Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Release: 2019
Platform: PC
Developer: From Software
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Action
Gameplay Stats: 61 Hours, 100% achievements

A new From Soft game! Finally! Will it live up to the Dark Souls hype?? Let's find out.

Visuals: This game is absolutely beautiful! The character models look great, the movements are pretty fluid, and the environments are among the prettiest I've seen in any From Software game.The game communicates well for the most part too. When enemies do one of three types of moves (sweep, thrust, or grab) a kanji character appears over Sekiro's (MC) head. I had some issues being able to tell which kind of attack was going to come out at any given time by looking at the enemies. This means that I wasn't able to counter-attack properly and was punished often for it. The majority of enemies only have one type of these attacks, so it's not too bad, but some of the later game's bosses have two and you fight in an area that obscures your enemy so it's almost a crap shoot to see if you're getting a strong counter or a strong punishment. Otherwise though, they did a great job.

Audio: The sound effects are all serviceable as is the music. I don't think anywhere had any stellar songs and I don't think I'll revisit this soundtrack. It's not to say anything was bad, just that it was fine. It added to the feel of the game without drawing attention to itself. It could be argued that this is the point of video game music, but that discussion is for a different time.

Plot: As far as I know this plot was pretty unique! I don't think it was heavily based off of a single source, but definitely had many ties into Japanese folk lore and history. As with the Dark Souls series, the idea loosely follows some repercussions of Immortality and certain individuals being unable to die. (Why 95% of enemies respawn endlessly isn't touched on) Giving away some minor spoilers, Sekiro is able to have extra lives because of pledging himself to a child ruler. The game is exploring a little bit of this space and some of the repercussions found within. It's good! It feels like a Dark Souls game to me though, in that the plot is kind of irrelevant. There's lots of good environmental storytelling and detail put into the game, but I'm not patient enough (or don't care enough) to piece everything together by taking notes.

Gameplay: This game plays pretty similarly to a Dark Souls game in that it's a third-person combat focused RPG. This game differs though in that the combat is considerably faster than in the Souls series and relies more heavily on parrying than any of it's predecessors. This game also encourages aggression to a large degree because you can stand toe-to-toe with pretty much every enemy in the game. You can be right up in their face for the whole fight if you have enough skill. I didn't have that level of skill, so I played some of the hit-and-run that Dark Souls is known for. In my opinion, the game being more singularly focused on combat makes it more fun for your first play through, there are fewer decisions and the solution to almost every issue are: pay attention and increase your skill. Sekiro doesn't grow a whole ton over the course of the game apart from unlocking new attacks through prosthetics and killing enemies. There are some passive bonuses as well, but the majority of the game is played the same in the beginning as in the end. The player gets better, not necessarily the character. The game suffers a bit from lack of replay value though. In finishing the achievements I played through the game 2.5 times and the NG+ and NG++ plays felt lacking. There wasn't anything else to do other than personally become better at the game. There are stats, but they can only be raised to a certain degree. This game is more action, less RPG.

Overall I really enjoyed this game! I don't know that I will replay it though, because its the same experience each time. It doesn't benefit from the same customization as it's predecessors which makes this one of the more approachable recent games from this developer, but it is also tough like you'd expect. I could see a new person getting fustrated with this game, but I also think this would be an easier place to start than the Dark Souls series. With less of a focus on numbers, the game is considerably more freeing. I enjoyed this game quite a lot. [9/10]