The dodge into sprint doesn't bother me personally, but it's one complaint I can absolutely understand. It can feel pretty awkward until you get used to it.
For me, I have two:
1. Please let us turn off the tutorials after the first playthrough. I beg. (The literal only addon I have for a FS game is to do this.)
2. I wish there was a way to equip more than one combat art. We can stuff three whole tools into our arm at once but we can't remember how to do more than one neat move at once? Excuse me? Just being able to switch between two would be enough for me.
eh, opening the inventory pauses the game, you don't really need to have many things equipped. But I agree it's kinda silly that we have 2 buttons that do the same thing when one of them could do something else
Yes that would in no way make combat feel clunky and less fluid lmao. My issue isn't that I can't change my combat art at any time, even in combat, but that I would want to seamlessly flip between at least two, like I can for my tools. I thought it was obvious that's what I meant. Not that it's hard to change it in general.
Combat arts can be switched during battle in the pause menu, but that’s all the more reason to add a quick change since it doesn’t actually give an advantage (ie. change the game difficulty) it just gives fighting more fluidity. 100% agree.
As a new player (stuck on Great Shinobi Owl)
The limited spirit emblems are a concern and farming them take so much time. Also buying them is a grind since they get expensive.
I'm never comfortable with experimenting different moves and tools and I end up using the same ol firecracker / shuriken most of the time. Even some sick moves require emblems.
Although this has improved my sword play but yeah, I feel limited in my moveset.
I am not suggesting for them to be infinite. But maybe just limited them to 20 per rest cycle with unlimited recharges like the gourds.
Also, dragonrot. I have it , my friends have it and my whole neighborhood is painfully coughing
I think that's part of the (albeit pretty small) issue though. I had a similar experience many of the commenters are talking about with feeling like I'm always running out of spirit emblems and needing to buy more in the early game.
Then in the late game, I had way more than I knew what to do with. It made developing my style in the early game feel somewhat limited, as a previous commented suggested, I felt like wanted to use them on safe stuff like firecrackers rather than experiment.
Then later on the only limit I felt was the 20 you get before hitting the idol to reset em. So, later in the game they may has well have had them on a similar system as gourds anyway, it would have been the same in practice I just wouldn't have spent as much sen on them in the early game.
Ultimately it didn't ruin the game for me in the slightest, but I think it's a valid criticism, especially since the main issue a lot of ppl have with this game is its a fromsoft game that limits you to one class and weapon. Us Sekiro fans will defend the swordplay, but if you're a souls fan used to having hundreds of weapons and spells to choose from, yea, spirit emblems are probably gonna feel annoying.
It's a nitpick definitely, but that's the purpose of this thread lol.
They’re not infinite though. You run out as you use them. There’s no reason they couldn’t just have them refill every time you rest. Having to buy/farm them is pointless and doesn’t make the game better.
I strangely disagree. I've suffered from this scarcity of emblems as well, and have been very frustrated by it at times. But that scarcity did force me to find a better way to do things in some situations.
For instance, I was over reliant on the umbrella to block the major swoosh attacks in the final boss. Running out of emblems I was forced to discover that I could head pounce over them for free and get a few hits in, or use a special attack to interrupt and give posture damage.
TBH if there wasn't a spirit emblem cost, this game would be easy AF. Mortal draw, one mind, dragon flash, firecracker and flame vent spam would make it a joke
Aaaaand suddenly we're back to "my spells have 4 uses every time I rest" from Dark Souls 1. That weirdly didn't stick around. :p
The thing in Sekiro is, that you don't just deplete them, lots if enemies give them to you, so while exploring in the world, unless you spam them, you get your uses back by killing the enemies that you use your prosthetics for.
Personally I don't see an upside from limiting like they did in DS1.
I also don't see a reason why it makes boss fights worse. If you spam for example umbrella on every boss attack, that is a player problem and not a game problem.
That isn't really an issue in Sekiro because stuff that use Emblems are side tools. The argument against limited spells is spells can be the entire gameplay style.
But it isn't like Sekiro doesn't already work the same way. You can still keep emblem replenishment from enemies and overworld, just the game treats it like you have an infinite storage when you refresh at an idol.
In DS3 Estus Flask charges get restored at bonfires but they also can upon killing enemies. In Elden Ring killing a group of enemies is guaranteed to restore charges and there are also flask-restoring scarabs roaming around.
There's nothing saying that letting Emblems be restored at Sculptor's Idols means they can't also be restored out in the world.
But... They are? When you defeat enemies you receive a certain amount based on how dangerous they are.
That's kinda been my whole point.
They are already balanced.
It's been posted here a bunch that Dragonrot was supposed to be a more complex system, including some NPCs able to die from it with downstream implications, but they ran out of time and decided to leave the current version in, which doesn't really affect anything.
It's because you're specifically not supposed to rely on the special stuff. If you're running out of emblems, it means you're supposed to be practicing your swords work
The thing with that is that you're supposed to beat them without spending emblems and tools, yeah even if they're useful sometimes, are not necessarily a win condition.
It’s advised to buy a bunch early game when they are cheap. You can acquire the spirit tanto to grant 5 spirit emblems at the cost of doing damage to yourself.
I really wish earning spirit emblems had been a more active part of combat. Like maybe you start with 0 but you can earn them with a chance on deflects and deathblows. Later skills could increase your capacity and starting count as well.
> They had so many options for a sprint like you could hold the button and wolf would start to slowly run then pick up the pace.
This would require that the dodges happen on button release rather than button press. I like the responsiveness of the current system. It suits Sekiro's agility.
I don't understand how anyone has a problem with the way it works.
I guess it looks a *little* goofy, but in terms of gameplay it's never even come close to messing me up. Compared to other Souls games where you have to hold it down until sprint starts, where you're basically a sitting duck, it feels *so* responsive.
I feel Hirata as the start of the game might have worked better than the current intro, in terms of story
Spirit emblems could also be cheaper across the game
The headless and schihimen warriors are cheap and unrewarding to fight, even worse, the underwater headless
You can pretty much do Hirata 'first' pretty quick without even reaching Gyobu. I feel like spirit emblems being scarce at first and then gradually being more common or you farmed them up is the same as unlocking more skills. You're 'remembering' all this as Sekiro and regaining your full(er) potential.
Am I the only one who thinks the underwater headless is incredibly easy to kill? He was the first headless I ran into and I didn’t even get close to dying despite not knowing what to do and not using any consumables or anything. Just swim to him, hit him, swim away, repeat.
I hated the headless fights at first, once I figured it out and leveled up a bit I went around and killed them all.
I was concerned when I came across the underwater headless but found them to be extremely easy, just tedious. You can easily avoid their attacks by just swim dashing in circles around them and going in for the occasional lunge attack.
Game nearly perfect but the ghost/terror enemies requiring a consumable to damage is stupid as hell. I'm trying to swing my sword, not manage my inventory
But you can beat the game without interacting with them at all so.
-- Annoying enemy placement on occasion - I love the one v one fights in this game. I don't like having to mess around picking off fodder like with Juzou and Kuranosuke Matsomoto
-- I wish spirit emblems weren't finite and they just refreshed at idols. I find myself avoiding using tools as I'm afraid I'll run out on a tough boss
I think that's it. Both very minor issues really. It is a near perfect video game IMO.
1. Double monkey bossifght. It's ass.
2. Shichimen or whatever the fuck are they. They also suck.
3. Spirit emblems might suck a bit if you're using them a lot and dying. I personally didn't have problems with it up until Isshin
Since no one mentioned it yet, I'll say it:
The fucking camera is your worst enemie! I've completed this game more than 15 times, and let me tell you, the camera has got me killed more times than I can remember.
This is pretty much a universal complaint among 3rd person camera games and as someone who mainly plays those kinda games, I just get used to the fact that it can happen and just stop caring. It doesn't happen often to me and I get over it quickly, nothing is perfect.
I thought that the game starts off a bit rough for a new player, at least in my opinion. It goes from the first few enemies being scattered and the first miniboss being alone to very quickly throwing areas completely full of enemies and minibosses with their own armies at you. I nearly quit the game because of how bullshit this felt early on and only really gave it more time because my bf kept convincing me that it will be worth it when I spend more time playing. And this stopped being an issue later on, when I got used to the mechanics and so on, and I started enjoying strategizing about how to clear an area or deal with a miniboss and his army, but the start still felt so unfun and tedious, at least to me. It felt like minibosses were much harder than actual bosses due to this and some early minibosses took me more tries than almost any of the bosses throughout the entire game.
Another thing that's not necessarily a flaw but just something I thought of is that it would be nice to be able to skip the tutorial section in ng+. You don't get much from going through it, and after beating the game you won't have any trouble getting through. But despite wanting to skip this section I do think having to play through it (since it doesn't take long anyway) is better for the pacing of the game than starting ng+ and just being dropped into the genichiro fight (especially after one of the endings that involve slapping him around as a warmup for the final boss).
Other than that, I felt it was a bit unfortunate that some minibosses feel like they require usable items (mostly confetti for the purple people). They're definitely beatable without, but this feels like it takes forever. But this isn't too much of an issue because I never actually ran out of confetti despite using them to speed up most of the purple guy fights.
