I’ve had cases where I highly respected the game and could easily recommend it to others, but didn’t enjoy it myself. Or cases where I couldn’t safely recommend the game to anyone, yet liked playing it a lot myself. Sekiro, due to many unfortunate reasons, is close to the former situation, yet unlike most cases when that situation happens, I don’t just “respect” the game a lot, I genuinely like it a lot. Just didn’t enjoy it as much as I wished I would for reasons I will explore.
Unlike all recent titles of From Software directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki (apart from that PS VR title a few years ago), Sekiro isn’t an action RPG at it’s core. It’s an action adventure/hack and slash title with some character customization and abilities unlock/progression that mostly locks you into one specific frame of mind and focuses on one main way of playing the game, just with slight variation that players can add to it. And that way of playing the game is not drawing inspiration from Souls games or even Bloodborne, but rather from Tenchu, from Ninja Gaiden: Black and Onimusha or, more recently, from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. And given the fact that From Software previously worked on several entries in Tenchu, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the inception of what would become Sekiro.
So, how does it play? As a shinobi, you’re expected to move around and be smart about how you approach danger. You have a grappling hook built into the character hand that allows for some crazy vertical and horizontal movement, you have several tools and items that enhance your stealth, your combat abilities and your ability to escape combat when things get too hot. And the focus of both stealth and combat is in delivering the killing blow – it’s always a one-hit kill, except for special enemies and bosses/mini-bosses. How it works from stealth is rather self-explanatory – as long as you’re hidden and enemies don’t know you’re there (or “forget” that you were there, in a classic stealth game fashion), a backstab or a drop down kill will deliver a killing blow.
When in combat, however, the game introduces a rather interesting concept of posture. It affects both you and enemies (and interestingly special kinds of enemies have special weaknesses as well) and is easiest to explain in terms of blocking attacks. When blocking a hit, a meter fills up by a set amount of blocked incoming damage and when that meter overflows, the posture of the defender is broken, leading to a short stun period and an opening for the attacker. In case of you, that usually means just a few free attacks from the enemies (that can be fatal). In case of enemies, that means that independently from how much health do they have left, if you follow this opening up with a killing blow, you kill them. Meaning that in most cases, (there are exceptions), you focus less on enemy health and more on their posture – trying to get an opening that will instantly kill them, while also trying not to get hit yourself.
Which creates a really interesting and methodical dance every time you do have to go into open combat, because remember – you’re a shinobi, you should stealth kill or avoid combat if you can. You dodge, block and deflect (perfect block that can lead into counter-attack that might be an instant-kill with normal enemies) as you and the enemy change turns in attacking and defending, and, as expected from From recently, you die very quickly if you make a mistake. When everything clicks, combat feels unlike anything else as you move around the location, trying to outsmart and outmaneuver the enemy with quick paced “*clang* *clang* *clang* *death*” clashes in between. When something goes wrong, though…
And that’s where my personal enjoyment with the game faltered. Take it as a PSA of sorts when playing on PC. The game has a built-in V-Sync that cannot be disabled in game and it can lead to seemingly stable 60 FPS, when the game seems to be working perfectly fine. Yet, if your hardware is at the limit at max settings (as it was for me at native 1440p), you will in reality be constantly running into invisible yet deadly input lag. Something that I didn’t realize until after finishing the game and being really pissed off at it. As soon as I’ve switched to lower resolution to test things, turned out that I could perfectly deflect almost anything, while during my main playthrough the deflects were incredibly inconsistent depending on the situation. So, if you have a similar situation – set lower settings and the game will feel much better without looking much worse. Though, it doesn’t fix the fact that there are other odd issues that occasionally affect performance that were reported ever since the game release on PC…
It’s a real shame that I went through that, since even though there are parts of the game that feel too long, there are some annoying parts or elements, this does feel like one of the most fun action titles of… well, ever, probably. Personally, I would’ve probably still preferred the PlatinumGames approach of rewarding skilled play vs severely punishing non-skilled play, like what MGR: Revengeance does, but who knows – maybe that would’ve made the fights less exhilarating.
Besides, this is also the most conventional storytelling from From Software I’ve seen in a while, much more conventional than even Demon’s Souls, and it’s a good story that works on multiple levels. Due to verticality, this is a fun game to explore as well, with platforming being fun, not annoying (jumps are good even in combat). And it’s also possibly the simplest game from From to pick up and learn, with very few elements that are defined not as much as they should be, unlike what became usually expected from them. You don’t need a wiki to learn how to play the game or do most of its “hidden” things, everything is taught and explained within.
Sekiro will take some time to get used to, especially if you’ve played Souls titles but never were a fan of games like MGR: Revengeance. And it is still quite difficult, especially if you’re not a fan of using finite items or try to approach it as a pure action game, rather than a stealth action game. But it’s a game worth checking out and one of the best action titles I’ve ever played.