General Sekiro

I highly recommend giving Ongbal a watch, he's got some great experimental fights against modded bosses: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdGyaKUgO9hM2C0cH-Xe8LQ

He really opened my eyes to some funky sub-weapon applications. Downside generally being that the sub-weapons are kind of sub-optimal compared to just playing normally, but it looks really sweet and it's fun to see all the abilities put to use.

I really love the boss-fights, I the later boss-rush additions really played well into that as well.

>Ongbal
Wow, they're good haha. I hadn't even equipped the umbrella yet, neat usage against a flurry of sword strikes. Thanks for the link...I will certainly check some of this stuff out!

Definitely give him a look yeah! You can also check out SBK's vids for more 'optimal' routes.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGRD0m3lv6hCfDqdgwYPag/search?query=sekiro

When I watch those kinds of modded Sekiro playthrough videos, I always wonder if there's a way to modify the player controller options while adjusting small features of the enemies because I think the ingredients are ready.

Even though the optimal playstyle is pressing normal R1 or L1 at right time, there ARE skillsets that can be useful for crowd-controlling. (The mortal blade skill and the spinny spin move that was added with the boss rush mode) They just cost the resource that doesn't replenish in the fast phase (the paper doll thing) and there are only three prosthetics and one sword skill available at a time. If I can make a mod for it, I would add additional inputs (like L1+R2 or L1 + Y or L1 + B) to allocate more weapon skills, and remove the cost. (of course, the damage of the skills would be reduced alongside with it for the balance)

I would also like to make iframe of dodge (both dash and jump) stay last longer so that players don't get punished for mistimed positioning while fighting multiple enemies.  
 
For the enemies, I think the animation sets are already alright. When you think about it, every enemies have much much larger movesets than the normal enemies in earlier FROM games. The problems are that they block too much and they ALWAYS track horizontally (sometimes even vertically) while attacking. Meaning that every enemy attack is designed to be blocked, and every player's attack inputs are destined to be stuck after the first strike so that aggressive approaches to the group fight will always lead to the demise of Wolf. That's why 99% of the players go defensive.

But I think, if FROM did the development rightly, there should be properties that determine the power of movement tracking or the rate of blocking movement. Imagine the Guardian Ape or Samurai duo boss fights where you don't get rumbled by constant tracking or combo cuts. Those fights would have remained as interesting crowd control challenges rather than the piles of frustration we got in the end.

That was just my rambling.

Interesting you bring up Sekiro, a friend and me were discussing it again the other day. I think the boss-fights are the highlight since they're deep encounters where (especially post patch) you can tinker with all sorts of combat options. Sure you can just go the typical Parry+Punish style, but there's multiple uses for the fan-shield and poison dagger, or other setups like using Butterfly to nuke Isshin etc.

The big thing holding it back I agree is the lack of multiple options - there's a mod out in the wild IIRC that allows you to 'style switch' akin to DMC, giving Wolf access to most of his tools on the fly.

Regarding cost, perhaps they could've changed it that you can do two types of inputs. I.e. tapping the input gives you the 0-cost version, which barely deals damage or loses some functionality (like hyper armour on Mortal Blade), while holding the button drains the resource. Or perhaps the other way around, holding it down doesn't drain the resource, but forces Wolf in a buildup animation etc.

Having the regeneration be so random never sat right with me either looking back. This isn't like Ninpo in Ninja Gaiden where it's a "super" resource, these are points used for basic abilities. So you'd want them to constantly regenerate, perhaps just have them cost more, but each block gives you 1 back and each parry gives you 2 etc.

picked this up on the Steam Winter sale and surprisingly... i don't like it, i regret buying this

i didn't heed you guys' warning on this one because i found value in Elden Ring's combat so i naturally assumed that would be the case here as well but i'm seeing what you guys are saying and i'm rapidly losing hope that there's anything more to this game. i assumed the "stand there and parry everything, this is just a rhythm game" criticisms were a "yeah you could do that but there's more to it" thing, but no it does appear to be the core of the game. same with the Simon Says thing. i'm just not seeing any depth here. it's all been covered in this thread already: slow enemy attacks, the core of the game is parry everything with zero risk of damage coming to yourself because even if you fall asleep at the wheel and somehow fuck up a parry timing you'll just block it anyway + mikiri & jump the rest when Sekiro Says + attack when it's your turn to attack. the enemies are built around insanely predictable & easy patterns both in their behavior and movesets. you spend some time on an enemy to memorize their shit, then execute your parries perfectly, then R1 when they stop attacking, done. there's nothing beyond this; no positioning, no nothing. i can't believe this is a Fromsoft game, especially the last one they made before ER.

