Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Sekiro

Maybe time to move on?

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Before my medical crisis, I was very much into FromSoft games, in part for the difficulty and pride in beating the games. When I heard Elden Ring was coming out, I had this elaborate plan about how I would have two different characters. One would be for my solo run and the other would be for co-op. Then, I had my medical crisis and all that went out the window. The only thing I wanted was another Miyazaki world to explore. Lovely, bleak, tense, gruesome, and achingly heartbreaking at the same time.

I got all that and more with the game. It’s incredible; it really is. However (and you knew there was going to be a ‘however/but’ after that statement), I have been havinng a problem with the difficulty since Sekiro in 2019. Actually, since the DLc of Dark Souls III a few years earlier, but Sekiro really underscored that the games were going in a direction I wasn’t comfortable with.

I was relieved when they went back to Souls combat in Elden Ring, but the brutality in the last quarter of the game really drained the enjoyment for me. I’ve talked many times about how From has bought its own hype and makes the end of their games way too hard. Yeah, I said it. They are too hard at the end.

Well, let me rephrase that. They are too hard for me because that’s not why I play the games. Not back then and doubly so now. And I am tired of feeling like I suck at the games. Whether I do or not. (I do, but maybe not sa much as I think I do.)

Side note: The new thing in soulslikes is making the parry/deflect king–like in Sekiro. I. Fucking. Hate. This. I can’t parry. I have never been able to parry. I don’t mean ‘won’t’; I mean can’t. I spent hours trying to parry the Silver Knights in Anor Londo. I got to the point where I could parry the sword guys 75% of the time. The spear guys? Maybe 15% of the time. 20% if I was feeling lucky.


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More about ableism in FromSoft games

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I’m going to talk more about ableism in gaming–especially in From games. I have done two posts on it, and here’s the second post. I am currently rewatching Nath from Playstation Access playing Sekiro, and I have to shake my head at how easy he makes it. I mean, he’s still dying, but he is so much better than me at the game. His reflexes are almost automatic whereas it took me forever to realize someone was attacking me and maybe I needed to attack back.

I try not to bang on about tit in the RKG Discord because I don’t want to harsh anyone’s high, but I really want people to realize that not everyone can play the game. It’s not a matter of ‘gitting gud’, at least not in the way that it’s normally said. By the way, the mini-boss that Nath fights, Snake Eyes Shirafuji, is a woman. Here’s a little-known fact that many streamers don’t know/overlook–all the enemies/bosses of this type are women. Which is pretty cool. There are groups in all the games that are made up of women. Well, most of them. I think?

In Elden Ring, it’s the Black Knife Assassins. In Bloodborne, apparently, it’s the hooded Beast Patients in old Yharnam (I just learned this). The above enemies in Sekiro I menctioned are in the Sunken Valley. Huh. There aren’t really groups of female enemies in the Souls games, execpt for the trees in the first DLC of Dark Souls III.

It’s interesting to me how many gamers just assume enemies or bosses are male, even when there’s evidence to the contrary. Rory from RKG did it all the time in the early seasons of Prepare to Try. He kept calling the Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Sister Friede from Dark Souls III ‘he’, which was like–I mean, with the second one, it’s right in the name.

He would not make that same mistake now, which is great, but a lot of people do. The default, sadly, is still male. It’s frustrating and just a small part of the problem in the industry.

Sekiro is a beautiful game. I think it’s a very well-made game, but it’s not accessible or disabled-friendly at all. AT ALL. It’s the worst of the games in that respect, and it’s one of the reasons it’s my least-favorite game. When you cannot do the main conceit of the game (again, cannot, not will not), it’s not fun. At all. I could not even explore in relative peace because there were assholes all over the place. And because it was assumed that you would be able to deflect them, FromSoft thought nothing of putting five or six really hard enemies in the same cluster.


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Ableism and FromSoft games, part deux

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In yesterday’s post, I talkeda bout ableism and FromSoft games. They have never cared about accessibility, and I used to defend it. This was a decade ago. I still had issues with aspects of their games, but I just put it down to me and that it was my problem because I could not see a way to get around it when the whole premise of their games is to have insanely difficult bosses. Oh, sure. They don’t say that’s the point of the games, and hardcore fans are now retconning the fanfic to be that the games eran’t that hard.

