I debated writing out my one point thirteen different ways and making them all into separate videos so i can make a video series so insufferable that no sane man could watch it all in order to even begin to try and disagree with me
@@loopine I would watch every one of those videos. Please make more sekiro combat analysis videos, you're the only person I've seen talk about this and I keep rewatching this video for that reason
God thank you for saying this, seriously get so tired of people crapping on this game for being limited/repetitive. This is the only From game that I cared enough about to ACTUALLY platinum. And I had a f*cking amazing time doing it. No need to grind stupid covenant items, just nonstop balls to the wall playthrough after playthrough, each playing differently than the last. Learning each of the fights to an increasingly minute degree, finding new openings to exploit, and new tactics to take advantage of them. No other game in the series feels as good to be creative in. Fighting bosses has never been more fun, and fighting mobs of enemies have never tested my skill and creative thinking this much. There are some real things From could’ve done better to incentivize creativity (like you said, the bloodstain mechanic is sorely missed, and I personally hate how spirit emblems arbitrarily jump in cost like Bloodborne bullets). I think those two decisions alone neutered so many newbies from experimenting with different mechanics and finding their own playstyle - but that’s okay. Because this is also bar none the most fun game in the series to replay. The new tools and skills you unlock over time have ACTUAL utility. They play into the enemy designs. The flow of combat. Your positioning. The enemy AI. There’s no arbitrary build constraints, no numbers to minmax, just you and your willingness to learn every skill at your disposal. And it takes so many playthroughs to come close to mastering them all. God bless Sekiro, man. I love me some Soulsborndenring but damn if I don’t find myself missing Wolf with his dinky katana and silly anime arm.
if you're on PC, check out the Resurrection mod, it adds more difficulty in some ways, expanded enemy and boss movesets and more importantly, gives out spirit emblems like candies and built in ceremonial tanto from the start, so you can constantly keep using different prosthetics and experimenting without worry of just losing them all too quickly.
totally, the game is just straight to the point in what it tries to convey, i really like some of its zones, the valley of the snipers, that one with really strong winds
I finally feel like someone gets it. I’ve beaten every modern fromsoft game and Sekiro is by far my favorite, the combat of the other games doesn’t even come close imo. Great vid and keep up the great work!
sekiro is not only my favourite soulsliek from software, its the only one i have actually completed. i get to quit all the other ones like demons/dark souls, elden 2 playthroughs at 100 + lvl, bloodborne half way but i seem to enjoy scifi soulslike like surge 2, remannt 2 (after sekiro my favourite)
@@flamingmanure With a special heap of r1 spam of course in order to obtain "skilled hp regen"(Bloodborne is probably my second favorite all jokes aside).
nice video, something that i would also like to add -Sekiro and Bloodborne are the definition of "less is more". Alot of a weapon in Souls are just a sword with B-strength scale, then A strength scale, then a hammer with S rank scale; a dagger with C dex scale, another dagger with A dex scale ,... Alot of the weapon in these so called "variety" are essentially useless. In a Soul game and Elden Ring, you can use like 5% of your tool simultaneously; which bring me to my next point -Sekiro doesnt have weapon variety, it has combat variety. In Sekiro, you can use easily upto 40% of your kit simultaneously. You CAN play Sekiro without using combat art or prosthetic, but the combat with them make other game look lame in term of what you can do. Every combat art has its own use, its not just oh this combat arts are objectively better than the other making the other combat art useless. While this does apply to prosthetic; however prosthetic arent in the way of combat art, its a another set of tool that work along side combat art. You got combat art and prosthetic that help close gap, you got stuffs that deal chip damage on enemies that block alot, you got stuffs that deal posture damage, you got stuff that RECOVER posture, you got stuff that pull you away to safety,... The way that the game let you use all of the stuffs i just mention above fluidly together make the combat way more fun and diverse. How often do you play strength build in a Soul game and be like" oh ill switch from this heavy S str scaling to a slightly faster B str scaling sword mid battle to land some fast hit in". No. Alot of the time, you gonna stick to one weapon and use it for the rest of the boss fight. -People like to said how "diverse" the weapon pools are in Soul game and Elden Ring, but im pretty damn sure that there's only 20% of the weapon are actually useful. There's like 3 type of mindset when it come to weapon in a Soul game + the "look up on the internet what the best weapon are for each scaling type" aka "meta seeker" +the" not looking up on the internet what the best weapons are and enjoy the game normally; but still eventually run the meta or nigh-meta stuffs because those are just better than the rest" +the " beat the game with the weakest weapon possible so i can get clout on the internet" -Other than that the other 80% of the weapon pools are essentially non-existence. -Tell me a Soul player that has used more than 50% of the weapon pool in each Soul game, i bet you cant even named 5 -Im not saying Sekiro is much better than other Soul game, but dont discredit Sekiro for lacking variety when you are trapped in this so called "variety" in a Soul game. I have to make an entirely different comment about how you can tackle bosses and minibosses in Sekiro compare to other Soul game, and it is way more than just "deflect until enemy posture break"
I have definitely used every weapon in ds3 for a considerable amount of time with only a few exceptions like golden ritual spear and man grub staff. But yea alot of them just feel the same or straight downgrades for the most part, especially for an UGS lover like myself. But yea I think there is a pretty good weapon variety in souls especially from a PvP point of view, but that is often confused for combat variety in the PvE.
How about: + "find which moveset of which weapon type you like and then be able to stick to it" The point of variety is not that one player uses every weapon, but that there likely is at least one favorite weapon type present for every player (like thrusting swords for me since DS1). Then the different weapons of that category establish gear progression and give options between passive status effects, different heavy attacks and etc. Sekiro has absolutely awesome combat for those who like katanas and parrying. But Dark Souls and Elden Ring have combat that is less awesome, but still good, for everyone else.
bloodborne is actually far less varied in combat variety than elden ring, it doesnt even come close actually. by all intents and purposes its basically a faster dark souls. elden ring beats it in both quality and quantity, sekiro is on a different league of combat variety, its insane that this is fromsofts 1st pure action game.
@@user-df4kf6fg7h alot of sekiro and especially bb extremists like to pretend that there isn't massive amounts of quality in the variety of souls games, otherwise how do they delude themselves that its better? especially the bb fanboys and their jack of all trades master of none game, but what i find funny is the bb fanboys think it matches sekiro or ER in combat quality/variety, its not even close. its pretty much a grey dark souls 1 reskin on speed and an extra r1+ l1 attack thats mostly useless on alot of weapons, unlike elden ring and their ashes of war. most ppl still stick to one side of a transformation and spam r1s 99% of the time. its a smappy thoughtless and easily exploitable r1 simulator at best, atleast enemies and bosses can catch your rolls and stop your strafe dodging and butt poking. Bb and has far less variety and basically no increase in quality, unlike what bb fanboys convince themselves of, if u like spamming the op saw cleaver r1 + l1 good for you though. unlike what long phan is saying, the so called "variety" in souls games is what makes them useful in the 1st place, its also how builds work in any game XD its not a negative at all lol, having a thoughtless and half assed version of variety like in bb is the actual negative, ill take sekiros far more focused and intricate design over this jack of all trades master of none anyday. hell if u actually start thinking with ur critique mr long ull realize ur points also applies to sekiro, u can only use 3 prosthetics and a single combat art simultaneously, and even then many enemies dont allow many types of prosthetics to be used on them. the game doesnt even incentivize you to use any of its optional tools correctly to begin with, which is why most ppl didnt delve into the combat and think its the least replayable one ER actually beats it in combat variety and options when u can have multiple weapons and each have their own ash of war. Sekiro combat is still more tight though, its still my fav combat in the series, followed by ER, but dont kid yourselves, overall elden ring is on another league of high caliber game.
Even now that elden ring is out I'm still convinced that Sekiro's combat in a world such as Elden ring (with all those awasome weapons) would be game of the century
That would be the modt boring game in the world lmao 🤣 imagine going thru catacombs and have like 5 fucking imps gank you and you have sekiro combat. All 5 of them would just absolutely waste you 🤣. Sekiro is a good game but sekiro is not a souls game so please stop comparing the two it makes no fucking sense
Sekiro is From softs best Combat, not just the difficulty but the pace, depth, style, and its cinematic, looks way cooler than doing cartwheels through and enemies attack dressed as an onion LMAO
This is why Bloodborne is just as good and if not better (depending on what you like) The dash coupled with the stylish and varied animations that all have unique movesets is really like nothing else they produced. It's a shame Elden Ring is a huge step-down from it.
Sekiro was my first From software game ✨ and I was absolutely hooked. Now I'm 150 hours into Elden Ring. I wish Sekiro had more content to cover as Elden ring has sooo much content that's it's unbelievable but I still put SEKIRO above Elden Ring.
My main problem with elden ring is the end game bosses tbh It feels like you move way too slow to keep up with them (ignoring that Malenia literally doesn't play by the rules), give the player bloodborne dodging and they'd be more manageable imo, this could entirely be a "git gud" moment but I don't have a week to learn a boss before I beat it lol
Sekiro was made by the smaller fromsoft team, the one that recently released AC6. They don't sacrifice quality in mechanics or story, they just make smaller scope titles in a complete and seamless package.
In a funny way, Doom Eternal and Sekiro are surprisingly similar in terms of overall gameplay philosophy. Both of them are designed to encourage a player's creativity through variety in combat.