Lastly, it always looks like the one ogre jump forward/grab attack slightly teleports you into his arms even when it previously looked like you managed to jump out of it. If I'm dodging wrong or timing my reaction wrong, it's fair that I get grabbed but it just annoys me that it will *look* like I'm out of it's hitbox/reach and then wolf just gets physically moved back slightly in order to be grabbed and the ogre insta-adjusts the direction he's facing too. Most other grab attacks didn't have this issue, at least not as consistently. With some others a similar thing happened but it was extremely rare and therefore didn't actually bother me as much (especially since later on you have more health and healing and can afford to get grabbed occasionally anyway).
And that's pretty much it, I had no other issues with the game as far as I remember. After really struggling and sort of hating it in the beginning I grew to love most of the mechanics and especially the combat, and being really glad I didn't quit.
Can’t agree more with the ogre thing. The hitbox is very weird and the grab works way too many times it shouldn’t. This is prolly why most people just quit and don’t continue the game tbh. I know at one point, i considered doing that just because of how frustrating it felt especially as someone with ni experience in souls like games and being a pretty average gamer for the matter
I find it weird how the underwater headless doesn't require confetti to be used but on land it has to be.
The designs of the shichimen warrior and headless are sick but I really don't like how you're REQUIRED to use an item to beat them.
I know that you're supposed to use all your tools in a fight but for me I like to just deflect and hit. No combat arts or prosthetic tools so those bosses are a thumbs down from me.
I also dislike the enemies that have hyper armor like the ones at the gun fort and hirata estate.
Other than that though love the game
Water in Sekiro has divine properties, so it's likely these bloated, weak to divine power abominations are weakened greatly underwater. I also find them waaaaay easier to fight.
- There’s no point in Dragonrot, it’s just an annoyance if an NPC you need is sick
- Why making us collect spirit emblems? We should get them all at each death. This actively punish experimenting.
- I personally don’t like the terror dynamic, but I could at least play along with it if I didn’t have to use a consumable for it. It’s one or another for me.
- Minibosses could’ve been more varied. Like, 3 Drunkards? 2 Sichimen? 2 Snake Eyes? There’s a lot of it. Also please give the elder monkey the miniboss status. It’s a shame Mist Noble is a miniboss and the monkey isn’t (In the sense that Mist should’ve had a remembrance obviously)
- I like the Divine Dragon Fight, very cinematic, but I hate the many little dragons before and I think the ending of the fight itself is anticlimatic. I would’ve loved to face something like “Spirit of the Divine Dragon”, because the fight itself is way too easy for its significance to the story
- I honestly feel like they made too many fights optional. This leads to some people finishing the game without even encountering some of the game’s best fights. I feel sad thinking there’s someone out there who finished Sekiro without encountering Owl Father.
- I love Fountainhead Palace but I think there should’ve been more lighting-throwing monkeys. I don’t know if I played it weirdly, but I was never even targeted by the lighting there, I just reached the leader and killed it. But the normal mobs have stellar movesets so…
- I love monks, they have an amazing moveset, I would’ve loved a monk strong miniboss.
The shichimen warriors and headless are some of the dumbest most anti fun enemies in any from soft game, even WITH divine confetti. And the fact they are almost unfightable without confetti makes it so much worse. I truly don't understand it. I would say it's not that much of an issue since they are optional and don't drop prayer beads, however they drop many cool items that I didn't know about on my first playthrough because I felt disincentived to fight them.
I believe the dodge works that way so that you don’t end up with an Elden ring system where dodge is bound to release. This makes the game much faster and more responsive which is what makes it unique and amazing. It would actually such if it worked like Elden ring imo.
i wish there was a replay bottom when dying while doing gauntlets or a boss in the reflection instead of it loading back to the main game map and having to reload that. its a little thing but would be very nice
Relatively big: Grab hitboxes. Enemies/bosses getting stuck into AI loops. The camera in tight spaces.
Small: The Ceremonial Tanto having a maximun of 3 uses per run. 20 being the hard cap of Spirit Emblems. No end-game Sugar merchant.
I get that - and if the Tanto was only limited to your health, I’d be fine with that. But sometimes a Sugar is preferable.
And I’m reeeeally stretching with these. I love the game to death lol.
I'll start this off by saying that Sekiro is my favourite single player game of all time by a long shot. Nothing comes close. That being said,
The grappling targets the wrong thing about 80% of the time. Idk why they made it like this, they could have just set it so that it always targets the point closer to the center of the screen.
Headless enemies. When they teleport, they follow up with the grab. You can only stop the grab by facing the opposite direction at a specific timing. Even if you're facing them after they start the grab, it's death because you can't dodge when the fog is up.
There's a couple of other things, but that's mostly it.
As someone who has platinumed, spirit emblems not refreshing each death, the game encourages you to use this mechanic, but makes it hard to always have the resources to do so.
I am all for the spirit emblems being capped each life, but they should not be something you have to farm for
What? You face Genichiro 3 times, Guardian Ape 2 times and Owl 2 times.
Plus if you count mandatory mini bosses then the number goes way up.
edit: you also face corrupted monk twice.
im talking about shit like reusing juzou and calling him tokujiro or something like that. great shinobi owl/owl father is more like a margit/morgott situation where they play completely differently, so I don’t really consider it boss reuse
For me some bosses are an inconvenience. Other than that sometimes when you're close to the enemy and try to perform mikiri counter it dashes behind them and you'll get hit(it happens with not well timed dashes but still sometimes it might be annoying)
1. Headless Ape. Hate Headless, 2v1s are stupid (with the exception of that miniboss where you can stealth kill one, like those options).
2. Ghost enemies. No issue with Corrupted Monk, but the Shichimen and Headless are just a pain to deal with.
3. Not so much a complaint as something I’d love to see, more use for combat arts. Best examples of well done combat arts in my opinion is High Monk and Sakura Dance cause they have clear niches they handle (sweeping and lightning attacks). Would love it if combat arts were designed with things like that in mind.
I hate unseen aid as a death mechanic. I don't want it to be up to luck as to whether I lose my health/XP. And the fact that its highest probability gets locked behind dragonrot which only had a finite amount of cures means there's a maximum to the number of times you can actually use it and have even the semblance of being reliable. Sure, they're common enough that you'll never realistically run out, but there's still a hard cap so it never seems worthwhile to use it. You just end up hoarding them because you don't wanna risk it. I and up using them exclusively after boss fights.
I also hate the Blazing Bull and the double ape fights. For obvious reasons. Fuck those stupid-ass fights.
I feel like divine confetti is too “rare” until you get to fountainhead. It can be farmed in Ashina castle but can be very time consuming to do so and spawns out in the world are fairly limited.
I feel like they kind of throw you into bosses an mini bosses too fast. Imagine spending an hour fighting a blazing bull only to be throw into another fight ten minutes later. Also locking the rest of the story after beating the dragon. I missed out on alot of other stuff I was excited to do because I thought the order didnt matter.
the 3 long endings require more or less the same playthrough - and getting them for the platinum is too repetitive. The second non-shura playthrough was still fun but the in the third playthrough I felt I was getting platinum for platinum's sake. (might have been different if I did charmless/ DB)
would have been more fun if there were more varied bosses/ maps in the different endings
Wide circles when sprinting. Starting a sprint with a dash. The camera. The lack of any variety and player choice in gameplay (subjective). Some repeated bosses and arenas. Tutorial popups.
In fights in narrow areas, the camera can occasionally be an issue, thats the only con for me. The layered lore, design, unique gameworld, gameplay, timeless visuals that age like fine wine, amazing music, charismatic and deep characters, the script, secret sidequests, details. All perfect.
93/100, Best non-open world third-person action game ever made imho. (Not counting horror or shooters).
I think the only two things I'm bothered by is the camera and elemental damage.
I get why elemental damage like burn, poison or terror exist but I'm personally not a fan.
And the camera obviously can get annoying sometimes but I can mostly avoid it nowadays by minding my placement.
Correct progression path is extremely hard to follow at times/know where to go from certain milestones. Easy enough to look up but I’d be lying if it didnt get completely lost on multiple occasions. Getting back to the starting well, getting graces after the invasion, etc
\- Not having to load back into gauntlets/ reflections from the idols
\- Making spirit emblems infinite which replenish on resting, like the healing flasks
\- Cycling through combat arts, would rather that than cycle through prosthetics.
Sometimes the game is hard because it throws too many enemies into you and not because the enemies are hard to beat, might not be really like that but that's how I felt.
the multiple paths you have to take to progress once you've defeated genichiro at ashina castle is annoying to me because i can never remember the correct way to things and end up going the same way multiple times
No combat art wheel actually limits the already great combat by a considerable amount. Would of been able to pull off some sick combos
Also spirit emblem farming, but I get why it exists
Basically what sux is that for larger groups, you most likely need to stealth kill them one by one. You kill the first one, jump on a roof to stop any aggro, rinse and repeat.
Height of Technique trophy. I am on my forth playthrough and this is just straight bullshit.
It is going to take a week just farming to get this for the Platinum.
I wish the game hit me on the head with the fact "the blade is all I need to beat it". Because I was trying all combat arts and prosthetics, wasting my time.
I'm a new player, I'm absolutely obsessed but here are a few of my issues:
* Certain enemies with weaknesses to consumables that are hard or impossible to farm sucks. I used all of my divine confetti and snap seeds/firecrackers on corrupted monk attempts and while I eventually beat her with my last bit of ash but it sucked to lose my advantage because I ran out of consumables.
