So, I’ve wanted to write something like this for a good month now, but I’ve been receiving a lot of Nintendo Switch titles to review, and not been playing very many Playstation games. But at long last, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has come along so I can finally test out my concept. Please join me, as I tell you about the hardships, the struggles, and the trials in Sekiro you may come to face, if you choose to walk the path to platinum. Oh, and of course, expect spoilers.
My journey began on 22nd March, at a Sekiro “party” I was having with a few friends. In the first hour we’d already gained the very easy trophies for receiving a sword, a prosthetic and resurrecting upon death for the first time. We played for a few hours before heading home, whereupon I could play by myself at last. And boy did I play. I played for a solid twelve hours straight, and this was starting at midnight. However, in that time I gained a mere three further trophies, two for bosses, and one for encountering a shopkeeper of sorts. I loved my first boss encounter though; it will be some time before I forget the name of Gyouba Masataka Oniwa.
At the end of this twelve hour session I reached my first real roadblock in Genichiro Ashina. I still hadn’t mastered Sekiro’s rather integral parrying system, and good ol’ Genichiro was more than happy to exploit this by cutting me in half at every opportunity. And goddamn, that bow of his is one of the most annoying moves I came across. After a good day’s sleep though, I made it through all three of his health bars to finally reunite with Lord Kuro.
The next two bosses were both kind of gimmicky, but one particular Great Serpent did make for a spectacular set-piece as I plunged Kusabimaru into its head. The next true challenge came in the form of the Guardian Ape, a massive gorilla who really did not want to go down. He threw all sorts of shit at me (literally) and that was even before his second phase. After mastering the deflects required though, he fell to my blade, and I took a quick break to unlock the last of the base prosthetic tools before continuing.
The next day I pushed through an optional boss encounter with the surviving body of the Guardian Ape, who this time brought a friend for their second phase, and acquired the third of three Ninjutsu techniques. But next up was the Great Shinobi, a mobile man to say the least, and one also versed with shinobi tools. The stage was set at the peak of Ashina castle for a second time, and this fight took a good few hours of attempts before I finally succeeded. I was free to move on to the final area of the game, the Fountainhead Palace, unlocking my first gold trophy in the process.
Waiting at the gates was the Corrupted Monk, who I’d defeated once in spirit form earlier. He posed little threat as a result, falling to my blade in under thirty minutes of attempts. Behind him, the final area provided me with some exceptionally rare upgrade materials and the last boost to my healing gourd. Roughly four hours later I had cleared the area and was headed towards the final events of the game (not without a quick detour to rematch with the Great Shinobi I’ll add, a fight won in under twenty minutes).
The next day I battled with the Demon of Hatred, a gigantic beast with fire at its fingertips, which was probably the most Bloodborne-y boss I fought. His three phases were tough, but at this point, five days straight of playing Sekiro had more than prepared me for it. I quelled the flames of the beast, and instead of heading off to fight the final boss, did some grinding for a bit… I earned a few skill points and got some rare materials for upgrades before facing the final boss (of this play-through at least). This boss fight took me three hours to best, but it felt good to finally clear all four phases and claim victory for myself.
Cue save-stating to get three of the four endings without repeat play-throughs. After that, I mopped up a few vitality upgrades with the help of a guide (thankfully there were some five days after release) and prepared for my second run to get the ending I was missing. This run went much faster as I knew all of the enemy placements, the boss patterns, the counters, and the strategies. I flew through the game and got my last ending the next day in about five hours, a solid forty hours faster than my first run.
My third and final run for the platinum was dedicated to obtaining the materials required to fully upgrade my prosthetic tools and gaining skill points to acquire every skill. It wasn’t until two days later that I finished grinding… Grinding is rarely fun, but at least in Sekiro it is cathartic. If you decide to go for this yourself, there’s a great spot at the Ashina Outskirts Stairway near the end of the game where five guys practically line up for stealth kills.
To finish the whole thing up, I had a rematch with the Demon of Hatred and took him down in only three attempts, a sign of how much I had improved during my extensive play-time with the game. I gained the last materials I needed, completed my prosthetic tool-kit and gained myself a platinum trophy one week, one day and twenty-two hours after I started playing. But was it worth it?
Some of Sekiro’s trophies absolutely require grinding, but I never found this to be a problem (and I dislike most RPGs cause of their grind). There are plenty suitable locations to farm experience and resources, and I was careful to space out the grind to a few hours between the real meat of the game, its bosses. While I struggled to progress at first, eventually the game’s combat system became second nature to me, and now I’m actually playing on NG+3 with two difficulty buffs active, and succeeding in defeating bosses I struggled with only a few days ago. If you’re willing to put in the time and the effort, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice will be an incredibly rewarding and satisfying experience, and one I absolutely recommend exploring to its fullest in order to gain that platinum trophy.
A digital copy of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice for PS4 was provided by the developer.
