Sekiro Shadows Die Twice (translator's note: Sekiro means ninja fuckery)

[Bebpo]

Oh damn, beating the headless in ashino leads me back to Senpou, demon bell. Neat.

Ringing the bell is hard mode. Don’t ring it.

Ok, yeah it says not too, so I was thinking I probably shouldn't do it yet.

[Bebpo]

How do I get past the purple dude in abandoned dungeon?

What purple dude? Are you talking about the jump kick loneshadow ninja?

[Himu]

Some purple dude in a cave that shoots massive projectiles and uses terror

[shosta]

Also for the carp guy, I have 6 scales and the dragon mask half is 7 and the floating technique is 5 and the burn gourd is 2. When I hit 7 carp scales should I just buy the dragon mask? Is the floating technique important?

Floating technique is a combat art. It's meh. Dragon mask is more interesting but won't be useful until you get the other 2 pieces. Just do whatever, neither is important except for completionism.

[Bebpo]

Oh, yeah I can't fight that guy either. It's Shamaniac Warrior. People all saying need to upgrade umbrella to purple to do that fight.

If you want you can run past him to the other side and grapple to get to bottomless hole. Or just go back to where you fought 7 spears, find the secret hole and fight the loneshadow ninja and crawl forward afterwards to get to bottomless hole.

Also for the carp guy, I have 6 scales and the dragon mask half is 7 and the floating technique is 5 and the burn gourd is 2. When I hit 7 carp scales should I just buy the dragon mask? Is the floating technique important?

Floating technique is a combat art. It's meh. Dragon mask is more interesting but won't be useful until you get the other 2 pieces. Just do whatever, neither is important except for completionism.

Ok yeah, saw the guy at abandoned dungeon entrance has the 2nd piece for 5,000 which I totally do not have. When I find the 3rd piece I guess I'll head back and buy the other two.

[Himu]

I got there by going to the well from the beginning of the game, killing the ninja after me, and going to abandoned dungeon.

[Himu]

I AM CONFUSED. Where is Mibu?!

Kingv mentioned a dungeon? To the right of the bridge?! Did he mean the abandoned dungeon entrance from underwater now passage? I already found that a long time ago. Where is Mibu?

[Bebpo]

did you find the bottomless whole rest point? everything is after that in a straight line if you find it. It's to the right wall of the shamaniac warrior fight in abandoned dungeon. Just find that first and jump down the hole.

[Bebpo]

Fuck, got 1 hit away from killing the 2nd headless on his 2nd deathblow. Dude has way more HP/Posture than the Ashino Outskirts one. I probably went through 3 divine confettis that fight Almost out. Having to cycle between terror gourd and regular gourd and replenishing divine confetti while parrying/dodging is really pain in the asssssss, can't say I like this apparation side of the gameplay. Wish you could just get a sword upgrade to let you hit ghosts without divine confetti.

[Himu]

How’d you get to Ashina Depths?

[Himu]

Fuck, got 1 hit away from killing the 2nd headless on his 2nd deathblow. Dude has way more HP/Posture than the Ashino Outskirts one. I probably went through 3 divine confettis that fight Almost out. Having to cycle between terror gourd and regular gourd and replenishing divine confetti while parrying/dodging is really pain in the asssssss, can't say I like this apparation side of the gameplay. Wish you could just get a sword upgrade to let you hit ghosts without divine confetti.

Terror and divine confetti are legit awful. No lie.

[Himu]

Did you find this hole with a guide or by yourself? Because if by yourself I’m very impressed.

[Bebpo]

Cindi, if you went and fought lonesome shadow purple kung fu ninja from 7 Spears a straight line literally takes you to bottomless hole rest point. It’s obvious you did not fight lonesome shadow yet. Go back to Ashino Reservoir and find the samurai talking about hearing someone playing music.

[Bebpo]

[Himu]

Who is lonesome shadow? I’ve already killed the purple ninja. I found it. I couldn’t see the damn wall on the side of the purple shaman dude which you can walk on to get across. I thought the only way across wasnfighting the shaman.