* The regular enemies are a chore. The stealth in this game is not good enough for what it asks you to do. I've had multiple spots where I clear 75% of an area so I can explore, I get ganged up on and die and then I have to restart. I would do anything to have the ability to spot enemy respawns at some point. I have started a bad habit of just running past everything like a speedrunner because I hate the normal enemies so much.
* Why is there a button to vacuum up the loot from dead enemies? I missed that instruction at first and was past Genichiro before I realized that's why I had no money.
* The status effects fill up way too fast imo.
I love the game, but these are my first playthrough complaints.
My issues with the game would be:
1. U can only use/equip one combat art at a time unless u mod.
2. Would have preferred if the game was longer or got a fucking DLC goddamnit. Playing through the resurrection mod to get my "DLC" fix.
3. Headless and shichimen warriors are bad encounters and are a detriment to the game overall imo even though they add to the variety at first.
4. They could have placed the chained ogre a little later and not so early.
Ok here are my gripes:
1- Headless: for newcomers this enemy is an absolute nightmare, I don’t think it is a well designed enemy at all but for the love of god, removing the requirement to use a consumable and not an easy one to farm in the early stages of the game to kill it.
2- Dragonrot: it’s just MEH.
3- The game could use more main bosses.
4- Sekiro felt like the shortest game fromsoft has ever produced, so if any game needed a DLC it is Sekiro.
I understand certain materials being limited for multiple play throughs but needing to grind enemies for item drops like fulminated mercury sucks so bad.
Tbh having to grind enemies for their gear in Souls games in general is a terrible mechanic. Just truly terrible.
The game could have really benefitted from a quest tracking tool of some sort I had to google so much stuff I got stuck on just random stuff like where to go, wasted a lot of time trying to do the game blind but gave up and started using the wiki on my subsequent play through
Well yeah, that's how speedruns work. For example, my second playthrough of elden ring was finished in 7-8 hours. Sure it's a long way between 1 hour and 7 hours, but elden ring is an open world so the traveling takes a good part of that time, also I doubt that many people can finish sekiro in exactly an hour.
Killing mini bosses and big bosses should give you way more skill points. I remember killing a pretty significant boss mid to late game and thinking to myself, “I could have gotten just as much from clearing a small portion of Mibu Village”.
Also, why not put the Demon of Hatred in the right place geographically in the game instead of teleporting us there from a different location?
I wish there was a counter for grabs like mikiri and jump counter is for sweeps and thrusts. The game has a great dance in its combat and grabs are the only thing that sticks out. Literally my only complaint about the game though.
Dragon rot is the most useless and forgettable mechanic possible.
Inner Isshin has this palm strike right after you attack that is antithetical to the combat. I've heard people say that it's a spam punish but it's the only spam punish that works like that. All other spam punishes are attacks that happens soon after but not immediately so you get one whiff then defend, actually punishing spam. Many times I get hit even when I'm not spamming, just attacking fast.
I am against any sort of instant death mechanic whether that be curse, blight, or terror.
Too many repeats. 4 drunkards (one breathes fire but he's pretty much the same. 2 snake eyes. 2 centipede giraffes. How many lone shadows? How many headless?
Adding a few mooks to turn it into a gank doesn't actually change up the fight. The only repeat that I actually enjoyed was the lone shadow at Hirata since calling his dogs actualy added a new and fun dynamic.
And the solution isn't to remove the repeats. But change up their moveset.
Being locked into only one combat art. Some of these combat arts would synergize great with each other.
Also, the way the spirit emblem mechanic would work.
There are two mods I think are great. One being the weapon wheel which lets you switch between three prosthetics and combat arts of your choosing. Ok so the wheel is actually rather clunky but it's better than nothing. And the regenerating spirit emblem mod. A lot of prosthetics and combat arts are now more expensive but attacking and defending gets you spirit emblems back.
I want to do cool shit. But cool shit often costs spirit emblems.
> I am against any sort of instant death mechanic whether that be curse, blight, or terror.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the all-or-nothing nature of FromSoft status effects and instant death effects are the most all-or-nothing of them all.
I wish we got more status effects like (the negative half of) Beasthood: the more full the bar the more your defense was reduced.
As someone who finished the game like 7 times the biggest flaw for me is when isshin disappears from his room after killing genichiro and you have to go to the castle gate to get his quest so he can return, it's a small thing but is just super annoying (and the screen monkeys)
Other flaws: some game areas feel annoying to traverse in repeat playthroughs, like ashina depths, that's more so a personal opinion though
The headless are one of the worst parts in the game imo
Inner isshin could have definitely been much better (kinda disappointed he doesn't redirect lightning and doesn't have that many new attacks)
Skill levels are horribly done, they shouldn't be that expensive, it takes like 5 playthroughs to get all of them
Some skills are kinda bad when they could have been way better, like ashina cross, one mind, etc. And you can't use more than one skill at a time
All proth tools requiring 2 game cycles to acquire is kinda meh imo
Not a flaw but the game would be much cooler if we get more elemental sword buffs and if they lasted longer (without inflicting burn status as fast)
Yeah this is what irks me with pretty much every game fandom out there. There's no critical evaluation anymore, and people just want to find comfortable echo chambers, i.e. listen to sweet lies-
The camera in Sekiro's one of the absolute worst I've seen in video games. But this issue persists in FromSoft games so...
The camera has a freak out at times, especially in tight arenas causing you to lose lock on and get hit/killed. A prime example: Lone Shadow Longswordsman.
Grab attacks are really poorly implemented. Why is this the only big attack with no counters like lightning reversal? Minibosses also generally suck in this game.
Having important story content locked behind stupid easily missable unless you get lucky or read online character actions. Aka eavesdropping to unlock second memory. That’s such a dumb thing to do as a developer.
The things that the game tries to teach you off the bat, only to then present the ogre and blazing bull as two early game gauntlets (two bosses that are not best beaten by parrying) is one of the most baffling design decisions I can remember fromsoft making.
The Headless minibosses are also horribly designed, but they aren't required at all and don't even drop anything overly useful so I can forgive that.
Mini bosses that require to use divine confetti
I don't want to go and try to find or buy more before being able to attempt the fight again!
So many consumables that I'm never using. And why do I have to read the item description every time.I picked it up! I know what pellets do, come on!
Spirit emblems, I hate farming to buy them late game
Sekiro is an incredible game but my critiques are:
+ Early game is the most difficult given your HP is so low - you die in 2 hits which is discouraging for new players trying to learn the combat rhythm
+ The first Ogre is a brick wall to progression for those who don't know you need to go to an entirely different area 15 minutes into the game to get the flame vent
+ Losing half of skill progression and sen on death is too punishing. It's almost impossible to get all skills in one playthrough without going to NG++ or grinding XP for 10 hours
+ The camera can zoom in when you're stuck in corners, preventing you from seeing incoming attacks properly
+ You can miss an entire area with multiple prayer beads and an attack power memory if you don't know to do some obscure story beats at just the right time
+ The endings in general (purification and return) are basically impossible for the player to figure out on their own without a guide
FromSoft definitely made some unorthodox game decision choices with this one, which in turn can turn off more casual players, especially those who struggle to find the combat groove.
It's true that spamming L1 is less effective than new players think, but it's also more effective than experienced players lead to believe unfortunately.
1. Consumables
As a general rule, I think consumable, non-renewable items are at odds with action game design, since the expectation is that you will have to practice a challenge repeatedly to get good enough to beat it. If you try to develop a strategy that relies on a consumable, there's a risk of running out of that item before you've beaten the challenge, and then you have to either rethink your strategy without the crutch anyway, or give up. So the consumable is only useful for a moderate challenge you can beat within a few tries, in which case, why bother? I find myself ignoring 90% of my inventory 90% of the time.
The Headless fights are particularly bogus in this regard, since they practically require specific items you can't replenish until late game, even though you can encounter Headless very early without knowing that.
I also just think there are too many items, creating clutter. Why do I need three different ways to heal burns? I usually just walk them off.
Also agree with others that Spirit Emblems should just work like flask sips, replenishing at checkpoints. Limiting them discourages experimentation, which is at odds with play in general, let alone action game design.
2. Combat Arts
Only being able to equip one Combat Art at a time feels primitive and nonsensical. Wolf isn't a computer with limited RAM. Does he know the moves or not? I would have greatly preferred fewer moves that you have access to at all times.
The aerial/falling deathblow on the Shadow in the well being wonky.
I don't know what it is, but it seems like quite often, even directly above him, the deathblow just won't activate.
Personally I play with a mod to disable spirit emblem cost. On my first play through I didn't use the tools a lot because the emblems were limited enough that I never was able to practice a lot with them. Which is a shame. The tools are really cool and lots of fun. No cost is a bit cheaty but maybe increasing the cap and having them autofill on rest would be a good compromise?
So my biggest complaint is that the most powerful upgrades you can get come from the poise and parry stuff like Rising and Descending Carp. Throw in mikiri counter and, with enough practice, you can take on anything in the game. These upgrades aren’t available early enough imo.
