Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Review

Well, after playing the Soulsbourne series relentlessly (and I'm STILL playing by the way lol!) I finally got round to recently buying the latest offering from the creators behind the Souls and BB games (i.e. From Software) and got Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

Now, Sekiro is quite a change from the games that went before as instead of a swords and sorcery or victorian gothic approach we know have a game that is set in 16th century Japan (albeit a heavily fictionalised and fantasty based version).  So, this really is quite a departure from the previous games of From Software. However the question is to be asked...how does it stack up in comparison to the acclaimed Soulsbourne games? Well, let's find out...

And I will mention a bit about the plot below, so the usual warning is coming up...

PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

STORY (By the way this was taken from the Sekiro Wikipedia page)

"In a re-imagined late 16th century Sengoku period Japan, warlord Isshin Ashina staged a bloody coup and seized control of the land of Ashina from the Interior Ministry. During this time, a nameless orphan is adopted by the wandering shinobi named Ukonzaemon Usui, known to many as Owl, who named the boy Wolf and trained him in the ways of the shinobi. Two decades later, the Ashina clan is on the brink of collapse due to a combination of the now elderly Isshin having fallen ill and the clan's enemies steadily closing in from all sides. Desperate to save his clan, Isshin's grandson Genichiro sought the Divine Heir Kuro so he can use the boy's "Dragon Heritage" to create an immortal army. Wolf, now a full fledged shinobi and Kuro's personal bodyguard, loses his left arm while failing to stop Genichiro. As he received the dragon’s blood from Kuro three years prior, Wolf survives his wounds and awakes in an abandoned temple. In the temple, he meets the Sculptor, a former shinobi named Sekijo who now carves Buddha statues, and Wolf finds that his missing arm has been replaced with the Shinobi Prosthetic, a sophisticated artificial arm that can wield a variety of gadgets and weaponry...".

And its from here where Wolf must start his dangerous journey to try and rescue his kidnapped lord and get revenge over Genichiro...

THOUGHTS

Well, I really had high hopes for Sekiro as I'm such a big fan of the Soulsborne games, however I'm sad to say that for me personally, Sekiro is a bit of a disappointment and it fails to live up to the expectations of the exceptional games that came before it. The game did receive alot of acclaim however on its release from critics and there are still plenty of fans of the Soulsborne series that enjoyed it also, however unfortunately I just wasn't one of them. And the reasons I won't fully go into here but I felt overall the game lacked interesting areas and the bosses and standard enemies lacked appeal and there are of course plenty more I could say but I will save them for the flaws section.

GAMEPLAY (This section will be split into sub-sections just so you know!)

Well, as for the gameplay, Sekiro while it has its differences to the Soulsborne games, it stills shares the same non-linear structure where you can explore different areas rather than having to fight each area in succession. The game also shares similarities to the SB games such as healing and check points, as here in Sekro and I will go into more detail on them below.

COMBAT 

However that aside, Sekiro does largely depart from the Soulsbourne formats in most other respects and this is especially the case regarding the combat because here instead, Wolf will use his katana to attack an enemy's posture (or their poise) and continue until its broken and then Wolf call perform a deathblow attack to finish them off. However this will vary when it comes to the boss fights because Wolf will be required to perform at least a couple of deathblows to finish them off as they have larger health pools. Wolf can also deflect attacks from enemies but this does of course come with a penalty as they can also break Wolf's posture to land an attack of their own. Wolf can also perform stealth attacks and sneak through areas to takedown enemies from behind or from above.

SKILLS 
 
Wolf will also throughout the game earn XP points for taking down enemies and based on these points, he can upgrade his skills and these tend be a mixture of defensive and offensive skills. As Wolf progresses in the game, he can earn more points and enhance his skills as he will access them from the idols he travels by.    

TOOLS AND ITEMS

Sekiro similar to the Soulbourne games, has its own share of tools and items to be found throughout the world. Starting with the tools, well you may notice of course that in Sekiro, Wolf only has one primary weapon which is his katana but once he obtains his prosthetic arm, he can pick up a number of accessory weapons that can be attached to the arm to help him take down his enemies. As an example there are Shurikens, which are ninja stars that Wolf can throw at enemies, flame-vents, which are used to set enemies on fire, loaded-spears, which Wolf can stab foes with them and loaded-axes, which again Wolf can use to stagger enemies to help him land a deathblow.

There are also plenty of other items in the game that are of much use such as different sugars that when Wolf consumes them, he will gain different boosts such as reduction in physical/posture damage or an increase in his attack power. Other items include balloons, which when Wolf crushes them will again provide different abilities such as receiving more gold from fallen enemies, or increased chances of getting discoverable items held by enemies also.

