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Leaked off-screen trailer of Elden Ring is legit - but no one has a link

Any time the games do that --Basically asking you to follow the programmers animations by rote -- I start to resent it as cheap and -- The satisfaction from learning rules is about the same as I get from passing a driving test. It's cold and doesn't feel organic. Thank god that's over sort of feeling. Not triumph but relief.
What are you on about?

Sekiro fights work exactly the same as any SoulsBorne fights. The boss has attacks, the attacks have a tell, you learn to counter each attack. It's not about a driver's test or whatever the hell you are talking about. Yes if you don't memorize the attacks you will get owned. How is this any different than usual? "It doesn't feel organic"? Lol what does that even mean. Sekiro boss fights are the same as From style, just faster. Calling it a rhythm game or whatever is just an excuse. You see the enemy attack, you respond in kind. This is nothing new. It's simple. "It's cold"? Huh?
 
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tassletine

Member
What are you on about?

Sekiro fights work exactly the same as any SoulsBorne fights. The boss has attacks, the attacks have a tell, you learn to counter each attack. It's not about a driver's test or whatever the hell you are talking about. Yes if you don't memorize the attacks you will get owned. How is this any different than usual? "It doesn't feel organic"? Lol what does that even mean. Sekiro boss fights are the same as From style, just faster. Calling it a rhythm game or whatever is just an excuse. You see the enemy attack, you respond in kind. This is nothing new. It's simple. "It's cold"? Huh?
I can play previous From games on reaction alone. I couldn't with Sekiro, so it's definitely different. Many people have pointed out how artificially hard the bosses are.

This was much less of a problem on PC at 60fps, but I found the long load times and sluugish controls on base PS4 unbearable.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
I can play previous From games on reaction alone. I couldn't with Sekiro, so it's definitely different. Many people have pointed out how artificially hard the bosses are.

This was much less of a problem on PC at 60fps, but I found the long load times and sluugish controls on base PS4 unbearable.

I found Sekiro Bossses easier than Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne at times.
Timing the rolls in Souls games is harder to me than timing the blocks in Sekiro
 

tassletine

Member
I think Sekiro is different. It's more an action game like Ninja Gaiden. It may be similar to Souls, but requires more actiony reflexes that can cause more frustration IMO. It's the only modern From Software game I haven't completed.
I agree. I just wish it was paced like Gaiden as I love action games. Sekiro has some amazing things in it (I've played it through twice) but it's pacing is really off and I put that down to the failed RPG elements that were removed. Bloodrot etc.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I found Sekiro Bossses easier than Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne at times.
Timing the rolls in Souls games is harder to me than timing the blocks in Sekiro
For me it was other way around but after replaying Dark Souls 3 after finishing Sekiro... i found my timings on rolls an parries much improved after sekiro training :p ds3 was easier then
 

bbeach123

Member
Even though I played all 3 dark souls game I never actually enjoy the combat . After beating a boss I just feel a bit of accomplishment and a bit of relieved .Like, finally its done . Not "oh shit its so good I wanna fight that boss again" like in Sekiro , I think I beat genichiro hundreds times already .

After you get the timing down you feel like a boss in Sekiro .
 
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GymWolf

Member
I found Sekiro Bossses easier than Dark Souls 3 or Bloodborne at times.
Timing the rolls in Souls games is harder to me than timing the blocks in Sekiro
Same, for me sekiro is as hard as any other souls game, not harder.

You can survive a lot of fights by kinda spamming the parry and another lot by bruteforcing with the fire axe arm, spam that on a humanoid enemy and you are gonna break at least one full guard bar.

Also the op stealth, both for normal enemies and bosses.

You can't bruteforce shit on a souls boss with a shield, you have to wait for the opening because they don't have a stagger bar to fill.

Also sekiro bosses hardly have any bullshit magic aoe moves (they have something but less than souls bosses if my memory isn't completely fucked.)

Some hunters in bloodborne were more challenging than majority of sekiro bosses for me.
 
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V4skunk

Banned
Same, for me sekiro is as hard as any other souls game, not harder.

You can survive a lot of fights by kinda spamming the parry and another lot by bruteforcing with the fire axe arm, spam that on a humanoid enemy and you are gonna break at least one full guard bar.

Also the op stealth, both for normal enemies and bosses.

You can't bruteforce shit on a souls boss with a shield, you have to wait for the opening because they don't have a stagger bar to fill.