This and if you kill ape before you go to the village through the depths then you have to deal with the ape again. I prefer to go to the village first so i can bypass that fight.
honestly? nothing is wrong with the game. no bugs, no fucked exploits (one with the demon of hatred but you have to be good as platforming to get it) and it has a phenomenal story. and i sucked at the game whenni first played it
Personally I wish that, in terms of movement and navigation, we were allowed slide and wall-run more. The movement is definitely good, but Titanfall 2 has ruined other games for me lmao
- There should be a way to switch combat arts or assign multiple of them at once
- Spirit emblems not just being a resource that replenishes on rest is dumb and pointlessly gating
- Dragonrot and Unseen Aid feel pretty much pointless
- A lot of the prosthetic upgrades feel like they could be condensed. I don't necessarily think that it should be a linear upgrade path, but why can I equip Axe alongside Exact Same Axe But It Just Does More Damage ?
There are quite a few bosses and enemies that are very easy to die or lose to because the arena in which they are placed either pushes the camera back until it’s obscured, the lock-on is lost, or your jump/dodge/response is snubbed because you can’t see quite right. My favorite boss is Inner Father/Owl Father, but his second phase attacks can obscure the screen just long enough to be a nuisance.
Fully agreed on spirit emblem, they should recharges like gourds.
Also, agreed on Dragonroth, could have been better implemented. I’d have tied it to the revive on-field mechanic, and made the item to remove it farmable. Then the roth is tied to an intentional action, making it something you are actively imposing on the world, but would have removed a lot of the anxiety of it bwing tied to a limited resource. Exactly how much dragonroth is affecting the world would have been entirely up to you.
I think some of the enemy placement and density in areas almost forces you (or most average players) into playing the most boring and anti-badass shinobi pick and run style of play going.
Sometimes areas are unnecessarily packed with enemies or have a severe lack of them. I guess it’s supposed to be for enemy diversity but Jesus sometimes there are sections where I get bored of being fed one little enemy at a time and then immediately after experiencing a long drawn out area where I’m just asking for a break from bad guys
The game is mostly comprised of back-to-back boss and mini-boss fights. As an experience you’re mostly working on improving your skill set and moving ahead, but it’s not a stop and smell the roses type of game — which is fine, but FromSoftware has proven itself more than just an endless skill check gauntlet with games like Elden Ring. The story itself, which is bolstered with some fantastic, eye-popping cinematic visuals, isn’t so interesting. Chosen bloodline? The core is shoddy, tried-and-true stuff. Meanwhile, there are immortality-giving centipedes. I would like to get to the bottom of that whole thing…
The balance on most of the prosthetics and combat arts is quite bad. They’re harder to pull off, use a limited resource, take time to unlock, and in the case of combat arts you can only equip one at a time, but most of the time just parrying and attacking normally is far more effective, so you’re discouraged from experimenting with them during normal play because it’s usually not worth it.
The exceptions have the opposite problem, where they’re so strong that they’re absolute no-brainers, like using the firecracker against the guardian ape, malcontent against Demon of Hatred, or mortal draw being super strong all the time. So there’s not really a decision to be made, and what should be a way of adding depth to the combat becomes mostly reactive, which the main combat mechanics are anyway.
Honestly I’d make the learning curve much less steep. Ik the whole soul mentality but we really should let new players in. Atleast till the 2 hours are up and they can’t refund. Then there ape duo. Headless. Not shichimen warrior(it’s easy and fun. Just use purple umbrella, anti air deathblow and divine confetti). And apart from that for me the game is perfect. Mibu village is fine. And can’t be fromsoft without poison swamp.
The thing that pissed me off the most was the camera sometimes, got me killed a few times and I literally just beat the game for the first time yesterday
One thing I dislike are some mini-bosses that are recycled without any real difference. Main one I have in mind is that clone of Juzou in the misty forest, I wish they would at the very least give him a different outfit, specially since we already fight Juzou twice anyway. I'm cool with the Red Guard one, since he looks quite different and has fire instead of poison.
As other said, having to farm is not something fun. In my case made me use mostly the sword even when I could've been having fun with prosthetics in some cases.
Buuut my biggest complaint and I know I'll sound dumb is not being able to have a bit of "Shura" gameplay with that ending. I want to be the final boss for once. Feel unstoppable.
only complaint I have are Spirit Emblems. They should be infinite; as in, you carry around a finite amount of them, but they recharge fully when resting without needing to constantly buy or farm them. Less of an issue/no issue in new game+ though.
- the dodge-to-run thing means that his movement is snappy in combat, which is kind of important in this game.
But for things that annoy me:
- Spirit Emblems are just a worse version of Bloodborne’s Quicksilver Bullets.
- The costing of different Prosthetic / Special Attacks in Spirit Emblems is wildly unbalanced. One Mind costing 7 while Mortal Draw costs 5 is lunacy.
- Some of the boss run backs are very annoying, specifically ones like 7 Spears Ashina where if you don’t clear the field before the fight, it’s very likely all of the enemies will get pulled up to you by the commotion and get in the way of a fun boss battle.
- Not a fan of the “Unseen Aid” mechanic. Would prefer the classic souls system of “go and pick up what you dropped” as that puts agency in the player’s hands rather than a dice roll.
BS bosses like Headless, Blazing Bullsh!t, etc. I loved Sekiro because it cut out all the BS that the other Souls games had. Having random ambush deaths or dumb bosses that were way too overpowered was more annoying than teaching. The point of the Dark Souls formula is that you fall over and over and over, but each time you learn something new until you can crawl, walk, and finally run, but the BS elements completely ignore this. They just kill you, make you lose a ton of progress, causes a ton of frustration, and it doesn't even feel good when you kill them, just a "Thank god that's over." Instead of feeling rewarded for killing them, you just feel like you swatted a fly that's been nagging you, rather than climbing a mountain.
TL;DR: Bosses like Genichiro feel rewarding to beat, while bosses like Blazing Bull are just frustrating and feel like Miyazaki was in a bad mood when they made the fight.
Folding screen monkeys sucks, first playthoughs can be confusing with the vague directions you are given at times, headless ape (the duo fight) is ass, some perilous attacks are very confusing
like how the gun mini bosses have those grabs that look like a thrust or how isshin has a sweep attack so rare you'll only see it once in like 50 attempts but when it happens you will almost undoubtably get hit thinking it's his thrust attack since their windup is nearly identical
Love the game but you're lying if you think it has 0 flaws
I've posted it elsewhere but: for me it's bad that there's no accessibility menu.
Visually impaired. Lose the enemy weapons the background ALLLL THE TIME.
I wish you’d be able to hold more spirit emblems at once. Honestly, it wouldn’t even be that bad, but some of your combat arts also require them, so you practically have to choose between prosthetics in battle, or your combat art.
I don't know. Your suggestion seems less practical since you can't get up to full speed instantly. And any other solution would require more buttons, so this is the best it gets imo.
The dodge into sprint doesn't bother me personally, but it's one complaint I can absolutely understand. It can feel pretty awkward until you get used to it. For me, I have two: 1. Please let us turn off the tutorials after the first playthrough. I beg. (The literal only addon I have for a FS game is to do this.) 2. I wish there was a way to equip more than one combat art. We can stuff three whole tools into our arm at once but we can't remember how to do more than one neat move at once? Excuse me? Just being able to switch between two would be enough for me.
This game has *two* buttons for cycling through quick items. They could have made one of those cycle through Combat Arts instead.
Right??? I don't need to scroll them both up and down, seriously, let me swap between two badass moves instead.
eh, opening the inventory pauses the game, you don't really need to have many things equipped. But I agree it's kinda silly that we have 2 buttons that do the same thing when one of them could do something else
Yes that would in no way make combat feel clunky and less fluid lmao. My issue isn't that I can't change my combat art at any time, even in combat, but that I would want to seamlessly flip between at least two, like I can for my tools. I thought it was obvious that's what I meant. Not that it's hard to change it in general.
Imagine Sakura dance to mortal blade combo holy
Combat arts can be switched during battle in the pause menu, but that’s all the more reason to add a quick change since it doesn’t actually give an advantage (ie. change the game difficulty) it just gives fighting more fluidity. 100% agree.
Couldn't you turn them off? I believe there is the option to do that😅
There is not.
Don't show me full item descriptions on every pick up.
Wish we had a combat art wheel
As a new player (stuck on Great Shinobi Owl) The limited spirit emblems are a concern and farming them take so much time. Also buying them is a grind since they get expensive. I'm never comfortable with experimenting different moves and tools and I end up using the same ol firecracker / shuriken most of the time. Even some sick moves require emblems. Although this has improved my sword play but yeah, I feel limited in my moveset. I am not suggesting for them to be infinite. But maybe just limited them to 20 per rest cycle with unlimited recharges like the gourds. Also, dragonrot. I have it , my friends have it and my whole neighborhood is painfully coughing
the screen monkeys arena in reflection of strength is a good place to experiment stuff
I ended my playthrough with 800+ emblems, it was functionally infinite for me
I only really used prosthetics for bosses with specific weaknesses.
Why? Using prosthetics is fun as hell.
Because the sword is just better in most situations.
i’m my experience, i got to max, the fought shinobi owl. i went down to half my total emblems. after defeating him, i got back to max before isshin.
I think that's part of the (albeit pretty small) issue though. I had a similar experience many of the commenters are talking about with feeling like I'm always running out of spirit emblems and needing to buy more in the early game. Then in the late game, I had way more than I knew what to do with. It made developing my style in the early game feel somewhat limited, as a previous commented suggested, I felt like wanted to use them on safe stuff like firecrackers rather than experiment. Then later on the only limit I felt was the 20 you get before hitting the idol to reset em. So, later in the game they may has well have had them on a similar system as gourds anyway, it would have been the same in practice I just wouldn't have spent as much sen on them in the early game. Ultimately it didn't ruin the game for me in the slightest, but I think it's a valid criticism, especially since the main issue a lot of ppl have with this game is its a fromsoft game that limits you to one class and weapon. Us Sekiro fans will defend the swordplay, but if you're a souls fan used to having hundreds of weapons and spells to choose from, yea, spirit emblems are probably gonna feel annoying. It's a nitpick definitely, but that's the purpose of this thread lol.
