a player I am more of the explorer type to the point that I have developed an instinct in which I can sniff out these hidden collectibles lol. I got all gourd seeds on my first blind playthrough. The issue for me though is the utilization of the items you find throughout the game. I finished the game with the gazillion bozo items I got but I guess it's not just a Sekiro problem because almost every other game, not just from Fromsoft, have this problem. Things to note, Sekiro was my first ever Fromsoft game that I played, so at that time I had no scope of reference of a soulslike to compare it to. I just went and dove deep with the only expectation that I will be playing a shinobi. I was the biggest fan of Arkham Series and when I saw this Sekiro was on sale on Steam and saw the stealth tag, I got it without knowing what "soulslike" is. All in all, Sekiro was my introduction to the one of the best genre in gaming. The soulslike.

Incredible effort was put into this video, it fells as a documentary, and you held my attention to the end, thanj you very much for this work

Actually Genichiro's follow up to his jump attack is pretty predicatble. In phase 1 he can only stab, in phase 2 he can stab and sweep, in phase 3 he can stab, sweep or do the uppercut that leads into the stab. In phase 3 he also does these things pretty much equally often. That is why you felt the stab was more likely and the uppercut was rare.

You need to kill corrupted monk by doing health damage not posture damage, it’s obvious.

That rooftop part where you have to get past all those deadly nightjars. Even just getting past that one small part gives me such a feeling of satisfaction accomplishment, and excitement. Like even that one part is cooler than the entirety of 99% of video games.

Commenting for the algorithm my man. I appreciate the amount of time and effort you would have put into this.

1:46:18 the Genichiro mixup gave me problems too, and after dying to that mixup for the 15th time I realized you could see the glint on his blade to judge whether it was a sweep or a thrust. If the glint is under him, it’s a thrust, if it’s behind him, it’s a sweep. 46:07 funny story, my friend also did ashina depths first, and after running out of divine confetti for the corrupted monk, quit the game forever. I’ve been trying to get him back into it forever but he won’t budge. Also I love your style or critique, keep up the good work!

Funny to me that you had so much trouble with Corrupted Monk, then beat Genichiro first try-I usually tell people that Genichiro is the great equalizer-he forces you to learn how to play the game “properly”. Constant aggression, perfect parries, etc. and beating him makes most of the challenges of the rest of the game (final form Isshin excepted) FAR easier in comparison. Not only would Corrupted Monk have been easier by grinding your teeth on Gen, but Corrupted Monk is also, imo, a teaching moment of using items and prosthetics to help kill larger, high health enemies who are hard to have a straight up sword fight with.

This video was timed perfectly I just did a replay of Sekiro. I got this game back in 2019 when it released and I did finish it but it was a struggle I left the game not liking.3 years later I decided to revisit and had to get my muscle memory back and I did much better this time.This game offers some of the best combat I have played in an action game the sword combat once you get in the rhythm of it feels very satisfying deflects hit feels good and combined with learning all the mikori counters just elevates this game. This game is frustrating to the point of wanting to put a hole in the wall,but it offers an experience I can't get with most other games. I'm also glad this game doesn't have bloated RPG elements like most Western games.Theres no shortcut in this game like other fromsoft games no summoning and the only real way to get stronger is actually fighting the boss and learning the weakness which will punish you harshly if you fail. I can definitely see that alienating most of fromsofts audience,but I didn't mind I love action games and Sekiro does alot to distinguish itself from other action games.

your videos are nice asf bro im praying for u to blow up fr

Just discovered your channel and I gotta say, your discussions on these games are very interesting. Your ER videos in particular do a very good job of verbalizing my issues with the game that I was not able to concisely express myself. I hope you make a full video dedicated to your thoughts on Ds3, as that is my favorite fromsoft game (it was my introduction). Edit: I thought you'd have way more subs for the quality and depth of content you put out. Criminal that you don't! Hope it catches up soon!

I agree that the chained ogre and blazing bull are completely out of place for the start of the game and can give some people contradicting ideas on how to play the game if they are unlucky. Also most players block a lot of attacks so you dont have to be "perfect" especially without kurus charm. Its actually a legitimate tactic to try to parry, but whenever youre unsure on when to parry just spamm block just in case for a new player. Kurus charm and normal playthrough is completely different. In a normal playthrough you can literally just run from a boss and regen. Also the first samurai boss or immortal tutorial guy tells you that you need to lower HP for some Bosses first to reduce their posture regen posture. I think its highly unlikely for people to go to mibubvillage first, most people will either explore the giant castle in front of them or go left to the monks where the buddha picture tells you to not go further its dangerous. So 90% of people went to genichiro after blazing bull pretty much. But I can see your frustration and highly unlucky.

