Board 8 > Aww Yeah Platinum #223 GET! - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://twitter.com/shineget64/status/1215123805485617152

https://www.truetrophies.com/game/Sekiro-Shadows-Die-Twice/trophies?gamerid=5932&showall=1

Just gonna steal what I wrote in my GotY lists

ninkendo posted...

TOP 10 FAVORITE GAMES OF THE YEAR PRESENTED BY DRAGON QUEST XI S: ECHOES OF AN ELUSIVE AGE

#6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp7Ofgpfxoc

Now this is the only game on this list I haven't finished yet because I'm actively playing it right now (just started over the weekend). I'm maybe 1/3 through it, but I felt that was already enough to rank it this high on the list. Not sure I've played a game this year where the moment to moment combat feels so satisfying. Every swing of the sword and parry of the other enemies attacks feel like they matter and one mistake means your death. I'm not a good gauge of the difficulty of FROM games, but I feel like other than Bloodborne they had been progressively easier with each installment. Sekiro, however, is unique in that I feel like it's harder than these games have ever been, but at the same time your player character also feels more powerful than they've ever been. It's a constant power struggle between the two sides and why deflecting and countering attacks is so important. The majority of the time you're not even killing enemies by reducing their HP to 0, but instead deflecting attacks to lower your enemies posture meter so that you can do a OHKO once it breaks. There's also a collection of ninja tools for your prosthetic arm and different sword techniques you can learn that seem to be more situational in defeating various enemy times although I've found a lot of success with the firecrackers to distract enemies.

Most of the boss encounters I've come across have been me pretty much dying in record time and constantly retrying until you find the one opening in their attack pattern and exploiting it to a victory. The resurrection mechanics is nice, but is also probably what allows them to make this game as difficult as it is. Die too many times thought and NPCs around you get affected with DRAGONROT and they become too sick to interact with and thus locking you out of content until you can heal them. Luckily healing them seems easy enough just obtaining a certain collectable and using it at Buddha shrine, but I'm guessing they're limited over the course of the game. If I had more time to play this game maybe it would finish higher, but who's to say? I do look forward to playing it more over the next week or two and hopefully obtaining the platinum.

So since finishing game definitely gets easier as you go along as you have more and more tools as your disposal. A lot of the bosses also seemed susceptible to skills that rush in for one big hit, then give you enough time to run away and do it again. The fact skills can still be used even after you run out of spirit emblems helps makes things easier than they should be.

The Platinum itself is a combination of beating every boss in the game across multiple playthroughs (as some are locked out once you choose what ending path you want to go down), obtaining all skills/health/gourd seeds and prosthetic upgrades and getting all 4 endings. In true From Software fashion though they make it pretty easy to use cloud saves to obtain 3 of the 4 endings in a single playthrough, then you can just get the final one in an NG+ playthrough and rush through it as quickly as you can. The real grind is maxing out all the skill trees because it felt it was designed for someone who's going through all 4 playthroughs naturally without using cloud saves so after I had finished everything else I had to park myself in front of the high exp area and just stealth kill a few guys and run back to the save statue and do it again until I had them all.

Still need to catch up on 2019 games before the heavy hitters of 2020 arrive, although with me leaving on a trip soon might just play more leisurely things until then.

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ninkendo posted...

The real grind is maxing out all the skill trees because it felt it was designed for someone who's going through all 4 playthroughs naturally without using cloud saves so after I had finished everything else I had to park myself in front of the high exp area and just stealth kill a few guys and run back to the save statue and do it again until I had them all.

Yeah that's the only trophy I have left to obtain. I'll get it one day.

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*bows*

Shura was NG+

the other 3 endings can all be obtained together without affecting the Defeat all bosses trophy

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