even the combat arts and prosthetic tools-- given the incredibly useful weapon arts they've made for ER/DS3 and the fact there's only 10 of them in this game i would have expected all of them to be amazing rather than the "there's a ton of them but most of them are useless" problem that DS3/ER has but i'm not finding any utility here. they have utility in the sense of they can fuck up enemies but i'm not seeing anything interesting mechanically speaking. an example of this would be the firecrackers: press R2 and get a free stun, that's it. the poison swords; where's the utility beyond "hit the enemy with them and they get poisoned"? i looked up videos of people using tools and that's all i see; people shutting down and nuking bosses with them. if all they have going for them is just ways to take free dumps on enemies then that's absolutely worthless to me, just the worst. maybe there's a little there i haven't found yet but i doubt it's going to be near enough. haven't been able to experiment with them much because of the abominable spirit ash system (the return of Blood Vials from BB except it applies to your combat tools, go fuck yourself) + it takes forever to get materials to upgrade them so i still don't have a lot of the upgraded ones. same deal with the combat arts: nothing useful i see so far but i've not yet unlocked them all.

the health and posture system is interesting in theory. the posture in this game isn't a stagger mechanic like in ER, it's an alternative health bar. you can go for the riskier route of brute-force overwhelming an enemy's block and keep up that aggression perfectly to win the fight quicker, or you can go for the safer, slower, long-term damage until you deplete their health or until their block is lacking enough. unfortunately it's a given that you can posture fuck a boss once you learn them so i guess at that point and beyond there's no real reason to not do that. it's cool that this system also applies to yourself; if you have full health then your posture recovers fairly quickly but the lower your health the worse it gets, and with even a bit of your health gone it becomes fairly slow to recover.

"posture/block bar battles", both you and your enemy(s) whittling each other's guards down until someone gets a killing blow, is a cool idea and fits in well with the shinobi combat thing they're going for, and so does the health vs block health system. there's some great ideas in this game, and the combat feels and sounds and looks excellent, and i love the ninja/samurai style of the combat-- just wish there was a proper game behind all this. nothing to talk about regarding the stealth system; it's just a way to lower enemy number count and i'm fine with that.

i just found out there's a free indie game on Steam called "KANNAGI USAGI" and it literally just rips off Sekiro's combat



the first thoughts when watching this is "oh that's a cute extremely simple gimmicky free action game" but then the realization dawns: it's Sekiro down to a tee. Sekiro's combat is so simple that some shitty rando indie developer lazily slopped it together on some Sunday afternoon for a side project to be released for free and zero depth was lost in the process. i think watching this video is an interesting experience because it's like seeing a game exposed; there's none of Sekiro's flash (graphics, animations, sound, level design, etc.) to distract you from how simple and rigid this combat system is, it cuts through all of that to show Sekiro bare and it's very revealing, not that this revealed to me anything i didn't already know.

>i didn't heed you guys' warning on this one
Lesson learned I hope.

Yeah the most annoying thing is that there's a lot of potential in the game. There's a ton of unique martial-arts moves, prosthetic arms with special abilities and secondary abilities, items, you have a grapplehook, can wall jump and enemyhop - it legit has all the building blocks for being a mixture of MGR:R and Ninja Gaiden. And instead it gives every enemy massive tracking, huge HPpools and basically forces parry.

Yes, you can do other stuff and get creative and there is some fun to be had, but only in very specific bosses and against certain attacks. Otherwise it really just is "mash attack until timed-R1".

The posturebar is interesting, but also flawed imo. Due to perfect-parrying your bar is always maxed out, so you're in a sense also punished for it. And most enemies have such limited patterns it might as well not be there.

If you want a game that has this system but good, try Bujingai Blade. Old game on the ps2, really cool combat system.

>where's the utility
There are two basic use cases for Sabimaru. The first is that enemies vulnerable to poison get completely trivialized by it, lol. The second, and more interesting use is for varying your combo string. By mixing Sabimaru attacks into your R1 string, you can make much longer combos to stunlock or break guards. Sabimaru attacks are also quicker than normal R1 attacks and can help you manipulate your forward movement while attacking. These secondary uses are why I liked Sekiro and kept playing it, but they are constantly overshadowed by dumb stuff like the first use.

A lot of the interactions are "use tool X on enemy Y to win for free" like the flame tool against the red ogre, which I think is by design. They wanted to include an element where a knowledgeable player could win without needing to rely on Deflect. In my view they made the game too easy to court the mainstream, but maybe that's me being cynical.

General problem of tools and combat arts having cool utility, but that utility being buried under OP baby-mode stuff. The Mist Raven Feather is extremely cool and fun, but I get the impression that most players never learn how to get value from it because why bother when Deflect exists?
 
>even if you fall asleep at the wheel and somehow fuck up a parry timing you'll just block it anyway
After beating the game once you have the option to play "charmless" which is a hard mode where you take half damage on normal blocks. It should have been the default difficulty IMO. (This is basically how Lies of P works btw)

Charmless+DemonBell is where the fun is at yeah. One joke I was going to make was that the most significant discovery imo was that doing Raven against Isshin's lightning allows you to do lightning attacks while still keeping "no damage" going.

Do agree with what you say though, generally when you can use the equipment, it's usually a win button by default if you (again) use X for Y specifically. Should note that many of these things were (heavily) buffed in the titular easy-mode patch that FromSoftware always does after a few weeks. Version 1.0 had a lot worse tools. Poison was basically useless iirc.

