TA Playlist Wrap-up – Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

I love the Soulsborne games but Sekiro is hands down my favorite FromSoftware game. Having the mechanics and combat finally click was a really great feeling.

Still one of my All-Time Favourite games up there with Witcher 3 for me.

Sekiro remains by far my favorite FromSoftware game - mainly for it's tighter combat and less obtuse setting. Compared to Elden Ring, it's not even close.

Every tool you find is immediately at your disposal. There's no need to worry about having the right stats to use such-in-such technique, you just need to know when you're supposed to use them.

And the combat itself was just plain fun. It was much more satisfying to deflect a blow rather than simply block or somersault through it. Almost every duel or boss encounter felt like you were going up against an equal rather than some beast you're supposed to chip away at.

Still need to get around to playing this eventually

Very nice wrap-up & thanks for the kind words.

The game is now identified by the latest edition to come out: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition. This version adds a few bonus features but, otherwise, does not differ substantially from the one that was originally released. Nevertheless, it reminds us that The Game Awards 2019 awarded it the GOTY. That year, Death Stranding by the newly formed Kojima Productions received nominations in more categories than any other game & was considered the favorite. Nevertheless, Sekiro won and IMHO rightly so.

Wow, this is a really great article. Highlighting the comments and giving a consensus on what the community has to say makes me want to get active on the playlist games, and more interested in this title as well.

It's hard to find a game club with substance and organization, even on my circle of friends both online and IRL. I'd say this goes a step beyond Microsoft's own Xbox Games Club. Looking forward to these recaps in the future.

I look forward to playing Sekiro when I'm finished with Elden Ring. I saved what will probably be the toughest for me for last. Completing the Dark Souls series has been an absolute pleasure and so has Elden Ring so far.

I'm excited to go back to this masterpiece. Had a blast getting the platinum on PS4. Time to run it on Xbox! Aiming on making this my 50th completion

On any given day, I swing back and forth between Hitman: World of Assassination and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice being my favorite game of all time (almost nothing to compare between the two, except I clearly like stealth). After completing Elden Ring in about 1/3 the time it took be to complete Sekiro back when it releases, I can safely say while Elden Ring is one of the best games ever made in my opinion, Sekiro is still head and shoulders above it in fun. Some of the late game boss fights in Elden Ring feel more build specific and RNG and really robbed me of that elation one gets from conquering. When I beat Icchin on my first playthrough (clocking in at 78 attempts) I knew I had ‘gotten gud’ with that fight and showed during my 14 other playthroughs of the game. Malenia and the final boss just feel overtuned and gave me the feeling Miyazaki and team designed them to maintain their reputation for tough bosses by constantly upping their past efforts (Icchin and Demon of Hatred held title of hardest FromSoft bosses before Elden Ring) it kinda felt like they had run out of ideas on how to challenge veteran players of their games and I’d suggest people check out Joseph Anderson’s review of it on YouTube. It’s a bit long but he comprehensively goes over where these bosses go from ‘tough but fair’ to just ‘badly designed’. I still love Elden Ring, but Sekiro is GOAT. May we someday see a sequel.

I stand by what I said. Enjoy the games, people, they're just not for me.

Even though I technically didn't even play it that month (cuz of Elden Ring) I had a lot of fun talking about it. It's one of my favorite games of all time!

To those of you who have now beat the game, a big congrats!
Now you should try a charmless run to be really hardcore >:)

FruitofPassion said:Does a charmless run towards the Shura ending count?

Barely got into it last week after a couple years hiatus! Definitely agree with those that say it's one of the best games ever made. The combat is rewardingly rhythmic with a big enough timing window so that anyone can hop in and get the hang of it imo.

vSully also knocked it out of the park with his guide, great routing and it's awesome that he points out story excerpts that one might otherwise miss.

Edit: I also wanted to add that this game is not actually as hard as people say it is if anyone is putting it off because of that. I would say Ninja Gaiden 2 on the normal (Path of the Warrior) difficulty is substantially harder

FruitofPassion said:I already did that on NG+3 lmao.

I didn't play this game nor do I own it but this is a really cool summary! Excited for next month's playlist

Looks like it's time to jump back into this one. I think I might have OD'd on From games over the past few months but my reflexes are as good as they are going to get so maybe I'll progress further this time.

Sounds like the game is very decent and deserve a try immediately. So it’s a stealth/fight game like Metal Gear Solid meets Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry with a little RPG element? Even it’s half discounted the price is still high beyond my budget… hopefully it lands on GP sooner or later

PhantomPlanetAP said:It’s an action game with stealth and RPG elements. Not sure what game has action that is similar to "Sekiro’s" but "Ninja Gaiden" and especially "Devil May Cry" don’t fit the bill.

Late to the party on this one. Can't wait to give this game a shot