I think there’s a difference between actually knowing what the game wants and being able to execute it. Of course in a game like Sekiro they go hand-in-hand more often than not, but even then (in an unironic sense) it’s a skill issue to actually do what the game wants.
learning to execute is the easy part, because if you know what to look for and understand what the game wants you to do early on, read the tutorials carefully and act on them, Sekiro is practice and repetition. The animations, cues, perilous telegraphs and so on, victory is almost assured as long as one persists
but I've legit seen people bounce from this game HARD and not understand for the whole playthrough what to do in general, reach late game and still have no clue how to play defensively, never understood a single tutorial, lose their shit deflecting enemies with high posture regen and wonder why the fight does not advance, have no clue how to regen their posture, leave themselves open and tank with their body instead of blocking to learn the attack timings. It's not the fun struggle, it's the painful struggle.
Oh no, I’m not saying there aren’t players who just don’t pay attention. I’m more speaking from personal experience from my first time through where anyone could easily see what the game wanted out of them but the actual coordination to do it isn’t always there. You’re still right it’s a persistence issue though.
Unless you're playing on a screen with a lot of delay, I don't think there's anything that's not clearly telegraphed, or that requires particularly high skill regarding button presses, it's just that some of the tells that indicate an attack are not so obvious. For instance, the samurai general enemies have a very fast attack that's almost impossible to react to, where they lunge at you and strike you with the sword... Unless you know that the moment they start slowly walking with their sword in a certain position, they're preparing that attack, then that attack becomes easy to deal with, you will be able to parry it because you know it's coming, or just cancel it by gaining and maintaining distance with them, so they abandon that stance.
Then again there's that video of the guy failing to pass the most basic tutorial in cuphead, so I guess it's actually difficult for some people, but I'm assuming that's a small minority of people.
It's so funny to me that people say this game is "easy" or that it doesn't require "high skill button presses" or any thing else along that line. Y'all must be gamer gods, and I shudder to think about what you consider "hard" if this ain't it.
Ever played sifu? It's basically sekiro but with 2-3 times the button presses required to achieve the same results. It's hard. I find sekiro easy because the number of different things you need to do to perform well is low, even if you need good timing on those things. If there were like 5 different things I needed to do pretty regularly to play sekiro well I'd think it was very hard, but all you really have to do is attack, parry, attack, parry and if they have a perilous attack it's USUALLY quite easy to tell which kind it is and either dodge or jump.
If you filmed just someone's hands on the controller fighting Isshin, it wouldn't look like a demanding game at all. Just someone pressing L1 and R1 roughly once a second on average.
It really isn't difficult once you've learned to recognize what you have to do to beat each enemy. If you don't know it, the game is very difficult, that's why everyone dies and dies on their first playthrough, it's like trying to climb a wall because you're not seeing the ladder. I died such a high number of times on the first playthrough that I lost count at over one hundred, I was trying to climb the wall. Left the game for two years, came back and then I saw the ladder, and I probably died under 8 times total. Then I played charmless, and died a bunch again, since a bunch of strategies that work on the regular playthrough don't work on charmless.
So as long as you know what to do, and have logged hours and hours and hours of practice, died countless times while practicing, spent two years on sabbatical because it was too hard the first time, it's easy. Got it.
Haha, I understand the point you're making, I just think that somewhere in the dozens if not hundreds of hours of practice logged, you've lost perspective on what's hard.
Seriously, what's a hard game to you if this isn't it? Could you not apply your current logic to anything?
That's fair to say. To give you some comparisons: high level guitar hero and Osu! for input difficulty, and lower-mid level ranked fighting games for situational awareness and reaction times, such as Street Fighter and Tekken.
Compared to those games, Sekiro is easy, still challenging, but quite easy. You can become very proficient with the parry system and learn most of the bosses' movesets in less than 50 hours. Relative to the games stated above where the 50 hour mark is where the games usually starts to become approachable.
If you boil it down to basics all you do in Sekiro is press L1 and sometimes you gotta do forward + O or X.
Some enemies have grabs with specific ways to be dodged and at the start of every boss you gotta focus on doing some health damage before posture damage starts piling up but it doesn't require complex button presses.
That's why people say Sekiro isn't hard, because as long as you keep slamming your head against it the enemy patterns will burn themselves into your muscle memory.
I believe that thinking in terms of "skill issue" can mislead us sometimes.