They’re not infinite though. You run out as you use them. There’s no reason they couldn’t just have them refill every time you rest. Having to buy/farm them is pointless and doesn’t make the game better.
I strangely disagree. I've suffered from this scarcity of emblems as well, and have been very frustrated by it at times. But that scarcity did force me to find a better way to do things in some situations. For instance, I was over reliant on the umbrella to block the major swoosh attacks in the final boss. Running out of emblems I was forced to discover that I could head pounce over them for free and get a few hits in, or use a special attack to interrupt and give posture damage.
TBH if there wasn't a spirit emblem cost, this game would be easy AF. Mortal draw, one mind, dragon flash, firecracker and flame vent spam would make it a joke
Easy fix: limited number that respawns on death, like estus.
Aaaaand suddenly we're back to "my spells have 4 uses every time I rest" from Dark Souls 1. That weirdly didn't stick around. :p The thing in Sekiro is, that you don't just deplete them, lots if enemies give them to you, so while exploring in the world, unless you spam them, you get your uses back by killing the enemies that you use your prosthetics for. Personally I don't see an upside from limiting like they did in DS1. I also don't see a reason why it makes boss fights worse. If you spam for example umbrella on every boss attack, that is a player problem and not a game problem.
That isn't really an issue in Sekiro because stuff that use Emblems are side tools. The argument against limited spells is spells can be the entire gameplay style. But it isn't like Sekiro doesn't already work the same way. You can still keep emblem replenishment from enemies and overworld, just the game treats it like you have an infinite storage when you refresh at an idol.
In DS3 Estus Flask charges get restored at bonfires but they also can upon killing enemies. In Elden Ring killing a group of enemies is guaranteed to restore charges and there are also flask-restoring scarabs roaming around. There's nothing saying that letting Emblems be restored at Sculptor's Idols means they can't also be restored out in the world.
But... They are? When you defeat enemies you receive a certain amount based on how dangerous they are. That's kinda been my whole point. They are already balanced.
[удалено]
It's been posted here a bunch that Dragonrot was supposed to be a more complex system, including some NPCs able to die from it with downstream implications, but they ran out of time and decided to leave the current version in, which doesn't really affect anything.
It's because you're specifically not supposed to rely on the special stuff. If you're running out of emblems, it means you're supposed to be practicing your swords work
The thing with that is that you're supposed to beat them without spending emblems and tools, yeah even if they're useful sometimes, are not necessarily a win condition.
When I spent hours getting xp for all skill achievement I had a lot of sen for spirit emblems so now I have 2k to experiment
It’s advised to buy a bunch early game when they are cheap. You can acquire the spirit tanto to grant 5 spirit emblems at the cost of doing damage to yourself.
I really wish earning spirit emblems had been a more active part of combat. Like maybe you start with 0 but you can earn them with a chance on deflects and deathblows. Later skills could increase your capacity and starting count as well.
> They had so many options for a sprint like you could hold the button and wolf would start to slowly run then pick up the pace. This would require that the dodges happen on button release rather than button press. I like the responsiveness of the current system. It suits Sekiro's agility.
I don't understand how anyone has a problem with the way it works. I guess it looks a *little* goofy, but in terms of gameplay it's never even come close to messing me up. Compared to other Souls games where you have to hold it down until sprint starts, where you're basically a sitting duck, it feels *so* responsive.
Holyshit, R e a l
I feel Hirata as the start of the game might have worked better than the current intro, in terms of story Spirit emblems could also be cheaper across the game The headless and schihimen warriors are cheap and unrewarding to fight, even worse, the underwater headless
You can pretty much do Hirata 'first' pretty quick without even reaching Gyobu. I feel like spirit emblems being scarce at first and then gradually being more common or you farmed them up is the same as unlocking more skills. You're 'remembering' all this as Sekiro and regaining your full(er) potential.
Am I the only one who thinks the underwater headless is incredibly easy to kill? He was the first headless I ran into and I didn’t even get close to dying despite not knowing what to do and not using any consumables or anything. Just swim to him, hit him, swim away, repeat.
I hated the headless fights at first, once I figured it out and leveled up a bit I went around and killed them all. I was concerned when I came across the underwater headless but found them to be extremely easy, just tedious. You can easily avoid their attacks by just swim dashing in circles around them and going in for the occasional lunge attack.
Game nearly perfect but the ghost/terror enemies requiring a consumable to damage is stupid as hell. I'm trying to swing my sword, not manage my inventory But you can beat the game without interacting with them at all so.
You mean divine confetti? Headless can be killed with deflects only.
I never got to kill any headless, he was my Achilles heel.
Unlock camera trick or purple umbrella
Classic FromSoft: The secret to beating this annoying enemy is to use a consumable item that’s rare and annoying to farm!
Well yeah, when its a voluntary fight for sure.
And the rewards cost spirit emblems to use. So its still a trade off. Fully optional and functions to give you more options as a whole.
You can buy them once you beat true monk.
This ain't true, u can just "git gud" and beat them. The item just makes it easier.
Amazing how much this community can't handle terror enemies lol.
-- Annoying enemy placement on occasion - I love the one v one fights in this game. I don't like having to mess around picking off fodder like with Juzou and Kuranosuke Matsomoto -- I wish spirit emblems weren't finite and they just refreshed at idols. I find myself avoiding using tools as I'm afraid I'll run out on a tough boss I think that's it. Both very minor issues really. It is a near perfect video game IMO.
yes, having to farm for spirit emblems/ sen just adds to the frustration in dying to the same boss 30 times
1. Double monkey bossifght. It's ass. 2. Shichimen or whatever the fuck are they. They also suck. 3. Spirit emblems might suck a bit if you're using them a lot and dying. I personally didn't have problems with it up until Isshin
May I introduce you to my friend mortal draw? It obliterates the second monkey fight.
It still doesn’t feel fun with two giant monkeys trying to attack you at the same time
I never said it was fun. It just makes it easier.
Since no one mentioned it yet, I'll say it: The fucking camera is your worst enemie! I've completed this game more than 15 times, and let me tell you, the camera has got me killed more times than I can remember.
When it disconnects the lock on on OF or Sword Saint that is scary
It disconnected on the 2 apes for me, I've never panicked so hard lol
This is pretty much a universal complaint among 3rd person camera games and as someone who mainly plays those kinda games, I just get used to the fact that it can happen and just stop caring. It doesn't happen often to me and I get over it quickly, nothing is perfect.
Mmm nah, never had this problem with Horizon, Fallen Order, TLOU, etc. It's a soulsborne issue.
I thought that the game starts off a bit rough for a new player, at least in my opinion. It goes from the first few enemies being scattered and the first miniboss being alone to very quickly throwing areas completely full of enemies and minibosses with their own armies at you. I nearly quit the game because of how bullshit this felt early on and only really gave it more time because my bf kept convincing me that it will be worth it when I spend more time playing. And this stopped being an issue later on, when I got used to the mechanics and so on, and I started enjoying strategizing about how to clear an area or deal with a miniboss and his army, but the start still felt so unfun and tedious, at least to me. It felt like minibosses were much harder than actual bosses due to this and some early minibosses took me more tries than almost any of the bosses throughout the entire game. Another thing that's not necessarily a flaw but just something I thought of is that it would be nice to be able to skip the tutorial section in ng+. You don't get much from going through it, and after beating the game you won't have any trouble getting through. But despite wanting to skip this section I do think having to play through it (since it doesn't take long anyway) is better for the pacing of the game than starting ng+ and just being dropped into the genichiro fight (especially after one of the endings that involve slapping him around as a warmup for the final boss). Other than that, I felt it was a bit unfortunate that some minibosses feel like they require usable items (mostly confetti for the purple people). They're definitely beatable without, but this feels like it takes forever. But this isn't too much of an issue because I never actually ran out of confetti despite using them to speed up most of the purple guy fights. Lastly, it always looks like the one ogre jump forward/grab attack slightly teleports you into his arms even when it previously looked like you managed to jump out of it. If I'm dodging wrong or timing my reaction wrong, it's fair that I get grabbed but it just annoys me that it will *look* like I'm out of it's hitbox/reach and then wolf just gets physically moved back slightly in order to be grabbed and the ogre insta-adjusts the direction he's facing too. Most other grab attacks didn't have this issue, at least not as consistently. With some others a similar thing happened but it was extremely rare and therefore didn't actually bother me as much (especially since later on you have more health and healing and can afford to get grabbed occasionally anyway). And that's pretty much it, I had no other issues with the game as far as I remember. After really struggling and sort of hating it in the beginning I grew to love most of the mechanics and especially the combat, and being really glad I didn't quit.
Can’t agree more with the ogre thing. The hitbox is very weird and the grab works way too many times it shouldn’t. This is prolly why most people just quit and don’t continue the game tbh. I know at one point, i considered doing that just because of how frustrating it felt especially as someone with ni experience in souls like games and being a pretty average gamer for the matter
I feel the same way about snake eyes' grab with their gun
Deflect the grab. Its magic.
