Sekiro Rage

2019 has been a fun gaming year so far with me finally playing through Kingdom Hearts III, trying to survive a re-imaging of a horror classic in Resident Evil 2 and playing through some revamped JRPGs from a past generation in Tales of Vesperia, The Caligula Effect and Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (Vesperia I played when it first came out and I fully completed it, TOCS I played on Vita when it first released and got 30 hours in before I moved onto another game and Caligula Effect I've never played). Man, it's been a year for JRPGs released in the past decade huh? I even played 999 to completion during the hangover from KH3. March 22nd came around and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was released. Sekiro was always on my watchlist, simply because it was a new game coming from FromSoftware. FromSoftware has been testing my gaming skills for just about a decade now so I always look forward to challenging the games they make.

Demon's Souls was one of the first games I got for my PS3 back in June 2010 (holy crap, life is flying by) and while I never finished it, I enjoyed it for the difficult game it was. Dark Souls took over my life in 2011 and while everyone has fond memories of being destroyed by Ornstein and Smough, I remember waking up early one Sunday morning before church to play (early as in 4am or 5am after just going to sleep at 12am) and came across Chaos Witch Quelaag, who proceeded to wreck my stuff for 2-3 hours. She was, for me by FAR, the toughest boss in that game. I just could not get the rhythm of the fight. When I defeated her, pure ecstasy. Sorry, this is not a Dark Souls walk down memory lane post. Dark Souls II was more of the same toughness but it was a bit watered down to me. Or maybe I just got better at it, who knows. Bloodborne was next and it's the main reason I got my PS4 when I did. Bloodborne is still one of my favorite games on the system. It's tough but never too much where you can't overcome it. Overcoming bosses like the Blood Starved Beast and Vicar Ameila was seriously a euphoric feeling. I would say this is my favorite of the Soulsborne games, right next to the original Dark Souls.

Sekiro, while made by FromSoftware, is a completely different beast. It retains the insane difficulty presented in the Souls games but that's it. This is more of an action/stealth game, not unlike the former Tenchu series. The combat is where the game shines though. It's all about parrying and finding your opportunity to counter. You and all the enemies have two meters; one for your health and the other for your posture. Your posture's bar will be depleted anytime you guard or parry. Too many hits to your posture will leave you stunned and open for attacks. The same works for enemies. Bosses are more about how much damage you can do to their posture, not their actual health bar because once their posture reaches max, it leaves them open to Deathblows. Deathblows are attacks that drain the enemy's lifebar completely, no matter where it sits. Bosses usually have two or three of these so breaking their posture is of maximum importance if you want to win. Bosses in this game are tough, as expected.

I'm at the last area in the game now, just about 30 hours in. This, of course, hasn't been straight progression as there have been NUMEROUS bosses that have halted my progress, five in particular that come to my mind. Spoilers ahead if you don't want to know bosses.

Lady Butterfly, one of the first real bosses in the game, challenged how I played the game. I think I was trying to approach the game with a Dark Souls mindset. You know, dodge when you can and then unload with attacks but as I said before, this game is more about the parrying and countering, so I had to really learn her attacks and when to counter so I could break her posture. This literally took me over 45 minutes to finally get a hang of the fight but once I did, I felt unstoppable. I felt like if I mastered her, I should be fine with besting everyone else. Yeah...that really wasn't the case unfortunately.

Genichiro Ashina was a major jerk. Seriously. He's the first fakeout boss. By fakeout, I mean that once you think you've beaten him, he gets another form. When I finally took out the first form, I got so hype that I finally beat him...only to find out he had one last form and of course, there was no refill on healing items or anything. Genichiro was the hardest boss to this point, just because he's a reality check. Do not get comfortable in this game, ever. And Genichiro doesn't even die, so I know for a fact he'll be back one more time. Genichiro was the hardest boss I encountered....