Also sekiro bosses hardly have any bullshit magic aoe moves (they have something but less than souls bosses if my memory isn't completely fucked.)

Some hunters in bloodborne were more challenging than majority of sekiro bosses for me.
Sekiro is "hard" for some because it filters them out with no coop.
 
Sekiro is "hard" for some because it filters them out with no coop.
In all fairness the major reason it's harder is that instead of three mitigation options (block, roll, parry) you have four (block, parry, dash, jump), and the hardest one to execute properly (parry) is completely optional in Souls but absolutely mandatory in Sekiro.
 
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In all fairness the major reason it's harder is that instead of three mitigation options (block, roll, parry) you have four (block, parry, dash, jump), and the hardest one to execute properly (parry) is completely optional in Souls but absolutely mandatory in Sekiro.
I think it's all about the Mikiri counter. Rather than dodge left or right, you are supposed to dodge right into the attack. You don't do this in Souls games. You dodge away, and the muscle memory from Souls games can trip you up in Sekiro. It's deliberately counter intuitive.
 
I think it's all about the Mikiri counter. Rather than dodge left or right, you are supposed to dodge right into the attack. You don't do this in Souls games. You dodge away, and the muscle memory from Souls games can trip you up in Sekiro. It's deliberately counter intuitive.
Actually dodging forward is pretty common in Souls and Bloodborne - for the most part the Mikiri counter behaves like a regular dodge, so I don't treat it as a separate form of mitigation. But it's true that Sekiro, in addition to having more mitigation options and requiring regular use of the most challenging one, also is much pickier about which mitigation option to use on which attack. In Souls you're really only expected to decide between blocking and dodging, and blocking usually works pretty well as a fallback if you haven't mastered the dodge timing of an attack yet. Blocking is the easiest mitigation option since it doesn't require timing, but in Sekiro blocking is very bad and is generally not used. In Souls if you're not blocking you're rolling, but in Sekiro you're parrying most attacks but jumping sweeps, dodging into thrusts, and jumping/dodging away from grabs. It's much more challenging to master.
 

V4skunk

Banned
In all fairness the major reason it's harder is that instead of three mitigation options (block, roll, parry) you have four (block, parry, dash, jump), and the hardest one to execute properly (parry) is completely optional in Souls but absolutely mandatory in Sekiro.
I 100% disagree.
Sekiro made parry super easy. It even uses the same button on the control pad as block in DS! And if you hold down the parry button you block all attacks at the cost of stamina!
Fromsoft gave us the ability to hold guard and start tapping parry on attack to deflect while taking almost no damage. Far easier than DS parrying but obviously forced play style.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
I agree. At times they were. My patience was tested to the point of boredom with Genichiro though (on base ps4).
Genichiro was one of my favourite bosses.
I struggled with the Ape boss, Corrupted monk a bit but the hardest boss ever was Demon of Hatred.
Probably the only boss in a Miyazaki game for me, I had to beat by cheating lol.

Other than Demon of Hatred, the bosses in the Chalice Dungeon and DLC in Bloodborne were harder.
And the DLC bosses in Dark Souls were harder too
 

DilWSTS

Member
I wouldnt say harder. Sekiro was different, people went in thinking they could play it like dark souls or bloodborne. I remember similar discussions with bloodborne where getting hit was no longer a must not occur due to the rally. Essentially the way i worked out sekiro was memorisation of the symbols (which i do think still looked a bit to similar) and parry from darksouls. If you went from bloodborne to sekiro without dark souls knowledge itd be tougher.

Demon of hatred was a darksouls 3 boss in the wrong game.

Other than Demon of Hatred, the bosses in the Chalice Dungeon and DLC in Bloodborne were harder.
And the DLC bosses in Dark Souls were harder too
 
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Sekiro adding jumping and stealth and swimming and even underwater combat feels like experiments for the big open world style game that they are about to unleash. I think they did all those things really well. There was one point where I was underwater fighting against a headless undead at the bottom of a pond and I avoided some kind of magical projectile and looked over and there was another demon also down there, shooting magic shit at me, and I had to deal with both of them. I did and it was a cool fight and oddly enough it did not suck to control.

All of this knowledge is going into Elden Ring. From knows what they are doing. This game is going to absolutely rule.
 
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GymWolf

Member
Genichiro was one of my favourite bosses.
I struggled with the Ape boss, Corrupted monk a bit but the hardest boss ever was Demon of Hatred.
Probably the only boss in a Miyazaki game for me, I had to beat by cheating lol.