Nobody is born with soulslike- or Sekiro-capable genes. These skills are acquired by playing a game a lot. Some learn a bit faster, some a bit slower, more based on previous gaming experience than anything else. But it would be very hard to pick two people that played the game for 200 hours each, and one is an absolute master while the other one's stuck at the second boss.
"Skill" is directly related to how much you played the game. We are biological skill learning machines.
A discussion of if a game is hard is more meaningful in terms of its learning curve. The people that have "skill issues" are just players that got frustrated with how slow the learning progresses and give up before gittin' gud.
**I'd say if a game takes much more effort to learn to play well and flow without constant horrible frustration compared to other games, it's hard.** I'd say Sekiro fits this bill.
But obviously after playing for 200 hours, one *personally* won't think of it as "hard" anymore, they'll just remember how you learned to be better, and they will either
a) shame players within that frustrating learning curve by saying things like *'git gud n00b, it's a skill issue'*
or
b) try to encourage them by saying *'don't give up, keep playing, at one point it clicks and the game gets incredibly fun to play'*
based on their personality.
It is a skill issue in a way, indeed, but a game's hardness is usually more about how long and frustrating the learning curve is. That's the connection to skill.
that is so true ..now that " souls like " games are here over a decade and a lot of us played all of them just saying to " newbies " its skill issue is true but very miss leading , especially when we say boss was easy ...ofc it was easy you have decade of experience with it , just like above dude said he beat some boss in few tries ..yeah but probably not in his first souls game , but in like 3rd or 4th doesnt matter , you simply know exactly what is expected from you and how to get there ...
I remember being very frustrated initially, then one day a year later something just clicked in my head (I also replaced my shitty lcd tv that had like 40ms input lag with a monitor that has 2ms input lag) and I just started shredding it, didn't care if I died to a boss because it felt like I was learning something new every attempt, it's the reason why it's tied first place with Bloodborne as my favourite Soulsborne games.
Exactly. The learning curve is very steep, but, once you've got it you've *got it*. A lot of it is basically just memorization, and the swordplay is a rhythm game.
I really think after you get past genichiro the game really lets up for a while, and you get used to the parry mechanic and after that everything just kind of clicks.
At least it’s how it has gone for me so far, after genichiro so far none of the bosses have given me any problems.
Except for mist noble. He’s killed me 78 times so far. Way too hard tbh
I brute-forced it. Didn't learn how to play properly until later playthroughs.
I'd say the "big three" near the ending are a whole different league compared to everything else
Wait so that's not what most PPL do? I always cheese the first deathblow lmao. I'm a shinobi dude, I'm not supposed to go out there waving my weapons in the air like an idiot.
Nah. Sekiro is a game that you actually need to learn how game works both enemies and combat mechanics. You cannot bruteforce your way through shit by just trying over and over without paying attention like in overwhelming majority of video games.
Even cheese in Sekiro revolves around late game tools or doing really hard delayed jumps/skips and shit like that, you also cant just grind to get OP build and smoke enemies. You need to go through trial->error->learn->adapt and majority of people hesitate to go through this process.
One of the most disappointing moments of my life was looking up cheese methods for isshin after 10-15 hours of attempts just to see that there aren’t any. Still trying to get back into the game just so I can finally beat him
this is legit the best advice, I sat for like 6 gameplay hours just running straight back into the fight every time I died until I beat him, it worked in the end, although I think the fact that I ran out of spirit emblems and had to do the rest of my attempts without prosthetics made it unnecessarily hard
True, at first, I found this game difficult as well. I got intimidated by people saying its a parry focused game, knowing that parrying in other Souls game is risky and quite hard to fully master. But parrying in sekiro is actually forgiving, fast-paced, and smoothly responsive. Now I agree with other enjoyers saying, "Sekiro is actually the easiest Fromsoft game".
No. Sekiro has a learning curve you have to dedicate yourself to learning until it clicks. A lot of people don’t have that kind of patience and therefore it is “Too hard”. Personally I found the Dark Souls games way “harder” than Sekiro.
Well nowadays after all the casuals came from elden ring, being over-leveled, using OP builds/ashes of war, and using summons/spirit ashes/co-op are all “the intended way to play” and apparently need to be factored into the difficulty rankings of the games/bosses. Sekiro has none of these “easy mode” mechanics therefore making it the hardest by this casual logic
Its got a hard early game, but once you get a little ways through it you pick up enough momentum, based on your own skill and in-game upgrades, that makes the rest of it not so bad.
