Sekiro Adventures Journal

[danutz_plusplus]

Similar to every other game journal, in order to not spam the regular threads.

I'm attempting my second playthrough of Sekiro, about 4-5 years later. I'm also doing it without Kuro's charm, which means any deflect that's not perfectly timed also cuts a little into my life.
I also plan on maybe enabling the demon's bell, for even a little extra difficulty. Just to see what it all feels like.

I've barely reached the Chained Ogre fight, and put around 5 tries. And it's kind of coming back to me, how annoying this fight is.
His grabs, are just the worst. Very split second, and it's pretty much a coin toss if you're far enough to be able to get away. Or maybe I'm just not hitting the dodge button at the correct time.

You really need to be focused and keep at it for both of his lifebars. Technically, I think I could go to Hirata to at least get the flamethrower prosthetic; but since I'm here I might as well bash my head a little.

I've also kind of vowed to try and avoid anything gratuitously stealthy, and use every opportunity to hone my reflexes as much as possible, since this is really name of the game in this one.
And I really need the practice. During the first playthrough I basically used every opportunity to easy the difficulty; this time I'd like to see if I can do it by facing everything directly.

This is also going to be good practice to not lose my temper and keep cool under pressure. I sometimes find I die because I get too attached to an attempt, and often that kills me because I suddenly think I have something to lose. When I need to relish every moment of practice I can get in it. And only pass a test when I'm truly worthy, and not just by the skin of my teeth.

Anyway, should be interesting, if I stick with it.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I found this post on reddit, about some dude and his experience of trying to beat one boss in Sekiro, across 5 years.
I like how he ends the story

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/comments/1if929k/finally_beat_genichiro_ashina_and_im_so_happy

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/comments/1if929k/finally_beat_genichiro_ashina_and_im_so_happy/

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Absolutely brutal, that chained ogre. The best I got so far was I once or twice took out one of his lifebars, and the made like 25% into his last one. But that was 1-2 times out of probably 20, if I were to approximate.

Speaking of, I think I'd like to see my attempts recorded but I really don't want to go through the hassle of managing that space. It would be cool if I could get like the last 10 min of gameplay, but there's really no way to do that without actually recording.
I think I remember some nvidia feature (shadowplay?) that can play back the last 10 seconds? Not sure how that works, but I assume you can't do that with like the last 5 minutes.

Anyway, back onto the ogre. I just don't have enough leeway to afford any errors during the fight. I somewhat found a reasonable way to dodge his grabs, though not all the time. But it's just not enough. Even one grab will take out my whole life.
And his regular smashes and kicks, I also can decently deflect them, but every once in a while I mistime it and damage gets through. So I've got so little heath that I just can't manage to sustain taking almost any damage.

I think it's getting clear that I need to go to the Hirata estates and hopefully get some extra health in me. And maybe that flame prosthetic.
Sad. I went into this playthrough more confident than the last time, but yeah; reality is nowhere close.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Holy shit. 4-5h hours later I finally downed the chained ogre, without having gone to Hirata and without Kuro's charm.
This really put the fear of god in me about also ringing the demon bell and making it even harder. But then again, maybe the ogre is an exception that I'm particularly bad at?
I remember having one hell of a difficult time in my first playthrough as well. And that was with Kuro's charm and with having cleared Hirata first? Or at least I know I had the flamethrower.

 

[sakichop]

Hmm, I played through Sekiro 3 times and never heard of Kuro’s charm. Sounds like it would have been useful.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Hmm, I played through Sekiro 3 times and never heard of Kuro’s charm. Sounds like it would have been useful.

Really, you didn’t notice it?
https://sekiroshadowsdietwice.wiki.fextralife.com/Kuro's+Charm

The mechanic only shows up after beating the game once (either on ng+ or a regular new game).

You basically find out that all through the first game Wolf was using a charm from Kuro that protects him from damage when you don’t do perfect deflects. After the first time though the game you have the option to give it back to Kuro, and thus also take health damage when you block (ie, miss a perfect deflect), on top of posture damage.

