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The first Headless I encountered in Sekiro. I was seeing enough progress and understanding what was being asked of me just enough to be stubborn as hell and kept trying to fight it head on, without having any knowledge yet of any helpful items that make the fight less rage-enducing.
Outside of Fromsoft, my NG+ encounter with the green swamp monster thing in Lies of P seemed SO much harder than the first time. So I’m not sure if this boss is considered easy or hard, but I didn’t consider it to be very hard going in for a second time and got quite stuck for a while…
Yeah I feel like it would be a nice in-between option for ya, as you mentioned the second phase troubles in your edit. It really is harder to learn a second phase when you’re only getting through the first on every 5th try or so (Laxasia was a pain in the ass for this, I never really got a good feel for phase 2, just managed it somehow on a lucky run with wild and terrified inputs haha)
I think having Sekiro as my first soulslike taught me that there’s a big gap between surviving a phase and really nailing a phase though, so I try to take that with me and get phase 1 to point of just warming up. And looking for more and more windows to inflict damage - it’s amazing how quick some of the fights can be when you find more of them
My only soulslike games have been Sekiro and Lies of P (some bloodborne years ago but didn’t finish it).
Like others have said, play the way it feels right to you. I get that you’re saying it’s somewhere in between - getting frustrated solo, but too easy with summons. If you get to that point again, maybe try using summons to learn the boss (EG get to the second phase every time to then learn the second phase) but don’t allow yourself to complete it during that round. Then when you feel ready, back to solo.
Personally, what I enjoy about these games is the design of each encounter. I feel like I only experience the full intended design of the fight if it’s 1v1, hitting a boss that is attacking some other npc isn’t engaging to me. So I don’t touch summons.
If the game is well designed, even a really hard boss should feel fair - when I die, I should be able to understand what I did wrong and what I still need to learn, and once I’ve seen it all I need to hone my reactions to each tell and pattern. Then it doesn’t matter how many tries it takes, as long as I’m still enjoying that process (yes it’s still frustrating at times but that usually just means the win will feel even better).
If I’m not enjoying the process, I’ll put it down for the day, and play again when I’m into it. If it’s so bad that I don’t ever feel like playing it again, then that’s that I guess. Hasn’t happened yet (except Bloodborne, but I wasn’t as much of a fan of the genre back then, will play it again at some point. Remaster when?)
Came to make the same recommendation. It depends on what aspect of the games you find intimidating. Most people recommending Elden Ring will likely be assuming that you mean mechanical difficulty, but in my case, the openness, variety, stat numbers etc of ER are all intimidating.
Sekiro is more approachable in this regard, the way forward is mostly clear, and the mechanics are clearly communicated, so you’re just left with practicing them until you’re good enough to progress.
I’d say that most people who say Sekiro is one of the hardest fromsoft games probably came from playing souls or Elden Ring and have the extra challenge of unlearning some of the foundations. I hadn’t played any, and though Sekiro is hard as hell sometimes, it clicked with me pretty quickly. Completed 3 endings and most of the optional, hardest content so far
Thanks again for your advice!
I’ve just beaten the scrapped watchman and I’m really enjoying it, and having the decisions streamlined by you is helping for sure. The only thing I’ve done differently is change the handle to the baton handle, as it’s a bit faster to deliver the charged hit (which is crucial when I’m going for stagger as often as I can).
This is exactly what I was after, thank you! I will probably parry too much coming from Sekiro so the Strength route sounds good - is the Sweeper as viable as the Bastard all the way through (with motivity levelling)?
I think if I’d asked a similar question for BB I would have loved it, but I was stubborn and tried to learn all of it by myself. Instead I learned that I just want to be mastering a few mechanics rather than having open ended options to dozens
Firstly, being on the autism spectrum (not saying he is or isn’t) doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole, and I’m sure many people who are on it and aren’t assholes will tell you that this take is insulting.
Secondly, when you say there is nothing major on there, you have to keep in mind his level of reach and influence. If your neighbour says “this new Covid thing is going to just blow over, there’ll be no cases soon’”, you can say “OK buddy, hope you’re right but it’s not looking likely”. When Musk says it, he directly contributes massively to the misinformation that has killed a lot of people and changed the whole damn world for the worse
SotC is still worth playing even if spoiled - for me it’s about the overarching feeling through the entire experience that is really special. Very lonely and isolating but beautiful and tragic.
ICO I tried to replay recently but found it too clunky, but that’s probably because I don’t often play retro games so don’t have the feel for them anymore. I did love it when I played it decades ago though.
Also, definitely add The Last Guardian to this list. It’s incredibly unique, and I absolutely loved the aspects of it that frustrate some people - just try to think of it like you’re trying to communicate with an actual animal, not a game.
I just spent a couple of hours, maybe more, on one boss. I’m not used to this genre in general (souls or any combat games really) and I’m determined to do it without looking up any guides or videos or anything.
It is so damn satisfying to go from “What?? I can’t even get close, I dont seem to be able to deflect or dodge these attacks and I can’t tell one move from the other seemingly infinite amount of moves wtf” to just flowing through the first phase on the way to just barely getting through the rest alive
What a game
I’m just discovering it myself - I think I’m getting towards the end but I don’t really know.
I’ve only played Bloodborne previously, and everything I heard about Sekiro made me think it would be a better fit for me then the rest of the Souls / elden Ring games - I get overwhelmed with too much choice, and prefer a more focused experience where the only way to get better is to get better.
And my god do I love it. Not even a genre of game I’d usually go for and it’s becoming one of the best games I’ve ever played. It just feels so damn good when you start flowing with the intended mechanics.
Can’t remember the last time I was looking forward to my next session with a game so consistently during the whole playthrough.
Also playing this on PC currently. It’s good fun, but I feel like it is far less polished than the first. Sometimes completely janky.
Performance is pretty much fine, with some stuttering here and there that nothing will fix. But not a huge deal.
Here’s a tip though: always save at a meditation point before quitting. There are a few auto-saving checkpoints around story beats, but reloading these can cause issues - I recently got completely stuck by relying on one.
Basically, there’s a moment where you can force pull a door open, but then end up going a different way and acquiring a new ability. Then you come back through the now open door. I had to quit the game after getting this ability, and on reload, the door was closed. Nothing I could do to open it from this side, and no way back up and out in the opposite direction.
I tried everything, and if I was on console I think I would have been completely screwed, at almost exactly halfway through the game. I had to download a mod to get to a debug menu where I could expose and load a previous ‘backup’ save. No idea why they don’t just expose a couple of these saves in the ‘load game’ menu…