[Bebpo]

I think I'm gonna save every ghost boss for endgame or at least until the game lets me buy the purple umbrella. Gonna move on and do the rest of Senpou now. Out of divine confetti and 2nd headless, O'Rin, Corrupted Monk, Shichimen Warrior all seem impossible without it.

[shosta]

o'rin is my favorite. Perfect aesthetic.

[Bebpo]

Did Armored Warrior and the Monkeys. Vit up to 16 now, AP5. Oh and Centipede Man #2. Not sure what the point of clone bosses are other than free prayer beads.

[Bebpo]

Alright, gonna take a break from this game for a bit. Everything in its pissing me off atm. I think I finished everything at Senpu Tenpou, got the skill book and think I fought all the bosses/mini-bosses. In Mibu can't advance because of Cursed Monk, so I'm pretty sure all that's available to me is Sunken Valley Rift and the ghost bosses but I have no more divine confetti. Got to the snake cave and to the end part with the snake where you get on the rock below him with the shivering monkey but if I grapple to the snake he hits me do 60% damage and knocks me into a pit which is instant kill. Only other thing is Guardian Ape and I thought that was a real good fight in the way flaming bull wasn't, was fun dodging and attacking. Barely got a kill and felt satisfying and then Pt.2 with terror, yeah fuck that shit.

So pretty sure I'm stuck in the game until I can beat Guardian Ape or do something with the snake. Don't think there's anywhere left for me to go or something to do. I might be able to do it but I gotta get a lot better at the pt.1 of the fight so I don't burn through all my HP gourds just to beat the first part.

[shosta]

Post a vid of you doing the monk?

[Himu]

Click if you want an answer to the snake.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Use puppet ninjutsu on the monkey.

[close]

[Bebpo]

I just blew most of my best save for final boss items on Ape pt.2 to try to get the last few hits.

Still died.

Fuck this game I'm out. Sekiro beat me.


I can do ape pt.1 almost no damage at this point but I can't beat pt.2 for the life of me. I can deflect all his shit but none of that matters since you can't kill him by deflection. I can avoid his terror stuff with terror guard but whenever I get in and do damage I take damage. I just can't deal with pt.2. This is the hardest boss in the game easily so far.

[Don Rumata]

Click if you want an answer to the snake.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Use puppet ninjutsu on the monkey.

[close]

Or just run towards in from the front and

spoiler (click to show/hide)

use Mist Raven to dodge the attack and teleport past it.

[close]

 

[Himu]

Multiple saves? You can have multiple saves in this? I only have one.

Don't give up Bebpo. Sleep on it, and wreck him tomorrow. Use the red sword on him. He's undead and that sword kills undead like butter.

[Bebpo]

No cindi I said save for the final boss items, aka all my elixir HP/Posture full heals.

Here's a preview of my great runs:

[Don Rumata]

I just blew most of my best save for final boss items on Ape pt.2 to try to get the last few hits.

Still died.

Fuck this game I'm out. Sekiro beat me.


I can do ape pt.1 almost no damage at this point but I can't beat pt.2 for the life of me. I can deflect all his shit but none of that matters since you can't kill him by deflection. I can avoid his terror stuff with terror guard but whenever I get in and do damage I take damage. I just can't deal with pt.2. This is the hardest boss in the game easily so far.

This is so odd, Ape p.2 is one of the easiest bosses for me (i know this doesn't help).

Consider that it has only one attack that is truly dangerous, and that's the scream.

Once you learn to recognize that sort of weavy animation of the ape getting its head up to scream (and see the perilous attack symbol), just run (not dodge, run) backwards directly away from it, and wait it out (use that moment to heal if you have to).

Any other perilous attack it has, is something you have to jump (i don't even think it has a grab in p.2), so just jump when you see the symbol, and keep hacking away at it.
When he jumps way up high off screen and the perilous symbol appears, wait for it to start coming down and then jump also, that's also a sweep but it's easy to avoid once you know.

Everything else is just deflectable, so just stay close and spam block, trying to learn the timings of combos will help make it go faster, but spamming usually work good enough at first.