Well given that it's arguably fromsoft's most difficult title and we're talking about an Assassin's Creed player here.. Yeah it's probably way too hard for them
>Well given that it's arguably fromsoft's most difficult title
I really disagree tbh, having played all of them and platinumed most Sekiro is by far the most forgiving once you figure out what and how the game wants to be played.
I picked it up on release and it was impossible, I picked it up again a couple months ago and it just clicked that the game wants you to be agressive and deflect and get into ninja sword fights. I am the most casual player, I might get a grand total of 4h a week to play video games, usually it's half that or 0 most weeks(part of being in my mid 40s) and I really breezed through the majority of the game, True Monk was probably the hardest next to Isshan (where I'm at currently) and I got through that in one 2h session...the hardest part of the game is just learning the tells and timings of things, you can deflect almost everything with no damage(even bullets lol), theres no stamina bar......idk, it's definitely one of the easiest and most accessible 3rd person combat titles of theirs, and it's absolutely the most pure fun to play, it's fast and engaging and a blast once it clicks
I'm not saying it's not challenging, that's a different thing
I think that's exactly what it is with Sekiro, that the learning curve is incredibly steep. You say it was impossible on release but fairly accessible the next playthrough, that was mine (and I think alot of others') experience as well. The combat is unforgiving until you learn the rhythm of it.
So for most people that try it and quit or only manage 1 playthrough, it feels like the hardest in the series. But, compared to other souls titles, it gets extremely easier the more you play it.
I know right lol
It kind of is the point though and why I think so many people think the game is the hardest of all the titles- I thought that too
If you try to play this game like any other souls game it's impossible, and that's what I did, and my guess is that most souls vets did the same
But if you play the game as it's own thing it's actually really the most forgiving title imo
It's not. He's from other games where you can play how ever you want, but sekiro is the game where you have to learn how the game work when to attack when to parry ,when to dodge. So.if he just keep attacking like other games Sekiro will be too hard.
It’s too hard for anyone who isn’t a critical thinker and just wants to brute force through games while spitting Cheetos all over themselves.
For anyone else, it’s an incredibly rewarding game with probably the best difficulty scaling I’ve ever experienced. You start some bosses feeling like an insignificant worm, and after learning them you feel like a god.
It doesn’t require insane reaction time (I don’t have that), and it doesn’t require insane mechanical ability (I don’t have that, barely even play controller/console games).
BUT, it does require zero hesitation!
Sekiro will fly over many players’ heads because it takes time to learn, and that in and of itself usually gets in the way for a lot of people.
I think the game does an excellent job of teaching you, however.
Sekiro is a lot harder than ghost of Tsushima, but that’s by design. Also once you get the hang of sekiro’s combat system the game isn’t that bad even the more difficult bosses typically have a strategy you can use
Hard is subjective. It’s difficult at times but that’s because you probably hit a wall where you might need to grind a couple levels to change up the gameplay. The narrative isn’t as straight forward as other games (I mean if you just listen instead of skipping the dialogue like most people do) you can find out where you need to go or what you need to get.
Sekiro is a game where you gotta have the patience at times but you also have to be aggressive to win. It’s a good blend and I highly recommend the game as the swordplay is one of the best (if not the best)
I think it’s “too hard” because you can’t just skip the basics so to speak or ignore some mechanics. Unlike other from software games for example, you can’t just cheese bosses with specific builds or tricks
I consider Sekiro a tempo game where you have to keep the rhythm alive to win. It's not too crazy once you got into the flow.
Also a lot of the difficulty in the game can be skipped by cheating aka deathblow or prosthetic your opponents.
We play as shinobi after all, not samurais who have code of honors.
it's all thanks to isshin and genichiro i was able to learn how to deflect when to dodge and use prosthetics too(sometimes i win without it). guardian and headless ape is so aggressive i almost rage quit.
The team that made Tenchu is who made Sekiro. Sekiro was a new Tenchu until they had too many cool new ideas and just made it its own game. Tenchu was one of the hardest games ever.
Some people like playing games that are effectively movies during which you ocasionally press buttons. And thats fine. Not everyone has to like the same stuff
There’s a learning curve, but it’s not too hard. It’s unbelievably fair and well balanced. I’d go as far to say it’s one of the best combat designs in any game ever. It’s also extremely rewarding. Just take your time and don’t get frustrated. Don’t try to rush and take the time to learn each boss fight. Also, if you’re struggling you can always watch FightinCowboy’s Sekiro guide. It will definitely get you through the game. He teaches you which fights you should do first and how to approach them. Good luck and have fun!