 

[sakichop]

I’m guessing I must have seen it then but just don’t remember. I played through the game 3 times but never did NG+ as I prefer to start over. I played it on release which was 5 years ago so my memories of it are pretty vague.

 

[SpoonFULL]

I had repetitive strain injury few years ago because of Sekiro (because of the mandatory deflecting and timing required) and it took almost a year to recover. So I would not recommend playing this game or at least not regularly. It is a beautiful and unique game, but this forced deflection playstyle is just beyond reason.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I’m guessing I must have seen it then but just don’t remember. I played through the game 3 times but never did NG+ as I prefer to start over. I played it on release which was 5 years ago so my memories of it are pretty vague.

The charm mechanic works on either ng+ or just starting over from scratch, as long as you have a save file that already completed the game once.

But yeah, sounds like you missed it. You only get prompted once during the very start when first talking with Kuro. You can give him the charm or keep it. If you choose to give him back his charm, you can go back on that just once, when talking to the Sculptor.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6ohiNAxrPM

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I had repetitive strain injury few years ago because of Sekiro (because of the mandatory deflecting and timing required) and it took almost a year to recover. So I would not recommend playing this game or at least not regularly. It is a beautiful and unique game, but this forced deflection playstyle is just beyond reason.

Yeah, I really need to learn to relax my wrist and hand when playing. I constantly grip that controller like my life depends on it.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Holy smokes, activating the demon is no joke. Just a regular samurai, Tenzen Yamauchi, that I remember giving me a decent challenge last time is kind of pummeling me into the ground.
Though, to be fair, the first time I fought him I'm pretty sure I made use of stealth to take out one of his lifebars. And I kind of remembered it taking me a handful of times.
But with the demon bell, and taking chip damage, and the fact that I have so little posture (just one flurry of hist attacks and I'm basically naked afterwards) he hits like a truck.
And it's so annoying that I keep having to clear his retinue of 5-10 soldiers before even starting with him.

But, it's also kind of cool, just trying to get at him in various ways, now that I've no real pressure to complete it.
It's really impressive how FromSoft managed to make the 1 on 1 fights so amazingly challenging, hard to exploit and just a true test. The AI is really fantastic.
It never ceases to amaze, and constantly takes me by surprise. And I just can't bait it, or anyway get one over it.

I also realized I never completed the Gauntlets of Strength, which they released some time after, as a free content patch. I hear it's significantly challenging and has some rewards.
Maybe I'll get to it ... maybe not.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Hesitation is defeat! How true.
Finished my first boss fight with Demon Bell curse on and charmless, and it might not be much since it's just Tenzen Yamauchi, a somewhat regular samurai lord. But it really did take buckling down and having confidence to not hesitate in deflecting.

I feel a lot of my fights get screwed up because I hesitate and I fear risk, and so I'm always on the back foot. And so much is just nailing the correct timing of deflects, and you really can't do that if you're not confident that you can do it.
It's insane how thin the razor edge is for missing the timings, and sometimes you even suspect the game might be messing up, and you did time it properly. But you can never know; so you might as well assume your timing is off. It's such a small margin that you really can't tell for sure.

But Tenzen in particular had one blitz of ram and sword swipe that he did every so often that would always kill me in one hit. And in this particular fight I somehow managed to deflect two of them. Insane.
And he even got off one of his posture heals, that I failed to stop him from casting. And I was sure that was gonna be the end of it. But I guess not.

There really is no feeling like it, when you finally take the enemy out, after slamming your head against a wall for a long time.

.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

For the past 1-2h I kept bashing my head against Gyoubu Oniwa. Once or twice I got to around half of his second life, but most of the times it's always something that screws me up.
Interestingly I always do much worse during the first lifebar, and waste at least 2 of my healing doses. Then I somehow get decent in the second phase, but I can't maintain it.