They are.  They may or may not be ‘that hard’ for From fans, but for someone just picking one up for the first time? Yes, they are ‘that hard’. As with anything, you forget how hard it was when you played your first From game for the first time. I have not. I was terrible at it, and I hated it by the end. I vowed never to touch it again–or any other game by the same company. Obviously, that turned out to be a lie, but it was how I felt in my heart at the time.

And, honestly, I feel a bit of the same every time I finish one of their games for the first time. A big part of that is my own fault. I tend to get obsessive when I like something so I gorge on it. And, then I’m slightly sick of it by the end, but I can’t stop myself from continuing. Part of it is that From has bought their own hype slightly. They have made the end of their later games (and the DLCs) doubly hard. It’s my least-favorite fan service, honestly. I don’t play the game for the difficulty. I would say I play the games despite the difficulty, actually.

At the end of yesterday’s post, I was talking about how you can use Vyke’s Spear to do the platforming puzzle to get to the Three Fingers. Yes, that all makes sense if you play the game. Here’s a link to the Reddit thread in which it was shown and discussed. In it, Todd_The_Sailor shoded off this one neat trick. It makes sense because the Three Fingers about the madness and frenzy, same as Vyke’s Spear. If you watch the video, you’ll see how easily Todd_The_Sailor makes it look. And I’m sure for most people, it is that easy. Not for me. I didn’t always angle my character correctly or took a step or two before using the Ash of War (which is how you do the trick). You can’t jump and do the AoW at the same time, which was what I was trying to do.

I think all platforming is trash in FromSoft games, but this one was notorious enough that other people complained about it, too. It’s not just me is what I’m trying to say.

There’s a debate in the community about what is going too far. This is going too far. All the platforming is going too far, to me. I accept dying to bosses because my reflexes are shit and I can’t parry. I accept dying by falling because I can’t gauge a jump. I do NOT accept dying beacuse the fucking platforming is so fucking fiddly that being a micromillimeter too far to the left or the right will kill you. I died more trying to get that one incantation than I did to any boss, including the hardest boss in the game, with my strength character. That’s not good game development, and it’s so fucking needless. Nobody likes that section–nobody.

And, as I qucilky mentioned at the end of the last post, there is a relatively easy solution (other than not having it in the game, which is the best solution)–if a person fails five times, let them automatically make the rest of the jumps. If that’s too much for the fragile hardcore From fans, then at least make it so that all the jumps up to that point are automatic. It should not take me half a fucking hour to do five or six consecutive jumps.


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Ableism and FromSoft games

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Time to talk about the dark side of FromSoft, and I’m not talking about Dark Souls. Let me be clear that I love the games and FromSoft (mostly, that’s another post for another day). I basically play a From game every day and a cozy game (that changes). But they don’t really care that much about accessibility in several of their games, which is hard as a From fan who has several issues that teeter on disability and at the very least drastically affect how well I can(not) play the games. It’s the reason why Sekiro is my least favorite game by From and the one I will least recommend accross the board.

I have no problem with other people thinking it’s the best From game or gushing about it. What I do have a problem is when people express incredulity that someone doesn’t think IT’S THE BEST THING EVER!!! I mean, I feel like that in general when people get way too defensive about what they like. Nothing is for everyone, no matter how objectively good it is. I can’t stop thinking about a content creator who once said in all sincerity that he could not imagine not liking something that was good (talking about games). If it was good, then he would like it! Therefore, if he did not like it, it must not be good!

He was a hot mess in many ways, but that’s what stuck with me the most. How self-centered do you have to be to think you are the sole arbiter of what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’? And that anything you like is good whereas anything you don’t like is bad? It’s not surprising that he is a cishet white male, either. That’s pretty much a given that many oyf them think they are the default standard.

I know there are a lot of things that I like that aren’t great art. I also know there are many things considered great art that leave me cold. I’ve often said that one positive about being a weirdo is that I can recognize that my tastes aren’t for everyone. Therefore, even things I love with all my heart, I don’t consider it a blow to my ego if someone else doesn’t love it or even hates it. I don’t need to hear them sneer about it and be derisive about it (as my last ex did), but I’m not going to wilt if they don’t like it. I’ve had friends apologize to me for not liking a FromSoft game and I’m quick to reassure them that it’s perfectly fine. They aren’t for everyone and there are many reasons why someone may not like them.


