It’s been a few good weeks since Sekiro came out and the way it’s been received has been rather interesting. We have people demanding that there should be an easier mode while we have an opposing side completely against the idea. We have people who believe this is the best game of the series, yet we have even veterans putting the controller down and giving up on the game entirely due to how difficult it appears to be. My friend and I share our experiences with the game, and considering how we’re both huge fans of FromSoftware’s work, how we rate the game’s difficult quite differently is quite pretty curious. So what gives? In this article, I’d like to take a closer look on the major changes they’ve made to the ‘Soulsborne’ formula.

If Dark Souls and Bloodborne are in a way, a huge exaggerated game of dodgeball. Sekiro is a lot more like a rhythm game, figuring out attack patterns and their openings, and recognizing how you should react in any given situation. Each encounter with is potentially a test to see if you actually understand how to play the game. You can get away with playing like you have before from previous games for a little while, but not for long.

This is probably one of the more common reasons how I quickly died early during the earlier parts of the game. While running from grunts is easy enough, this isn’t the case for bosses (and even some grunts). You can’t really do common tactics like staying knocked down to dodge a combo hit either, you can still be hit at that point. You have to get up, and put up that sword if you want to survive until the next few moments.

You don’t really change your main weapon, but it’s pretty great on it’s own already. Besides, your arm can do a ton of neat things.

In Sekiro upgrades are exciting for two reasons. First, they happen in chunks, so they feel really significant. Second, because you get them from killing bosses. So you not only defeated a hurdle in the game, but you also are about to power up for it. Another thing this does is that you’re free to do anything with your build since you don’t have to direct stats towards the effectiveness of certain skills or abilities, all of that is based on your skill points. Instead of repeating your game, you can just grind out the required skill points if you really want to change your playstyle.

This is probably the first game in this series that adds a vertical angle to the game consistently. Which makes exploring every area pretty interesting as you try to come up with ways to reach all sorts of places where you are rewarded with either an easy slaying of that pesky archer from above or great loot. Or maybe just another hidden boss, who knows?

Sekiro does things quite differently compared to its predecessors and that’s probably the best way they can do it. Even veterans feel like complete newbies to the game, dying plenty of times due to either bad habits or lack of knowledge. Heck, even some players dropped the game. Hopefully my analysis has aided you, the reader in some way to understand the game better, and be able to play this wonderful title.