ENEMIES, MINI BOSSES & BOSSES

As for the game's enemies, they are mainly comprised of a mix of humans, beasts, ogres, apes, lizards, dogs and many, many more. The human enemies tend to be members of opposing Samurai clans and tend to attack you with katanas, torches, bows, guns and even canons. The mini bosses however tend to be a bit more unique in that there are so many to be found in the game and they tend to have two health bars, which involves Wolf landing two successful deathblows to finish them off. The main game bosses however will have larger health bars and can have up to three at the most and pose a greater threat to the player. Bosses and standard enemies can also perform perilous attacks that deal out alot of damage, which Wolf cannot block however he can counter them with a skill move (Mikiri counter) either that or he will have to jump back to avoid them.

IDOLS, VITALITY AND POSTURE

Moving onto the game's travel system, which are the idols that are very similar to the bonfires and lamps that were used in Souls and Bloodborne as Wolf will find these idols throughout the game's world. The idols similar to the bonfire and lamps in SB game, act as checkpoints for the player and will restore Wolf's health fully aswell as his health items. At the idols, Wolf can also upgrade his skills, his vitality if he has the right items and his posture aswell as purchase Spirit Emblems that are used to utilise his prosthetic arm's tools and determines how many uses he can have of each tool.

As for Wolf's vitality and posture, these can be upgraded gradually throughout the game but in order to do so, Wolf will have to fight a number of mini bosses to do so as he will obtain items called prayer beads that will let him increase both these stats. Wolf will also need to obtain four beads to upgrade his vitality and posture by one level and there are 40 beads to be found throughout the game. Wolf's vitality bar can be found on the bottom left of the screen whereas his posture bar is on the bottom centre area of the screen, which will fill up as he is attacked and reduce as it recovers.

RESSURECTION AND DRAGONROT (Warning: this next section is kind of a spoiler!) 

Another aspect of the gameplay is of course connected to the title where Wolf can actually die...twice which means if he is killed once in combat, he can be ressurected once more before finally dying and the ressurection stat can be fully replenished whenever Wolf rests at an idol. However there is a big penalty that can be incurred if Wolf keeps dying and that is dragonrot, which is an illness that certain NPCs in the game will contract as a result of Wolf's repeated deaths. Wolf however can cure the dragonrot via the use of blood droplets and he must do this to ensure that the NPCs recover and he cannot proceed with their questlines until he does.  

GRAPHICS AND MUSIC

As for the graphics, well this is easily From Software's best looking game to date as Sekiro is stunning game visually speaking and the environments are both rich in detail and varied as Wolf traverses many different areas such as temples, sewers, dungeons, open fields and of course fortresses. The character models are also pretty good although they are primarily better for the main characters but not quite so good for some of the enemies in the game as they can tend to look a bit goofy! But overall this game is very easy on the eyes in terms of its visuals.

Moving onto the music, the game is scored by Yuka Kitamura, who worked on the Soulsborne games aswell and overall its a pretty good score, which to its credit sounds very different to the scores we are familar with in the SB series. The score however doesn't quite scale the heights of the very soundtracks in the Soulsbourne universe but it is still a very fine one all the same and its mini-boss theme alone is well worth the admission price even if it is a bit overused throughout the game!

FLAWS

As for flaws...yep Sekiro has its share but I would like to just say that some of them maybe based on my opinion, so please don't feel like I am hating on the game in this review but more just I am stating my thoughts on the game's drawbacks.

So, for starters I would have to that I felt that the game's areas just aren't that interesting to me as you tend to do alot of running round, stabbing enemies via stealth or outright parrying followed by deathblow, open doors, operate lifts etc and that's about it. Now I have to say that you did the same in the Soulsborne games but in those games the visual design as such really compelled you to want to check out these areas and what they might but with Sekiro, I really didn't feel this way about the environments. 

Another issue is maybe to do with the whole setup of the game as you are very limited in terms of building your character's stats as all there is available is your vitality and posture aswell as your ressurective powers (based on how many enemies you kill or when you reset the world at an idol). Now to be fair, Fromsoft here did decide to go with a skill tree system where you can unlock many different attacks and defensive maneuvers and that does offer some variety to the combat in the game. But that aside I just feel the stats and attributes of the player are far too simplified here for them to be that appealing.

Then we get to the consumable items as there are simply too many of them to be found in the game and similar to some of the Soulsbourne ones that can be pretty useless! As an example one of the most common pickups from fallen enemies are ceramic shards, which you can use to attract the attention of individual enemies (similar to pebbles in Bloodborne) but here they aren't that effective at drawing your opponent over to you. I also felt that some other items of use weren't dropped enough such as pellets, which can restore your a moderate amount of your health (similar again to lifegems in Dark Souls II) and the fact you can only hold three of them at one time is also quite annoying.