Other important attacks to keep track of:

1) The lunge forward with one swipe (where it ends up on its belly) can be deflected, but it's probably easier to dodge into, so you can punish severely.
2) The one where it gets all vertical with the sword held up high and just topples down on you is the one you gotta look forward to deflect, as it stuns it majorly, and then you can double tap the spear on its open neck/torso for massive posture damage.
3) Its standard combo is the 4 attack "dance-like" thrusts (but are normal attacks) and those are also good and easy to deflect.
4) If you stay close it has a couple of other combos, but they're all sword attacks that you can just spam block to, and if you deflect enough of them, it'll either scream you away, or (ideally) do (2), which is what you want, for the afore mentioned reason.

You don't need anything particular for this fight, but the spear with the pull combo (double tap of R2) helps make it faster.

[Bebpo]

So I beat him, but you can see I struggle so hard at getting hits in on pt.2 that I had to cheese him.

The terror scream is whatever, it's a free chance to get some damage on his back when its winding down
The lunge is the only attack I can run around and get free hits in

All his other attacks are impossible for me even after a ton of tries. If I deflect his sword stabs the posture damage adds up and breaks me and kills me. If I try to side dodge them I get stabbed, if I try to jump away I get stabbed. Even if I survive the stabs and swings there's no opening in there to get any damage in! I have no idea how you're supposed to fight an attack like that.

Since the only attacks that seemed safe to get damage in were the lunge and the scream I was forced to basically sprint around running away from him until he'd do the lunge and then get a few hits and repeat. So it took a while but it worked. Definitely the hardest boss by a good margin, idk how you found him easy Don.


I also snuck past the giant snake in there and now that I have the whistle I got my purple umbrella. Will try corrupted monk again tomorrow. I thought you had to have divine confetti but I guess he's not an apparition and he just has an insane amount of HP so that chip damage you are doing is normal and it's just a very long chip fight.

3) Its standard combo is the 4 attack "dance-like" thrusts (but are normal attacks) and those are also good and easy to deflect.

This is so untrue, you can see I deflect x 4 and it basically fills my entire posture from nothing to broken.

[Bebpo]

Killed shichimen warrior with purple umbrella. Guess it's time to take down Hidden Valley Headlines, O'Rin & Corrupted Monk next.

[Don Rumata]

This is so untrue, you can see I deflect x 4 and it basically fills my entire posture from nothing to broken.

I did the ape 4 of 5 times at this point, so it is true, but going from the video, you're blocking (not deflecting) 2 or 3 attacks out of 4 in that combo, so the posture meter goes up significantly more.
Since the attack is slow enough and somewhat telegraphed, i suggest avoid spamming in that one particular case, and try to time it more, or running away is also a good option there, since it doesn't leave that much room for punishing, that attack.

I know, just like in past Souls games, different people have trouble at different bosses, so this is probably the case, many have problems with the Ape, but i'd consider Part 1 significantly more complex than part 2.
Clearly though YMMV.

[Bebpo]

Took down the hidden forest headless. Purple Umbrella & projected force didn't really help me, I'd parry (absorb) and hit R1 for the project counter attack only to eat the next swing of the headless doing tons of HP and terror damage even with terror reduction. All for like 10-20% HP damage for one counter. Died probably 10+ attempts in to the first deathblow trying to fight with the umbrella instead of confetti. Ended up just using gourd/terror gourd/attack + posture up/the last of my divine confettis and beat it. Don't like this guy at all. The camera was also pretty shit there. You know I thought the mortal blade special move was supposed to hurt undead, or I guess apparition and undying are different enemy types. Did 0 damage on headless.



Then tried O'Rin with no divine confetti left because I read if you are truly good enough you can parry enough to get 2 deathblows on her without attacking once. So I tried this for about 20-30 mins and finally pulled it off. I can imagine with divine confetti and actually being able to attack back it'd be a pretty easy mini-boss since her combos aren't too bad to deflect and her red attacks are easy to jump counter or avoid for the grab. I'll be real happy when either I can just buy 99 divine confettis for these types of fights or when I'm 100% done with the last stupid apparition type boss/mini-boss.

So now just have corrupted monk left. I've now cleared every enemy and area available to me up to this point in the game. Hopefully that fight won't be too bad. I never gave it a real chance just because I thought the damage output I was doing meant I was missing something and needed to comb back later.