@@noobeternal9718 Getting hp from enemies in the new Doom games was actually inspired by Bloodborne. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eternal’s more unforgiving nature that forces you to play it in an interesting way was also inspired by Sekiro.
My brother and i started Sekiro around the same time and we soon realized that we have very different playstyles. He was all about oil ans arsen with the flamevent while loved the axe and the firecrackers. Until we bith discovered Sabimaru - holy shit that poison knife is busted!!!
Ah, yes... The "build variety" talk. The same build variety that this community has also discouraged new players from using, and insulted others who did use them. Magic build? Stop playing on easy mode. Summons? You didn't actually beat the game. Dex and ranged attacks? Get in there and learn to i-frame roll. All that trash, from the same people who'd very quickly say that Sekiro's a bad game because there's no dodge roll for them to spam. The same ones who think that you can get through the game by just spamming the deflect button. The same ones who ignored all the potential there is to gain from the prosthetics and combat arts, and then complain that all they have is R1 and L1. I've never seen a community suffer from such collective idiocy as that section of the Soulsborne fanbase.
I know is 2 months late, but man, I absolutely agree with this take. And its funny that "veterans" (they only played DS3) complain about this when DS bosses, ironically enough specially DS3 bosses ,only demands to time your rolls and R1 when the boss is on a evident parry window. Probably the easiest kind of bosses. But dont even dare to complicate the bosses and give options to less skilled players like on ER because that would be "bad Boss design". ...Most of these people doesnt even know what they want, honestly.
The entire argument of "the basis of Sekiro is basically what we've already been doing anyways" reminds me of a fact relating to two different Final Fantasy games and their linearity. FFX and FFXIII are both incredibly linear games, yet one was critiqued enormously for its linearity. It FELT more linear. The linearity was less enjoyable, and the illusion of choice wasn't there as much. They're both as guilty of the same fault but only one suffered from the accusation. This brings me to Sekiro vs. the other Soulsborne games. For all it's worth, Sekiro manages to *feel* more repetitive regardless of whether it is. The trick arms don't feel as satisfying as being able to use a different kind of weapon. The rewards for going out of your way don't feel satisfying enough, and often repeat endlessly between beads and Sugo. The combat utterly deteriorates against more than one enemy at a time, meaning you're often finding yourself entering into a similar style of battle every time you get the chance to get into the meat of combat. It all rings as similar. It all builds up this idea of repetition. It has itself to blame for this. I like Sekiro. It's good. There's no denying they did something new. However, they made a mistake when formatting the game in the way they did. They set the president that you win by playing DDR with your opponent, and trying to take your turn back outside this pre-set rhythm game would often turn against the player. However, while other FromSoftware games do this too, especially in boss fights, only Sekiro made some players feel this crippling repetition while having arguably the most choice within very choreographed scenarios. We can argue all day about the game's combat depth, but it's hard to argue that so many people feeling limited when there's apparently all this versatility isn't a fault of the player, but it's a fault of the game.
I always come back to this video because it helped me develop a far more fun way to play a game I already loved, but i have to be honest it's mostly for the "fucking shit roll" bit, the delivery is perfect
The Goat Ongbal is the Ytuber who taught me that Sekiro is the Ninja/Samurai game I always wanted and I never looked back since then.. hope Fromsoft makes a Sequel.
I could be wrong but my beef with Sekiro so far is that the combat just doesn't feel fun to me like Ninja Gaiden Black or Ninja Gaiden 2 for example, and I have pretty much always hated parrying in every game that uses it and it seems this is one game where you can't ignore the parry function.
its actually so funny how alot of souls fans actually say sekiro has no variety, like have they played ng+ have they not experimented WITH ANY of the other combat arts except ichimonji or mortal draw lol
Well I think that I've personally found an instinctual desire to go against exploiting miniboss weaknesses especially after I've already beat them once before. The first time I fought chained ogre I was just constantly dodging backwards, running away before getting a flame vent off and using that as my like sole window of attack. However, in the repeat fight after the siege on ashina castle, I played much differently. While I did initially try to lure him outside through the entrance to the much more open area just ahead of the castle, after dying a few times to the red guards, I decided to just fight within the little bottom floor itself. With much less space for combat, I was forced to move around him not away from him, causing me to strafe and dodge sideways much more which is a much more engaging playstyle anyway. I restrained myself to not use a stealth deathblow/flame vent but rather found myself thrusting, ichimonji-ing and even using prosthetic axe which made defeating the ogre that much more satisfying as I felt like I had used more refined techniques and heftier weapons to defeat this more humongous ogre instead of just "killing it with fire", giving me the feel of triumphing over like a titan almost but to a much smaller scale. (Also as a sidenote, when I first saw the hint that red eyed enemies were weak to fire, I thought that I had to bait out the ogre into piledriving the torches surrounding his prison...needless to say that didn't work out) The same can be said for the snake eyes, my first encounter at the sunken valley section I played super cautiously, killing all of the gunman on the cliffside then stealth deathblowing after I lost her aggro and proceeding to demolish her without even really knowing her attacks using the sabimaru. The second time in the little poison lake at the depths however, I tried to fight more fairly. At first I tried to win the fight by solely relying on the cannonneers friendly firing on snake eyes instead of me but it was too hard to get the camera to position well for such a strategy and I was bad at dodging the explosions. I then realised I found myself being very bad at closing distance so I opted for something a little weird. I found that I could reliably fix this issue if I used the spear, surprising me a lot. I had basically never used it before but it was very fun to disrupt her attacks by just poking her with the tip and pushing her to the side of the safe platforms. It felt like I had outranged an enemy WITH A GUN and that was just an amazing feeling. Now, I'm still on my first playthrough at the owl fight but man even though it took me 3 years to play this game again after dropping it, it has been so fun and I will definitely be trying out new combos and weird strategies that are just plain enjoyable for the forseeable future. Definitely my favourite game ever gameplay-wise even if I am still very bad at this game.
After way too many hours of ER and then some DS1 and 3 I had a tough time getting into Sekiro, because I refused to accept that I had to learn an entirely new way of fighting. Once I got it, my first playthrough was probably 90% just using my sword because I am terrible at learning more than one thing at a time, and just the very basic combat of Sekiro still had enough components to it to keep me on my toes, with deflects, dodges, jumps, and mikiri, and learning when to do what. And it STILL never felt like it lacked variety. I have played it many more times now and learned a lot of new tricks and still have so much more to discover, and it has without a doubt become my favourite FS game, and probably favourite game period. Besides the practicalities of the combat, it is also my favourite because of how stripped down it is. There are no numbers I ever have to worry about, no stats, no gear, no nothing. It's just me and how precise and clever I can manage to be in any given situation, and it is incredibly satisfying. Personally, I also prefer the predefined, voiced kind of protagonist over the nameless undead, and I have really come to appreciate the much more personal and human story of this game. It's a nice change from the cosmic, intangible scale of the others.
I've beaten this game almost 20 times and honestly, I didn't realize until recently just how much I was limiting myself by not using my combat arts and prosthetics. I'm gonna start experimenting with stuff now, seems like fun!
Really precious video, people are often blind to what Sekiro offers because they feel like the way they do it is all there is. I have to thank my man Ongbal for showing me how creative you can be with what the game gives you
There's some good points made in this video, especially with regards to the variety in offense that very often gets overlooked in favor of just thinking of Sekiro as the L1 spam game, but the main thesis is unconvincing. The main problem is that just because the options exist doesn't mean they're necessarily optimal or even good a lot of the time. Out of all the options showcased against the Lone Shadows, how many are actually better than the least-resistance blocking, countering and mikiri? Yeah, you can do all that cool stuff, but... why would you? Now, doing not-strictly-optimal but cooler stuff because you enjoy it more is perfectly valid and a lot of action games thrive on it. Not everything has to be played with a speedrun mentality. But the biggest issue is that Sekiro's emblem system, as you mention (but don't go too deep into), fucking blows. In any given encounter you'll have your max of 20 plus whatever you can add with the Ceremonial Tanto, and that's that. Which makes it so that the suboptimal choices carry with them a huge opportunity cost, because you're not just weighing the flashy stuff against the boring practical option, but also against everything else you could be doing with those emblems -- the stronger combat arts, all prosthetics, spiritfalls and ninjutsu all compete for the same strained resource. And the upshot of that is that you're even more heavily discouraged from using a lot of the more interesting combat options. Until, that is, you've mastered the game and can afford to show off, but that's hardly a good argument in favor of them as viable options. Like, the Sakura Dance into falling axe combo -- looks good, feels good, but the benefit is very marginal compared to using those emblems on Mortal Draw, or firecrackers or umbrella, or boss-specific weaknesses. It feels so unnecessarily limiting because the incentives are so strongly stacked against using all the prosthetic combos and cool CAs. Also Dragon Flash kinda sucks but that's another thing. The game as is would crack in half if they just made emblems infinite or whatever, but I really wish they didn't work as they do. Let you replenish them through normal attacks, or have each prosthetic have its own ammo, or at least add a secondary resource so everything that isn't a block or basic attack doesn't key off it. It's FromSoft's worst resource mechanic by far and I really hope that if they ever iterate on Sekiro's systems they revamp it because it's a huge millstone around the game's neck. Having to fight the game in order to actually use the fun options is just so lame.