Another big problem I had with the game was to do with the mini-bosses as there are simply too many of them and some of them are pretty challenging, which to be fair is expected in a From Software game. Now quite a few of these bosses are optional but they are also fairly essential to getting prayer beads to upgrade your vitality, which means you need to keep fighting them over and over until you have defeated them in order to get just one bead! So, if you want to farm up to get the beads you could be in for a frustrating time if you want to do so.

As for the main game bosses to be honest I didn't get through this game in its entirety as I lost interest just as I started fighting the third main boss, Genichiro and by then the game's difficulty level and combat mechanics had really worn off on me. And that for me is the big difference between the boss fights in the Soulsborne games as fighting them was frustrating for sure at times but it also felt rewarding and a challenge worth taking on, however in Sekiro, fighting the bosses just feels like a major chore as they really aren't that much fun by comparison. Sure you will put in the effort you will defeat the bosses but for me there is no real sense of reward in doing so (but hey that's just me!).  

I also had an issue with alot of the NPCs in the game as majority them really don't have much in the way of personality with the exception of maybe the odd merchant and the sculptor but there are no real standouts in this game like there are in Soulsborne games. Here there is no equivalent of Solaire, Patches, Siegward or Eileen the Crow in Sekiro and that's a pity. Further to this, while I do think its great that From Software finally gave a playable character a voice and more than one expression (just about anyway!) I felt that Wolf has barely any personality either and at times he just comes across as a bit of an abrupt dickhead when talking to people which really makes him somewhat unlikeable.

Another niggle I had with the game was to do with when Wolf dies the first time during a boss battle or standard enemy combat you get the choice of letting him die or ressurect, now I appreciate the "die" option is there if you have had enough but I still think that is an option that shouldn't be included and I will tell why. So, the reason why I think the "die" option isn't a good idea is because during a couple of boss fights I accidentally pressed the "die" option button (L1 on the PS4) and it simply ended the fight when I didn't want it to! So, I just think it would have been a better idea to have simply give you only the one option to "ressurect" and keep on fighting as you will be pretty annoyed if you accidentally hit the die button and were in the middle of a decent attempt at a boss.

And last of all is a problem to do with how when you fight mini bosses and if you run out of the area you fight them in, their health bars with automatically reset! Now, this happened to me in the chained ogre mini-boss fight as I had removed one of his health bars with a deathblow but tried to distance myself from him a bit and when I came back into the area, his health had fully reset itself again! So, while I do appreciate it the game will reset the bosses's health if you run far away from the fight, its still a bit of a cheat if you give a little distance and have already taken away one of their health bars!

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So to sum up, I have to unfortunately conclude that Sekiro for me personally is a disappointment and I hate saying that given how much I enjoyed the Soulsborne games and have put literally hundreds of hours of gameplay time into them over the last year or so. However with Sekiro, I found when I was playing it that I had enough after playing for only and hour or an hour and a half tops, which told me there and then that this game just wasn't living up to its predecessors.  The game areas also feel a bit stagnant to me and not that interesting to explore and the NPCs and even Wolf himself lack much in the way of personality or appeal for an audience to relate to.

Don't get me wrong as Sekiro does have quite a bit going for it with its beautiful visuals, intriguing Japanese setting, I also like the idea of the combat simplified down to using just one primary weapon rather than having almost too many weapons to choose from like you have in the Souls games. Some of the game's combat is also pretty intense and the prosthetic Shinobi tools are also a pretty neat touch. I also even like that the game gives you the choice to start new game plus rather than force you to start it after you having defeated the final boss in the game (which you are forced to in the original Dark Souls and Bloodborne). Another thing I quite liked is that From Software FINALLY gave players an option to PAUSE THE GAME while you were in the middle of fighting or at any point while playing for that matter! So, this alone is another plus for Sekiro.  


However, I have to admit that this review is based on what I had played of the game and as I mentioned, I only got up to playing Genichiro and by then I really felt like I had enough and the game just wasn't for me. Dark Souls and Bloodborne are tough acts to follow but unfortunately for me, From Software just didn't quite cut it here.

So in conclusion, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is by no means a terrible game but at the same time it just isn't a great one either and its a game that might split certain fans of the Soulsborne communities down the middle (or maybe not) but for me it just wasn't what I hoped it would be. If you love your eastern Japanese fighting games such as Nioh or Ninja Gaiden, I'm sure this will have its own appeal to you but if not then its game you will have to take a chance on and personally it just didn't do it for me.

Anyway, so that's it for now and I hope if you are a fan of Sekiro and read this that you don't hold it against me as its just my personal opinion and if you love Sekiro, that's great. In fact, I might just give it another go somewhere down the line in future but I think I will wait until the game's prices come down on the PS store before I do. 

So, I will be back soon with another post and until then its bye for now!