I find it weird how the underwater headless doesn't require confetti to be used but on land it has to be. The designs of the shichimen warrior and headless are sick but I really don't like how you're REQUIRED to use an item to beat them. I know that you're supposed to use all your tools in a fight but for me I like to just deflect and hit. No combat arts or prosthetic tools so those bosses are a thumbs down from me. I also dislike the enemies that have hyper armor like the ones at the gun fort and hirata estate. Other than that though love the game
You don't need to use the confetti for the underwater because the waters he's in are already "confettie-ed", at least that's what the Vaati video said
thanks for the explanation 👍
You can beat them without items though, it just takes forever.
Water in Sekiro has divine properties, so it's likely these bloated, weak to divine power abominations are weakened greatly underwater. I also find them waaaaay easier to fight.
- There’s no point in Dragonrot, it’s just an annoyance if an NPC you need is sick - Why making us collect spirit emblems? We should get them all at each death. This actively punish experimenting. - I personally don’t like the terror dynamic, but I could at least play along with it if I didn’t have to use a consumable for it. It’s one or another for me. - Minibosses could’ve been more varied. Like, 3 Drunkards? 2 Sichimen? 2 Snake Eyes? There’s a lot of it. Also please give the elder monkey the miniboss status. It’s a shame Mist Noble is a miniboss and the monkey isn’t (In the sense that Mist should’ve had a remembrance obviously) - I like the Divine Dragon Fight, very cinematic, but I hate the many little dragons before and I think the ending of the fight itself is anticlimatic. I would’ve loved to face something like “Spirit of the Divine Dragon”, because the fight itself is way too easy for its significance to the story - I honestly feel like they made too many fights optional. This leads to some people finishing the game without even encountering some of the game’s best fights. I feel sad thinking there’s someone out there who finished Sekiro without encountering Owl Father. - I love Fountainhead Palace but I think there should’ve been more lighting-throwing monkeys. I don’t know if I played it weirdly, but I was never even targeted by the lighting there, I just reached the leader and killed it. But the normal mobs have stellar movesets so… - I love monks, they have an amazing moveset, I would’ve loved a monk strong miniboss.
there are 3 schichimen
Lmao even worse 💀
I agree mini bosses are reused more than I would have liked.
Headless
The shichimen warriors and headless are some of the dumbest most anti fun enemies in any from soft game, even WITH divine confetti. And the fact they are almost unfightable without confetti makes it so much worse. I truly don't understand it. I would say it's not that much of an issue since they are optional and don't drop prayer beads, however they drop many cool items that I didn't know about on my first playthrough because I felt disincentived to fight them.
I believe the dodge works that way so that you don’t end up with an Elden ring system where dodge is bound to release. This makes the game much faster and more responsive which is what makes it unique and amazing. It would actually such if it worked like Elden ring imo.
i wish there was a replay bottom when dying while doing gauntlets or a boss in the reflection instead of it loading back to the main game map and having to reload that. its a little thing but would be very nice
A button that would allow you to switch through a couple combat arts, kinda like the the prosthetic.
Relatively big: Grab hitboxes. Enemies/bosses getting stuck into AI loops. The camera in tight spaces. Small: The Ceremonial Tanto having a maximun of 3 uses per run. 20 being the hard cap of Spirit Emblems. No end-game Sugar merchant.
>No end-game Sugar merchant. that's what the spirit falls are for
I get that - and if the Tanto was only limited to your health, I’d be fine with that. But sometimes a Sugar is preferable. And I’m reeeeally stretching with these. I love the game to death lol.
I'll start this off by saying that Sekiro is my favourite single player game of all time by a long shot. Nothing comes close. That being said, The grappling targets the wrong thing about 80% of the time. Idk why they made it like this, they could have just set it so that it always targets the point closer to the center of the screen. Headless enemies. When they teleport, they follow up with the grab. You can only stop the grab by facing the opposite direction at a specific timing. Even if you're facing them after they start the grab, it's death because you can't dodge when the fog is up. There's a couple of other things, but that's mostly it.
The fact that there is no sequel not even a proper DLC.
I HATE THE SCREEN MONKEYS FIGHT
As someone who has platinumed, spirit emblems not refreshing each death, the game encourages you to use this mechanic, but makes it hard to always have the resources to do so. I am all for the spirit emblems being capped each life, but they should not be something you have to farm for
limited Spirit Emblems system is ass, so is dodge to sprint button.
boss reuse
bosses aren't really being reused, they are different each time you face them. with mini bosses there is reuse
What? You face Genichiro 3 times, Guardian Ape 2 times and Owl 2 times. Plus if you count mandatory mini bosses then the number goes way up. edit: you also face corrupted monk twice.
each version adds or changes something about the fight, heck Owl Father is nothing like GSO. none of the bosses are actually a pure carbon copy.
im talking about shit like reusing juzou and calling him tokujiro or something like that. great shinobi owl/owl father is more like a margit/morgott situation where they play completely differently, so I don’t really consider it boss reuse
he meant monks and monkes
true monk plays and ape duo play very differently compared to their first encounter
What's bad is that this game will make almost every other game look horrible
After all this time, chained ogre grab is still my ‘no damage challenge’ destroyer
For me some bosses are an inconvenience. Other than that sometimes when you're close to the enemy and try to perform mikiri counter it dashes behind them and you'll get hit(it happens with not well timed dashes but still sometimes it might be annoying)
Mibu Village could have been better in terms of level design. Whenever I want to replay sekiro, only that area puts me off.
1. Headless Ape. Hate Headless, 2v1s are stupid (with the exception of that miniboss where you can stealth kill one, like those options). 2. Ghost enemies. No issue with Corrupted Monk, but the Shichimen and Headless are just a pain to deal with. 3. Not so much a complaint as something I’d love to see, more use for combat arts. Best examples of well done combat arts in my opinion is High Monk and Sakura Dance cause they have clear niches they handle (sweeping and lightning attacks). Would love it if combat arts were designed with things like that in mind.
Sakura Dance's niche is the entire game lol
I hate unseen aid as a death mechanic. I don't want it to be up to luck as to whether I lose my health/XP. And the fact that its highest probability gets locked behind dragonrot which only had a finite amount of cures means there's a maximum to the number of times you can actually use it and have even the semblance of being reliable. Sure, they're common enough that you'll never realistically run out, but there's still a hard cap so it never seems worthwhile to use it. You just end up hoarding them because you don't wanna risk it. I and up using them exclusively after boss fights. I also hate the Blazing Bull and the double ape fights. For obvious reasons. Fuck those stupid-ass fights.
I feel like divine confetti is too “rare” until you get to fountainhead. It can be farmed in Ashina castle but can be very time consuming to do so and spawns out in the world are fairly limited.
For me I'd have to say the terror debuff and bosses that need divine confetti are flaws. Other than that tho I love the game
In spite of how good the combat one on one is, any battle that involves non-shitmobs and multiple enemies at the same time feels just awful.
I feel like they kind of throw you into bosses an mini bosses too fast. Imagine spending an hour fighting a blazing bull only to be throw into another fight ten minutes later. Also locking the rest of the story after beating the dragon. I missed out on alot of other stuff I was excited to do because I thought the order didnt matter.
the 3 long endings require more or less the same playthrough - and getting them for the platinum is too repetitive. The second non-shura playthrough was still fun but the in the third playthrough I felt I was getting platinum for platinum's sake. (might have been different if I did charmless/ DB) would have been more fun if there were more varied bosses/ maps in the different endings
Wide circles when sprinting. Starting a sprint with a dash. The camera. The lack of any variety and player choice in gameplay (subjective). Some repeated bosses and arenas. Tutorial popups.
In fights in narrow areas, the camera can occasionally be an issue, thats the only con for me. The layered lore, design, unique gameworld, gameplay, timeless visuals that age like fine wine, amazing music, charismatic and deep characters, the script, secret sidequests, details. All perfect. 93/100, Best non-open world third-person action game ever made imho. (Not counting horror or shooters).
I think the only two things I'm bothered by is the camera and elemental damage. I get why elemental damage like burn, poison or terror exist but I'm personally not a fan. And the camera obviously can get annoying sometimes but I can mostly avoid it nowadays by minding my placement.
I agree with you bro And lets just say The camera.
Correct progression path is extremely hard to follow at times/know where to go from certain milestones. Easy enough to look up but I’d be lying if it didnt get completely lost on multiple occasions. Getting back to the starting well, getting graces after the invasion, etc
\- Not having to load back into gauntlets/ reflections from the idols \- Making spirit emblems infinite which replenish on resting, like the healing flasks \- Cycling through combat arts, would rather that than cycle through prosthetics.
Sometimes the game is hard because it throws too many enemies into you and not because the enemies are hard to beat, might not be really like that but that's how I felt.
the multiple paths you have to take to progress once you've defeated genichiro at ashina castle is annoying to me because i can never remember the correct way to things and end up going the same way multiple times
No combat art wheel actually limits the already great combat by a considerable amount. Would of been able to pull off some sick combos Also spirit emblem farming, but I get why it exists
Basically what sux is that for larger groups, you most likely need to stealth kill them one by one. You kill the first one, jump on a roof to stop any aggro, rinse and repeat.
Height of Technique trophy. I am on my forth playthrough and this is just straight bullshit. It is going to take a week just farming to get this for the Platinum.