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Bloodborne and Sekrio NPCS meh

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More FromSoft NPC realness. Yesterday, I outlined my faves in Dark Souls II (Scholar of the First Sin). Today, I’m going to mash together Sekiro and Bloodborne because I’m pretty sure I cannot do a post each even if I don’t give a targeted number for each. I have played each of the Dark Souls games a dozen times, but I’ve only played through Bloodborne completely twice and Sekiro once. I’m very close to the end of NG+ on Sekiro, but that will not happen.

Let’s start with Sekiro as it’s my least-favorite From game for reasons I have enumerated several times in the past. Honestly, when I think of it, I can’t remember very many NPCs at all. My favorite is someone who is a boss if you go for the bad ending. Let’s get to it.

1. Emma. Emma is the equivalent of your level up lady in the game. Not that you can level up. But she’s the one you give your gourd seeds to in order to strengthen your gourd. Which is your Estus Flask in this game. She’s the adoptive daughter of a doctor and learned from him.

I will say thatt the story is much more straightforward in this game, probably because Activision was the publisher. It’s also probably why there is a hidden shitty map in the game because they insisted there be one (not a shitty one, but a map). Everything about the game is streamlined in a way that I did not appreciate.

Emma is interesting in that she’s loyal to Isshin. She’s his doctor, but she was also rescued by him on the battlefield. I think. She’s the one who drops a letter to you so that you’ll come save Kuro. She knows secrets that she’s not telling you, but you can eavesdrop and overhear her talking about them with the Sculptor.

It seems as if everyone but you know what is happening. That’s another thing that I dont really like about the game. You’re just the pawn. I mean, it’s true in all the game,s but it’s so blatant in this one that you’re being manipulated and used.

Here’s one thing about Emma that sets her (and Isshin) apart from other NPCs (I mentioned it earlier). If you choose to go for the Shura ending, which means to forsake Kuro and follow Owl, then Emma becomes a boss fight, followed by Isshin. She turs from Emma the doctor and gourd lady to Emma, the Gentle Blade. And she’s pretty badass. Oh, wait. There’s a third NPC who becomes a boss. The Sculptor. He’s an on optional boss, the Demon of Hatred, and one whom many people consider the hardest boss in the game. I’m not sure if I’d call him the hardest, but he’s certainly one of the most tedious. Wait! Owl is like this as well. So there are four in this game that go from NPCs to bosses!


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Ranking the From games

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I love the FromSoft games. This is something most people know about me. We have an unhealthy relationship in which they repeatedly kiss my ass, and I go back for more.  I’m a sub, yes, but this is taking it to the extreme. Just kidding! I used to be a sub, but now I’m a switch.

Anyway, back to FromSoft games.

I had the list of my favorites from before Elden Ring. Once I finished Elden Ring, I wanted to rank where I would put it, but I couldn’t. Why? Because I was overwhelmed by what I had experienced. 225+ hours for one playthrough. I had seen everything the game had to be seen (I hadn’t, but I thougth I had), and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Now, nearly a year-and-a-half laater, I have put over five hundred hours into the game. I’ve completed it three times for the plat (hundo chievo), and have four total characters. By the way, no matter what kind of character I make in the beginning, they end up being a strengthcaster. My current charracter started as a samurai and now is a strengthcaster with two grave scythes.

But, I’m ready to rank the games. I think. There are six that I have played (not Demon’s Souls), and I will rank them from least-favorite to most-favorite, with my perennial reminder that favorite doesn’t mean best.

6. Sekiro. I never clicked with the combat. This is the most restrictive of the games, and you either get it or you don’t. I didn’t. I have never been able to parry with consistency, and that’s all you can do in this game. Or rather, it’s the best way to play the game. I could get the deflect once every four or five times, which meant that I had to whittle down the health of each boss. Which was not fun. At all. I’ve watched people play it, those who can do the deflect with ease. It’s a completely different game when you can master the main combat mechanic than when you can (I assume).