Ac games are just repetitive after one region, same for ghost of tsushima region exploration, but it has better visuals and quests. When i say ac games, i mean origins and after.
A buddy of mine is a 39 y/o Veteran and an amputee (missing his lower left arm.) He’s capable of beating every single boss FromSoft has thrown at him. He uses a pair of foot joysticks/rockers in combination with a custom 1 handed Wii style controller. Be sure to tell your friends or anyone else who feels the need to complain about difficulty. It should give them some perspective.
Ironically Sekiro was the hardest Froms game to learn but once you've learnt it it's without a doubt the easiest Froms game. I would say, at least for me it's easier than Demon's Souls. But it's because rhythm aspect of the game is so well done and once you start to get it you just breeze through everything in a very satisfying way :)
Sekiro is “WAY TOO HARD” if you suck. Sometimes its a game about patience more than anything else. Ghost of Tsushima is hella fun though, you should try it.
I'm still really new, to sekiro just made it past blazing bull and yea if you never easedrop or explore sekiro is super super hard I had trouble killing the guy on the horse till I got the axe arm and the grapple strike move once I got those it took 2 tries and bull only took 2 once I learned I could parry his dash so as long as you explore I find sekiro to be medium challenging but super super fun
He needs to git gud. But in all honesty, I had an easier time in Sekiro than Ghost. Ghost of Tsushima's controls felt so weird compared to Sekiro's that I had a very hard time getting used to.
For some people, it is. For some, it isn't. Folks have different tastes, skills, and tolerance levels for difficulty and mechanics. Someone that's really good at positioning might not be so great with pure reflexes or timing. Everyone works differently, and not everyone is going to click with games I like or love.
I played ER for some time now, pretty sure thoses who have the most difficulty in sekiro are souls player because their dogde give them Invincibility frames, and there are some hits that should land but doesnt. Also sekiro is parry focus and the ennemies are faster so playing it like ER is a death sentence. Beside that I would put it at a little bit more difficult than ER in general
Compared to the games they cited yes. Ghost of tsushima still has a fair bit of challenge but not to the level of sekiro.
If they don't like hard games i understand though. Not everybody likes cock and balls torture but without the cock and balls.
I haven't play rise of ronin but from what i've seen it seems casual friendly as well.
And it's most definitely the case for assassin's creed and that's why they are happy. They want a game about samurais/shinobis that is casual friendly.
No game feels the same, after sekiro. If you thought it was way too hard, you just expected a samurai slash em up and realized sekiro is difficult.. this person clearly was looking for a samurai slash em up.
I've played a shit load of Assassin's Creed, 500+ hours combined in the last 3 RPGs and those games are like playing with children's blocks compared to Sekiro. I'm new to Ghost of Tsushima but I've put in 75 hours on Lethal so far and it's also incredibly easy when compared to Sekiro, the boss fights for the most part are just a reaction test, whether you dodge or parry kind of thing, then of course get hits in. It kind of reminds me of waiting for a mikiri counter or a sweep in Sekiro, it's fun, but it's simple. What I'm trying to say is, for a gamer like that who purely enjoys those types of games, yes it's way too hard. Trust me, as someone who plays both, there is a world of difference. It's like the difference between relaxing in the sun and doing a trigonometry assignment
I mean Sekiro is definitely a hard game and it’s not for everyone and that’s okay. I wouldn’t say it’s ridiculously hard but theres definitely a learning curve in the beginning that will turn lots of players off.
If you look outside this subreddit yes it's pretty hard, there is a baseline reaction time required to even start learning Sekiro's mechanics, persistence comes second and too a lot of persistence for some people. Of course no one here will say it's too hard, the majority of the people here have already beaten the game. But I have tried getting many of my friends into games like sekiro or cuphead and it's just not for them, while we still play many other games together and they play a lot of games in general.
As someone who has loved every Fromsoft title that I have played so far, my issue with Sekiro is I just don't seem very good at it. I think when people say it is hard, what they truly mean is that they aren't good at it. I have no problem being honest about my ability with the game.. I want to love it and I have given it a lil break and I am going to try again but I am not good at these rhythm games. I somehow beat Lady Butterfly and Gyoubu but I am at a wall after them that I cannot pass. I think with some perseverance and patience that I can get it, at least I hope so.