I think the bull is meant to be chased or run around it in circles - teaching you the important mechanic that wolf is basically as fast as any enemy and never gets tired. I used this tactic on the apes and demon of hatred. The bull in fountainhead palace was taken down super easily this way along with some firecrackers.

Awesome job on this video man. I subscribed

4:18 I actually found those to be helpful when you're low on spirit emblems. I used to use the shurikens a lot on my 1sy playthrough to get her out of the air or just use the chasing slice to get close to her.

You can make your way up Ashina Castle from the inside to reach the Vilehand fight during the invasion and stealth-kill his buddy before either of them notice you. I actually don't know how you entered that fight from the outside roof. I had no idea it was possible. It's funny. I feel like Sekiro came to me more naturally than any other FromSoft game. Despite repeated playthroughs I never managed to git gud at any entry except Sekiro, and I gitted real good.

I'm going to have to call a few things out in your "multi-fight" section I think a lot of your problem is the fact that you've decided that stealth sucks and not worth attempting. For example in that the Lone Shadow Vilehand + buddy fight you can actually sneak up and stealth kill the "normal" Purple Ninja buddy without aggroing by sneaking in and hugging the wall. This actually makes the miniboss super easy since you can use the chump to activate ninjitsu (a lot of people like to puppeteer the chump, but I prefer Bestowal bc I find puppet guy just gets in my way more than anything). As for the purple ninjas on the rooftops I really think you're intended to sneak around them, because while it isn't easy I personally found it a lot of fun to figure out how to sneak around and take them all out. Granted I'll give you that on my first playthrough I mostly just ran past them. I can't really think of many more instances of multifights - maybe the Seven Spears + General part near the end, but for that part you can use the Stealth Sugar to stealth kill the general and either puppet or use Bestowal or blood cloud or whatever. EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot about the Outskirts Revisited bit at the end. Yeah. Fair enough, just run past all those jackasses to fight the Demon of Hatred.

Surprised you didnt mention any about the shichimen warriors, curious to know your take on them

Dang! Love the video! Ill pick the game up today!

your point about needing perfection to beat bosses is correct. But even if you beat one boss, next one still feels equally if not more difficult. I like this think about this game. And another thing I like is, if you know the basics, you basically have everything to finish the game, sure it will be harder, but you don't have to grind for farm. you can do that to ease the difficulty, but its not REQUIRED. there is some motivational text i am remembering (forgot where it is from) that says something like "i am not afraid you of 1000 moves that you practiced once, i am afraid of your 1 move that you practiced 1000 times", this feels fit for the deflection mechanism. which seems to cover 90-95% of fights. This is my first such games so i don't know any better, but this game seems perfect to me: My only issue is basic quality of life things. 1. Reflection of Strength should reset to same arena instead of sending me back to idol an re-initiate it if i want to rematch. 2. The practice guy at temple should become stronger with time. Also training set needs to be an an infinite loop where we can exit the arena to stop it instead of set of 3 then restart with menu. 3. and key mapping for PC can be improved, where we have many keys. no point having "hold" actions when you can assign a separate key.

I get the frustration of having to clear out a dozen enemies before fighting the mini boss and I do think that’s a little excessive, but I was able to find ways to clear out all the enemies without taking much damage before the boss, so it can definitely be done but if you die to the boss and have to do it again then it just becomes tedious and doesn’t make much sense. Overall though I loved just about every boss and mini boss in Sekiro, the combat is amazing. It is pretty punishing at first but the process of getting good was so worth the early game struggle. I long for that feeling of being a noob for the first time again and having to learn and overcome insurmountable odds.

Genichiro rematch can be the first boss encounter after Blazen Bull, as you might know by now. So I say you first trying him from where you were at your progress point had high likelihood. As a first try, still an accomplishment. Well done.

Great Video! I was struck on your video at 5:47 "...without any non-healing items, or weapon prosthetics.....beat all of the boss gauntlets without any items..." You have my highest regards on this. I admire Sekiro players who fight with endurance. Can't imagine I'm trying to push to perfection where just a month ago I nearly quit this game due to constantly failing to Lady Butterfly hehe. After finishing the game, shifted to "no damage" boss fights with no use of Buffs/Skill Arts/Prosthetic which eventually became my obsession. Then stepped up my challenge to "no damage and ALL DEFLECT" Finally pulled this off. ALL DEFLECT vs Isshin's Spear/Sword Attacks only. (Sorry, for the barrage of bullets, I can't perfectly deflect the 4th bullet haha 😅) I have to restart if there is a single spear/sword attack not successfully deflected in any phase. I have to restart if there is a single spear/sword attack which damaged me in any phase. I have to restart if I pressed "L1" without any reason to press it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2Jm3DHwKMQI.html

He really is feeble. Sekiro is hard but damn man you make it sound like your first playthrough had bell demon and no kuro charm active. Lol love the videos tho dude keep em coming

I gave this game 3 tries and just figured it wasn't for me. just couldn't bring myself to learn it. Gave it a 4th and final go and now I'm enjoying it. I'm actually sortve proud at how far I've come in the game. Went from practicing with the immortal guy at dilapidated temple everytime I booted the game to now beating owl father. It's a nice feeling.