I think people seem to forget that Sekiro is an action game and not an rpg, and that it has much more in common with games like DMC or Metal Gear Rising. Those similarly are games that have insane amount of combo variety and the only limit is the imagination of the player. Sure those games do more to emphasize that variety with scores and combo counters than Sekiro does but the underlying principle is the same. To me, saying Sekiro has no variety because it has only one weapon you can beat the game with is like saying that DMC 5 has no variety because you can just beat the game by spamming stinger over and over
TO BE HONEST. I love medieval games, especially this type where you in 3rd person go out and slash and kill things in a fantasy setting. I booted Sekiro off the gate since I loved dark souls games and I played it back then and stopped after a few bosses and never came back for some reason. Later I was remembering and always went like "ah it's that game where you parry a lot". Then, recently, 2 weeks ago I installed it again and oh boy this time im much better at it, I got a better grasp and feel of the game and enjoying it so much. Also, besides the combat and world and everything crazy, this game to me is visually the best one in souls series. This specific art style is very very nice to my eyes. I gotta say, I would like Sekiro 2 more than a new dark souls.
Yea I didn't really jump into all the experimentation until prolly my 10th time thru after I ad the boss down to a tee. It's also cool to treat the enemies like a boss and learn their whole moveset, like the nightjar shinobi
I'm well over 1300 hours as a speedrunner, and I still have a ton to learn. Even in the speedrun community has drastically different ways to doing the same routes.
@@Lepoetism There already is a place in the world of ER called the land of reeds where heavily eastern characters and weapons come from. And also it doesn't necessarily have to be Wolf himself, just a wacky shinobi from the land of reeds
i love souls games and especially sekiro, but thing is, deflecting is always the best and most effective option to get trough encounter fast, sure you have a lot of cool options and flexibility but still, emblems being a finite resource is very discouraging, they shouldve just made them free like healing that restores on rest
Finally someone says it, i have been saying this exact thing for so much time, in sekiro i used all prostethics and skills to find new ways to approach to enemies and bosses, doing so many effective combos while being stylish... Meanwhile in souls games i just cant do anything because if you dont roll you die, outspacing attacks is not even possible due to everything now being anime moves with waves and shit, sekiro is the best game fromsoft has done and i keep playing it because the combat and playstyle variety is unmatched
3:30 although I love fromsoft I definitely agree. Going to Elden Ring from Sekiro it is easy to notice that I cannot do anything most of the time to change things up. I get a hit in and then the boss takes a turn to do whatever combo they want while I dodge away. Then it is my turn to attack and back and forth we go. Obviously top tier players can ignore that flow but for the most part that is what I notice. Whereas with Sekiro there is this dance in the combat where I am constantly looking for small openings to exploit so I can get the edge for a death blow. EDIT: I will say that limitations breeds creativity. It is a great combat system for sure and extremely satisfying.
Excellent video. I'm one of those newer to souls games and who played thru Sekiro just using the basics and ichimonji double only and sparely used prosthetics (e.g. umbrella for undead ape phase). You really opened my eyes and have increased my appreciate for the game. Can't wait to replay it and explore different play styles. Awesome stuff mate
Cant agree with this video enough. Sekiro’s combat depth is a breath of fresh air, which is why aside from ER it is my most played FromSoft game. Also, I know the first click moment in Sekiro is when you get the parries down. But the second click for me was when I started timing dodges with the same precision as a parry. There are so many attacks enemies do in this game that you can dodge pretty neatly and then get massive windows on them. Would personally love to see a combat system in a Fromsoft game having the same depth but with more weapon options. ER kind of leans into it, but I think it can be deepened even further.
Sekiro’s combat is masterful BECAUSE it has one main weapon. It means every single encounter can be perfectly tuned. I knew a couple souls vets that despised sekiro, without there big bonk build they just couldn’t adapt.
Another thing to note is that Sekiro's enemies feel like they were the most designed around the game's combat compared to the other FromSoft games. Since the devs don't have to worry about different weapon classes, just only one katana, the timing of enemies' attacks and punish windows feel the least awkward in the entire FromSoft catalogue because they only had the katana in mind when designing enemy movesets and nothing else. This is why Sekiro's combat feels so much like a dance or a rythm game, because Sekiro and his enemies' movesets completely complement each other perfectly; thus, the dance we've all come to love from this masterpiece of a game.
Preach! I was worried about Sekiro before playing it. "Only katana and forced parries?". But oh boy it's good if you're into its style of combat and theme.
I gave up at the Owl fight at the top of the castle. It was too hard for me, then after a few months I tried again and now I have more than 200 hours in this game. Its so good
Also, all the items you mentioned have you either beat the boss or mini boss to get them. Added some of the tactics you mentioned require grinding to get access too moves. Unless you don’t die, forcing you to try to grind again again.
That's the beauty of Sekiro. With darksouls you are bound to your build and hopefully you built it right. You either figure out a boss with it or get hardstuck. Sekiro there is nothing holding you back from experimenting with different tools and combos for what works best for you. Yes sekiro core is just attack and deflect, not too much different than souls Dodge and attack. But the freedom sekiro gives you in between all that is amazing. As fun as Elden Ring is it feels like a step backwards and im finding it hard to get the motivation to make a pvp build for what is essentially dark souls 4
I think I'll grow to like the challenge of Elden Ring, its ahrd to paly it traditionally though and there's a surprsing amount of attacks you can dodge with jumps, plus the posture mechanic is very welcome.
elden ring is not a step backwards from sekiro combat wise. its just different, feels like a perfect blend of ds3 and sekiro. most ppl havent realized you can dodge and attack at the same time via the jumping attack if you start memorizing low horizontal moves and wind ups. i still like sekiro combat more but ER combat is far above the other older games.
Another thing to note is that even the Sekiro equivalent of the Souls roll (deflecting) is an attack on its own because it deals damage in a sense, so it is both offensive and defensive. So while rolling a combo is more passive in the other games, deflecting feels way more aggressive despite its defensinve nature; thus, more engaging.
13:02 this is true, but not entirely. The Sen that you have available to you at the moment of death, yes, you will lose half of that, but by buying coin purses from merchants you put that Sen into like a safe vault, which will not be lostnupon death
@@loopine it’s nice seeing someone who I feel actually kinda understands how I feel about the series and the discourse surrounding it, you know? Most TH-camrs I follow(ed) just put out some variation of “Elden Ring Shattered Masterpiece” and it’s really exhausting because it seems like I’m the only person who actually appreciates the intricacies of the combat system, or notices that stuff that’s being complained about now started in Sekiro or DS3 and nobody had an issue with it then. Seriously how many Sekiro bosses have some silly looking delayed attacks? But somehow it’s only an issue in Elden Ring?
"Sekiro has no replayability" is to me the single most infuriating statement in videogame history. It's easily the game I have replayed the most by a large margin. Not spent the most time playing, mind you... that honor goes to the black void called World of Warcraft. But I have completed Sekiro more times than I have any other game. And it felt great every single time. The combat is just so good that even if I can't change weapons it's still the best combat I have ever played by a country mile and honestly kinda ruined other games for me. Now Dark Souls is just two dudes with a sword swinging in the general direction of the other guy. Sekiro's combat feels like a duel. Like a dance where only one of you is left standing when the music stops. It's just perfect and Masaru Yamamura is my hero.
Sekiro has some of the best PvE combat, like, ever, our problem is that you don't *need* to use any of it because deflect can solve literally all of your problems, and it's incredibly easy to do, so all of the REALLY COOL combos aren't necessary. The fact that unblockable attacks can still be deflected is the penultimate example of how the game things it needs to rely on deflect when I don't think it really does. And the fact that prosthetics use spell charges that you can't intentionally replenish yourself and instead have to trust the game to give you your charges back really does feel like the game saying "don't use these like ever unless it's a boss or something." If the mechanic was that the charges simply replenished maybe once every 5 seconds or so, it would be a perfect excuse to use your equipment at a steady pace that you yourself have to figure out how to best manage. Doom Eternal showed us that it's okay, and perhaps *necessary,* to *force* players to play "the fun way" Games that allow you to play the boring way I now consider as doing an active disservice to the player. tl;dr If there are any mods that make your seals recharge slowly over time, get that. If there are any mods that make unblockable attacks also unparryable, get that too. Game will become absolute perfection
I think it would be fine the way it is if you got the tanto pretty early, I do kinda vibe about the doom Eternal point although it still gets shit for making people use flame belch for armor to this day
@@loopine The tanto itself kinda deserves to be infinite. The whole "it takes a big portion of your health, and in return it gives you *only 3 uses"* doesn't really work. It was most likely just fromsoft tuning numbers they they didn't even need to tune. The fact that it consumes your health is already a limiter placed on it.
@@CorwinTheOneAndOnly Idk the tanto gives you 15 emblems on top of the 20 you start with. In my experience there's not many bosses than can survive that much even above ng+7 with Charmless and Bell Demon
I'll say that it's fun to be a noob in repeat playthroughs, that's one of the best aspects of all Soulsborne games. Even tho it's all about medium roll Great Club SL99 solo builds for the first 3 NG cycles. But this vid made me think more about how I play Sekiro, even though I long ago internalized the common wisdom that is _"don't play it like Dark Souls or Bloodborne."_ Makes me look forward to my final ending playthrough for the plat
I bought sekiro instead of elden ring a few weeks back and I'm so glad this is my first From Soft game. Great video man, I've beat main story only so far and the experience has been incredible.