I've been playing some Yakuza 3 again lately and it strikes me just how well that game's combat holds up by the basic merits that:
a) every attacks and heat-action has a purpose due to move-staling and block patterns.
b) movement matters, you can avoid nearly all attacks simply by smart positioning
c) there's always multiple solutions for every situation.
d) meter management is key, and being defensive sees your meter drop constantly

Regarding c, for example in the FIGHTING VIPER (ha) fight early on, you're still quite weak. You can fight him head on, bait his attacks and go for a quick punish into knockdown with followups. Or you can use the absolute tons of items lying around (like a dozen chairs, few tables) to beat him into submission. You can also go to a shop earlier and buy a few cheap baseball bats to beat him to death if you want.

Grabs don't always work, but they do work from behind most of the time as a punish etc.

Meanwhile I don't get that experience from Sekiro, a game way more praised for it's combat than a wacky 2009 PS3 title with combat built on a nearly 5 year old engine.

>You can fight him head on, bait his attacks and go for a quick punish into knockdown with followups. Or you can use the absolute tons of items lying around (like a dozen chairs, few tables) to beat him into submission. You can also go to a shop earlier and buy a few cheap baseball bats to beat him to death if you want.
*eyes roll back*
*convulses*

>it legit has all the building blocks for being a mixture of MGR:R and Ninja Gaiden

for sure, it's funny you say that because there's 1 fight in the entire game where the combat system came together for me a bit and it reminded me of both of those games. it was at the Hirata Estate when you're there for the second time, in the last room before the very top where you fight

spoiler:

on the roof. first time you're there it was some mini-boss in the room but the second time you're there there's these 2 purple ninjas, one of them being the poison variant, and it was a fairly intense multi-fight duel that was like an MGR and NG fight combined (the equivalent in MGR would be fighting 2 Mastiffs). these guys put constant pressure on you and rush your ass down for a change, and that combined with the number of them you're facing added just enough complexity to where i wasn't able to deal with them in the typical mindless flowchart manner but also wasn't so many enemies to where the game devolves into a clusterass gagglefuck where you just clunkily chip away at an angry mob blob from outside their pathetic movement abilities and attack range.

>If you want a game that has this system but good

interested

>Bujingai Blade

interesting, never heard of this, i'll check that out

>These secondary uses are why I liked Sekiro and kept playing it, but they are constantly overshadowed by dumb stuff like the first use.

i appreciate the tips for Sabimaru but, while i'll acknowledge the minor utility of it, i still think core depth is missing because i don't see how "i am now going to press R2 multiple times in a row to get a long combo on an enemies stunlocked guard to freely squeeze out some extra posture damage" isn't free, i just don't see anything to it. there's some stuff that on paper would be something-- seems like it's mostly offensive combat arts-- but ends up being braindead easy flowchart "press X to win" purely because of the game's enemies/combat design. like Senpou Leaping Kicks/High Monk: see sweep or discover move you can jump over, press L1 + R1. Spring-load Flame Vent: charge R2 when enemy is vulnerable for a slow move. Shuriken: press R2 when enemy goes in the air. Ichimonji: same as Spring-Load Flame Vent. and so on. everything feels exactly like the Red Eyed Ogre/Red Eyed enemy weak to fire/Flame Vent you brought up; nothing more than a "combat puzzle" (or the game straight up telling you the solution like in the case of the Red Eyed Ogre).

for another example, here's some of the defensive options you could do to deal with the purple ninja mob's kick combo: you could parry all the hits, you could use Firecrackers to stun him out of it, you could use Mist Raven to fly behind him, you could Nightjar Slash Reversal and then take a backstep afterwards to dodge the combo, you could start up the Sabimaru combo and then use the built-in dodge to get behind him, you could use the Umbrella to block the hits, and so on.

but none of this takes any skill to do, it's just going through the motions; you see the slow wind-up before he unleashes the combo, you know what's coming, you press "R1 on the hits" or "R2" or "back on analog stick + L1 + R1" or "R2 then R1" or "hold R2" or whatever, and mission success. this is how i see literally everything in this game, including the core defensive and offensive options. it's all just as easy and Simon Says as pressing jump when you see red symbol on screen + enemy going for a sweep (and at least with that there might be an easy-to-read mix-up involved). and it's not like any of these options are even any different, it's all just a matter of what buttons you wanna press to do the same thing to get to the same destination. whereas in ER, positioning is completely different than dodge-rolling for instance.

>In my view they made the game too easy to court the mainstream, but maybe that's me being cynical.

nah that's not cynical, they definitely did. as brutally obnoxious as this phrase is, Sekiro screams "baby's first action game".

>but I get the impression that most players never learn how to get value from it because why bother when Deflect exists?

unfortunately, i have to agree with that sentiment. i don't agree that this is a classic case of "gamer brain" striking again, i don't see any real reason to not parry everything either; it's all the same shit except funnily enough parrying is the only defensive (and offensive) option that takes any mechanical skill whatsoever even if it is 100% trivial in this game, so at least the uncritical part of my brain feels like i actually did something and i get a nice "clang" sound effect. it's just more satisfying relatively speaking, plus it doesn't use any resources. as far as offense goes, sure, i suppose tools and arts are worth doing just for the sake of better damage/quicker fights but i don't think there's any more depth to it than just pressing R1 when it's my turn.