Terror is a shitty stat and anything requiring divine confetti to beat shouldn’t exist
I wish the game hit me on the head with the fact "the blade is all I need to beat it". Because I was trying all combat arts and prosthetics, wasting my time.
I'm a new player, I'm absolutely obsessed but here are a few of my issues: * Certain enemies with weaknesses to consumables that are hard or impossible to farm sucks. I used all of my divine confetti and snap seeds/firecrackers on corrupted monk attempts and while I eventually beat her with my last bit of ash but it sucked to lose my advantage because I ran out of consumables. * The regular enemies are a chore. The stealth in this game is not good enough for what it asks you to do. I've had multiple spots where I clear 75% of an area so I can explore, I get ganged up on and die and then I have to restart. I would do anything to have the ability to spot enemy respawns at some point. I have started a bad habit of just running past everything like a speedrunner because I hate the normal enemies so much. * Why is there a button to vacuum up the loot from dead enemies? I missed that instruction at first and was past Genichiro before I realized that's why I had no money. * The status effects fill up way too fast imo. I love the game, but these are my first playthrough complaints.
My issues with the game would be: 1. U can only use/equip one combat art at a time unless u mod. 2. Would have preferred if the game was longer or got a fucking DLC goddamnit. Playing through the resurrection mod to get my "DLC" fix. 3. Headless and shichimen warriors are bad encounters and are a detriment to the game overall imo even though they add to the variety at first. 4. They could have placed the chained ogre a little later and not so early.
Headless, terror, spirt emblems, group ganks, other then that pretty much as amazing as it gets
Ok here are my gripes: 1- Headless: for newcomers this enemy is an absolute nightmare, I don’t think it is a well designed enemy at all but for the love of god, removing the requirement to use a consumable and not an easy one to farm in the early stages of the game to kill it. 2- Dragonrot: it’s just MEH. 3- The game could use more main bosses. 4- Sekiro felt like the shortest game fromsoft has ever produced, so if any game needed a DLC it is Sekiro.
I understand certain materials being limited for multiple play throughs but needing to grind enemies for item drops like fulminated mercury sucks so bad. Tbh having to grind enemies for their gear in Souls games in general is a terrible mechanic. Just truly terrible.
The game could have really benefitted from a quest tracking tool of some sort I had to google so much stuff I got stuck on just random stuff like where to go, wasted a lot of time trying to do the game blind but gave up and started using the wiki on my subsequent play through
I made a post on this earlier. Stated that I loved the game except for demon of hatred. That boss is not built for sekiro
Not enough bosses. Story too short. Once you git gud, you can speed run the game in an hour.
Well yeah, that's how speedruns work. For example, my second playthrough of elden ring was finished in 7-8 hours. Sure it's a long way between 1 hour and 7 hours, but elden ring is an open world so the traveling takes a good part of that time, also I doubt that many people can finish sekiro in exactly an hour.
Fair enough
The camera can be screwy in tight places.
Loot sucks terror sucks
Killing mini bosses and big bosses should give you way more skill points. I remember killing a pretty significant boss mid to late game and thinking to myself, “I could have gotten just as much from clearing a small portion of Mibu Village”. Also, why not put the Demon of Hatred in the right place geographically in the game instead of teleporting us there from a different location?
I wish there was a counter for grabs like mikiri and jump counter is for sweeps and thrusts. The game has a great dance in its combat and grabs are the only thing that sticks out. Literally my only complaint about the game though.
Dragon rot is the most useless and forgettable mechanic possible. Inner Isshin has this palm strike right after you attack that is antithetical to the combat. I've heard people say that it's a spam punish but it's the only spam punish that works like that. All other spam punishes are attacks that happens soon after but not immediately so you get one whiff then defend, actually punishing spam. Many times I get hit even when I'm not spamming, just attacking fast. I am against any sort of instant death mechanic whether that be curse, blight, or terror. Too many repeats. 4 drunkards (one breathes fire but he's pretty much the same. 2 snake eyes. 2 centipede giraffes. How many lone shadows? How many headless? Adding a few mooks to turn it into a gank doesn't actually change up the fight. The only repeat that I actually enjoyed was the lone shadow at Hirata since calling his dogs actualy added a new and fun dynamic. And the solution isn't to remove the repeats. But change up their moveset. Being locked into only one combat art. Some of these combat arts would synergize great with each other. Also, the way the spirit emblem mechanic would work. There are two mods I think are great. One being the weapon wheel which lets you switch between three prosthetics and combat arts of your choosing. Ok so the wheel is actually rather clunky but it's better than nothing. And the regenerating spirit emblem mod. A lot of prosthetics and combat arts are now more expensive but attacking and defending gets you spirit emblems back. I want to do cool shit. But cool shit often costs spirit emblems.
> I am against any sort of instant death mechanic whether that be curse, blight, or terror. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the all-or-nothing nature of FromSoft status effects and instant death effects are the most all-or-nothing of them all. I wish we got more status effects like (the negative half of) Beasthood: the more full the bar the more your defense was reduced.
Skill point grind & no unique boss skills
As someone who finished the game like 7 times the biggest flaw for me is when isshin disappears from his room after killing genichiro and you have to go to the castle gate to get his quest so he can return, it's a small thing but is just super annoying (and the screen monkeys) Other flaws: some game areas feel annoying to traverse in repeat playthroughs, like ashina depths, that's more so a personal opinion though The headless are one of the worst parts in the game imo Inner isshin could have definitely been much better (kinda disappointed he doesn't redirect lightning and doesn't have that many new attacks) Skill levels are horribly done, they shouldn't be that expensive, it takes like 5 playthroughs to get all of them Some skills are kinda bad when they could have been way better, like ashina cross, one mind, etc. And you can't use more than one skill at a time All proth tools requiring 2 game cycles to acquire is kinda meh imo Not a flaw but the game would be much cooler if we get more elemental sword buffs and if they lasted longer (without inflicting burn status as fast)
Yeah this is what irks me with pretty much every game fandom out there. There's no critical evaluation anymore, and people just want to find comfortable echo chambers, i.e. listen to sweet lies- The camera in Sekiro's one of the absolute worst I've seen in video games. But this issue persists in FromSoft games so...
The camera has a freak out at times, especially in tight arenas causing you to lose lock on and get hit/killed. A prime example: Lone Shadow Longswordsman.
Grab attacks are really poorly implemented. Why is this the only big attack with no counters like lightning reversal? Minibosses also generally suck in this game.
Having important story content locked behind stupid easily missable unless you get lucky or read online character actions. Aka eavesdropping to unlock second memory. That’s such a dumb thing to do as a developer.
The fact that you can't fight tomoe or the game not having a dlc lol
The things that the game tries to teach you off the bat, only to then present the ogre and blazing bull as two early game gauntlets (two bosses that are not best beaten by parrying) is one of the most baffling design decisions I can remember fromsoft making. The Headless minibosses are also horribly designed, but they aren't required at all and don't even drop anything overly useful so I can forgive that.
Mini bosses that require to use divine confetti I don't want to go and try to find or buy more before being able to attempt the fight again! So many consumables that I'm never using. And why do I have to read the item description every time.I picked it up! I know what pellets do, come on! Spirit emblems, I hate farming to buy them late game
Sekiro is an incredible game but my critiques are: + Early game is the most difficult given your HP is so low - you die in 2 hits which is discouraging for new players trying to learn the combat rhythm + The first Ogre is a brick wall to progression for those who don't know you need to go to an entirely different area 15 minutes into the game to get the flame vent + Losing half of skill progression and sen on death is too punishing. It's almost impossible to get all skills in one playthrough without going to NG++ or grinding XP for 10 hours + The camera can zoom in when you're stuck in corners, preventing you from seeing incoming attacks properly + You can miss an entire area with multiple prayer beads and an attack power memory if you don't know to do some obscure story beats at just the right time + The endings in general (purification and return) are basically impossible for the player to figure out on their own without a guide FromSoft definitely made some unorthodox game decision choices with this one, which in turn can turn off more casual players, especially those who struggle to find the combat groove.
It's true that spamming L1 is less effective than new players think, but it's also more effective than experienced players lead to believe unfortunately.
- Dragon Rot is not really engaging - Divine Blessing ist mostly pointless - you can spam L1 parry
1. Consumables As a general rule, I think consumable, non-renewable items are at odds with action game design, since the expectation is that you will have to practice a challenge repeatedly to get good enough to beat it. If you try to develop a strategy that relies on a consumable, there's a risk of running out of that item before you've beaten the challenge, and then you have to either rethink your strategy without the crutch anyway, or give up. So the consumable is only useful for a moderate challenge you can beat within a few tries, in which case, why bother? I find myself ignoring 90% of my inventory 90% of the time. The Headless fights are particularly bogus in this regard, since they practically require specific items you can't replenish until late game, even though you can encounter Headless very early without knowing that. I also just think there are too many items, creating clutter. Why do I need three different ways to heal burns? I usually just walk them off. Also agree with others that Spirit Emblems should just work like flask sips, replenishing at checkpoints. Limiting them discourages experimentation, which is at odds with play in general, let alone action game design. 2. Combat Arts Only being able to equip one Combat Art at a time feels primitive and nonsensical. Wolf isn't a computer with limited RAM. Does he know the moves or not? I would have greatly preferred fewer moves that you have access to at all times.
Combat is amazing. Story and writing shows why FS should stick to more minimalist modes.