With the exclusion of the Dark Souls comparisons (only played BB and Sekiro so far, tight budget T_T) this is everything I hoped for. Even the point about Emblem limitations being one of the reasons people don't experiment, which is exactly why I didn't even think of this until I saw people styling.
We're all guilty of it, i barely used prosthetics my first time around. I did play NG+ quite a bit but watching Ongbal really started getting the gears churning for me on just what you can actually do. I used to literally get stoned and rip a playthorugh of bloodborne start to finish every day for a long while and I think sekiro is wayyy more replayable in comparison to that even.
Finally, someone who agrees that Dark Souls and soulslikes are lukewarm puddles like me and says so openly and happily! I'm not going insane anymore! Hoorah! 😂
I think one of Sekiro biggest flaw is the spirit emblem, it is limited and you have to buy or just kill enemies in order to get. It's not hard to do it, but for some if not a lot, it's boring to do that. So what they do are just mostly Parry. If the spirit emblem has refill mechanic like estus flask, I think the whole "only one way to play" arguement would never be as loud as this
sekiro is the first game since ages that give me the same vibes as jedi academy. you know the levels, you know the enemies. now my job is to use my tool in the most creative ways to clean the path.
Two years late but this is literally what I've been saying since the game came out and it feels good to hear someone else say it lol. Despite From telling people it's its own thing everyone came in with the souls mindset and didn't bother experimenting with all of the cool shit the game lets you do. As a DMC and Bayonetta fan it was an incredibly pleasant surprise to find out that they decided to basically make a really interesting character action game. Those games have technically one character playstyle even with the different weapons, but they give you so many options for player expression with the tools at your disposal. Additionally it has a similarly gratifying NG+ to those games where you truly get to let loose with a complete moveset. Honestly if you're craving more sekiro check out shit like ninja gaiden or metal gear rising. Very different vibe and feel but the variety and replayability comes from the same place. Hell MGR's baseline moveset is all about parrying in a similar way to sekiro.
I didn’t like any other souls game, I fell in love with Sekiro. Simply because I love the sword and all the prosthetics. And then how different my first play through was vs my 12th.
I get it now with Sekiro. As much as you have tools like previous Souls games. What we have is all based on the controller and deciding what to do. There is an extreme amount of skill involved with every interaction. It's internal rather than you having to rely on items to get the job done.
Elden ring was my first souls game. I loved it and wanted more after about 7 playthroughs. So I got sekiro. Now it's my favorite. I don't see how I can go back to dodging after enjoying the deflection mechanic.
Have to agree with most of what you say, but the biggest issue with the idea of "play how you want" and the examples given in Sekiro is that it is not only difficult, but often PUNISHING to discover new these new ways of responding to attacks. You know the reason you say 90% of players will respond the same way to the shinobi's kicks? Because it's safer and generally just as effective to do the default method of deflecting rather than risk experimenting with the hyper-punish combos enemies tend to put out in Sekiro. There really is freedom to be had, but sadly for the vast majority of players, it's behind a wall of tedium and poorly balanced mechanics for experimentation. The sheer number of enemy/boss combos that require specific and difficult recovery timing- lest you get killed instantly, is insane. That is the exact reason why people will say Sekiro is 1D and lacks variety, the variety is genuinely much less accessible to the average player, and a balance needs to be struck between that accessibility and high level mastery.
This is like the last thing I expected from you but its insanely well done and put together, good shit man. Also thanks for using the Jeenine Exodia meme I made like a year ago, didn't think I'd ever see that shit again lmao
Dude this video is amazing! I'm honestly so happy you opened my eyes to the massive variety of options lol, I loved sekiro but I did find it quite samey but I suppose thats down to the fact that I didn't use prosthetic tools like you did, I definitely going to replay now lol, it looks like so much fun, combo-ing everything like you did in the video. Honestly amazing quality video as well 👍
Glad you liked it. My first playthrough I also mostly parried everything but seeing what montagers were doing really opened my eyes and got me trying to get creative as well
I needed this video. Only played about a third if DS3, no other souls and then put 300 hours into Elden Ring so I like and am used to Elden rings combat, but then I got Sekiro and it's pretty different. I want to give it more time because all the eave reviews can't be wrong, I just need to learn and come to grips with Sekiros combat because I suck at it and want to get better.
My advice is you'd be surprised at what attacks you can parry if you try and if one attack in particular is getting you killed try and come up with a prosthetic or combat art you can use to negate it. Sekiro is definitely the most demanding mechanically and in reaction time so just let it come with time
In Sekiro you can LITERALLY use only your sword to beat the final boss. All you have to do is remember 3 things 1. Parry NOT Block 2. Jump at a swipe, mikiri at a thrust. 3. Lightning reversal. If you follow the game mechanics and try to learn then the amount of power this game gives you is enormous. Other games gives you in game tools to level up Sekiro levels your gaming precision. You die 999 times to come back a 1000th time as a perfect shinobi. Sekiro makes you perfect. Sekiro punishes you so hard that your muscle memory is bound to develop.
I'm pretty sure you missed the chad "Roll into them and point blank sunlight spear" build in DS3. Kidding mostly, it's basically the UGS technique for spellcasters. Hyper armor the hit to one shot anything that's not a boss LOL
Im a Sekiro noob and Elden Ring was my first From game. This got recommended to me and I'm glad. I love Sekiro. Even the basic "parry/attack" rhythm is so addictive and sprinkling in combat arts is great. I will agree though that I feel limited in what I can do because of how much I lose money and xp since I suck haha. I run out of emblems quickly for sure. But I am assuming that the amazing combos and options will be my reward for mastering the game and coming back for NG+ as I definitely will. Thanks for showing just how much is possible once I get the fundamentals down.
![Sekiro Is A Masterpiece [A Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Retrospective]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4PBudh0YNok/mqdefault.jpg)
A video essay less than 3 hours long? What a fucking breath of fresh air
I debated writing out my one point thirteen different ways and making them all into separate videos so i can make a video series so insufferable that no sane man could watch it all in order to even begin to try and disagree with me
@@loopine I would watch every one of those videos. Please make more sekiro combat analysis videos, you're the only person I've seen talk about this and I keep rewatching this video for that reason
@@loopine specifically the combat freedom and depth in sekiro, you usually only hear people bring up devil may cry and games like that
God thank you for saying this, seriously get so tired of people crapping on this game for being limited/repetitive. This is the only From game that I cared enough about to ACTUALLY platinum. And I had a f*cking amazing time doing it.
No need to grind stupid covenant items, just nonstop balls to the wall playthrough after playthrough, each playing differently than the last. Learning each of the fights to an increasingly minute degree, finding new openings to exploit, and new tactics to take advantage of them. No other game in the series feels as good to be creative in. Fighting bosses has never been more fun, and fighting mobs of enemies have never tested my skill and creative thinking this much.
There are some real things From could’ve done better to incentivize creativity (like you said, the bloodstain mechanic is sorely missed, and I personally hate how spirit emblems arbitrarily jump in cost like Bloodborne bullets). I think those two decisions alone neutered so many newbies from experimenting with different mechanics and finding their own playstyle - but that’s okay. Because this is also bar none the most fun game in the series to replay.
The new tools and skills you unlock over time have ACTUAL utility. They play into the enemy designs. The flow of combat. Your positioning. The enemy AI. There’s no arbitrary build constraints, no numbers to minmax, just you and your willingness to learn every skill at your disposal. And it takes so many playthroughs to come close to mastering them all.
God bless Sekiro, man. I love me some Soulsborndenring but damn if I don’t find myself missing Wolf with his dinky katana and silly anime arm.
It just gets better everytime. IMO this is the only game worth going above ng+ into the high NG's
if you're on PC, check out the Resurrection mod, it adds more difficulty in some ways, expanded enemy and boss movesets and more importantly, gives out spirit emblems like candies and built in ceremonial tanto from the start, so you can constantly keep using different prosthetics and experimenting without worry of just losing them all too quickly.
totally, the game is just straight to the point in what it tries to convey, i really like some of its zones, the valley of the snipers, that one with really strong winds
Damn bro, really opened my eyes to the complex curry that is sekiro. Now I definitely need to finish this game. Great video.
God I'm hungry now
I finally feel like someone gets it. I’ve beaten every modern fromsoft game and Sekiro is by far my favorite, the combat of the other games doesn’t even come close imo. Great vid and keep up the great work!
shhhhh dont let he bloodborne fanboys hear you. they actually convinced themselves its combat isnt just a faster version of dark souls.
The best combat in any game ever made. Just fucking perfect.
sekiro is not only my favourite soulsliek from software, its the only one i have actually completed.
i get to quit all the other ones like demons/dark souls, elden 2 playthroughs at 100 + lvl, bloodborne half way but i seem to enjoy scifi soulslike like surge 2, remannt 2 (after sekiro my favourite)
@@flamingmanure With a special heap of r1 spam of course in order to obtain "skilled hp regen"(Bloodborne is probably my second favorite all jokes aside).
nice video, something that i would also like to add
-Sekiro and Bloodborne are the definition of "less is more". Alot of a weapon in Souls are just a sword with B-strength scale, then A strength scale, then a hammer with S rank scale; a dagger with C dex scale, another dagger with A dex scale ,...
