over my roughly 60 hours playing Sekiro, my feelings about it changed a lot. at times, i was ranting to anyone who would listen that Sekiro was actually as much a soulsborne game as Dark Souls 2, at other times i was considering the effect of the departures from the formula that set it apart from the rest of the Fromsoft catalogue. at times i felt it was brutally difficult, other times i felt the mechanics open up before me and i could feel Wolf as an extension of myself in the way i’m certain he feels his katana is of him. i got mad that there was no multiplayer, and then i got extremely happy that i didn’t have to worry about multiplayer.
for those who’ve avoided it, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is Fromsoft’s 2019 release, put out between Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring, and it was number two on my list of games to finish this year, after Fire Emblem: Three Houses. it follows Wolf, a shinobi, who initially is driven to rescue the child he has been sworn to serve. it is missing a lot of what folks like in a soulsborne game – the game forgoes medieval fantasy and sets itself in Sengoku period Japan, it has no character creation and places you in the role of a specific character with a specific backstory, personality, and goals, and there is no equipment system with a variety of weapons and armor and the point-based attribute system that accompany it – Wolf wields one weapon throughout the game. magic in the souls games is replaced with Wolf’s shinobi prosthetic, whose attachments do a decent job of imitating spells. the core combat will feel familiar though – attacks have weight and follow-through that punishes mis-timings or bad reads of an enemy – and a lot of the pace of the game is similar. Wolf moves from checkpoint to checkpoint, resting at Sculptor’s Idols in the way the Chosen Undead finds bonfires, and Wolf’s Healing Gourd is basically an Estus Flask (functioning a lot like it does in Dark Souls 2, with additional charges coming from items scattered throughout the world). past this point i get a little more spoiler-y, so this is your warning if you haven’t played yet.