>After beating the game once you have the option to play "charmless" which is a hard mode where you take half damage on normal blocks

eh, doesn't solve any of my issues, it just punishes you for not parrying everything perfectly-- less forgiving but not more interesting.



i don't know, i was expecting a whole lot more with this game; a harder version of Kannagi Usagi is just not interesting to me. i don't know how much longer i'll be force-feeding Suckiro.

>isn't free
Well, if Sabimaru was free you'd never press R1 again, lol. The R1 attacks being awful is the thing I like least about Sekiro, other than maybe Deflect being OP.

Emblems are very plentiful and you can always buy more, there's no need to be frugal with them. What fun there is to be had in Sekiro mostly comes from Emblem abilities IMO.

>Leaping Kicks
You don't need to stick to using it as a counter, it's strong to the point of being somewhat spammable. An easy solution to the few enemies who are tricky to Deflect.

>Flame Vent
Main value of this IMO, besides special interactions, is the fact that flame debuff is powerful.

>Shuriken
This is probably the best-designed tool tbh, does a lot of stuff. Gives an effortless OHKO on dogs, can be used to snipe archers since they have low enough health to die in around 3 hits (depending on difficulty and upgrade level). Also a good stagger tool, or for preventing strong enemies from regaining posture. Shuriken Chasing Slice travels ridiculously far. The Butterfly version is also an okay gimmick, but regular shurikens are better.

>positioning
You can absolutely play Sekiro as a positioning game. It's just way worse than standing in place and Deflecting, lol.

had an urge to give Sekiro another chance aaand... it's clicking with me now. playing this game in the most straightforward way of sitting still and parrying/Mikiri-ing/jumping everything is rigid and not terribly exciting but the more out of the box you play with positioning, tools/combat arts, using your entire moveset, going outside of the 'your turn, my turn' paradigm, etc. the more fun it becomes, the deeper it gets, the better it flows, and the more tasteful the parrying/Mikiri/jumping stuff becomes as it turns into 1 element of the combat rather than choking you out with it.

the only thing i still don't like is that it's too close to the Souls games in its non-combat design-- the scouring of levels for tons of health/attack upgrades, treasure carp scales, items, upgrade materials, etc-- i really, really could have done without that shit in this game. seriously. but other than that, i'm looking forward to playing more and seeing where this goes. you were right, Rorc, you can play a positioning game here and the tools/combat arts are awesome.

first and final notes for Sekiro, the Estacado review (in which i confirm everything everybody already knew):

i was already at the end of the game. Demon of Hatred, like all the non-human bosses, is annoying and doesn't fit the game's combat system; wayyyyyy too much of the boss running away from me and me having to run away from the bosses attacks. Isshin was awesome though, best boss in Sekiro.

this is an okay game i guess but it's not anywhere near good enough for me to jump through the brutal hoops that it has in the form of finishing the game multiple times to get different endings (and me having to pour over a guide to do so) to unlock the rest of the bosses and grind for XP & upgrade materials to unlock my full moveset. especially when-- and this is very similar to the Souls games-- the game is a boss rush except there's an entire game surrounding it, the enemies are absolute fucking garbage not worth fighting*, so i would have to speedrun boss rush through the game multiple times-- fuck that. *especially on Charmless + Demon Bell where more than 1 enemy at a time is an unplayable clusterfuck death sentence so even if you would want to fight enemies for some reason you'd have to stealth kill to thin the herd down to 1 guy every single encounter, what a fucking joke.

you can play a positioning game here but my initial impressions when i first messed around with that when i got the game was correct; it's blatantly unintended, just bare-bones basic positioning breaks the mobs/bosses over your knee leaving them with no response. not that the Souls games have a deep positioning game or anything, and doing that does break the mobs there as well, but at least it's fundamentally built into the boss/mini-boss design with the latter games. the combat arts/prosthetics do have utility but there's no depth to the combat system itself so abusing that stuff is just messing around with bosses in figuring out new ways to curbstomp them, same with abusing positioning-- gets old fast. that was enough to curb the monotony/spread out the parry/mikiri/jump stuff while i played but that unholy trinity of game-cancer is the core design that the entire combat system was built around, there's no getting around that no matter how much you try to.

it sucks because i do love the idea of this shinobi-style combat, there's 1 or 2 awesome ideas like the posture/health system (and i like that it applies to yourself as well), it's interesting that the (human) bosses are very interruptible as opposed to being lumbering impervious hitboxes (but unfortunately this makes them even more abusable), and while the combat is just learning the super easy predictable moveset then parry the hits, it does (with the human bosses) in a shallow way deliver on the 'epic shinobi duel' thing they were going for.

> boss rush with bad gameplay in between
This was my feeling at the time too and it still is, and it's highlighted by most gameplay clips always showing just the same two-three bosses over and over again, and the DLC content being just...more boss-fights. Most enemies lack the complexity to handle you, with most only having one move and one post-parry follow-up, making them very predictable. Those straw-hat guys are the only exception, and I had hoped to see more of them.

>boss rush

i'm really over this design. if you wanna make a game about bosses, cool, but then respect my fucking time and actually make the game nothing but bosses, you'd get a lot more bosses that way as well. between this and ER Fromsoft has really lost the plot on respecting a player's time these days.

