Sekiro: Equipped With A Flexible Prosthetic For Boss Battles and Exploration

These Enemies Use A Perilous Attack, But I Don't Have A Picture

Sekiro:

Sekiro: FromSoftware's Shadowy Shinobi

Sekiro: Equipped With A Flexible Prosthetic For Boss Battles and Exploration

Sekiro: A Strange, Solo Reflection of Dark Souls

As soon as the player has mastered the basics of Vitality, Posture, blocking, dodging, and deflecting, Sekiro adds additional complexity to combat. Enemies deploy four different Perilous attacks. These are unblockable and undeflectable. Each requires a different reaction. The trouble is, when an enemy performs a perilous attack the screen is filled with a red Japanese symbol, meaning “Danger”. It blocks the player's vision of the enemy, preventing them from seeing which of the four Perilous attacks the enemy is preparing. If it is a thrust, Wolf should use the Mikiri counter. If the attack is a sweep, the player needs to jump onto the enemy's head. A grab requires dodging backwards or to the side. And a lightning attack, well, we'll get to that later.

Wolf employs more than just his sword to counter the enemy. The Sculptor crafts a prosthetic tool to replace his missing hand. The base model holds eleven different tools. It has limits. One, the player must find each tool before using them. Most are placed directly in the player's path, but the Mist Raven's Fathers and the Loaded Spear are obscurely hidden. Even tools, placed almost right in the player pass, like the Shinobi Firecrackers, can be missed (I should know). Two, the prosthetic fits only two tools at a time. I preferred the Shuriken and the Sabimaru. The third limitation is that each use expends at least one Spirit Emblem (and as many as three). Other abilities also consume Spirit Emblems. At the start of Sekrio Wolf holds ten Spirit Emblems at a time, refilling them at Sculptor's Idols. With upgrades Sekrio can double that number to twenty. Defeated enemies drop one or two Emblems. But bosses don't. Against bosses, Spirit Emblems run out quickly.

With experience Wolf unlocks fighting styles to compliment his other abilities. Sekiro contains five fighting styles, each with a variety of passive skills, martial arts, and active combat arts to unlock. The player spends points earned through experience, to purchase abilities. Most abilities cost one, two, or three points. Combat arts unlock cool attacks, but Wolf can only use one at a time. The limit was probably imposed because the developers didn't have any remaining buttons. Imagine if they hadn't wasted one on collecting money from dead bodies. The use of the combat arts also costs Spirit Emblems. Spirit Emblems are a limit on the cool, and enjoyable, abilities that Wolf learns. Sekiro would be better if they didn't exist at all. If the developers thought they needed to limit the player's abilities, a bar that recharged over time would have been better.

Sekiro also includes a variety of consumable items. They increase Wolf's Vitality, Posture, damage, stealth, or more. Most combat effects only last for thirty seconds. I found this too short to use, and skipped them, except for Divine Confetti which inflicts aggravated damage against spirits and apparitions (it lasts one minutes). In comparison, most combat effects in Dark Souls III last sixty seconds.

Having played Dark Souls I, II , and III, I felt prepared for Sekiro. I quickly discovered how misguided I was. Though I vaguely understood the Posture system, I tried to defeat enemies by hitting them and reducing their Vitality. When enemies attacked, instead of deflecting, I tried to dodge. I was playing the wrong game. Even the earliest enemies are tough if the player plays Sekiro as if it is Dark Souls or Nioh. The regular enemies are difficult, but I found the mini-bosses nearly unbeatable. General Naomori Kawarada, Juzou the Drunkard, and Shinobi Hunter Enshin of Misen are some of the earliest, and therefore, easiest mini-bosses. But found myself unable to beat them after many attempts. Eventually, after dozens of deaths I adapted my fighting style, learned the way of the Shinobi, and progressed. By the fight against Seven Ashina Spears, I had hit a stride, defeating mini-bosses and bosses with ease. I defeated the first boss, Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa, on the second attempt. It wasn't until the ultimate conclusion that Sekrio remembered how to frustrate the player.

All the mini-bosses after Oniwa were easy. Aside from the first and final five hours, Sekiro fails to punish the player. The other surprisingly easy bosses were two critical fights (plotwise); the rematch against Genichiro at the top of Ashina Castle, and the duel with the Divine Dragon in the Divine Realm. But at the end, Sekiro places four fiendish bosses in the path of the player; the Guardian Ape, Owl, the Demon of Hatred (optional), and the final fight against Genichiro. The final battle features an opponent with four deathblows. After each deathblow, the foe transforms into an entirely new character with a new fighting style. Each foe fought with a unique set of attacks. Mastering the first style became useless after beating it. The final boss required many attempts to learn each successive attack pattern.

Difficult battles become frustrating, but the developer created a huge variety of enemies. Particularly fun were the Three Wise Monkeys, the Demon of Hatred, the Great Serpent, and Ashina Elite (Ujinari Mizuo). Each of these offered variety and challenge.

The most frustrating battle is the introduction, where Wolf is forced to suffer defeat, and the loss of a hand. Technically, a player can beat this introductory boss, but in the following cinematic the boss snatches victory from defeat, lopping off Wolf's front paw.

Despite this cheat, Sekiro is produced with beautiful cinematography and gameplay. Like most games, it suffers some poor textures, like carpets on the floor, and the perennial problem with stiff hair.

Sekiro surpasses its many imitators (Nioh, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order) not only in combat, but in story and exploration. Sekiro isn't an open world, but it features expansive open areas with multiple paths to the objective, and allows the player to navigate them. Wolf's prosthetic (in addition to its combat tools) houses a grappling hook, adding another dimension of movement, terrain, and travel. With the grappling hook Wolf swiftly ascends the outside of buildings. He leaps from one to the next with ease, changing direction in mid-air. Wolf knows how to cling to edges, wall kick, crouch, and slink along edges. Areas are so open, I often lost track of my next destination. I often thought, how am I supposed to know where to go next? At one point I could simultaneously explore 1) the Sunken Valley, 2) the Abandoned Dungeons, 3) Ashina Castle, 4) Senpo Temple, and 5) Hirata Estate.

Despite its usefulness the grappling hook features a few flaws. It only hooks onto specific locations, and these can often be finicky, appearing and disappearing on the player's screen depending on slight shifts in Wolf's positioning. Also, if Wolf is crouching when he initiates the hook, he will land standing. He doesn't revert to his crouched position, and this reveals his position to nearby enemies.

Every Castle You Can See, I Went There

Maneuvering is remarkably forgiving. The player has to click a button to grab a ledge while falling or jumping, but the player can click the button well in advance. They don't have to perfect their timing. Wolf performs a long grabbing animation and this may be the reason why. Maneuvering on roofs is intuitive, a pleasant experience that allows the player to engage in fights without undue frustration of falling. Falling doesn't punish the player as much as one might expect. In Dark Souls, falling off a cliff into endless depths (or even two floors), results in death. Falling from short heights inflicts no damage to Wolf. Longer falls result in minimal injuries. Even falling off the side of a cliff only removes half Wolf's health, while returning him to the clifftop.

With these skills, the player can go anywhere, even the roof of the tallest castle. I've mentioned before the awesome effect of seeing an epic background, and traveling to and across it, arriving thirty minutes, an hour, or five hours later. The team at From Software know how to deliver a grand journey, a challenge Star Wars and Nioh fail.

A conclusion next week.

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