[Himu]

See? And you said you were done with the game and you did all this. BTW Bebpo, did you give the sakura drop to Kuro? You get an extra revive doing that.

[Bebpo]

See? And you said you were done with the game and you did all this.

Yeah. Was still very frustrating. I was enjoying Sekiro a lot and felt it was probably best game I've played in 2019 yet, but this middle section of the game now after Genichiro hasn't been much fun for me. I really liked everything up to Genichiro, but I've been non-stop frustrated on everything since. Even small stuff like the monkeys, I didn't get that there was

spoiler (click to show/hide)

an invisible monkey

[close]

And so I ran around for like 20 mins trying to find the missing monkey. And all the terror/headless stuff is just annoying.

And if the last 1/3rd or endgame is even tougher than this middle section, I dunno if I'm gonna enjoy it.

BTW Bebpo, did you give the sakura drop to Kuro? You get an extra revive doing that.

Yeah, I don't even know where I got the sakura drop from.

[Don Rumata]

Yeah, I don't even know where I got the sakura drop from.

I think Lady Butterfly gives it to you upon death.

[Himu]

Terror enemies ARE an issue and put the game down a notch. But I still love it.

[Don Rumata]

Terror enemies ARE an issue and put the game down a notch. But I still love it.

I agree, i hate that shit, like i hated the "Frenzy" bullshit in Bloodborne (which is essentially the same thing, but worse).
I also think it's shit that you need Confetti to fight them, but can't have infinite confetti from the start.

[Himu]

Needing an item to beat enemies is wack. Sekiro is NOT an rpg.

Only major complaint about the game.

[Don Rumata]

FWIW, i agree with you Borys, cheesing is exploiting the AI or arenas/geometry in a way that clearly weren't intended.

Some people call even using prosthetics cheesing. 

[Himu]

Snake eyes in Ashina Depths is way harder because of poison and hidden/hard to see gunners. Fuck off From.

This is rage inducing. Putting a goddamn pit of poison that’s not easy to jump out of with a boss that moves around like this pisses me off.

[Don Rumata]

Snake eyes in Ashina Depths is way harder because of poison and hidden/hard to see gunners. Fuck off From.

This is rage inducing. Putting a goddamn pit of poison that’s not easy to jump out of with a boss that moves around like this pisses me off.

At least it's easier to get that stealth kill in.

[Himu]

I’m not sure how. Well I wasn’t sure until I beat her. You have to find the other idol on the other side first.

[Himu]

The mist forest is excellent. Lots of hidden enemies. This is pure Souls.

[Don Rumata]

The mist forest is excellent. Lots of hidden enemies. This is pure Souls.

It's almost literally a copy/paste of the mist forest in Dark Souls 2 (only made easier, i guess). 

[Himu]

The mist forest is excellent. Lots of hidden enemies. This is pure Souls.

It's almost literally a copy/paste of the mist forest in Dark Souls 2 (only made easier, i guess). 

Sounds fantastic. Loved the storytelling in that place. Took down the noble in like literally three seconds but no complaints lmao. Liked everything from the forest to mibu. Just great, fun shit.

I might have to stop playing so late at night. Mibu village and the forest are spooky!

[Let's Cyber]

oh god, Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne.

 

[Himu]

Guardian Ape fucking sucks balls. The beast bosses are all terrible.

[Himu]

Jesus Christ I am not having fun. Fucking die already.

[Himu]

Ten. Minutes.
 


Second form is easy but boring as all fuck. BAD.

Also I’m thoroughly confused. The menu said mortal blade costs emblems. I am using it in this fight despite having only 1 emblem. I limited myself in previous fights because I figured I couldn’t use mortal blade. What in the fuck.

[Let's Cyber]

If you're out of emblems, you can still perform the move but it will do less damage. If you have the emblems to spend, your mortal blade will be stronger at the cost of said emblems.

[shosta]

nitoscream.mp3

[Himu]

If you're out of emblems, you can still perform the move but it will do less damage. If you have the emblems to spend, your mortal blade will be stronger at the cost of said emblems.

“Needs Spirit emblems to use.” From, you mother fuckers.

[Himu]

After Ape it’s refreshing that O’Rin and Monk were easy af.