Other than Demon of Hatred, the bosses in the Chalice Dungeon and DLC in Bloodborne were harder.
And the DLC bosses in Dark Souls were harder too
The demon was the hardest for me too, ironically, is the most dark soul type of boss in the entire game with all those flames and aoe attacks.

Second place between the old bitch with the kunai or the final boss.
 
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V4skunk

Banned
The demon was the hardest for me too, ironically, is the most dark soul type of boss in the entire game with all those flames and aoe attacks.

Second place between the old bitch with the kunai or the final boss.
I thought O'Rin was pretty savage, headless and Schimen warrior also were a big problem for me.
 

tassletine

Member
Genichiro was one of my favourite bosses.
I struggled with the Ape boss, Corrupted monk a bit but the hardest boss ever was Demon of Hatred.
Probably the only boss in a Miyazaki game for me, I had to beat by cheating lol.

Other than Demon of Hatred, the bosses in the Chalice Dungeon and DLC in Bloodborne were harder.
And the DLC bosses in Dark Souls were harder too
That's pretty much down to how differently we play. I play by reactions and the ape was my favourite boss (apart from 7 spears). Demon of Hatred was fine as well. I beat them both in about 3 - 5 go's.
Genichiro was my least because he demanded you learn the tells and up until then I had been getting by on reactions. He took me 50 at least. I really resented the switch up in gameplay styles as I had been doing fine up until then and it took me by surprise.

I will stress this was on base PS4 though as playing on PC alleviated most of these issues -- but then I would criticise From for releasing a game that wasn't optimised for the biggest user base.
Yeah, if you are "bored" during the Genichiro fight, I don't know what to say. We live in entirely separate realities.
See above. 50+ bloody tries.
 
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tassletine

Member
Sekiro has basically no boss runs, statues are almost always right next to the boss arena.
Except it obviously does.
They almost always have enemies that can twat you randomly as get there.

There's an enemy before Genichiro, and pointless jumping. Even an NPC at one point.
There are guns going off before the fight in the snow with whatsherface that if they hit you in mid air cause you to fall to your death (although that is rare)
Seven Ashina Spears has you leaping over walls, with enemies around, as does that guy in the sewer nearby.
Both versions of Drunken Bastard have a big run before them.
First Monk has a mini boss before it.
The ghouls in the caves aren't usually next to any statues.
Centipede demon
Robert's dad.
 

BbMajor7th

Gold Member
I love me some Souls, but bounced hard off Sekiro. It has potential, but there's too much that doesn't quite work. The world has too little worth discovering, the game design is ill-considered and the combat feels too one note.

I don't think the bosses are outstandingly hard, per se, I just think that they're poorly integrated into the broader game design. You can clear most areas and mobs with relative ease, mixing stealth, deathblows and ordinary combat - most enemies can be guard broken in a handful of hits, so even spamming can save your ass. I didn't die much in the world, overall, because it's quite easy to mitigate challenge with smart play.

Bosses on the other hand feel like bullshit because they straight up fleece you of half your options on the way through the door: Verticality? No. Stealth? Not a chance. Grappling Hook? Only if you ask nicely. Then they push all the other stuff up to eleven and if you're some poor sucker who's been sneaking your way through the world, then by the time you reach Genichiro you're going to be in for a brutal time.

There are some off the track challenges, but you'll learn early on that most rewards are minor and so it removes the incentive. Dark Souls risk-reward design made optional challenges alluring, because they were normally worth it and this organically teaches you the game, but Sekiro falls down hard here. Think about the Seven Ashina Spears guy. Unbelievably tough challenge and your reward is a Prayer Bead; you bin most of your Sen and gold just getting through him and your reward is one quarter of an upgrade.

The limited used shinobi prosthetic and special techniques make things worse - if a game as hard as Sekiro gives me a weapon and says 'you won't always be able to rely on this', I'll pretty much never want to rely on it and that's what happened. Dark Souls says 'hey, Estus is infinite and there's no great penalty for death so just keep going until you get it', Sekiro says 'hey, you're out of spirit emblems, you're pretty much broke, all your vendors are coughing up blood and every time you fail, this gets worse'.

That so many people bounced off the game for such similar reasons, suggests this is more than merely academic. I honestly don't think you need to step back too far to realise how badly designed Sekiro really is - especially when you consider that all the things it manages to get right is stuff the studio has been refining in much better games for nearly a decade. One thing is fairly sure, that 10-years from now, you won't have an entirely new genre and paradigm in gaming inspired by Sekiro.
 
