Sekiro Shadows Die Twice game review
I approached Sekiro with equal amounts of dread and anticipation. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the latest action game from Japanese developer FromSoftware, which has earned a reputation for making challenging games. So it is no surprise: this is a challenging game, even hard I may say. It is not quite like Dark Souls, but we get immersed in a feudal Japanese atmosphere, playing a ninja warrior fight creatures many times greater than yourself.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a game in the mould of Dark Souls (buy dark souls 3 ps4), Demon’s Souls, and Bloodborne before it — you explore a strange land filled with things that want to kill you, making gradual progress between manually activated checkpoints. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is one of the best games to emerge this year, adding yet another masterpiece to FromSoftware’s formidable catalogue of grim, uncompromising experiences. We have one of the best ps4 games of actions released this year.
Much like how the plot in games like Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls invoked ludo-narrative consequence to the multiplayer, with warring covenants and invasions, the player in Sekiro is a literal and figurative “lone Wolf,” shouldering responsibilities and humbly doing his best to move the pieces on the board in the best arrangement. In this respect, Sekiro staggers slightly, with enemy aggro behavior never quite as brilliantly realized as its sword-clashing combat, and group fights are all but untenable. We should have more ps4 games like Sekiro….
Even more than in From’s Dark Souls games, melee combat is the heart of Sekiro. The game is a beautiful and innovative take on what we have come to expect from the “Soulsborne” genre of games. Outside of bosses and mini-bosses, the combat generally sees you choosing to either sneak your way round the linear areas, stabbing enemies when a bright red spot appears or engaging in hand-to-hand combat with them, parrying attacks and charging sword blows to strike at the right moment. This opens up different bosses and segments of the game to follow but unlike the Souls games, the lack of variety with combat will inevitably mean you won’t want to replay this one in a hurry. If you like dark souls games this is a must play!
Maybe Sekiro feels impossibly hard at times, but it compensate with the level of euphoria you experience when delivering a death blow to a tricky boss or when you finally clear a castle grounds of all enemies. This is a well thought game, brilliantly composed, strategic, even if with a simple linear story. Sekiro is a terrific videogame that requires high levels of skill to play, not for faint of heart or those who lack patience. But in the end, the difficulty is probably a feature and something positive, rather than an objection or critique.