[Bebpo]

So after my last set of posts on Guardian Ape, Headless 2 in hidden forest, and O'Rin with no divine confetti left so having to win by parrying only, I ended up in the ER a few hours later from all the stress of the game. Basically 4-5 hours of retries against bosses gave me an anxiety attack and cause my internal organs to freak out and I injured the lowerend of my esocigarillous. So swallowing stuff would hurt right around where my heart is. Didn't sleep at all for about 24 hours. Doctor said I shouldn't be playing games that stress me out so much. Never had a game put me in the ER before.

So today was mostly recovered and against my better judgment I thought I'd try playing the game more calmly and not let 100 deaths on a boss stress me out.

Tried Conjuring Monk. First 30 mins of learned all his attacks, but not being able to beat him because it's hard even getting 1 hit in after parrying most of his attacks (his fade back slash -> jumping slash when side dodged let me get like 2 hits, rest most of the time get 0 hits in). I realized why I thought I was doing chip damage without confetti, because he was blocking all my shit and I was not actually doing any damage most of the time. I'd just parry all his stuff and do posture damage but he'd recover posture damage too fast to kill him that way so it was basically getting kinda impossible for me.

Then I just ran in and hit him like 3 times when appeared -> firecracker -> hit 1-2 times -> firecracker -> hit 1-2 times -> repeat until out of fireworks to at least get him down low enough in HP that the added up posture damage I would do in the fight would finally be enough to kill him and it was and beat him the first time I tried doing that.

Then went back to Ashina Castle and re-activated all the idol points.

2 Chained Ogre was a joke with flame vent this time, jumped down deathblow -> fire -> slashes -> he ded
The double purple ninja fight at the dojo seemed impossible at first until I saw I could stealth the first guy and puppet him and then beat him on first try after that.

Then came the next roadblack, the fucking masamune or whatever spear ninja by the old serpent shrine. I'd sneak around and backstab him and then he'd use ako's sugar and was INSANE. I literally spent two hours in about 100 retries on him. I had all his moves down pretty damn perfect but some of his bullshit like even parrying his 3 hit poison blow poisons me and his 4-5 hit combo that ends with a foot kick that you can mikiri, so many fucking time the hit before the final kick would break my posture and he'd do basically 100% damage on me while stunned. The only safe hits in where parrying his jump down kick and then head stomp his sweep followup, but that does posture damage and he recovers posture incredibly quickly. I had so many times where I had him under 50% HP pulled out the trees area and he's just like sitting and waiting for me but no matter what I'd try to do he'd block and and then do a ton of hits and break my posture and poison me and kill me.

Ended up getting lucky one time rushing him down because I didn't want him to have a chance to use ako's sugar which was what was really killing me in the fight.



After that got to Great Shinobi Owl, spent an hour of probably 30-40 tries before bailing. Another boss where I learn all his moves and adjust to parrying them but the posture damage always adds up and kills me. I really hate the game design of Sekiro where it's like "look this game is about standing your ground and parrying and countering" but then gives all these bosses so much posture damage that they get you to flashing in like 1 combo. Genichiro was a fair fight because his posture damage was similar to yours.

Anyhow since I couldn't beat him I just recorded my last 10 mins of tries so you can see how he fucks me up.



I learned pretty quick that anytime I was on the defense I would lose. I saw some youtube strategy about running circles around him and baiting his easy moves and getting hits in with whirlwind slash. Well like all the other internet "easy cheat strategies" I don't have the skills/reflexes to pull it off so I gave up on playing defensive.

You can see in my last attempt before I bailed at around the 4:50 mark I played offensively, staying in his face and parrying his shit (or at least trying) and only backing off when I parry his firecracker combo so I jump back and then jump forward to get hits in. Sometimes I trade/eat damage being so offensive, but it's the only way I can handle him. I get to phase 2 in that run and even get lucky and get like 50% of his HP down playing the same way, but of course when I try to dash back to heal because I'm thinking "hey I'm doing a great run this time, I should heal up and try to finish him" I die because I try to back off and heal.

Whenever I try to dash back, run back, jump back to get some space if my posture is almost broken or life is low and I want to heal...almost always eat a hit. I suck at getting away from him.