In addition, you can’t level up. Well, you can, but not each individual stat. There is no customization in this game besides what you can attach to your prosthetic arm, and that seemed very underbaked. You had one sword and one ‘armor’, which I put in quotes because there were no stats for it. You had to play the game on its terms, which meant that you actually had to git gud. This is the least accessible of the From games, and it’s a shame because it’s a brilliant game. Really. I think it’s an amazing game–but it’s the least player-friendly and the one I probably will never get the plat in–unless they add co-op.


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Life is not like video games

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In yesterday’s post, I was going to try to pair weapons with From games. I did not get there because I meandered all over the place as is my wont. In addition, there really isn’t a one-to-one comparison. Dark Souls III is my favorite From game, and the Double Saber Form is my favorite weapons form (sorry, Sword Form!). Could I make a tortured analogy between the two? Proboably. Am I going to? Probably. Does it make it right? Nope.

Here’s the thing. I have terrible reflexes and spatial issues. Both these things cause me problems in From games. They insist on putting platforming in their games, which makes me deeply unhappy. I haev banged that drum for a long time, but I’ll do it again. If you are not making a platforming game, for the love of all that is beautiful and holy, please do not put platforming in your game. Yes, I am a huge From fan, but this enrages me every time. Platforming is a precise thing that takes very talented people to do correctly. From is good at a lot of things, but platforming is not one of them. And yet. They put platforming in every fucking game. Like poison swamps, but that’s another subject for another day.

The thing is that I simply do not have the reflexes to do the perfect deflect in Sekiro, for example. I tried for hours after my medical crisis, and I could not do it. It’s not a question of try harder or better. I. Cannot. Do. It. Despite what Westerners have been told, you cannot do anything you set your mind to. Nobody can! It makes sense when you exaggerate it. I will never bin in the WNBA. I will never be a rocket scientist. These are things I cannot do because of the capped nature of my abilities. At this point of my life, I could not be a gold-winning medalist in gymnastics. I could not be a supermodel. I’m using extreme examples to just prove my general point–I literally cannot be anything I want to be. (No, I don’t want to be any of those things, but you get my main point.)

Now. In real life, reflexes don’t mean lightning-quick. When I was in a minor car crash, I saw the car coming at me at a high speed. I realized I was going to get hit. I even said it in my head–I’m going to gct hit. I instantly relaxed, and walked away with nothing but a huge bruise on my stomach. That was a real life instance in which my reflexes served me well. There was no way I could have avoided the crash, so I did the next best thing–came out of it unscathed.


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But my pride, tho

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I want the Sekiro plat/hundo chievo. There I said it. I won’t get it, but I want it. Here’s the thing. if I want to do it, then I have to do both endings at least once. Why? Because I did not think to save-scum. So I have to do each ending (good and bad, I mean) at least once. I have never done the Shura ending. And, I have to kill my nemesis–*SPOILERS*— Owl (Father) again. I tried him for a few hours post-hospital, and I did not fair well. *UNSPOILERED* It was probably the biggest evidence of my even slower reflexes because I could not react to his combos. Not that I ever could, but it was even worse post-medical crisis.

I will admit, I cheesed him the one time I beat him, anyway. I baited out the one attack I knew I could deal with and then countered it and only it. It was slow and tedious, but it got the job done. There was one attack he did that I just could not get into my brain that I was reacting the wrong way. I would move to the right when it should have been the left every goddamn fucking time. Honestly, it was the cheese that was recommended in videos–and it’s pretty much the cheese for all the bosses in this game. Find the one attack you can reliably counter and bait it out.

So. If I want to get the plat, I have to do it on my first save. Which is already on NG+ and past the point where I can choose the bad ending. That means I have to do my nemesis on this playthrough and then do the Shura ending on NG++. Plus one more ending. Honestly, if I can actually manage to get to the point of choosing an ending, I will definitely try to save-scum. But I doubt I’ll get to that point, which is distressing me. There is no reason I should be upset about it. I mean, I have done all the things I need to do to get the plat except beat the bad ending bosses. I can grind to get the skill points with a lot of time. There’s no reason for me to be cranky about it or to think it means I’m lesser because I haven’t gotten it.