Such an annoying fight. But frankly this is easy peasy compared with the bull that follows this.
I think I need to get a grip and just accept that it's very likely this playthrough is going nowhere with both demon bell and chip damage.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

And wouldn't you know it that I went and beat him right after posting. Actually, not right after. I was checking out some other youtuber's playthrough and only then remembered that there are these consumable healing pellets, besides just the gourd/estus.
I had completely forgotten about them. And from what I'm reading you can basically farm them pretty reliably. They are capped to a max of 3 items on your person, but that was basically all I needed to pretty easily beat Gyoubu.
Seems I was borderline already there, and the 2 pellets made me just resilient enough to take him out.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've basically used the pellets almost at all in my first playthrough. But it sounds like with the curses I'm carrying I'm gonna need to get used to switching my current item. I don't think I almost ever switch my current item from the healing gourd.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Took a couple of tries, but down goes the blazing bull. I couldn't handle him with deflects, the flames were just too much. So I kinda cheesed him with, apparently, a pretty well known tacting by always sprinting to his behind and wailing on him.
I was surprised how well that worked. It was always close shaves, between getting the horns or making it, but not close enough it seems. Plus, the fire damage goes through even if you perfect deflect. Some apparently can still do it like that, with pure deflects, I couldn't, it seems.

From what I remember now starts the true challenging fights, now that I'm inside Ashina Castle.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

The most epic boss fight in all of gaming, most likely. I'm nowhere close to fighting the Guardian Ape, but I'm not excited.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7v5Sf1au9Q&list=PLrlTB9bfzDzTjalfJ3GB-UtYFu0gDgzl-&index=16


It's hilarious how this dude almost loses his mind while fighting this thing.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Found out (or better said, realized something I missed) something that kind of deflated my playthrough. This fresh playthrough + the two penalties (charmless and demon bell) is not the most difficult the game gets.
I completely forgot about NG+, and that the difficulty scales up until NG+7. So technically that's the most difficult the game gets, applying demon bell and charmless on the very last NG+7. Jesus.

EDIT: actually, upon further thought it could be that NG + demon/charmless is the most difficult playthrough. Because you start from scratch, whereas every NG+ playthrough you've got decent defenses and offense, plus all the prosthetics.
I don't think each NG+ completely invalidates the character progress gained from previous playthroughs. So it could be that it keeps getting easier, with every NG+.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I think it might be time to hang it up. I don't think I can do this again, and on this increased difficulty (demon bell and charmless).
My recent attempt really demoralized me. I managed to get through phase 1 of Lady Butterfly without using any healing gourd doses. I only used one while waiting for her real self to pop out.

In this second phase I used some sugars, fought a lot, used all my healing gourds; she managed to summon her spirits 3 times. I was pretty close to taking her out, I even used my 3 healing pellets.
And I even wasted a divine grass since I thought I was so close this time. But no, I screwed up again.

That left me so deflated ... I really don't think I can manage it if I'm having these difficulties on her, and she being one of the easier fights, compared to Owl and Guardian Ape. Jesus christ who was I kidding?

I'll sleep on it for a few days, but I'm pretty sure I'm done with my demon bell/charmless attempt. The only way I'll maybe attempt it is after going through enough NG+ games.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Since I dropped my NG + bell/charmless playthrough and switched to NG+1 with bell/charmless, it's been absolutely amazing how overpowered you are in the first NG+
I've reached Genichiro, atop Ashina Castle, and every other fight has been a success on the very first try. Except for 2 of them, Blazing Bull and Seven Spear Ashina, which took 2 and 3 tries, respectively.

Even Lady Butterfly, which is the fight that made me stop during the NG+bell/charmless run, was a piece of cake. She still hit like a truck, due to the NG+1 scaling, but so did I. And I also stacked confetti and snap seeds.
Seeds especially made a difference, since in my regular playthroughs I never use them since they're limited, and I fear the added pressure of needing to succeed and not waste them would really amp up my performance anxiety.
But in this one it was a piece of cake. I was close to dying a couple of times, but managed to back away and reassess. But nothing compared to the insane difficulty in regular NG. In that, I was also forced to run away every time she summoned illusion.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Genichiro, first try as well. Made loads of mistakes, he also packs quite the punch. But so do I on NG+1. Also made constant use of confetti. I've got almost 1000 units of them. Enough to probably keep apply it through the whole rest of the game.