I had decided after Elden Ring DLC that I won’t play another game. Then I decided after Wukong that I won’t play another game. Then I decided after Lies of P DLC that I won’t play another game. Then played Sekiro. Now I am playing NG+ for this game.
What I liked:
- It is by far the smoothest combat and the most forgiving parry-window of any Souls / Souls-like game I have played in the last 2 years; Star Wars Jedi series is the closest / similar combat that I can remember
- This is the most fun I’ve had with my most favorite game mechanic – Parrying. Extremely satisfying when you hear the “ting ting” of the sword fight, very forgiving parry windows as well
- The concept of stamina doesn’t exist
- Significantly simple Souls game with no weapon + armor builds, nor is there a complex skill-tree; as my friend @dtox316 says, “Simple to play, hard to master”
- The camera is better than Ghost of Tsushima for sword fighting; the GoT camera being offset a bit on the right was weird
- The game holds pretty well in graphics 6 years later
- You get the PSN Gold trophy for getting to the final area, and each ending has a silver trophy. I think that’s a solid approach to trophies
What I did not like:
- Genichiro of Ashina having a Phase 3, it was an absolute flashpan anger inducing revelation, I took a break from the game for a week
- The colors are dull and seem washed out, no vibrancy
- Non-linear game play. Ugh.
- The secret endings were very complicated series of events, it should’ve been simpler, and the game should have led me to some of the dialogs needed. It angers me when I miss some dialog that had no prompt and now, I’m locked out of a game ending, even if I wasn’t going for that ending
- Repeated arenas
- Needing Spirit Emblems for prosthetic attacks, or more specifically, the spirit emblems not resetting at character-death; or something that didn’t make me lose half my coins at character death and me realizing I should’ve bought spirit emblems at the grace
- Confusing quest stories that are absolutely unknowable unless you are an undergrad with no aspirations of a job, therefore have too much time to play this game
PS: s/o @synapse for strongly recommending Sekiro for its parrying.