Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the biggest game I’ve had the privilege to review to date. I’ve been playing it almost exclusively for the past six days, averaging at least eight hours a day, and I only completed my first run last night. Granted, I love completing games to their fullest and exploring every nook and cranny, but I still think that’s an impressive amount of playtime. Needless to say there’s a lot to cover here, so strap yourselves in.
Before I begin, I will clarify that my prior experience with From Software titles amounts to dipping my toes into a couple Dark Souls games and earning the platinum trophy in Bloodborne. Dark Souls never grabbed me with its grey colours and sluggish combat, but Bloodborne’s Gothic setting and aggressive combat suited me much better. It was incredibly fulfilling to fight through, but I played more for the satisfaction of success rather than your typical “fun.” If that makes sense… Regardless, that’s where I was at when I started up Sekiro for the first time.
The game begins with a gorgeous cut-scene, one of many throughout the campaign. It tells the story of your main character’s start as a shinobi, where he was taken in as a young boy to be trained, ready to defend the Divine Heir, Lord Kuro. The main character’s name is never truly revealed, but they are often referred to as “Wolf” or funnily enough, “Sekiro.” One thing of note is that the voice-acting is not limited to just the cut-scenes, as every character has a voice. Japanese is the default, but I’ve always preferred dub over sub with my anime, so I played the game with the English voices on and found the voice-acting to be fine ranging to good. A bit stiff in parts, but the sheer quantity of lines being read makes that forgivable for me.
Next up, the tutorial introduces you to platforming elements, climbing capabilities and stealth mechanics. Jump has been mapped to the X button on the PS4 controller, as it should be, and L3 crouches to make you less detectable, especially in bushes and the like. For the opening minutes you are entirely unarmed, so quickly learning to stay hidden is vital, and remaining out of sight never stops being a useful skill to master. Once you do gain your sword, you can immediately rush into combat head on, or if you’re smart, sneak up behind a guard and perform a stealth deathblow for an insta-kill. Deathblows, are magic.
Enemies in Sekiro all have health bars, equal to a certain amount of deathblows. The majority of regular enemies will require one deathblow, while mid-bosses and bosses may require two or even three to kill. These deathblows can be executed in a variety of ways too, and they all look spectacular and feel fantastic. Getting the jump on an enemy allows for a stealth deathblow, but often getting the literal jump on them allows for a deathblow too. If you do end up in face-to-face combat though, obtaining deathblows is much trickier, but also incredibly fun. Since Sekiro drops the RPG character building of prior From Software games, it makes for a much more centralised combat experience, focused almost entirely around swordplay.
Your sword is controlled with a mere two buttons. L1 assumes a defensive stance, or when pressed with correct timing executes a deflection (or parry if you prefer). R1 is your basic sword-swipe, or can be held for a heavier lunge at the foe. Later on, you can also map unique moves to L1+R1 to perform punches, kicks, and all manor of cool combos. Outside of using your sword in combat, you can also dodge and jump to avoid some moves, but this can be risky unless you memorise your enemies move-set and forecasting beforehand.
Six hundred words in and still in the opening cut-scene… Let’s fast forward a bit. The Divine Heir gets kidnapped, your arm gets lopped off, and you gain a Shinobi prosthetic which allows you to equip tools such as spears, axes, and flame jets. This is really, really cool and allows for some customisation in your play-through (for those missing the RPG elements). Personally I loved the shurikens as they could be followed up with a quick attack that closes the gap between you and the enemy. You also acquire skill trees throughout the game, which let you spend skill points on special abilities or upgrades. The first I focused on getting was one that healed me whenever I performed a deathblow, as this sounded a lot like Bloodborne, and man, that was a good choice. It allowed my play-style to be a lot more aggressive, even with the low amount of healing items at your disposal.