Anyhow, if I tried for another 1-2 hours of 30-40 retires (btw I'm completely out of my entire stock of spirit emblems by the end of that fight which is another reason why I bailed), I could probably eventually beat him.

But why bother, I'm sure there'll just be another harder boss after him that I'll spend hours of retries on and another one after that. My plan was basically if I got to an ending I was gonna delete my save file and shelve the game right after because I don't find it fun and just want to beat it and trash it and never touch it again. But at this point I've just lost all interest in the game and might sit down tonight and watch a video playthrough of the rest of the game just to see the rest of the story.

When I spend 2 hours on a boss and beat them, I don't feel satisfied. I feel like I just wasted hours of my life until I get lucky and had a good run. Sekiro for me, at my skill level, which the game has obviously exceeded by this point, isn't a game where I feel like I'm learning and getting better. I feel like I've pretty much hit my skill ceiling and whether I beat it or not just depends on if I'm willing to hit my head against a wall enough times until I get a lucky run and get past each tough boss, and that's just not worth it for me.

I'd been debating while playing Sekiro whether it's the hardest game I've played in my entire life. I wasn't willing to give that label for most of it because I mean I was there for the final boss of Shinobi PS2, some of that Ninja Gaiden Black stuff, Hollow Knight, SMB, etc...and the various other From Soft games (which aren't even anywhere near this kind of difficulty). I'm sure there's a handful of games in my life that I've just given up at because they're above my skill level but I can't think of any specifically. So yeah, I'm willing to say this is the hardest game I've played in my life and it's frankly too hard for my skill level. I've never claimed to be a masterful expert at action games, but I thought I've been pretty decent since I've all the other ones I've played, but yeah in retrospect this game's showed me that I'm probably one of the worst at videogames out of all of you here since most of you were able to beat this and it's pretty obvious I can't.

So I'm calling it out on Sekiro, for real before it kills me irl. I actually don't like the game as much because the skill level and reflexes it demands is just obscene. If this is the direction Miyazaki wants to keep going and making their games harder and harder, then I'm probably gonna skip the next one, or play it the way one of my PC gamer friends did, where they used a trainer and had a great time through Sekiro lol

[Himu]

Yahoo!

About to fight Owl. I have a feeling I’m at the end of the game so I’m uploading save files to PS cloud for backup. I haven’t beaten any headless or anything so I want to do that stuff before beating the game.

[Himu]

Bebpo I’m sorry

[shosta]

tbh "Sekiro almost literally killed me" is good promotional material for From

[Himu]

Trying to get the bad ending lol and fighting Isshin

[Himu]

Lol I have a backup save and when I get the bad ending I’m going to load it up tomorrow or something and kick Owl’s ass for Bebpo and then get the rest of the stuff needed for the best ending. Zehahahaha!

[Don Rumata]

But why bother, I'm sure there'll just be another harder boss after him that I'll spend hours of retries on and another one after that. My plan was basically if I got to an ending I was gonna delete my save file and shelve the game right after because I don't find it fun and just want to beat it and trash it and never touch it again. But at this point I've just lost all interest in the game and might sit down tonight and watch a video playthrough of the rest of the game just to see the rest of the story.

Yeah, the final boss is 4 phases of torture, cool fight tho.

When I spend 2 hours on a boss and beat them, I don't feel satisfied. I feel like I just wasted hours of my life until I get lucky and had a good run. Sekiro for me, at my skill level, which the game has obviously exceeded by this point, isn't a game where I feel like I'm learning and getting better. I feel like I've pretty much hit my skill ceiling and whether I beat it or not just depends on if I'm willing to hit my head against a wall enough times until I get a lucky run and get past each tough boss, and that's just not worth it for me.

I generally feel the same. The idea of surmounting a big challenge, as far as gaming goes, works on a bell curve for me, after a certain point, the sense of accomplishment when i eventually memorize every little thing and do it, is completely evaporated, and i just feel like i've wasted X hours of my life on a videogame.
It's why i never bothered with the Dark Souls 3 DLC, after hating the final boss of the main game so much, it just wasn't fun anymore.
It's also why i didn't bother to finish Sekiro for the same reason, i was happy after beating the Owl, that was a fun challenge for me, then the boss after it (which wasn't technically harder, but whatev.) all interest in the game had evaporated, and i knew i wouldnm't have had the patience to spend 40 tries on the final boss (as i had seen my Brother beat him).
I still dick around in the game here and there, tried some wacky mods etc, but for the most part, i moved past it pretty quickly (doesn't help that the game doesn't really allow for any other playstyle or exploration, and feels more shallow than other action games i liked).