Alot of the weapon in these so called "variety" are essentially useless. In a Soul game and Elden Ring, you can use like 5% of your tool simultaneously; which bring me to my next point
-Sekiro doesnt have weapon variety, it has combat variety. In Sekiro, you can use easily upto 40% of your kit simultaneously. You CAN play Sekiro without using combat art or prosthetic, but the combat with them make other game look lame in term of what you can do. Every combat art has its own use, its not just oh this combat arts are objectively better than the other making the other combat art useless. While this does apply to prosthetic; however prosthetic arent in the way of combat art, its a another set of tool that work along side combat art. You got combat art and prosthetic that help close gap, you got stuffs that deal chip damage on enemies that block alot, you got stuffs that deal posture damage, you got stuff that RECOVER posture, you got stuff that pull you away to safety,... The way that the game let you use all of the stuffs i just mention above fluidly together make the combat way more fun and diverse.
How often do you play strength build in a Soul game and be like" oh ill switch from this heavy S str scaling to a slightly faster B str scaling sword mid battle to land some fast hit in". No. Alot of the time, you gonna stick to one weapon and use it for the rest of the boss fight.
-People like to said how "diverse" the weapon pools are in Soul game and Elden Ring, but im pretty damn sure that there's only 20% of the weapon are actually useful. There's like 3 type of mindset when it come to weapon in a Soul game
+ the "look up on the internet what the best weapon are for each scaling type" aka "meta seeker"
+the" not looking up on the internet what the best weapons are and enjoy the game normally; but still eventually run the meta or nigh-meta stuffs because those are just better than the rest"
+the " beat the game with the weakest weapon possible so i can get clout on the internet"
-Other than that the other 80% of the weapon pools are essentially non-existence.
-Tell me a Soul player that has used more than 50% of the weapon pool in each Soul game, i bet you cant even named 5
-Im not saying Sekiro is much better than other Soul game, but dont discredit Sekiro for lacking variety when you are trapped in this so called "variety" in a Soul game.
I have to make an entirely different comment about how you can tackle bosses and minibosses in Sekiro compare to other Soul game, and it is way more than just "deflect until enemy posture break"
I have definitely used every weapon in ds3 for a considerable amount of time with only a few exceptions like golden ritual spear and man grub staff. But yea alot of them just feel the same or straight downgrades for the most part, especially for an UGS lover like myself. But yea I think there is a pretty good weapon variety in souls especially from a PvP point of view, but that is often confused for combat variety in the PvE.
How about:
+ "find which moveset of which weapon type you like and then be able to stick to it"
The point of variety is not that one player uses every weapon, but that there likely is at least one favorite weapon type present for every player (like thrusting swords for me since DS1). Then the different weapons of that category establish gear progression and give options between passive status effects, different heavy attacks and etc.
Sekiro has absolutely awesome combat for those who like katanas and parrying. But Dark Souls and Elden Ring have combat that is less awesome, but still good, for everyone else.
bloodborne is actually far less varied in combat variety than elden ring, it doesnt even come close actually. by all intents and purposes its basically a faster dark souls. elden ring beats it in both quality and quantity, sekiro is on a different league of combat variety, its insane that this is fromsofts 1st pure action game.
@@user-df4kf6fg7h alot of sekiro and especially bb extremists like to pretend that there isn't massive amounts of quality in the variety of souls games, otherwise how do they delude themselves that its better? especially the bb fanboys and their jack of all trades master of none game, but what i find funny is the bb fanboys think it matches sekiro or ER in combat quality/variety, its not even close. its pretty much a grey dark souls 1 reskin on speed and an extra r1+ l1 attack thats mostly useless on alot of weapons, unlike elden ring and their ashes of war. most ppl still stick to one side of a transformation and spam r1s 99% of the time. its a smappy thoughtless and easily exploitable r1 simulator at best, atleast enemies and bosses can catch your rolls and stop your strafe dodging and butt poking.
Bb and has far less variety and basically no increase in quality, unlike what bb fanboys convince themselves of, if u like spamming the op saw cleaver r1 + l1 good for you though. unlike what long phan is saying, the so called "variety" in souls games is what makes them useful in the 1st place, its also how builds work in any game XD its not a negative at all lol, having a thoughtless and half assed version of variety like in bb is the actual negative, ill take sekiros far more focused and intricate design over this jack of all trades master of none anyday. hell if u actually start thinking with ur critique mr long ull realize ur points also applies to sekiro, u can only use 3 prosthetics and a single combat art simultaneously, and even then many enemies dont allow many types of prosthetics to be used on them. the game doesnt even incentivize you to use any of its optional tools correctly to begin with, which is why most ppl didnt delve into the combat and think its the least replayable one ER actually beats it in combat variety and options when u can have multiple weapons and each have their own ash of war. Sekiro combat is still more tight though, its still my fav combat in the series, followed by ER, but dont kid yourselves, overall elden ring is on another league of high caliber game.
Even now that elden ring is out I'm still convinced that
Sekiro's combat in a world such as Elden ring (with all those awasome weapons) would be game of the century
100% agreed
That would be the modt boring game in the world lmao 🤣 imagine going thru catacombs and have like 5 fucking imps gank you and you have sekiro combat. All 5 of them would just absolutely waste you 🤣. Sekiro is a good game but sekiro is not a souls game so please stop comparing the two it makes no fucking sense
Sekiro is From softs best Combat, not just the difficulty but the pace, depth, style, and its cinematic, looks way cooler than doing cartwheels through and enemies attack dressed as an onion LMAO
Wel said lol
This is true but both are amazing. Nothing compares to Fromsoft gams
Onion looks cooler then everything in sekiro wdym?
yep, sekiro is pure technical difficulty not like other previous game. no need upgrade as long you deflect, your posture never break
This is why Bloodborne is just as good and if not better (depending on what you like)
The dash coupled with the stylish and varied animations that all have unique movesets is really like nothing else they produced.
It's a shame Elden Ring is a huge step-down from it.
Sekiro was my first From software game ✨ and I was absolutely hooked. Now I'm 150 hours into Elden Ring. I wish Sekiro had more content to cover as Elden ring has sooo much content that's it's unbelievable but I still put SEKIRO above Elden Ring.
My main problem with elden ring is the end game bosses tbh
It feels like you move way too slow to keep up with them (ignoring that Malenia literally doesn't play by the rules), give the player bloodborne dodging and they'd be more manageable imo, this could entirely be a "git gud" moment but I don't have a week to learn a boss before I beat it lol
Same situation for m!! I really hope we get to see more sekiro content. It's just too good for a one and done
Sekiro was made by the smaller fromsoft team, the one that recently released AC6.
They don't sacrifice quality in mechanics or story, they just make smaller scope titles in a complete and seamless package.
In a funny way, Doom Eternal and Sekiro are surprisingly similar in terms of overall gameplay philosophy.
Both of them are designed to encourage a player's creativity through variety in combat.
Well Hugo Martin lead director of Doom Eternal is massive fan of Sekiro so its no surprise both games share similar philosophy.
@@fuckso2342 yeah and he's a fan of Bloodborne too.
Agreed. They both feel like puzzle games that also happen to be action games, and its super rewarding to figure out the patterns.
@@noobeternal9718 Getting hp from enemies in the new Doom games was actually inspired by Bloodborne. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eternal’s more unforgiving nature that forces you to play it in an interesting way was also inspired by Sekiro.
and they are so fucking good, wish we could have more games like those 2
My brother and i started Sekiro around the same time and we soon realized that we have very different playstyles. He was all about oil ans arsen with the flamevent while loved the axe and the firecrackers. Until we bith discovered Sabimaru - holy shit that poison knife is busted!!!
Ah, yes... The "build variety" talk. The same build variety that this community has also discouraged new players from using, and insulted others who did use them. Magic build? Stop playing on easy mode. Summons? You didn't actually beat the game. Dex and ranged attacks? Get in there and learn to i-frame roll. All that trash, from the same people who'd very quickly say that Sekiro's a bad game because there's no dodge roll for them to spam. The same ones who think that you can get through the game by just spamming the deflect button. The same ones who ignored all the potential there is to gain from the prosthetics and combat arts, and then complain that all they have is R1 and L1. I've never seen a community suffer from such collective idiocy as that section of the Soulsborne fanbase.
I know is 2 months late, but man, I absolutely agree with this take. And its funny that "veterans" (they only played DS3) complain about this when DS bosses, ironically enough specially DS3 bosses ,only demands to time your rolls and R1 when the boss is on a evident parry window.
Probably the easiest kind of bosses.
But dont even dare to complicate the bosses and give options to less skilled players like on ER because that would be "bad Boss design".
...Most of these people doesnt even know what they want, honestly.
No one respects mages lil bro. Press L1, run away, drink blue juice. Scum of the earth lil bro, mages are scum of the earth
If you watch people like ONGBAL or Gorengan Warkop, you can easily see the combat freedom in Sekiro.
parry parry parry stab rinse and repeat or get broken in endgame/ng+, am I missing anything ?
@@JeyKalda nah you're just sucked at the game
@@JeyKaldathe depth is explained in this very video, you sub 80 iq contrarian mongrel.