These skill points and sen (Sekiro’s currency) are accrued by defeating enemies, and half of your total is lost whenever you die. Unlike previous From Software games, there is no way to regain these once they’ve been lost. If you die and lose five thousand sen, it’s gone for good. Fine by me, as sen is plentiful from later enemies and there’s not much you need to buy anyway. It also makes attempts after death much less slow and frustrating, as you’re not constantly terrified of dying and losing progress. There is some leeway with skill points too, since it will never let you lose one entirely; it’ll simply cut your progress towards the next one in half upon death.
On the subject of things different to previous games, dying in Sekiro is optional (at least the first time). Early on you gain the ability to resurrect upon death once, and if you kill some enemies afterwards even twice. This prevents you losing your hard-earned sen and experience, but also allows you to stealth deathblow the enemies slowly wandering away from your corpse, which is nice for more casual players and just an awesome concept in general. Also, the stamina bar is gone. You’re free to sprint to your heart’s content at last. Instead, you have a posture bar which displays during combat, as do your opponents. Damage is done to posture with sword attacks, deflects, and all sorts of different counters, and breaking an enemy’s posture will open them up for a deathblow. This was the way I usually defeated bosses too; I’d get up in their face, learn to deflect everything they threw at me, and not let up until they lost posture so I could stab them in the face.
Yeah, we’re onto the stuff that really matters – the bosses. Holy shit, they’re fantastic. They’re full of personality, unique in their designs and attack patterns, require intense focus and precision timing, and feel extremely cathartic to overcome. Often they’re incredibly big as well, which just adds to the satisfaction when you tear them down. Even mid-bosses pose a significant threat as they’re almost always surrounded by smaller enemies to dispose of first (unless you really want to die) and have their own move-sets to counter. What I love about the bosses though is that while knowing what to do is half the battle, executing your strategy is the rest of it. Nailing the timings on the deflects and attacks to blitz your way through phases you once struggled with feels amazing. Sekiro really makes you feel like you’re gitting gud, especially since there’s so little you can do to buff your stats. While you can increase your health and attack power to an extent or grind to gain more skills, at the end of the day, it’ll require skill and practice to overcome any challenge you face, and that means that victory feels sublime.
It probably sounds like Sekiro is a perfect game, but sadly, I do have some gripes with it. Minor one to get out of the way, it does not run as smoothly on the original PS4. I played on the PS4 Pro myself, but over my shoulder my housemate played on the original and I could see the frames being dropped on occasion, mainly when there were several enemies on screen. They did say however that the choppiness faded away eventually, but returns whenever you restart the game. I have two main issues with the game that arose during my playtime though. Firstly, the most difficult boss in Sekiro is the camera. If you so much as touch a wall it will slam into your back, making it impossible to see anything and naturally, incredibly difficult to see what the enemy is doing. This is fine in wide open spaces but when you have a mid-boss in a tiny room or a boss with pillars just waiting behind you, it is frustrating to no end. Every death adds at least thirty seconds of loading and returning to try again, to add to your pain. That’s my second gripe, some mid-bosses are placed behind a wall of enemies so it often feels like it takes forever to challenge them again. I spent well over an hour on one particular mid-boss armed with a spear, and eventually left him till the next day cause I simply didn’t want to sneak around for two minutes for the twentieth time in a row.
Overall, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is by far my favourite From Software game to date. It’s gorgeous to look at, a joy to play, and combat is surprisingly fast and fluid. While I was usually too focused to notice, what I did hear of the boss music is great, and the Japanese setting just pushes all the right buttons for me as a long-time anime fan. It has a few minor issues, mainly with its camera, but this is easily overshadowed by everything else on display. It’s rare a game can be so incredibly brutal while never crossing into rage-quitting territory, but Sekiro finds that balance and maintains it throughout its vast world and campaign. What I’m saying is, it’s extremely good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a new game plus run to get back to.
A digital copy of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice was supplied for PS4 by the developer.
Find Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice on PS4 here:
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0002-CUSA12047_00-SEKIROGAME000001