>it's highlighted by most gameplay clips always showing just the same two-three bosses over and over again

i even looked up a Sekiro fan actually playing the campaign and surprise surprise, he was speedrunning through the game to get to the bosses just like people do with Souls. at that point why bother, just play the boss modes like everyone else. i don't know why they didn't put that feature in Elden Ring.

Jackie Estacado wrote:>boss rush

i'm really over this design. if you wanna make a game about bosses, cool, but then respect my fucking time and actually make the game nothing but bosses, you'd get a lot more bosses that way as well. between this and ER Fromsoft has really lost the plot on respecting a player's time these days.

>it's highlighted by most gameplay clips always showing just the same two-three bosses over and over again

i even looked up a Sekiro fan actually playing the campaign and surprise surprise, he was speedrunning through the game to get to the bosses just like people do with Souls. at that point why bother, just play the boss modes like everyone else. i don't know why they didn't put that feature in Elden Ring.

When has FS ever respected anyone's time lol

The game is good, but yeah it could have been better. Boss fights are cool and all, but to me what makes an action game great is the standard enemy encounters. This game is severely lacking in that department, I legit can't remember a single encounter that stands out or is memorable. Wish enemies like the straw hat guys or the purple ninjas would appear more frequently.

Due to the grappling hook, normal encounters are hardly a threat anyway, since you can dart away if you feel cornered. And as Jackie mentioned, non-human bosses are just garbage. Especially Demon of Hatred with his obscene amount of HP.

>Especially Demon of Hatred with his obscene amount of HP.

oh god, forgot to mention that. the non-human bosses in general have stupid amounts of health and no flow to them, which there is a great back-and-forth with the human ones.

there's also a dearth of bosses in general, especially once you start discounting the non-human ones (i'm also including the guy on horseback in that category) and the gimmicks and the repeats. Divine Dragon was cinematic trash. Folding Screen Monkeys i feel is the best puzzle boss they've ever made but is mandatory for some reason despite being a one-and-done puzzle.

>Due to the grappling hook, normal encounters are hardly a threat anyway, since you can dart away if you feel cornered.

not saying this automatically makes it fine but i do think this was intentional. i assume the original intention here was for dragon rot to actually mean something-- to be the next 'dying means real consequences', 'losing your body in Souls games' mechanic-- and so it was supposed to be this risk/reward thing where you can stay and risk dying or not take the chance and flee to a shrine to preserve your life as to not advance the rot-- you can still see this dynamic in the game with XP/money. but they weren't able to figure out how to make dragon rot a non-insanely obnoxious punishment so it's yet another unrealized Fromsoft mechanic like Insight.

>but to me what makes an action game great is the standard enemy encounters

outta luck on that when it comes to Fromsoft unfortunately

One thing I found to be especially 'insulting' was that FromSoft has the tendency to patch out strats. There was a very specific jump you could do to lure Demon out of the zone and he'd fall to his death in a pit for an OHKO. Not intentional, sure, but it felt cool when figured out and robbed no-one of anything. Yet it was patched out.

>but to me what makes an action game great is the standard enemy encounters
In general this is rare to see in games (these days). It's why the classics still rule, bosses tend to not hold up after time goes on since optimal strats can and will be found, while a multi-man melee is often more random and always interesting upon replays.

>Dying means real consequences

Can't have that, since FromSoft's fanbase are actually mostly casuals (despite what they tell you). A real shame.

>Demon ringout

Yeah, it's such a shame that this was patched out.

>Classics still rule

Agreed. I mean, 99% of action games these days are either soulslike, or action RPGs. I can count the number of pure action games this generation with just one hand.

>Bosses tend to not hold up after time goes on since optimal strats can and will be found

Also, if I'm going to be honest, most bosses are not that good mechanically. Spectacle-wise a lot of them are good, but mechanically few are great. Vergil, Credo, Armstrong and Ares are some of the great ones that comes to mind. Heard Azel is great too, but I haven't played God Hand.

>Multi-man melee is often more random and always interesting upon replays

Like a random encounter with some IS ninjas and Mages in NG2.

> real consequence for dying
Was saddened that DragonRot literally did nothing.

> mechanical bosses
Very rare that they are interesting. The ones you mentioned are basically it, plus Bogey's from Vanquish and maybe Phantom from DMC1. Azel is great, definitely play GH.

The clones in Ninja Gaiden Black are also some of the best bosses mechanically, they allow you to use your mechanics in ways other bosses don't. In mission mode you get to fight 2 clones together and it's very tough and fun.

God Hand has plenty of great bosses aside from Azel where all of your mechanics work on them, and the reason for that is that they are essentially special versions of the regular enemy types, but with enough changes to make them feel unique.

I can't recommend it enough, it's one of the best games ever, it's also hilarious (Don't skip cutscenes) and has great music.

>Dual Bogeys

Oh yeah, they're great too.

>Essentially special versions of the regular enemy types

I suddenly imagined a beefed-up version of an IS ninja, which is terrifying to think of. Could be an idea for a future NG game (which is unlikely to happen). God Hand is on my list of games that I want to play, for sure. One of the few classics I haven't touched.

> beefed up IS
Kinda what Fiend Genshin is tbh, if his shurikens would stick. Imagine that.