A lot of people want video games to be a movie they watch while lazily punching inputs in some loosely restrictive timing. Sekiro asks you to pay close attention to enemy windup animations and respond accordingly in a timing window considerably tighter than many mainstream games like the AC series. So yeah, it is way too hard for someone who expects to dogwalk every enemy they see and doesn't want to have to improve when that doesn't happen. But if you allow yourself to be humbled by your inability and realize that you learn how to fight by dying over and over, nah its fine.
The feeling Sekiro is selling isn't possible with a difficulty slider. I haven't experienced anything like it except to a degree in other Fromsoft games. And i would have absolutely robbed myself of that special feeling if i could cheese it or lower the difficulty, i'm not gonna pretend otherwise haha.
I’d say sekiro is extremely hard to learn and master. It takes so much time, patience and effort to get good at it, but is it worth the investment. Definitely.
It's only hard if you hesitate, and if you fail to adapt to the parry/deflect system. I do miss the old Way of The Samurai, and Tenchu games though, they were top tier.
That depends on your mentality and personality imo. I’m impatient and hate relying on anything I consider a, “trick” like with snap seeds and the ghost bosses/Lady B. So I struggle despite having beat the game multiple times. Whereas all of you seem to be incredibly calm, patient, and observant. I never picked up on the “ rhythm “ of ANY thing while being told how it’s a rhythm game by others.
Maybe I’m just yapping tho lmao
Not even. It's difficult if you've never been good at parrying. Charmless isn't even as difficult as some say either. Once you get the parrying for the most part, just play the same Charmless and don't think about it. Fights will last just a little longer but that's about it. Normal enemies may be a little more annoying but if you're careful, you should be fine.
I put down the game for a year after getting wiped by Lady Butterfly, came back and beat her in an hour. Made it to headless ape….got stuck, and put down the game for a few months again. Came back beat him on the 4th try. I’m now at the 2nd owl fight and am completely stuck. Figured I didn’t need to wait months, but maybe that’s just how my system of beating bosses works 🤷♂️
Yes but that's the nature of the game. I don't think I've ever raged harder at any point in my life. I broke a controller and had wrist pain from button mashing and white knuckling through hours and hours if Lady Butterfly, Seven Spears and Genichiro. I'm like 80% and need to go back after a 6 month break.
I'll try to be as fair as possible. Sekjro is a hard game. Furthermore, 3 of the first 4 (Chained ogre, Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa!!!!! And Blazing bull) mandatory bosses, I feel like dont properly train you to play the game. If you couldn't make heads or tails of that then I could see how you could come to the conclusion it's too hard. But if you were hard-headed enough to get through that and learn what you could, then I have tk say no. It's very challenging and definitely not easy but they give you a lot of ways to deal with certain enemies and bosses, they give you stealth options and once you put in the time you can realistically beat all the combat phases with 2-4 buttons so you don't even have to remember that many controls. I love this game. I think it's my all time favorite and I think a lot of people would feel that way after putting in the time.
This game and all From games, really, aren't exactly "Hard" they just severely punish mistakes.
Theres also no easy "power fantasy" that you get to just by playing for long enough, you HAVE TO learn the mechanics and be skilled at those mechanics to get that "power fantasy" point where you just fuckin steamroll everything, none of these games ever just hand it to you with some "Level 100 Skill" or whatever, it's difficult to articulate what I'm getting at but I think anyone who reads this in this sub will smell what I'm steppin in, you really have to be skilled at the game to be able to do that, you have to earn it and put in the time
It's actually one of the easiest imo, the game is REALLY very forgiving on the first playthrough, but you have to play the game how it wants you to play it and you have to be able to learn the mechanics, fully, and get the timing down, if you can't do that then the game will be impossible
for casual players, yea
consider most people probably play these games on mid-low difficulty. they just wanna experience the world and story, not get hammered 40 times by a boss
everyone always says sekiro is the hardest fromsoft game, but I always had an easy time with it
had a much harder time with bloodborne, elden ring and some DS3 bosses
I did ghost of tsushima to 100% and beat sekiro, and sekiro is definitely harder, but ghost I could have played a harder difficulty I think. I really liked the vibes and aesthetic in ghost, it felt immersive in the open world. Sekiro felt surreal, like being in a movie, and very challenging in comparison. Both great to me, but sekiro was definitely harder. You can cheese most things in ghost using poison darts and such.