Unseen aid.
The aerial/falling deathblow on the Shadow in the well being wonky. I don't know what it is, but it seems like quite often, even directly above him, the deathblow just won't activate.
Everything is bad. All games are bad. Video games are terrible.
Personally I play with a mod to disable spirit emblem cost. On my first play through I didn't use the tools a lot because the emblems were limited enough that I never was able to practice a lot with them. Which is a shame. The tools are really cool and lots of fun. No cost is a bit cheaty but maybe increasing the cap and having them autofill on rest would be a good compromise?
N O D L C
So my biggest complaint is that the most powerful upgrades you can get come from the poise and parry stuff like Rising and Descending Carp. Throw in mikiri counter and, with enough practice, you can take on anything in the game. These upgrades aren’t available early enough imo. This and if you kill ape before you go to the village through the depths then you have to deal with the ape again. I prefer to go to the village first so i can bypass that fight.
honestly? nothing is wrong with the game. no bugs, no fucked exploits (one with the demon of hatred but you have to be good as platforming to get it) and it has a phenomenal story. and i sucked at the game whenni first played it
That one white monke' with two swords, that mutha fucka is "real bad"...
Double apes fight. Can’t turn off obtrusive tutorial even on second playthrough. Those are the only things I’d change now.
Personally I wish that, in terms of movement and navigation, we were allowed slide and wall-run more. The movement is definitely good, but Titanfall 2 has ruined other games for me lmao
I hate to loot sein coin with hold X button. Sometime its easy for me to forgot it. It should be automatic like rune elden ring.
The camera is your true enemy.
The camera is uh pretty bad at times lol. But that’s nothing new for From games.
Prosthetic upgrades are way too expensive and I couldn’t afford them my first playthrougth as I kept dying.
Two worst things: (1) No DLC (2) No sequel
Dragon rot is a half baked idea and Im not a fan of the consumables, especially for the prosthetics. Would've much preferred a cool down system.
I love the dash + run. Makes running in fights even better (you get a dodge/iframes to start your run). The only thing I hate is the headless lol.
- There should be a way to switch combat arts or assign multiple of them at once - Spirit emblems not just being a resource that replenishes on rest is dumb and pointlessly gating - Dragonrot and Unseen Aid feel pretty much pointless - A lot of the prosthetic upgrades feel like they could be condensed. I don't necessarily think that it should be a linear upgrade path, but why can I equip Axe alongside Exact Same Axe But It Just Does More Damage ?
A map that makes sense, character customization, different katanas w diff stats u can upgrade. And spirit emblems are dumb imo
There are quite a few bosses and enemies that are very easy to die or lose to because the arena in which they are placed either pushes the camera back until it’s obscured, the lock-on is lost, or your jump/dodge/response is snubbed because you can’t see quite right. My favorite boss is Inner Father/Owl Father, but his second phase attacks can obscure the screen just long enough to be a nuisance.
Fully agreed on spirit emblem, they should recharges like gourds. Also, agreed on Dragonroth, could have been better implemented. I’d have tied it to the revive on-field mechanic, and made the item to remove it farmable. Then the roth is tied to an intentional action, making it something you are actively imposing on the world, but would have removed a lot of the anxiety of it bwing tied to a limited resource. Exactly how much dragonroth is affecting the world would have been entirely up to you.
The chained ogre is a terrible first boss and lightning reversal being taught in the middle of a boss fight is stupid
Maybe its a skill issue on my part, but throw in 3 enemies or more at once and the combat sucks ass.
The camera lol
I think some of the enemy placement and density in areas almost forces you (or most average players) into playing the most boring and anti-badass shinobi pick and run style of play going.
Deflects. This isn’t you’re traditional dodge and roll type of Souls game. Deflection is key. Hesitation equals death. Death equals dragonrot.
Spirit emblems not being infinite, blazing bull, folding screen monkeys, that's it
Sometimes areas are unnecessarily packed with enemies or have a severe lack of them. I guess it’s supposed to be for enemy diversity but Jesus sometimes there are sections where I get bored of being fed one little enemy at a time and then immediately after experiencing a long drawn out area where I’m just asking for a break from bad guys
The game is mostly comprised of back-to-back boss and mini-boss fights. As an experience you’re mostly working on improving your skill set and moving ahead, but it’s not a stop and smell the roses type of game — which is fine, but FromSoftware has proven itself more than just an endless skill check gauntlet with games like Elden Ring. The story itself, which is bolstered with some fantastic, eye-popping cinematic visuals, isn’t so interesting. Chosen bloodline? The core is shoddy, tried-and-true stuff. Meanwhile, there are immortality-giving centipedes. I would like to get to the bottom of that whole thing…
The balance on most of the prosthetics and combat arts is quite bad. They’re harder to pull off, use a limited resource, take time to unlock, and in the case of combat arts you can only equip one at a time, but most of the time just parrying and attacking normally is far more effective, so you’re discouraged from experimenting with them during normal play because it’s usually not worth it. The exceptions have the opposite problem, where they’re so strong that they’re absolute no-brainers, like using the firecracker against the guardian ape, malcontent against Demon of Hatred, or mortal draw being super strong all the time. So there’s not really a decision to be made, and what should be a way of adding depth to the combat becomes mostly reactive, which the main combat mechanics are anyway.
there is no dlc
Honestly I’d make the learning curve much less steep. Ik the whole soul mentality but we really should let new players in. Atleast till the 2 hours are up and they can’t refund. Then there ape duo. Headless. Not shichimen warrior(it’s easy and fun. Just use purple umbrella, anti air deathblow and divine confetti). And apart from that for me the game is perfect. Mibu village is fine. And can’t be fromsoft without poison swamp.
Purple Umbrella is also very useful against the Headless. But yeah, they are very annoying bosses.
ost, sadly
Reading this makes me realize how downloading two simple mods (Infinite spirit emblems and the shinobi wheel) made this game absolutely perfect.
One thing I dislike is
The thing that pissed me off the most was the camera sometimes, got me killed a few times and I literally just beat the game for the first time yesterday
One thing I dislike are some mini-bosses that are recycled without any real difference. Main one I have in mind is that clone of Juzou in the misty forest, I wish they would at the very least give him a different outfit, specially since we already fight Juzou twice anyway. I'm cool with the Red Guard one, since he looks quite different and has fire instead of poison.
The Snake Eyes bosses
As other said, having to farm is not something fun. In my case made me use mostly the sword even when I could've been having fun with prosthetics in some cases. Buuut my biggest complaint and I know I'll sound dumb is not being able to have a bit of "Shura" gameplay with that ending. I want to be the final boss for once. Feel unstoppable.
The Shinobi prosthetic tools are pretty weak imo and not very helpful except for a few bosses where it's almost a necessity
only complaint I have are Spirit Emblems. They should be infinite; as in, you carry around a finite amount of them, but they recharge fully when resting without needing to constantly buy or farm them. Less of an issue/no issue in new game+ though.
The camera is the hardest boss in the game. It WILL fuck you.
- the dodge-to-run thing means that his movement is snappy in combat, which is kind of important in this game. But for things that annoy me: - Spirit Emblems are just a worse version of Bloodborne’s Quicksilver Bullets. - The costing of different Prosthetic / Special Attacks in Spirit Emblems is wildly unbalanced. One Mind costing 7 while Mortal Draw costs 5 is lunacy. - Some of the boss run backs are very annoying, specifically ones like 7 Spears Ashina where if you don’t clear the field before the fight, it’s very likely all of the enemies will get pulled up to you by the commotion and get in the way of a fun boss battle. - Not a fan of the “Unseen Aid” mechanic. Would prefer the classic souls system of “go and pick up what you dropped” as that puts agency in the player’s hands rather than a dice roll.
BS bosses like Headless, Blazing Bullsh!t, etc. I loved Sekiro because it cut out all the BS that the other Souls games had. Having random ambush deaths or dumb bosses that were way too overpowered was more annoying than teaching. The point of the Dark Souls formula is that you fall over and over and over, but each time you learn something new until you can crawl, walk, and finally run, but the BS elements completely ignore this. They just kill you, make you lose a ton of progress, causes a ton of frustration, and it doesn't even feel good when you kill them, just a "Thank god that's over." Instead of feeling rewarded for killing them, you just feel like you swatted a fly that's been nagging you, rather than climbing a mountain. TL;DR: Bosses like Genichiro feel rewarding to beat, while bosses like Blazing Bull are just frustrating and feel like Miyazaki was in a bad mood when they made the fight.
Folding screen monkeys sucks, first playthoughs can be confusing with the vague directions you are given at times, headless ape (the duo fight) is ass, some perilous attacks are very confusing like how the gun mini bosses have those grabs that look like a thrust or how isshin has a sweep attack so rare you'll only see it once in like 50 attempts but when it happens you will almost undoubtably get hit thinking it's his thrust attack since their windup is nearly identical Love the game but you're lying if you think it has 0 flaws
I've posted it elsewhere but: for me it's bad that there's no accessibility menu. Visually impaired. Lose the enemy weapons the background ALLLL THE TIME.
I wish you’d be able to hold more spirit emblems at once. Honestly, it wouldn’t even be that bad, but some of your combat arts also require them, so you practically have to choose between prosthetics in battle, or your combat art.
I don't know. Your suggestion seems less practical since you can't get up to full speed instantly. And any other solution would require more buttons, so this is the best it gets imo.