...until I faced off against the Guardian Ape. Guardian Ape is exactly what he sounds like; a big freaking monster monkey, with wild attacks and unpredictable movements. He proceeded to destroy me until I finally got the hang of things. He has only one lifebar so the fight shouldn't be that hard but it's just something about this stupid ape that had me going crazy for almost two hours. Guardian Ape has a Shinobi execution where you cut off its freaking head. When I finally executed it, pure relief washed over me and I smiled....then the darn thing picks up his head and the massive sword that was in his neck and fights me again. Really? I fell for the old okey doke again. This is also the first time I learned about the worst thing in this game and it's the Terror status effect. Much like the curse status in Dark Souls, if your gauge fills up completely and you're infected with it, you die. Instantly. It sucks to be deep into the 2nd form, only to die straight out from Terror. This boss taught me patience and only attack him when he does certain attacks. GA would always do this massive swing that when deflected put him off balance. That was when I could get some easy strikes in. I finally felled him after dozens upon dozens of more tries and felt accomplished! I then learned that the GA is immortal and can only die once you get something called The Mortal Blade, which is essential for the main story. He then relocates to a different area and you have to FIGHT HIM AGAIN. Not a problem though since I was a pro at fighting him and he only had two lifebars. Once you get the first one down, he summons one of his friends so now, there's TWO massive apes coming at you. TWO. This one didn't take too long but it was still annoying but there was such satisfaction when you finally kill the stupid immortal centipede. Guardian Ape, the first time, became the hardest boss I've challenged....

...UNTIL you have to fight Great Shinobi Owl. OH MY GOODNESS. This guy man! This was another close to two hours of my life. He's just too unpredictable and his attacks are always hard to read. I was failing so much that this was the first boss I had to look at a Youtube video for. Like many bosses, he has an attack that can be exploited so once I learned that, IT WAS STILL A STRUGGLE! I couldn't posture break his 2nd form. I just couldn't. So this fight was just be waiting for him to do one attack, sweep in, get a few hits, then run until he does it again. I had to keep doing this until the lifebar diminished and I could finally get that last, final, sweet Deathblow in. I was so happy to have felled this boss, who many say is the toughest boss in the game. I started fighting Owl at around 2am and didn't get the trophy for beating him until 4am.

I then went to the next area, which I thought would be the final area in the game because the trophy popped up that I've explored all areas of the game, so I decided to see if I could at least get close to the final boss before I'd go to sleep. I would learn later that while this is the last new area you explore, the game will end in a familiar location. Upon walking into this area, the next boss drops in. It's the Corrupted Monk, who I faced earlier and beat without too much trouble. Turns out, she's immortal as well! Fun! She has three lifebars so I'm already a little scared but she has the same attack pattern so while I'm nervous, I know her attacks a bit. 2nd form though, she starts this doppelganger crap that wrecked me the first time. I learned that you can swing to the branches above where she is and can catch an instant Deathblow while she's sending her copies at you. That takes care of the 2nd phase. 3rd phase, the nasty little centipede comes out and she's becomes super aggressive and does a lot of attacks you can't block. She gets me a few times and as I'm getting more and more tired, I know that my gaming skills are fading. I give myself an ultimatum; I can't sleep until I beat this boss. It took a few tries after that but I was able to fell this stupid boss. Luckily, no boss inside Fountainhead Palace is challenging as the Divine Dragon is more of a gimmick boss than anything. I'm now going to attempt the last area and see if I can finish it before Days Gone releases in less than 48 hours.

UPDATE 4/26/19

I. DID IT! This was one of the most demanding final bosses in recent memory. Isshin required you to be close to perfect to fell him. I usually can beat a boss in one sitting after trying enough times but I had to do three different sessions. This had to be close to the 4 hour mark as well. The thing about the fight is that you have to face stupid Genichiro first but he's a far cry from when I fought him, what, 10 hours before? Once you beat him, he sacrifices himself to bring Isshin in his true form. Isshin has, of course, three lifebars and each bar represent a different phase of the fight. Phase 1 is a straight sword duel. It's pretty manageable once you know what to counter. Phase 2, Isshin pulls a giant spear out of the ground and becomes even more dangerous. He has amazing range with it and becomes almost god like in this phase. It took me such a long time to get the hang of it. Phase 3 is the same as 2 but he's more aggressive and adds lightening to his attacks. The lightening was his downfall though as you can get it transferred to you and throw it back to him, causing massive vitality and posture damage. This is the key to the third phase. I sincerely got lucky and had I just got caught in one of the several mistakes I made, I would probably still be facing this boss. It was a bittersweet ending, as in beating any game. You're upset that it's over but excited you got through it and got to experience the various worlds and lore. Sekiro, Dark Souls and Bloodborne are the shining jewels in the FromSoftware library. I beat Sekiro at 3:30am on April 26th, 2019, the day Days Gone released. Goal achieved

Seikro is amazing, it's easily my Game of the Year so far. FromSoftware attempted another genre and they crushed it. I still think if they did a survival horror game, it would be the new king of the genre. Sekiro is a great accomplishment for new IPs and I hope the trend continues with Days Gone and other games I'm looking forward to like Judgment and Astral Chain.

Days Gone impressions will be coming soon.