Except it obviously does.
They almost always have enemies that can twat you randomly as get there.

There's an enemy before Genichiro, and pointless jumping. Even an NPC at one point.
There are guns going off before the fight in the snow with whatsherface that if they hit you in mid air cause you to fall to your death (although that is rare)
Seven Ashina Spears has you leaping over walls, with enemies around, as does that guy in the sewer nearby.
Both versions of Drunken Bastard have a big run before them.
First Monk has a mini boss before it.
The ghouls in the caves aren't usually next to any statues.
Centipede demon
Robert's dad.
Lol I'm sorry if you're classifying sneaking past one enemy and jumping up on a ledge as a "boss run" I hope you never play Demon's Souls
 
Yes if you don't memorize the attacks you will get owned. How is this any different than usual? "It doesn't feel organic"? Lol what does that even mean.
I think what they mean is, the game is designed with the "die repeatedly" mechanic in mind. So bosses might whip out something unexpected and just oneshot you with it, or they delay attacks (normally always does 3, now does 5 suddenly).
So because of this strict memorisation, and "wait and see" approach, it's going to feel "less organic" compared to something like DMC, where you can make tons of mistakes and still come out on top.

I personally feel like nioh 2 does it much better than the souls games, since they are faster and there's so much wild shit you can do, you can approach fights almost completely how you want.
 

Astorian

Member
Since we're talking about From games, I wasn't much of a fan of Sekiro, the lack of RPG elements, weak lore and online was too much compared to their previous games, hopefully ER will have all those.
 
That so many people bounced off the game for such similar reasons, suggests this is more than merely academic. I honestly don't think you need to step back too far to realise how badly designed Sekiro really is - especially when you consider that all the things it manages to get right is stuff the studio has been refining in much better games for nearly a decade. One thing is fairly sure, that 10-years from now, you won't have an entirely new genre and paradigm in gaming inspired by Sekiro.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that Sekiro is in the top tier of Souls games (those are clearly Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne), and I don't think From really anticipated that it would be - it strikes me more as a side project meant to refine certain mechanics not truly present in the main games for use in future installments, which it clearly succeeds at (with regard to stealth, jumping, grappling, and so on). From also took the opportunity to do something that a lot of fans had been clamoring for: to replicate for veterans the feeling of challenge they remember from their first Souls game. And they definitely succeeded at that too.

Of course Sekiro is going to be too hard for some Souls veterans, just as Souls itself is too hard for some gamers. In fact, a lot of the complaints about the game from Souls veterans mirror the complaints about Souls games from gamers who have saltily bounced off them. The fact that Sekiro is so hard is, in fact, one of the best things about it, though obviously I doubt many people want this level of difficulty to be the norm for future installments in the series.
 
I think what they mean is, the game is designed with the "die repeatedly" mechanic in mind. So bosses might whip out something unexpected and just oneshot you with it, or they delay attacks (normally always does 3, now does 5 suddenly).
So because of this strict memorisation, and "wait and see" approach, it's going to feel "less organic" compared to something like DMC, where you can make tons of mistakes and still come out on top.

I personally feel like nioh 2 does it much better than the souls games, since they are faster and there's so much wild shit you can do, you can approach fights almost completely how you want.

Every single From game has a “die repeatedly” mechanic. Not just Sekiro. Ffs Dark Souls is subtitled “Prepare to die”.

If they delay an attack then delay your response. If they use a one shot attack figure out how to avoid.

None of this is new.
 
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Every single From game has a “die repeatedly” mechanic. Not just Sekiro. Ffs Dark Souls is subtitled “Prepare to die”.

If they delay an attack then delay your response. If they use a one shot attack figure out how to avoid.

None of this is new.
It's like you didn't even read my post.
 

GymWolf

Member
I thought O'Rin was pretty savage, headless and Schimen warrior also were a big problem for me.
fuck i don't remember who orin and schimen are...

o rin is the granny with the kunai? that one was hard as hell.

Headless is the monkey right? that one was tricky too.


i think that i need a second run on this...
 
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fuck i don't remember who orin and schimen are...

o rin is the granny with the kunai? that one was hard as hell.

Headless is the monkey right? that one was tricky too.


i think that i need a second run on this...
He's talking about minibosses. O'rin is the shamisen player, the shichimen warriors are the demons that shoot purple fear lasers, and the headless are the headless teleporting ghost guys who slow you down.
 

