Let's get deep about Sekiro
>how did it succeed?
>how did it fail?
>what disappointed you?
>what did you love?
>what do you think the central themes were, if any?
For the sake of civility and focus, let's refrain from comparisons to any other FROM games, just for this thread. This is specifically about the gameplay, mechanics, aesthetics, and writing of Sekiro as an isolated game. If you think a different game did something better, focus on where and why Sekiro fell short, not the other game
I'm stuck at Owl therefore it's shite.
One thing I want to dig into is the Unseen Aid/Dragonrot mechanic
I'm confused by their implementation and don't see the value they bring to the game
Dragonrot really doesn't add any decision-making or strategy into the game. Dragonrot is caused by dying which you're already highly incentivized to avoid, so its existence doesn't shift focus towards any strategy other than "don't die," which any player is already following. Once you have it, the only solution is to spend a valuable resource doled out to you throughout the game, but that resource isn't used for anything other than Dragonrot removal, so the decision makes itself.
The only thing close to decision making is "do I remove Dragonrot now or wait until I've died even more" which is basically the same decision as whether to use heals or not, just on a larger timescale. Unlike healing, the Unseen Aid doesn't interact with any other mechanic in a way that complicates the equation, and is only framed as a positive (unseen aid means you get to keep your money + XP) and not a negative (not having unseen aid means you'll lose your money and XP when you die)
What exactly were they going for? It feels like there was some other mechanic that tied into all of this that was discarded at some point in development
It was okay, even fun during NG. I even finished NG+ but 3/4 through it I realized I was no longer enjoying it. The fights are tight, perhaps too much because you have to give them your full concentration to not fucking die. It is a fucking chore and unlike, lets say, souls or nioh I can't play it half drunk. And I enjoy drinking while I play games a lot, so instead I returned to those games.
>trains tirelessly for years
>defeated easily by some fucking shinobi rat
>grandfather lmaos at him and only comes back to face said shinobi in a sweet duel
genichiro had a hard life
>how did it succeed?
The posture system actually gets you to play aggressively.
>how did it fail?
Parry system trivialized spacing for the most part.
>what disappointed you?
The amount of reused bosses.
>what did you love?
Fighting Owl2, Demon, and Sword Saint.
>what do you think the central themes were, if any?
Story is about a dying military dynasty. Second half of 20th century Japan is centered around the fallout of imperial system. Genichiro is a modern conservative while Iishin is OG empire. It's a critique of nostalgia.
I've put it down at Owl. I like the challenge and the combat, but it gets kind of stale. I'll probably go back and finish it at some point.
>let's refrain from comparisons to any other FROM games
That's stupid and you know it, you won't stop the Soulsbabbies either way.
>>how did it succeed?
Better core combat designs that Souls, by far.
Verticality.
Almost pure action game with little to no RPG mechanics to ruin it.
>>how did it fail?
Miyazaki is too afraid to let go of Souls, keeping the traditional Souls interface and messages was a bad idea that will forever stain the game by association with souls and its community of whiners.
Too many recycled minibosses.
Bosses needed better cycles and more unparriable moves.
The usual paradigm of throwing everything at you in the first hour leads to a hard adaptation period and a disappointing plateau where little can surprise anymore since you're already used to most possibly bullshit, better progression balance would make the game a better experience.
The stealth is absolute trash.
Headless are the absolute worst enemies in any FROM game, and I've been playing since the old KF games.
Some prosthetics have unrealized potential due to the lack of appropriate enemies to use their gimmicks on
>>what disappointed you?
It's a game that evidently didn't know what it wanted to be, a stealth game, an action/metroidvania game or a Souls derivative.
The music is also garbage, like all the Souls games.
Dragonrot exists, nobody knows why.
>>what did you love?
The Ninja Scroll like atmosphere and fights, I had a feeling it would be like that since the first trailer with the Corrupted Monk, I wasn't disappointed at all.
Tsudaken as Genichiro was exceptional, marvelous voice acting and a perfect match for the character.
The Corrupted Monk, Juzou and Howl fights are exceptional.
>>what do you think the central themes were, if any?
Typical Miyazaki shlock, unoffensively boring and tired by now, might as well not be there so I don't really have any strong feelings about it, FROM's games hardly had interesting themes either way, even most AC games are really simple.
This. You're forced to fully concentrate on just that game AMD be on full alert, and sometimes I just want to relax or have some drinks.
Sekiro doesn't exist in a vacuum, so comparisons to the other games are necessary and unavoidable. As experimental as the game is, it still has very strong roots in its Souls-like predecessors. What you are left asking is "does the overall package feel worth it, all things considered" and for me that's just a "kind of".
As a stealth action game, the stealth is pretty mediocre. Not once did I encounter a scenario that I found to be clever, interesting, or rewarded outside of the box thinking. The AI is simply bad. You wait, you follow the grapple points, and you get behind them. In this respect, I feel that FROM branching out to a new genre was somewhat of a failure. As an action game? It's definitely enthralling at points. But it does not have the skill ceiling or complexity to push the systems in the way other action games do. Its literally Souls combat taken to its logical conclusion. You memorize the moves, you recite the dance, or you die. This has both pros and cons, though at the end of the day I find it almost feels hamstrung by its own strictness, as the first and foremost design choice was ensuring the player gets punished.
I think Sekiro is a good game, with a few amazing highlights (namely a handful of bosses) but not as compelling as a complete package. Its too streamlined, too bite-sized for its own good. Every time I think back to what I enjoyed about Sekiro (exploring crazy new locales, new weird enemies, careful combat encounters, secrets, creative bosses), it was done better in their other games. So for me personally, the game exists in that weird limbo of being too different while simultaneously being not different enough to avoid inevitable negative comparison.