@@JeyKaldayou are
The entire argument of "the basis of Sekiro is basically what we've already been doing anyways" reminds me of a fact relating to two different Final Fantasy games and their linearity.
FFX and FFXIII are both incredibly linear games, yet one was critiqued enormously for its linearity. It FELT more linear. The linearity was less enjoyable, and the illusion of choice wasn't there as much. They're both as guilty of the same fault but only one suffered from the accusation.
This brings me to Sekiro vs. the other Soulsborne games.
For all it's worth, Sekiro manages to *feel* more repetitive regardless of whether it is. The trick arms don't feel as satisfying as being able to use a different kind of weapon. The rewards for going out of your way don't feel satisfying enough, and often repeat endlessly between beads and Sugo. The combat utterly deteriorates against more than one enemy at a time, meaning you're often finding yourself entering into a similar style of battle every time you get the chance to get into the meat of combat. It all rings as similar. It all builds up this idea of repetition. It has itself to blame for this.
I like Sekiro. It's good. There's no denying they did something new. However, they made a mistake when formatting the game in the way they did. They set the president that you win by playing DDR with your opponent, and trying to take your turn back outside this pre-set rhythm game would often turn against the player. However, while other FromSoftware games do this too, especially in boss fights, only Sekiro made some players feel this crippling repetition while having arguably the most choice within very choreographed scenarios.
We can argue all day about the game's combat depth, but it's hard to argue that so many people feeling limited when there's apparently all this versatility isn't a fault of the player, but it's a fault of the game.
I always come back to this video because it helped me develop a far more fun way to play a game I already loved, but i have to be honest it's mostly for the "fucking shit roll" bit, the delivery is perfect
i love that in sekiro you can just master feudal japan's version of ultra instinct
The Goat Ongbal is the Ytuber who taught me that Sekiro is the Ninja/Samurai game I always wanted and I never looked back since then.. hope Fromsoft makes a Sequel.
Same
I could be wrong but my beef with Sekiro so far is that the combat just doesn't feel fun to me like Ninja Gaiden Black or Ninja Gaiden 2 for example, and I have pretty much always hated parrying in every game that uses it and it seems this is one game where you can't ignore the parry function.
its actually so funny how alot of souls fans actually say sekiro has no variety, like have they played ng+ have they not experimented WITH ANY of the other combat arts except ichimonji or mortal draw lol
Calling someone noob for using bow in Shrine of Amana is next level of being a sweatlord lol
Well I think that I've personally found an instinctual desire to go against exploiting miniboss weaknesses especially after I've already beat them once before. The first time I fought chained ogre I was just constantly dodging backwards, running away before getting a flame vent off and using that as my like sole window of attack. However, in the repeat fight after the siege on ashina castle, I played much differently. While I did initially try to lure him outside through the entrance to the much more open area just ahead of the castle, after dying a few times to the red guards, I decided to just fight within the little bottom floor itself. With much less space for combat, I was forced to move around him not away from him, causing me to strafe and dodge sideways much more which is a much more engaging playstyle anyway. I restrained myself to not use a stealth deathblow/flame vent but rather found myself thrusting, ichimonji-ing and even using prosthetic axe which made defeating the ogre that much more satisfying as I felt like I had used more refined techniques and heftier weapons to defeat this more humongous ogre instead of just "killing it with fire", giving me the feel of triumphing over like a titan almost but to a much smaller scale. (Also as a sidenote, when I first saw the hint that red eyed enemies were weak to fire, I thought that I had to bait out the ogre into piledriving the torches surrounding his prison...needless to say that didn't work out)
The same can be said for the snake eyes, my first encounter at the sunken valley section I played super cautiously, killing all of the gunman on the cliffside then stealth deathblowing after I lost her aggro and proceeding to demolish her without even really knowing her attacks using the sabimaru. The second time in the little poison lake at the depths however, I tried to fight more fairly. At first I tried to win the fight by solely relying on the cannonneers friendly firing on snake eyes instead of me but it was too hard to get the camera to position well for such a strategy and I was bad at dodging the explosions. I then realised I found myself being very bad at closing distance so I opted for something a little weird. I found that I could reliably fix this issue if I used the spear, surprising me a lot. I had basically never used it before but it was very fun to disrupt her attacks by just poking her with the tip and pushing her to the side of the safe platforms. It felt like I had outranged an enemy WITH A GUN and that was just an amazing feeling. Now, I'm still on my first playthrough at the owl fight but man even though it took me 3 years to play this game again after dropping it, it has been so fun and I will definitely be trying out new combos and weird strategies that are just plain enjoyable for the forseeable future. Definitely my favourite game ever gameplay-wise even if I am still very bad at this game.
you really explained some feelings that I couldn’t articulate for the life of me
After way too many hours of ER and then some DS1 and 3 I had a tough time getting into Sekiro, because I refused to accept that I had to learn an entirely new way of fighting. Once I got it, my first playthrough was probably 90% just using my sword because I am terrible at learning more than one thing at a time, and just the very basic combat of Sekiro still had enough components to it to keep me on my toes, with deflects, dodges, jumps, and mikiri, and learning when to do what. And it STILL never felt like it lacked variety.
I have played it many more times now and learned a lot of new tricks and still have so much more to discover, and it has without a doubt become my favourite FS game, and probably favourite game period.
Besides the practicalities of the combat, it is also my favourite because of how stripped down it is. There are no numbers I ever have to worry about, no stats, no gear, no nothing. It's just me and how precise and clever I can manage to be in any given situation, and it is incredibly satisfying.
Personally, I also prefer the predefined, voiced kind of protagonist over the nameless undead, and I have really come to appreciate the much more personal and human story of this game. It's a nice change from the cosmic, intangible scale of the others.
I agree with literally each and every single statement about the souls combat. Finally, someone with actual balls LOL
Anyway, brilliant video
He said the truth noone wanted to hear. Souls vets HATE him
lol Matthew matosis shit on souls combat ages ago
@@billyboleson2830 nah he just loves ds1 slowpoke combat.
This is the first video I've seen from you, and sir... you are my hero
I've beaten this game almost 20 times and honestly, I didn't realize until recently just how much I was limiting myself by not using my combat arts and prosthetics. I'm gonna start experimenting with stuff now, seems like fun!
I was the exact same way
Sekiro is the guitar hero with extra steps.
only 82 subscribers? bro I haven't put a quarter of the effort in my entire channel than you put in this video! you're too underrated!
Not for long hopefully. There is some merit to quantity over quality but it just doesn't feel right uploading a 'meh' video. Bangers only
Great review. Explains gameplay and difference between other FS games perfectly
Really precious video, people are often blind to what Sekiro offers because they feel like the way they do it is all there is. I have to thank my man Ongbal for showing me how creative you can be with what the game gives you
There's some good points made in this video, especially with regards to the variety in offense that very often gets overlooked in favor of just thinking of Sekiro as the L1 spam game, but the main thesis is unconvincing. The main problem is that just because the options exist doesn't mean they're necessarily optimal or even good a lot of the time. Out of all the options showcased against the Lone Shadows, how many are actually better than the least-resistance blocking, countering and mikiri? Yeah, you can do all that cool stuff, but... why would you?
Now, doing not-strictly-optimal but cooler stuff because you enjoy it more is perfectly valid and a lot of action games thrive on it. Not everything has to be played with a speedrun mentality. But the biggest issue is that Sekiro's emblem system, as you mention (but don't go too deep into), fucking blows. In any given encounter you'll have your max of 20 plus whatever you can add with the Ceremonial Tanto, and that's that. Which makes it so that the suboptimal choices carry with them a huge opportunity cost, because you're not just weighing the flashy stuff against the boring practical option, but also against everything else you could be doing with those emblems -- the stronger combat arts, all prosthetics, spiritfalls and ninjutsu all compete for the same strained resource. And the upshot of that is that you're even more heavily discouraged from using a lot of the more interesting combat options. Until, that is, you've mastered the game and can afford to show off, but that's hardly a good argument in favor of them as viable options. Like, the Sakura Dance into falling axe combo -- looks good, feels good, but the benefit is very marginal compared to using those emblems on Mortal Draw, or firecrackers or umbrella, or boss-specific weaknesses. It feels so unnecessarily limiting because the incentives are so strongly stacked against using all the prosthetic combos and cool CAs. Also Dragon Flash kinda sucks but that's another thing.
The game as is would crack in half if they just made emblems infinite or whatever, but I really wish they didn't work as they do. Let you replenish them through normal attacks, or have each prosthetic have its own ammo, or at least add a secondary resource so everything that isn't a block or basic attack doesn't key off it. It's FromSoft's worst resource mechanic by far and I really hope that if they ever iterate on Sekiro's systems they revamp it because it's a huge millstone around the game's neck. Having to fight the game in order to actually use the fun options is just so lame.
Facts
I love this game. It never just gets old. I run back to it when I am frustrated or just want to play something fun
I can't go two months without wanting to cook up a new sekiro challenge run
I think people seem to forget that Sekiro is an action game and not an rpg, and that it has much more in common with games like DMC or Metal Gear Rising.
Those similarly are games that have insane amount of combo variety and the only limit is the imagination of the player. Sure those games do more to emphasize that variety with scores and combo counters than Sekiro does but the underlying principle is the same.