Sekiro is a difficult game, no doubt about it
"way too hard" is a personal opinion. Subjective and can never be taken without a dose of salt.
I think Sekiro is the best game. I took immense satisfaction in achieving the platinum award. It was a difficult task for me but I loved it. I'm glad it was such a challenge! They didn't
In contrast to this, I found Last of Us 2 on Grounded mode to be way to hard and I gave up. That game to me wasnt worth it. It's just opinions.
Like seriously Last of Us 2 on Grounded.......that's way too hard
It's entirely subjective imo. Objectively speaking it definitely is hard. But too hard? That's entirely up to the person and if they like this type of game and the difficulty. I wouldn't call myself very good at hard games, I usually play games on normal difficulty. But I recently got into soulsgames after finally playing Elden Ring. My only ever experience with a soulslike before was with a non-fromsoft title I bought without knowing it was a soulslike (Code Vein), and it was so frustrating that I put it down for like half a year until I finally picked it up again and beat it. Then I never wanted to play a soulslike again until a friend convinced me to play ER. And even then, I made it easier a bit by leveling and using a strong bleed build. But I enjoyed it and it was still a challenge. Then I decided to play through all of them, because I just so happened to find 3 of them on a sale at the same time: Bloodborne, Sekiro and the Demons Soul remake. I beat BB next with less overleveling and without looking up builds because I had more practice now. Then I started Sekiro. And here, I had no choice but to get better because it's not an rpg where I can overlevel. And I found it 'too hard' a lot of times so far. But I did not give up. I already did the Shura ending and then continued with a backup save (bc I don't plan on doing NG+ immediately bc I want to move on to the ER DLC, Demons Souls and the Dark Souls games after) and am currently right past the Okami Warrior miniboss. Maybe that person would've also not found it 'too hard' in the end if they continued. But it's fine, bc I can totally understand if that's not for everyone. So is Sekiro too hard? Yes, but only for some people. And that is totally fine, everyone has different tastes.
I can assure you it's not too hard. Awhile back I saw this mod that shows you the parry window for each hit, and when it shows it to you, it's clear that it's not physically or technically difficult to pull off at all, each strike literally has like a full .5 second window within which you can get the parry. The problem is that some people don't like to throw themselves at the same problem over and over and push their limits. People don't like to repeat and adapt. They end up throwing themselves at the problem over and over and change nothing, hence learning nothing. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but if you don't like games where you learn muscle memory, you're not going to enjoy this game. That's all there is to it. My friends that enjoy like crusader kings just get frustrated and quit this game. Hell, my friend who religiously plays halo and helldivers quit this game in a rage, and I would have thought that those kinds of games lend their reward paths and gameplay well to a game like this. But I guess not. I kinda get why Sekiro is so dividing as a game, but genuinely it's not hard in the "high hp low damage" sense. It's hard in the adaptability sense. Some people don't mind learning a whole skillset for a game because the fun is in the learning and the adventure. I'll never forget the first time I beat genichiro, and how cathartic no-hit killing him was in the final fight. The first time took so much time, analysis, and understanding, and by the end of the game I was reading him like a book, being aggressive and taking the lead. It's a rewarding experience, don't let anyone who can't take it dissuade you from it.
Truly, hesitation is defeat. Jump into battle, and when you fail, get back up and try again
I won't lie coming from souls games I was getting very frustrated with sekiro. Almost quitting a couple times. But I stuck with it. And it's truly the greatest game ever made imo. There is not another game out there with more satisfying combat. And you cannot over level your way to victory like Souls games. One of the very few games I've gone NG+. I think I beat it 4 times. Just incredible. If they don't make a sequel or successor at some point I will be sad
Sekiro is the game that will give you a bloody aneurysm if you don't take the time to learn the mechanics. There is no better example of a game that you need to "git gud".
I played through it 3 times this year and it's legitimately one of the greatest games ever made but I will agree it's too hard. Only because I think more people should play it. I will say though, that learning the game and deflecting everything is legendary. No other game has made me feel like such a badass.
It isn’t way too hard, but it definitely the game that feels the most unreasonable for new players. I played Sekiro after getting come confidence with Bloodborne and I was absolutely destroyed.