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Difficulty in FromSoft games

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Two posts ago, I wrote about the Sekiro plat. It’s niggling at me because I have all the rest. And it bothers me that if I had planned it from the start, I could have it by doing the bad ending and grinding for XP to get the skills I needed. Here’s the thing about Sekiro. When you die, you do not have the chance to recover your lost stuff. You lose half your XP (which, by the way, I mistok as you losing it all. Meaning, if you get enough XP to gain a skill point, you ‘bank’ that skill point. You lose half your sen as well, but that never bothered me. Sen was eeasy to get, especially the further into the game you got. I was dripping with sen by the end of my NG+ run.

There’s something called Unseen Aid. If it kicks in, you don’t lose anything. You start with a 30% chance for it to tprock, and that goes down the more you die. Not because you die, necessarily, but because of the Dragon Rot. Once I realized that you could bank skill points, I felt better, but it was still annoying. When people talk about the plat, they mention two trophies that suck. One is the ‘do all the bosses on one save’ trophy (Man Without Equal) and one is the get all skills trophy. Because there is a skill that takes 9 points to get and by the end of the game, it takes forever to get one skill point, let alone nine.

I wanted to like Sekiro so much. I mean, I want to like every FromSoft game so much. But the fact that it was set in feudal Japan really piqued my interest. I was a bit worried about the system even before it came out, and it was with good reason.

One thing I love about the Dark Souls games and Elden Ring is that you can play them in a multiple variety of ways. You can be a caster or do melee. You can dual wield or go with a massive two–hander. You can use incantations/miracles or sorceries. You can tank everything or you can be a glass cannon. There are so many possibilities.

With Sekiro, there is only one way to play. You get one katana for the entire game and you can’t level up stats. I mean, you can, but not individually. You need four prayer beads in order to do an upgrade, and it spreads evenly among your stats. You can also boost yourself after you beat a strong foe (i.e., a proper boss), but it’s so limited.

When I played for the first time, I could not beat the mini-bosses. that mean I did not get prayer beads or gourd seeds, so I was severely under-leveled and had fewer health gourds than I needed.

When I made it to Madame Butterfly, I had one Gourd. One. Maybe two? At any rate, not enough. She kicked my ass so many times and in so many ways. I was contemplating giving up. I did not know she was optional at that time. I think I went away and game back and still could not beat her. I looked up cheese and used it to get her, and I feel just fine about it.


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You don’t know what you know

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I’ve been watching a Sekiro (FromSoft) playthrough and I am reminded of how people think their level of skill is normal. This is Nath from Playstation Access, and I was watching his plat run first, but then switched to when he was playing the first two hours (for the second time). In the plat run, he talks about finding the rhythm and he makes it look effortless as he whizzes through the game. He only needed two trophies with one of them being the ‘kill all bosses on one save’ one. Plus the all skills one. The former means you have to play it at least two times through (meaning NG+) and save-scum as there are four different endings and…well, ok. See, you need all four different endings as part of the plat. You need to do different things for the different endings, obviously.

One of the endings is the ‘bad’ ending and there are two unique bosses. I have not done this ending or fought these bosses.  This is called the Shura ending. The other three endings are variants of the good ending. This is not uncommon in FromSoft games, to have three or four different endings with one being the ‘bad’ ending, but this is the first time you have to fight different final bosses for the bad ending.

The first good ending is just go through the game and do the things and you can choose the vanilla good ending. For the second good ending, you have to fight my worst boss of the game and get an item from him, plus do the basic good ending last bit path. For the final good ending, you have to do all that plus a bunch more. If you are smart, you will set up everything for this ending, save, and scum the other endings. I  should have done (or at least tried. Save-scumming for Elden Ring didn’t work), but I didn’t even think about the plat at that point.

Oh, all of this is before fighting the BRUTAL final boss/es of the good ending. Who is the second or third hardest boss in the game. There is an optional boss who is just a pain in the behind. Here’s the thing. I took a peek at the trophy/achievement list and it’s brutal. You have to defeat all the bosses on the same save, which means at least two playthroughs on the same character. In my case, I would have to go to NG++ on my current save because I’m past the point of going to the bad ending in NG+. It’s really frustrating. If I could summon, I would be all over it. But because I cannot, it’s all on me. And I just cannot play the game enough to do what needs to be done.


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