> GH
Definitely give it a run, or twenty. One of the absolute goats.

Fattah86 wrote:>Dying means real consequences

Can't have that, since FromSoft's fanbase are actually mostly casuals (despite what they tell you). A real shame.

>Demon ringout

Yeah, it's such a shame that this was patched out.

>Classics still rule

Agreed. I mean, 99% of action games these days are either soulslike, or action RPGs. I can count the number of pure action games this generation with just one hand.

>Bosses tend to not hold up after time goes on since optimal strats can and will be found

Also, if I'm going to be honest, most bosses are not that good mechanically. Spectacle-wise a lot of them are good, but mechanically few are great. Vergil, Credo, Armstrong and Ares are some of the great ones that comes to mind. Heard Azel is great too, but I haven't played God Hand.

>Multi-man melee is often more random and always interesting upon replays

Like a random encounter with some IS ninjas and Mages in NG2.

>99% are Souls-like or action RPGs

True to a degree. We do get our traditional DMC-like game with group combat focused encounters but unfortunately they've all been shyte or mid.

To name a few:

Valkyrie Elysium
Wanted Dead
Soulstice
Ultra age
Ff16

I dropped all of these lol only DMC5 and Hi Fi Rush have been solid.

Also, Lost Judgement's combat is insane but the game overall has too many non-combat sections forced into the campaign. Yakuza Gaiden on the other hand was a step backwards from LJ's combat but was action heavy from the get go.

Yeah there's a few, but even they have a lot of the 'chaff' from those genres, i.e. FF16 being swamped with RPG elements. HiFi Rush was the first real traditional one in ages alongside Sifu, just wish I actually liked HiFi hahaha

Astral Chain is another great one.

I honestly don't get why Team Ninja are so averse to adding soft-lock to their games, it makes crowd fights so much better. I also don't get why it has stamina, looks like it just limits the player and how aggressive you can be (though to be fair I don't have a PS5 to play it on).

GN1 wrote:Astral Chain is another great one.

I honestly don't get why Team Ninja are so averse to adding soft-lock to their games, it makes crowd fights so much better. I also don't get why it has stamina, looks like it just limits the player and how aggressive you can be (though to be fair I don't have a PS5 to play it on).

Damn, I forgot AC my GOAT

Also Bayonetta 3 was traditional but kinda meh. Alot better than those shitty ones I mentioned though.

>lost judgement
I’ve heard this one has great combat but I’m so burned out on the series. Do enemies have stupid amounts of armor like in Kiwami 2 and 6?

>FF16 swamped with rpg elements
FF16 has almost no rpg elements actually. The equipment system is about the most basic I’ve ever seen and the leveling system is automatic from what I remember. When compared to FF7 remake/rebirth it’s a pure action game ha.

>bayo 3 meh
Yeah it was alright. I’d play it any day over Wanted Dead though(sorry Electric Underground).

I’ll be the one to decide wether this game is mid or not, don’t worry fellas.

>Lost Judgement

It's good, combat-wise it's one of the best in the series. I do recommend playing Judgement first though, as LJ is a huge improvement over it (unless you don't care about the story). Enemies don't have a ton of armor, bosses do but you can open them up easily. There are four fighting styles and juggling (much more consistent and you have way more options compared to Judgement). K2 and 6 are two of the worst games in the series, so don't worry. The Dragon Engine has come a long way from how janky it is back then.

i can't keep silent any longer. Fromsoft/Sekiro is just the fall guy for the parry obsession, it's time to finger the real culprit:



this moment lodged itself deep into the recesses of the gamer mind and set the current stage; ever since then everybody has been trying to be Daigo.

you know i'm right

Oh 100%, that video singlehandedly killed local FGC and brought esports into it, while also making everyone going "damn pressing parry is the sickest thing" while the entire pro fgc (daigo included) fucking hatted parry.

I'll bring back the discussion on Sekiro for a Moment. I agree completely with the simplistic nature of the combat system (even the most complex stuff you can do with tools are not Needed at all for the efficency), nonetheless I find It Always enjoyable to replay. In my opinion the Key to its success lies in the feedback of the hits (and the boss design Is good in particular three or four bosses)

I'm quite interested in replaying it on Xbox, I have a feeling it will be on Gamepass at somepoint so I can give it another go fresh. Never played the bonus content either.

I originally played It on OG PS4 and man the performance were awful, the last boss and all the Castle area had something like frame deeps to 17/20 FPS (another display of how From devs are bad in coding, like why you Need to keep the entire area and all enemies in RAM in a title like this?). I replayed It on PS5 and It runs like a Dreams. Also on PC despite some issues runs pretty good also on lo-mid end PCs (of you accept the compromise of low resolution)

After a long absence to the site I return just to shit on this game.
I already knew going in that I wasn't going to like it, but you know, maybe I could change my mind if I explored all the inner systems of the game.
So far I've only completed NG and I'm doing the Gauntlets now (need to do the one with Inner Asshin) and after I'll complete all the side content before delving into NG+.
I didn't hate the game but it's bordering on mediocrity. Sekiro is a (shallow) action game (not ARPG, just action game) trapped into a Souls mold that doesn't fit it.
It's clear that Miyazaki wanted the game to be all about the bosses, and the combat is tailored perfectly to that. The problem is that he realized he had to make a Souls game around it, and the attempt wasn't great.
Enemies and minibosses are just shittier bosses and it's a pain fightining more than one enemy at the time. They realized this and it's why they introduced stealth, if you can even call it that. Really AAA slop stealth with "hide in the tall grass" segments, instakill from walls, dogshit AI is either so stupid that they don't see their fallen comrades or they instantly know where you are. You all know it's boring and shallow so let's move on.