GymWolf

Member
He's talking about minibosses. O'rin is the shamisen player, the shichimen warriors are the demons that shoot purple fear lasers, and the headless are the headless teleporting ghost guys who slow you down.
oh yeah, a bunch of sons of bitches :lollipop_squinting:

well it's official, all these talk about sekiro make me want to start a new game, the more i think about the game, the more i remember how fucking phenomenal it was (and i don't even like parry in games)
 
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V4skunk

Banned
fuck i don't remember who orin and schimen are...

o rin is the granny with the kunai? that one was hard as hell.

Headless is the monkey right? that one was tricky too.


i think that i need a second run on this...
LOL no, no and no.
O'Rin is that ghoul bitch with a Katana that jumps about and goes invisible.
Headless are those cunty things with swords that fear you to death, one of them is a water fight.
Sichimen is another cancer like Headless that fears you to death.
 

GymWolf

Member
LOL no, no and no.
O'Rin is that ghoul bitch with a Katana that jumps about and goes invisible.
Headless are those cunty things with swords that fear you to death, one of them is a water fight.
Sichimen is another cancer like Headless that fears you to death.
i'm starting to remember, i have shitty memory for names.

The water fight wasn't that bad except having 2 of them at the same time.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
That's pretty much down to how differently we play. I play by reactions and the ape was my favourite boss (apart from 7 spears). Demon of Hatred was fine as well. I beat them both in about 3 - 5 go's.
Genichiro was my least because he demanded you learn the tells and up until then I had been getting by on reactions. He took me 50 at least. I really resented the switch up in gameplay styles as I had been doing fine up until then and it took me by surprise.

I will stress this was on base PS4 though as playing on PC alleviated most of these issues -- but then I would criticise From for releasing a game that wasn't optimised for the biggest user base.

See above. 50+ bloody tries.

I see I see. I did enjoy the monkey boss, but I had to use all the tricks on him, oil, fire, sparks to scare him, and then learn how to deflect/parry all his attacks lol.
Normally my reactions were good as thats what I really enoyed about the combat but I just couldn’t find how to beat Demon of Hatred. Wasn’t much to deflect/parry lol.

How did you find fighting Emma and Isshin on the bad ending?

Shikibu Toshikatsu was the hardest for me of the 7 spears.
One day Ill have to fight the Demon on Hatred properly lol. Not on new game+++ as Ive already platinum’d it.

 

tassletine

Member
I see I see. I did enjoy the monkey boss, but I had to use all the tricks on him, oil, fire, sparks to scare him, and then learn how to deflect/parry all his attacks lol.
Normally my reactions were good as thats what I really enoyed about the combat but I just couldn’t find how to beat Demon of Hatred. Wasn’t much to deflect/parry lol.

How did you find fighting Emma and Isshin on the bad ending?

Shikibu Toshikatsu was the hardest for me of the 7 spears.
One day Ill have to fight the Demon on Hatred properly lol. Not on new game+++ as Ive already platinum’d it.

I found the ape fairly kiteable, only the second stage caused any problems with it's weird swimming on the floor timing.
The first time you fight it (and I'm not sure I counted that) is so terrifying and intimidating though. Almost sheer panic, and I died quickly.

I didn't do the bad ending. I may at some point, but a combination of playing it through twice and having other games got in the way.

Shikibu Toshikatsu was the one I meant, sorry I didn't look it up.
I love that fight, knowing that there was an enemy nearby that could spot you and come and ruin your fight was nervewracking. Also love how brutal he was.
 

tassletine

Member
Lol I'm sorry if you're classifying sneaking past one enemy and jumping up on a ledge as a "boss run" I hope you never play Demon's Souls
Alright, tough guy. Go with your own made up definition if you want, it just makes you look silly.
Given my original post you know very well I'm talking about game mechanics that waste your time.

But you'd know all about that.
 
Alright, tough guy. Go with your own made up definition if you want, it just makes you look silly.
Given my original post you know very well I'm talking about game mechanics that waste your time.

But you'd know all about that.
You're the one criticizing Sekiro for something that other games in the series do much more often.
 

peronmls

Member
I’ll do the same with this as I do for every souls game:

Use full guide.

Summon at every boss encounter.

Use rings that boost stats for easy mode.

Upgrade best bow to spam enemies from a distance.

Exploit cheese tactics - bad AI to level up.
These games are defenitly not made for you if that's the case.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
I found the ape fairly kiteable, only the second stage caused any problems with it's weird swimming on the floor timing.
The first time you fight it (and I'm not sure I counted that) is so terrifying and intimidating though. Almost sheer panic, and I died quickly.