I'd been debating while playing Sekiro whether it's the hardest game I've played in my entire life. I wasn't willing to give that label for most of it because I mean I was there for the final boss of Shinobi PS2, some of that Ninja Gaiden Black stuff, Hollow Knight, SMB, etc...and the various other From Soft games (which aren't even anywhere near this kind of difficulty). I'm sure there's a handful of games in my life that I've just given up at because they're above my skill level but I can't think of any specifically. So yeah, I'm willing to say this is the hardest game I've played in my life and it's frankly too hard for my skill level. I've never claimed to be a masterful expert at action games, but I thought I've been pretty decent since I've all the other ones I've played, but yeah in retrospect this game's showed me that I'm probably one of the worst at videogames out of all of you here since most of you were able to beat this and it's pretty obvious I can't.

This doesn't mean that much, i've had a bit less trouble than you with the game, but as i mentioned before, different people struggle at different points in all hard games, so it's not a linear progression of skill (not that i'm good at any game in particular).
For example, maybe Sekiro is harder than other FROM games, but it never managed to frustrate me as much as Bloodborne did at some points (Katana guy in the Church, or Chalice shit), so from my perspective, i'd call Bloodborne harder, but it's mostly because of how much affinity you have with what specific play-style the game is asking of you, i think.

[Don Rumata]

This is exactly how a lot of people feel about this game. There's no joy and celebration after beating a hard boss here like in Souls. There's just this thought "glad it's over" until the next roadblock which happens after 10 minutes because the game is choke full of bosses/ mini-bosses.

Yeah i wanted to say, this is also a thing.
It's weird because i like the Sekiro combat more than any other FROM game, it's satisfying to constantly attack, put pressure on a boss, break their posture when they're still at half health, it's satisfying to deflect etc, but then the game as a whole just feels paced wrong.
Levels in between bosses are complete push overs, you may die here and there, but compared to the slow exploration of past games, it's something you completely breeze through, and i know comparison with Souls isn't fair, but the resulting loop is a series of incredibly hard walls (bosses) that feel way too close together, because everything in between is just noise.
Even if you compare it to other action games, Sekiro feels worse - Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta for example don't feel like a collection of bosses stringed together by thinly veiled treks through cannon fodder, Ninja Gaiden in particular asks you to pay attention in levels more than bosses, in many areas.
Sekiro has to pull 100% of its challenge from bosses, and this creates a really weird difficulty curve, of abrupts starts and stops.

In Sekiro, i had just finished the Owl after 6 or 7 tries, so what i'd consider a fairly tough fight, and not 20 minute later, i'm asked to do True Corrupted Monk? I didn't even get to enter the Fountain Head Palace/see a new area, and already i'm expected to spend another hour on a boss (granted it was a rehash, so i sort of knew its moveset), so i said fuck off, and used the stealth kill glitch, and dropped the game for good soon after (after the Dragon).
In this sense, as i mentioned before, i preferred the approach of Demon's Souls which sure, had some bad gimmick bosses (and some good gimmick ones), but at least tried to make every encounter different and unique, not just put another guy with 3 health bars you have to memorize a completely new move set of, every 20 minutes.

I don't mind the fights themselves, it's why i think a mode where you can freely fight individual bosses would even be fun, but as a whole, in the game, it never allows you to feel satisfied, when you spend 2 days beating a boss, and you're kicked in the ass by a completely different guy 20 minutes after, and you have to start all over, with very little in between.

[Himu]

Sekiro is full of difficulty spikes might be the problem. It's not smooth. It's very rocky and down up down up and relies on bosses (and mini-bosses) for challenge. I love it though. It's my favorite game this generation.

I'm hoping to beat it by Tuesday when Bloodborne arrives.

Everyone's criticisms seem to be completely fair.