The levels are all linear hallways that you can at least explore non-linearly (the only good thing the Souls formula provided in this case) and the enemy placement is fine (even tho their design isn't).
The grapple hook, aside from being very boring (press a button to watch a cutscene of Wolf going from point A to point B, without momentum or other unique interactions ) makes you skip half the game basically. Another sign they weren't confident in anything that wasn't 1v1 fights.

Most bosses are really flawless, as far as the combat goes. You go in, download their moveset in your head and then beat them with 100% consistency, which I’m sure that’s what they were going for. You can use prosthetics for some cool interactions here and there but the bosses are too restrictive for that to matter that much and they still fall very quickly to the usual attack/deflect shenanigans.

Sidenote: I really don’t agree with the notion that Genichiro is supposed to be a “tutorial boss”. Tutorial for who? Owl and Isshin (which are the only other human bosses that remain after him)? At the midpoint of the game? Gimme a break. Was also surprised at how few human bosses the game has. I thought going in that the game must have been nothing but those, since it’s the most talked aspect, but you can count them on one hand basically.

Oh yeah prosthetics. They are by far the best aspect of the game’s combat since Combat Arts are kinda limited and only a few are really worth using, but both are bogged down by the fact that you can only use them sparringly (NG+ aside). In a perfect world where Sekiro was a pure action without the Souls bullshit, they would have either been infinite but required some more setup to use or you got a Devil Trigger-like bar that allowed you to use them that recharged during combat. They wanted the clang clang clang bullshit to be the focus so that’s what you get. You get to play around with the cool shit for a bit before it runs out and you need to clang clang clang again, which has the depth of Guitar Hero while being not nearly as difficult (and having a worst OST on top of that, seriously what happened with the music in this game?).
Also, why do I need to farm for Spirit Emblems? Souls made spells charge infinite, and those are a lot more powerful that the Prosthetics and CAs. Dumb and pointless (just like you losing half your money on death and Dragonrot, but you already knew that).

Ultimately, this game is born from the all the boss hype moments of the Souls series, which made people believe that 1v1 fights against a static opponent that you fight for 3 hours before downloading their moveset in your head, with limited cool interactions, possibilities (outside of the occasional Prosthetic) and even hit reactions in some cases, are the pinnacle of gaming. So this is what you get.
The only saving grace of the combat (aside from the afromentioned Prosthetics) is that aggressive positioning is encouraged against bosses, but even this is a far cry from the micropositioning of Monster Hunter, which has a similar philosophy but also has a ton more bosses, more unique weapons, part breaks, stagger limits and other cool stuff (while also being more difficult).

You know, I remember some time ago another action game came out, which focused on parry and had some stealth mechanics. It too had an emphasis on bosses, but those offered more interactions and the game also had great basic enemes and encounters, along with a deeper combat system. I have it on the tip of my tongue. Maybe I should play that instead, if I remember what it was called.

>enemies are just easier bosses
Honestly now that you mention it, this was something I was thinking about when I was playing elden ring and why my enjoyment for liking enemies are very similar, the good ones are just a easier boss(pretty much a mini boss in the sense they’re a easier boss rather than a tough foe designed with enemies around them) and the combat scenarios whenever they try to have let’s say a healer, don’t really work with the combat due to how limiting your tools are(you mainly just R1smash them to death, unless you have a specific build that adds more nuance that I don’t know of or item which I don’t know of), even with sleep you just either focus on that enemy or go to another one and that’s the extend of it. Which would be fine if it wasn’t the only real standout status effect that goes beyond dps. It’s a step in the right direction but far too late still for an over decade long series with like, 7 games including MANY DLCs.

>combat made for bosses
Definitely, and I’d say they’re good honestly. Been a while since I played but I liked the fact you could either go for their health or posture bar during certain attacks and the prosthetic interactions as you mentioned.

>aggressive positioning against bosses
What do you mean by that?

>I remember some time ago another action game came out, which focused on parry and had some stealth mechanics.
Was it Sifu?

@Omar
>Elden Ring has the same mob problem
From saw that people only cared about bosses and made their games tailored around that. Too bad other things have been sacrificed for it.

>what do you mean
Bosses encourage aggressive positioning because of how posture works (since it goes down if you leave 'em alone) and because if you're near them they become more predicable (they will prioritize only doing certain moves). It's good but not enough to prop up their fights.

@Moonlight
>Sifu
MGR. Didn't know Sifu had stealth mechanics.

> returning to shit on popular game
That's the vision of Stinger.

Do feel it's good that, despite having a feeling you might not enjoy it, you still tried. Many people judge games without trying them first (see me: Halo, Deathstranding) and might end up loving them if they go in with an open mind.