I didn't do the bad ending. I may at some point, but a combination of playing it through twice and having other games got in the way.

Shikibu Toshikatsu was the one I meant, sorry I didn't look it up.
I love that fight, knowing that there was an enemy nearby that could spot you and come and ruin your fight was nervewracking. Also love how brutal he was.

Yeah Shikibu was a good fight. I enjoyed most of them tbh but that one was challenging And awesome.
Yes a good few times he made me go downhill where I was seen by the other enemies and they joined together to whoop my ass.

And the Ape defo had me terrified a few times. Once I got his Rhythm right I really enjoyed it. Fighting both white and brown ape at the same time was challenging too but I only died a few times with them. Alot of running and hitting until one of them died and then finishing the other off.

Great game, one of my favourites of the generation and the combat was 1 of my top 3 of all time. The sword to sword combat really captured the samurai/ninja feeling.
 

Alebrije

Member
Bet Elden Ring will use Souls mechanics with a mix of Bloodborne.
From said its a new begining they are done with Souls lore but pretty sure we will find connections between both them like old name of places, objects , etc. I am glad that this time they will tell us more about the story/lore than on Souls...still do not expect a full explanation of events like on FF games but a lot of less holes that leave the plot to each player imagination....its good to have those holes but Souls abused this system.
 

YukiOnna

Member
I love me some Souls, but bounced hard off Sekiro. It has potential, but there's too much that doesn't quite work. The world has too little worth discovering, the game design is ill-considered and the combat feels too one note.
Can't agree at all. More worked in Sekiro than it did in Souls games in my case. How they designed the world and their approach to it was the best yet and I almost wish Miyazaki made that the standard but they shouldn't since it would make it lose its magic.
I don't think the bosses are outstandingly hard, per se, I just think that they're poorly integrated into the broader game design. You can clear most areas and mobs with relative ease, mixing stealth, deathblows and ordinary combat - most enemies can be guard broken in a handful of hits, so even spamming can save your ass. I didn't die much in the world, overall, because it's quite easy to mitigate challenge with smart play.
Yes, the game rewards you for smart play and making use of your knowledge, arsenal and understanding of the game.
Bosses on the other hand feel like bullshit because they straight up fleece you of half your options on the way through the door: Verticality? No. Stealth? Not a chance. Grappling Hook? Only if you ask nicely. Then they push all the other stuff up to eleven and if you're some poor sucker who's been sneaking your way through the world, then by the time you reach Genichiro you're going to be in for a brutal time.
If you're someone who's been avoiding combat a majority of the way through and standard mechanics, that's not on the game-design that's on the player. You should be rewarded for having an understanding of the core mechanics when it comes to direct combat, not how you got around an area or avoided direct encounters. This is why the mini bosses were great additions IMO to test that before you fought a major boss.

I actually cannot understand why people struggled with bosses like Genichiro and whatnot if you understand their attack pattern and feel comfortable with Wolf's maneuverability. In that aspect, it is fundamentally no different from Dark Souls or Bloodborne where your awareness becomes king. Parrying was never difficult in the game either as it's very loose.
There are some off the track challenges, but you'll learn early on that most rewards are minor and so it removes the incentive. Dark Souls risk-reward design made optional challenges alluring, because they were normally worth it and this organically teaches you the game, but Sekiro falls down hard here. Think about the Seven Ashina Spears guy. Unbelievably tough challenge and your reward is a Prayer Bead; you bin most of your Sen and gold just getting through him and your reward is one quarter of an upgrade.
Because it's not Dark Souls or Bloodborne, let alone a genuine RPG? It has the same draw and incentive except the items are designed to be naturally tied to you and your ability/options to fight and approach enemies. It's all an extension from Wolf's growth.
That so many people bounced off the game for such similar reasons, suggests this is more than merely academic. I honestly don't think you need to step back too far to realise how badly designed Sekiro really is - especially when you consider that all the things it manages to get right is stuff the studio has been refining in much better games for nearly a decade. One thing is fairly sure, that 10-years from now, you won't have an entirely new genre and paradigm in gaming inspired by Sekiro.
The only places I've seen people bounce off Sekiro is on forums like this, otherwise I've yet to hear about people do so in general. It is one of From's fastest selling games and had quite good legs. Sekiro would be one of Miyazaki's highest quality games.
 
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