To me, saying Sekiro has no variety because it has only one weapon you can beat the game with is like saying that DMC 5 has no variety because you can just beat the game by spamming stinger over and over
TO BE HONEST. I love medieval games, especially this type where you in 3rd person go out and slash and kill things in a fantasy setting. I booted Sekiro off the gate since I loved dark souls games and I played it back then and stopped after a few bosses and never came back for some reason. Later I was remembering and always went like "ah it's that game where you parry a lot". Then, recently, 2 weeks ago I installed it again and oh boy this time im much better at it, I got a better grasp and feel of the game and enjoying it so much. Also, besides the combat and world and everything crazy, this game to me is visually the best one in souls series. This specific art style is very very nice to my eyes. I gotta say, I would like Sekiro 2 more than a new dark souls.
This video straight-up blew my mind. I recently beat Sekiro twice in rapid succession, & now I feel like I've seen 1% of the game.
Yea I didn't really jump into all the experimentation until prolly my 10th time thru after I ad the boss down to a tee. It's also cool to treat the enemies like a boss and learn their whole moveset, like the nightjar shinobi
you weren't kidding, this is your best video
I'm well over 1300 hours as a speedrunner, and I still have a ton to learn. Even in the speedrun community has drastically different ways to doing the same routes.
I honestly didn't want your methods for killing the Lone Shadows to end
Wolf would be the boss in ER people can't overcome cause of his endless combo trees. Just put him in ER already
well malenia is half a sekiro. thats why everybody gave her shit and was only able to beat her when casting millionis of bleeding spells
Yes, but lore-wise...
@@Lepoetism There already is a place in the world of ER called the land of reeds where heavily eastern characters and weapons come from. And also it doesn't necessarily have to be Wolf himself, just a wacky shinobi from the land of reeds
@@eeroke12 What i mean is that Sekiro in Elden Ring universe would be in a trouble lore-wise.
@@Lepoetism
Probably, but if Wolf ever learned how to turn runes into strength or got a maiden, he'd definitely be the strongest in that universe.
"Variety is the spice of life and Sekiro is the fucking curry". I am speechless. What a hilariously amazing quote. Great video.
Subscribed for the delivery and editing for "high cholesterol helping of beef"
I really enjoy your commentary, you come out with some priceless lines.
I am glad to be a member of the sekiro community “git gud” 💪🏿
Coming back to this video every time someone breaks my heart by saying they never used prosthetics or combat arts.
Thank you for this video, it pretty much boils down my exact feelings
i love souls games and especially sekiro, but thing is, deflecting is always the best and most effective option to get trough encounter fast, sure you have a lot of cool options and flexibility but still, emblems being a finite resource is very discouraging, they shouldve just made them free like healing that restores on rest
Holy shit that's the best Maliketh kill I've ever seen lmfao
Anyway great video, thanks for speaking up for the cultured Sekiro enjoyers.
The way I play different builds in Dark Souls (pve) is really more about aesthetics.
Finally someone says it, i have been saying this exact thing for so much time, in sekiro i used all prostethics and skills to find new ways to approach to enemies and bosses, doing so many effective combos while being stylish... Meanwhile in souls games i just cant do anything because if you dont roll you die, outspacing attacks is not even possible due to everything now being anime moves with waves and shit, sekiro is the best game fromsoft has done and i keep playing it because the combat and playstyle variety is unmatched
3:30 although I love fromsoft I definitely agree. Going to Elden Ring from Sekiro it is easy to notice that I cannot do anything most of the time to change things up. I get a hit in and then the boss takes a turn to do whatever combo they want while I dodge away. Then it is my turn to attack and back and forth we go. Obviously top tier players can ignore that flow but for the most part that is what I notice. Whereas with Sekiro there is this dance in the combat where I am constantly looking for small openings to exploit so I can get the edge for a death blow.
EDIT: I will say that limitations breeds creativity. It is a great combat system for sure and extremely satisfying.
I do think elden ring has more wiggle room than dark souls but sekiro is definitely the GOAT
Excellent video. I'm one of those newer to souls games and who played thru Sekiro just using the basics and ichimonji double only and sparely used prosthetics (e.g. umbrella for undead ape phase). You really opened my eyes and have increased my appreciate for the game. Can't wait to replay it and explore different play styles. Awesome stuff mate
Cant agree with this video enough.
Sekiro’s combat depth is a breath of fresh air, which is why aside from ER it is my most played FromSoft game.
Also, I know the first click moment in Sekiro is when you get the parries down. But the second click for me was when I started timing dodges with the same precision as a parry. There are so many attacks enemies do in this game that you can dodge pretty neatly and then get massive windows on them.
Would personally love to see a combat system in a Fromsoft game having the same depth but with more weapon options. ER kind of leans into it, but I think it can be deepened even further.
Sekiro’s combat is masterful BECAUSE it has one main weapon. It means every single encounter can be perfectly tuned. I knew a couple souls vets that despised sekiro, without there big bonk build they just couldn’t adapt.
Another thing to note is that Sekiro's enemies feel like they were the most designed around the game's combat compared to the other FromSoft games.
Since the devs don't have to worry about different weapon classes, just only one katana, the timing of enemies' attacks and punish windows feel the least awkward in the entire FromSoft catalogue because they only had the katana in mind when designing enemy movesets and nothing else.
This is why Sekiro's combat feels so much like a dance or a rythm game, because Sekiro and his enemies' movesets completely complement each other perfectly; thus, the dance we've all come to love from this masterpiece of a game.
Preach! I was worried about Sekiro before playing it. "Only katana and forced parries?". But oh boy it's good if you're into its style of combat and theme.
I gave up at the Owl fight at the top of the castle. It was too hard for me, then after a few months I tried again and now I have more than 200 hours in this game. Its so good
That's such a waste of time lol
Also, all the items you mentioned have you either beat the boss or mini boss to get them. Added some of the tactics you mentioned require grinding to get access too moves. Unless you don’t die, forcing you to try to grind again again.
That's the beauty of Sekiro.
With darksouls you are bound to your build and hopefully you built it right. You either figure out a boss with it or get hardstuck. Sekiro there is nothing holding you back from experimenting with different tools and combos for what works best for you.
Yes sekiro core is just attack and deflect, not too much different than souls Dodge and attack. But the freedom sekiro gives you in between all that is amazing.
As fun as Elden Ring is it feels like a step backwards and im finding it hard to get the motivation to make a pvp build for what is essentially dark souls 4
I think I'll grow to like the challenge of Elden Ring, its ahrd to paly it traditionally though and there's a surprsing amount of attacks you can dodge with jumps, plus the posture mechanic is very welcome.
elden ring is not a step backwards from sekiro combat wise. its just different, feels like a perfect blend of ds3 and sekiro. most ppl havent realized you can dodge and attack at the same time via the jumping attack if you start memorizing low horizontal moves and wind ups. i still like sekiro combat more but ER combat is far above the other older games.
Another thing to note is that even the Sekiro equivalent of the Souls roll (deflecting) is an attack on its own because it deals damage in a sense, so it is both offensive and defensive.
So while rolling a combo is more passive in the other games, deflecting feels way more aggressive despite its defensinve nature; thus, more engaging.
My man played "Hellfire" as a transition! lets gooo!
13:02 this is true, but not entirely. The Sen that you have available to you at the moment of death, yes, you will lose half of that, but by buying coin purses from merchants you put that Sen into like a safe vault, which will not be lostnupon death
Yea also with the revive its kind of like dying twice and losing your souls anyways
You're the only souls youtuber who I feel actually understands the games.
I have argued with invader friends about these games for years
@@loopine it’s nice seeing someone who I feel actually kinda understands how I feel about the series and the discourse surrounding it, you know? Most TH-camrs I follow(ed) just put out some variation of “Elden Ring Shattered Masterpiece” and it’s really exhausting because it seems like I’m the only person who actually appreciates the intricacies of the combat system, or notices that stuff that’s being complained about now started in Sekiro or DS3 and nobody had an issue with it then. Seriously how many Sekiro bosses have some silly looking delayed attacks? But somehow it’s only an issue in Elden Ring?
Dude, it was literally only on my 4 playthrough that I realized you could spear pull the centipede from the headless ape to speed up the fight
"Sekiro has no replayability" is to me the single most infuriating statement in videogame history. It's easily the game I have replayed the most by a large margin. Not spent the most time playing, mind you... that honor goes to the black void called World of Warcraft. But I have completed Sekiro more times than I have any other game. And it felt great every single time. The combat is just so good that even if I can't change weapons it's still the best combat I have ever played by a country mile and honestly kinda ruined other games for me. Now Dark Souls is just two dudes with a sword swinging in the general direction of the other guy. Sekiro's combat feels like a duel. Like a dance where only one of you is left standing when the music stops. It's just perfect and Masaru Yamamura is my hero.
Sekiro has some of the best PvE combat, like, ever, our problem is that you don't *need* to use any of it because deflect can solve literally all of your problems, and it's incredibly easy to do, so all of the REALLY COOL combos aren't necessary. The fact that unblockable attacks can still be deflected is the penultimate example of how the game things it needs to rely on deflect when I don't think it really does.
And the fact that prosthetics use spell charges that you can't intentionally replenish yourself and instead have to trust the game to give you your charges back really does feel like the game saying "don't use these like ever unless it's a boss or something." If the mechanic was that the charges simply replenished maybe once every 5 seconds or so, it would be a perfect excuse to use your equipment at a steady pace that you yourself have to figure out how to best manage.