Feel the stealth doesn't get enough hate, it ironically has all the staples from open maps, to hiding in grass, elevations, using shards to distract enemies, hanging from ledges and creeping alongside walls etc - only for it to be the most binary stealth system imaginable. If enemies had been far more dangerous, it might've been a good trade-off, but now it's just useless outside of speeding up some minibosses by getting that first hit in.

> grapple
Feel the platforming in general was a missed oppertunity. I had full expectations of this being NG-lite, with wallrunning, walljumps and using the grapple mid combat, only for it to be very binary as well.

> sidenote
It's like KH2 players making you think the entire game is just Lingering Will, while it's basically 99% boring dull fights and one cool one. There's a reason no Sekiro player ever mentions the bull, or any of the levels or regular enemies. It's also funny to me that the ONE unique boss (monkeys) is hated.

> spirit emblems
One of the souls-leftovers I feel, if you had all the arts equipped at the same time (or just 4 or w/e) I feel the combat could've been more interesting, but they really need to ditch the 1v1 combat for multiman

> Sifu
Doesn't really have stealth. If you ambush an enemy you get a free kill though, but doing so generally alerts the entire arena (with a few exceptions).

>Stealth

It wouldn't be a big problem if the combat is better, but as a result, the stealth being shallow stands out. I don't expect it to be Splinter Cell, but it could be done better for sure. MGRR's stealth is nothing to write home about, but the combat in that game is better.

>Grapple in combat

Look at Halo Infinite. The grapplehook is even upgradable, and the utility is fantastic. Such a missed opportunity.

>KH2

Guess I'll have to ask Wright about that.

>Regular encounters and enemies

Generally very dull, because the game is built for 1v1 boss fights. Trying to fight multiple enemies at the same time isn't a good approach, so that's why they put in stealth for that. As mentioned before, in other action games, Combat Arts would just be regular moves but with different inputs. Or they would require more setup. NG has held, rotate and forward inputs, yet I don't see any complaints about the inputs being complicated.

NOTE: It's funny to me that Sekiro is regarded as having better "combat", yet the regular enemies and encounters in Souls are way better. They have better variety, are more of a threat to you and the environment (traps, hazards). I legit  can't remember an enemy in Sekiro other than the Fountainhead Palace guards and Purple ninjas. They're that dull.

Honestly I wouldn’t mind sekiro if people didn’t dickride the fact posturing encourages aggression since it fills up the bar since literally any game with a sit mechanic does that.

@Roy
>you still tried
The path to become a true hater is long and tortuous.

>stealth doesn't get enough hate
Not only that but there are too few tools dedicated to it. The stealth sugar breaks the system in half and the ceramic shards and the whistle aren't that interesting.
Also, for a long time I thought that the shards were bugged since enemies didn't go where I threw them. Only after I saw some videos I realized that you're supposed to throw them at the enemies so they'll come to you. I have nothing to say about it (or rather, I have a ton to say about this but if I do I'll get banned).

>speeding up some minibosses
That's pretty much what the system is there for. If they made the first healthbar of the minibosses a lot smaller then there might have been a good choice to make, but as it is it's a no brainer to go for stealth.
They also paired a ton of minibosses with trash mobs to encourage stealth further, but even here it's a requirement since fighting more than one enemy at the time (especially with a miniboss in the mix) is a nightmare without the proper tools that you get later.
The game should have really gone for proper difficulty select and a proper NG+. Someone get Miyazaki to play DMC3 and NGB.

>platforming was a missed opportunity
Even after watching a speedrun the only cool thing I saw was the occasional double jump to skip certain parts of a level and even there it’s very basic. Also no wall attacks no grappling hook attacks is a big disappointment.

>hate for the monke
It’s a cool boss conceptually but they get broken by the stealth sugar and in general they’re either super easy or too frustrating. Not a great gimmick boss imo but I appreciated the inclusion at least.

>more arts equipped at the same time
They could have easily added another attack button by freeing up the space taken by the “press to absorb the loot” button. At the point add some motion inputs and block+attack inputs and they could have easily added like 8 different attacks at the same time. Guess From drones would have gotten too confused.

>Sifu stealth
Noted.

@Fattah
>the combat in that game is better
Funny how the two games have so many similarities, yet MGR does almost everything better. It does even sub and secondary weapons better. Yeah Firecrackers is cool, but have you seen the Pincers or the Red Phosphorus Granade?

@Omar
Not all games with a stagger bar do that. FFVII Remake has a static stagger bar. Monster Hunter as well. The posture is also different from stagger. The latter is a way to open up enemies and to unleash your best DPS tools with impunity, the former is a direct instakill.

@Hyperfist
>MGR
Oh right that fits the description more, slipped my mind as well.

@Fattah
>It's funny to me that Sekiro is regarded as having better "combat", yet the regular enemies and encounters in Souls are way better.
In general it's surprising to me to see how people treat the differences in combat across Fromsoft's games. They're not that much different from each other and I don't have any preference in either game's combat to another but the combat mechanics seem to be the main reason why one is considered better or worse for some.

>return to shit on this game
Out of any game to do so, it would be this one. Worst thing to happen to the genre in the last 10 years.