Very well done and said!

“Samurai general is mini boss easy mode” and here I am. Getting killed by him 20 times in a row

Still don't understand why feeble didn't use double jump and mikiri counter attacks on corrupted monk. Plus it's very useful to perform a nightjar ninja's strike on distancing enemies Took like 30 minutes to beat her. Guess different people just get stuck and cant find a proper solution at different moments. Mine personally was the 1v2 fight against spearman mini boss and a samurai just before the final boss. Spent like 2 hours and figured a way to get a stealth takedown only afterwards....

I'm seeing too much hesitation in this game play and I'm sure we all know that it will lead to defeat.

Chained ogre was to teach using your resources. Going and getting the fire cannon attachment, you eavesdrop before this fight and they literally tell you he’s weak to fire

Pretty good video. I lost so many times to Isshin first and second phase. Somehow beat his third and final phase on my first time reaching it.

The one thing the flaming bull taught me is that I can run indefinitely, and that actually was my strategy for all monster bosses.

It shocks me how someone route of the game could change his view of the game entirely Corrupted monk is supposed to be fought way further into the endgame not early before genechro , genechro is supposed to be the skill check that test what the players have learned that's why it was so easy for you because you were overpowered ( or let's say overskilled ) most people fought genechro first , the route to mipu village is hidden and hard to find , it took me hours to know how to go so I don't how you found it before top of ashina castle especially if you were following the story Also the mini bosses are the indication of how strong a boss is not the enemies of the area , and for corrupted monk it should have been obvious you are on the wrong track when you fought the ninja guy and seven spears of ashina , orin of water and saw how strong they are compare to the rest of the area By the time you get to corrupted monk you should've had a respectable amount of health and damage , 7 to 8 healings and lastly mortal blade which is op against most bosses even without spirit emblems Corrupted monk should go down in less than 10 minutes and the real corrupted monk should take 30 minutes because it is supposed to harder not easier , fake corrupted monk is supposed to be like spirit of godfrey and other spirit bosses in elden ring , a training for real boss so it won't be as overwhelming So no sekiro isn't as hard as you make it sound to be , it is indeed harder than the other souls games and very punishing but it doesn't require pure perfection like you said , I agree with other parts of the video and it was great

Uuuh, didn't expect this, now I know what I'll be doing in the next two hours. Nice.

It’s 2023 and I’m playing sekiro as my first ever fromsoft/soulslike game and I’ve never been closer to snapping a controller 😂 but after about 30 hours I’ve actually, by some miracle, made it to Isshin. I never used a single item (other than healing) through the whole game because they all seemed weird and useless to me and I am so glad I did it that way because it made me become skilled at the game the way I’m supposed to. That being said, the first time I started the game, the first general miniboss killed me about 25 times plus more deaths from the fodder in between the bonfire and him and stopped playing the game entirely for 3 months… if that doesn’t say how steep the difficulty curve is I don’t know what does haha

This game gets more appreciated over time. I'm a big fan of it since release and I'm glad more people are enjoying it now.

I see u have criticised the multi man fights especially the lone shadow miniboss gank fight in Ashina Castle dojo when Owl comes to take over. I think u forgot about the puppeteer ninjutsu with which u can take over one of the enemies and mindcontrol them to ur side which turns the tables on the fight. Pretty sure stealth+ninjutsu is how fromsoft intended for us to deal with the insanely strong normal enemies in endgame.

as someone who didnt manage to beat sekiros learning curve i gotta say that take on weirdly deterring newbie players is spot on

What about the experience u get from the enemies to get skill points?

Bro thinks this game has Naruto references lmaoooooo

I like this review, there's a lot of insightful stuff in here. I do feel like there's a lot of personal experience diagnosing "the player has no choice but to do this thing I did which MUST be the meta" when there is a clear better answer available.

Gonna give this video a like just because I love this game still. I love how I come to RU-vid and the few people that put time into videos titles such as this have a great appreciation of this game.

This was great man, nice job

Less than 50% of people on steam defeated Lady Butterfly and whats more emotionally compelling while ashina is burning is that you made this happen. By defeating Genichiro and all the defenders of Ashina, you weakened them enough that they were over taken by the ministry forces.

It's interesting, listening to everyone take on the game. What I thought was unfair or impossible turned out just to be my misunderstanding of the mechanics. By the end of the game I could enter flow states like vegeta going super Sayian and will it was crazy.

Ahhh can someone tell me the background music he uses in this video? The one with the chimes? I heard it before but I forgot what game it's from lol.