Doom Eternal showed us that it's okay, and perhaps *necessary,* to *force* players to play "the fun way"
Games that allow you to play the boring way I now consider as doing an active disservice to the player.
tl;dr If there are any mods that make your seals recharge slowly over time, get that. If there are any mods that make unblockable attacks also unparryable, get that too. Game will become absolute perfection
I think it would be fine the way it is if you got the tanto pretty early, I do kinda vibe about the doom Eternal point although it still gets shit for making people use flame belch for armor to this day
@@loopine The tanto itself kinda deserves to be infinite. The whole "it takes a big portion of your health, and in return it gives you *only 3 uses"* doesn't really work. It was most likely just fromsoft tuning numbers they they didn't even need to tune. The fact that it consumes your health is already a limiter placed on it.
@@CorwinTheOneAndOnly Idk the tanto gives you 15 emblems on top of the 20 you start with. In my experience there's not many bosses than can survive that much even above ng+7 with Charmless and Bell Demon
@@loopine Ah, well I wasn't talking just bosses. The entire game is improved with fun prosthetic combos. Bosses are just the icing on the cake.
@@CorwinTheOneAndOnly good point, althought they give you a few back it typically doesnt fully replenish
Yup, Sekiro has the best combat, it's just too damn good. Also I appreciate the kizumonogatari ost as background music. Good shit right there.
My first souls game. My favorite game of all time. Damn shame we didn't get DLC. I hope they don't let the IP die
I'll say that it's fun to be a noob in repeat playthroughs, that's one of the best aspects of all Soulsborne games. Even tho it's all about medium roll Great Club SL99 solo builds for the first 3 NG cycles.
But this vid made me think more about how I play Sekiro, even though I long ago internalized the common wisdom that is _"don't play it like Dark Souls or Bloodborne."_ Makes me look forward to my final ending playthrough for the plat
Man you spoke my mond. Thank you man thank you.
I bought sekiro instead of elden ring a few weeks back and I'm so glad this is my first From Soft game. Great video man, I've beat main story only so far and the experience has been incredible.
Glad your enjoying it man!
I got 100% achievements recently on my series x , awesome game HESITATION IS DEFEAT LOL legendary stuff ha
With the exclusion of the Dark Souls comparisons (only played BB and Sekiro so far, tight budget T_T) this is everything I hoped for. Even the point about Emblem limitations being one of the reasons people don't experiment, which is exactly why I didn't even think of this until I saw people styling.
We're all guilty of it, i barely used prosthetics my first time around. I did play NG+ quite a bit but watching Ongbal really started getting the gears churning for me on just what you can actually do. I used to literally get stoned and rip a playthorugh of bloodborne start to finish every day for a long while and I think sekiro is wayyy more replayable in comparison to that even.
Finally, someone who agrees that Dark Souls and soulslikes are lukewarm puddles like me and says so openly and happily! I'm not going insane anymore! Hoorah! 😂
I'm just glad someone else said it, I was starting to believe I was alone in this opinion.
Ah yes the souls variety.
"Haha time loop"
"Haha roll"
liked for use of dung defender theme in the background
Eyyy DD fan
You're 100% correct. This is why I fell out of love with Elden Ring. Sekiro feels more satisfying
Press F for Lone Shadow who dedicatee his whole life just for this video
That Ace Combat music woke up a part of me.
God tier OSTs 😤
I think one of Sekiro biggest flaw is the spirit emblem, it is limited and you have to buy or just kill enemies in order to get. It's not hard to do it, but for some if not a lot, it's boring to do that. So what they do are just mostly Parry. If the spirit emblem has refill mechanic like estus flask, I think the whole "only one way to play" arguement would never be as loud as this
sekiro is the first game since ages that give me the same vibes as jedi academy. you know the levels, you know the enemies. now my job is to use my tool in the most creative ways to clean the path.
Two years late but this is literally what I've been saying since the game came out and it feels good to hear someone else say it lol. Despite From telling people it's its own thing everyone came in with the souls mindset and didn't bother experimenting with all of the cool shit the game lets you do. As a DMC and Bayonetta fan it was an incredibly pleasant surprise to find out that they decided to basically make a really interesting character action game. Those games have technically one character playstyle even with the different weapons, but they give you so many options for player expression with the tools at your disposal. Additionally it has a similarly gratifying NG+ to those games where you truly get to let loose with a complete moveset.
Honestly if you're craving more sekiro check out shit like ninja gaiden or metal gear rising. Very different vibe and feel but the variety and replayability comes from the same place. Hell MGR's baseline moveset is all about parrying in a similar way to sekiro.
I didn’t like any other souls game, I fell in love with Sekiro. Simply because I love the sword and all the prosthetics. And then how different my first play through was vs my 12th.
I get it now with Sekiro. As much as you have tools like previous Souls games. What we have is all based on the controller and deciding what to do. There is an extreme amount of skill involved with every interaction. It's internal rather than you having to rely on items to get the job done.
Elden ring was my first souls game. I loved it and wanted more after about 7 playthroughs. So I got sekiro. Now it's my favorite. I don't see how I can go back to dodging after enjoying the deflection mechanic.
Have to agree with most of what you say, but the biggest issue with the idea of "play how you want" and the examples given in Sekiro is that it is not only difficult, but often PUNISHING to discover new these new ways of responding to attacks. You know the reason you say 90% of players will respond the same way to the shinobi's kicks? Because it's safer and generally just as effective to do the default method of deflecting rather than risk experimenting with the hyper-punish combos enemies tend to put out in Sekiro.
There really is freedom to be had, but sadly for the vast majority of players, it's behind a wall of tedium and poorly balanced mechanics for experimentation. The sheer number of enemy/boss combos that require specific and difficult recovery timing- lest you get killed instantly, is insane. That is the exact reason why people will say Sekiro is 1D and lacks variety, the variety is genuinely much less accessible to the average player, and a balance needs to be struck between that accessibility and high level mastery.
This is like the last thing I expected from you but its insanely well done and put together, good shit man.
Also thanks for using the Jeenine Exodia meme I made like a year ago, didn't think I'd ever see that shit again lmao
Its a timeless classic
I forgot you made that ornstein
I’m so glad Sekiro was my first FromSoft game
the first time i saw mist raven in trailer..i fell in love with the game.
Dude this video is amazing! I'm honestly so happy you opened my eyes to the massive variety of options lol, I loved sekiro but I did find it quite samey but I suppose thats down to the fact that I didn't use prosthetic tools like you did, I definitely going to replay now lol, it looks like so much fun, combo-ing everything like you did in the video. Honestly amazing quality video as well 👍
Glad you liked it. My first playthrough I also mostly parried everything but seeing what montagers were doing really opened my eyes and got me trying to get creative as well
I needed this video. Only played about a third if DS3, no other souls and then put 300 hours into Elden Ring so I like and am used to Elden rings combat, but then I got Sekiro and it's pretty different. I want to give it more time because all the eave reviews can't be wrong, I just need to learn and come to grips with Sekiros combat because I suck at it and want to get better.
My advice is you'd be surprised at what attacks you can parry if you try and if one attack in particular is getting you killed try and come up with a prosthetic or combat art you can use to negate it. Sekiro is definitely the most demanding mechanically and in reaction time so just let it come with time
In Sekiro you can LITERALLY use only your sword to beat the final boss. All you have to do is remember 3 things
1. Parry NOT Block
2. Jump at a swipe, mikiri at a thrust.
3. Lightning reversal.
If you follow the game mechanics and try to learn then the amount of power this game gives you is enormous.
Other games gives you in game tools to level up
Sekiro levels your gaming precision. You die 999 times to come back a 1000th time as a perfect shinobi.
Sekiro makes you perfect. Sekiro punishes you so hard that your muscle memory is bound to develop.
I love this game and still come back to it. 500 hours don't lie!
The freedom of combat is definitely there, you just have to find your offense while “doing the dance”
My first video by urs and it was great, keep doing what you are doing. You will acieve great things.
thnx bb. I got a present for you then because i'm dropping an absolute documentary in a couple days. 4 and a half months of editing
i remember first playing and having to learn that big boy ogre's patterns
I regret barely using any prosthetics my first time through sekiro
i'll go change that now
I had my phone facing down and all I heard was "now let's address the elephant in the room, TH-cam premium is ad free TH-cam 😊😊"
" you could just go play your 5th playthrough of stealth archer on skyrim " dude don't call me out like that
I'm pretty sure you missed the chad "Roll into them and point blank sunlight spear" build in DS3.
Kidding mostly, it's basically the UGS technique for spellcasters. Hyper armor the hit to one shot anything that's not a boss LOL
I just fully upgrade all of my tools and there are so many builds just with the prosthetics slotted it's insane
Im a Sekiro noob and Elden Ring was my first From game. This got recommended to me and I'm glad. I love Sekiro. Even the basic "parry/attack" rhythm is so addictive and sprinkling in combat arts is great.
I will agree though that I feel limited in what I can do because of how much I lose money and xp since I suck haha. I run out of emblems quickly for sure.
But I am assuming that the amazing combos and options will be my reward for mastering the game and coming back for NG+ as I definitely will. Thanks for showing just how much is possible once I get the fundamentals down.
Good video about the best Souls-em-up game.