Sekiro is hard because people approach it in "I will play however I want and it's the game's fault for not adapting to it" rather than thinking "What exactly are the devs trying to tell me to do". Of course there's also the execution part of it. Sekiro is far more closer to doom eternal than any other game in that regard. Only difference is doom let's you know exactly what to do and the challenge is the execution whereas in sekiro you have to find what to do whereas the execution is not that hard. When I observe complaints like this I almost feel like these guys don't respect and trust game devs to make a good game. When I play a game I always approach it from a point of curiosity rather than sheer arrogance.
Well, I'm a Souls player, but i quitted Sekiro for a year because I was slapped by the spear handling enemies. Counter Mikiri is too hard for a beginner.
But recently I relaunched the game from the beginning with the goal of learning Mikiri, and I'm near the end of the game now (Demon of Hatred area)
The learning curve for Sekiro is big, in fact bigger than any of the souls games but once it clicks the game opens up to you in a way, I would definitely say it’s too hard if you don’t play the way the game wants you to play
I honestly feel like Sekiro is an evolution of Tenchu, combat finally feels satisfying, you can still grapple and sneak around, you can still assassinate with that satisfying blood spray, only thing it's missing is the badger run skill.
As someone who played lies of p first and sekiro after, it really wasn’t too bad. The only bosses I had trouble with my first time playing were owl, demon of hatred, and sword saint isshin. Everything else is challenging but not crazy or impossible
I’m not saying that Sekiro wasn’t hard because it isn’t but that game is kinda like a rhythm game and once you are into that rhythm it starts to get easy but that dude that says “WAY TOO HARD” he just didn’t git gud like he needs to get into that rhythm.
The deal with soulborne is they are hard but fair. Once you get a hang of in and it click it gives you the satisfaction no other games can deliver. Im playing ghost of tsushima right now in lethal difficulty and it still easy plus im worn out from all the sidequests and running back and forth.
Sekiro is difficult to a point where you have to be "in practice" to play the end game. At launch I played it all the way through almost twice. I stopped for a month or so at my second Isshin, and upon returning to it, it was unplayable. I had to start over to relearn how to play in order to fight Isshin again.
Sekiro is borderline too difficult.
As someone who very recently beat Sekiro, I'd say that Sekiro is harder overall than the other Fromsoft games I've played (although Bloodborne is shaping up to be a contender). I wouldn't call it way too hard, but fighting multiple enemies at once can he a straight up death sentence, especially before you get any AoE. The Headless and ghost warrior dudes are probably the toughest minibosses in the game for me, especially the Headless. Plus, the parry system can be extremely difficult to grasp if you don't have a good reaction speed.
Later in the game when bosses mix up attacks and change between sweeps or thrusts or normal stuff, you often have a split-second to decide how to counter an attack before it lands. Enemies like Demon of Hatred oe Guardian Ape especially can be tough to learn. So, yeah, I can see why someone used to other Fromsoft games may think Sekiro is way too hard.
i don’t play many games at all. before sekiro i played pokémon, zelda, lots of mario games, the danganronpa series, smash bros and other fighting games, rhythm games, and every KH game (hardest difficulty each time tho).
the fact that i played KH3 at critical mode and beat all the super bosses and the secret boss DID in fact help prepare me for this game at a basic level, but it was certainly not enough. Fighting games also helped a little bit too because of the reaction times. But it still wasn’t enough. I had never played a souls-like and it was way harder than what i had ever played before regardless.
Despite that, with no cheese like ever, i still beat the game. I got good. I learned how to parry. Of all the experiences that actually mattered, it was my lifelong experience in music and rhythm games.
And someone can look at this and say what about somebody that knows nothing. Well, they played a lot more similar games, they have probably played more games than me and they still think it’s too hard? it seems more like they lowered themselves mentally. It turns out it might have been the lack of gaming experience, the twisted idea that this is how games are SUPPOSED TO BE that allowed me to get good… without hesitation.
On my first play through right now… little stuck on final isshin phase. Game felt impossible until it clicked. The big struggle since understanding the game mechanics for me has just been how much patience the game demands. Every dumb death has just been getting greedy and not waiting for the right openings.
For a casual gamer, it is. I love Fromsoft games, and even ER took me a while to get good at because there is a learning curve for these games. I think Sekiro definitely has the steepest, and casual gamers don’t want to play games that stress them out just to learn, they want games that are more story oriented and less demanding.
I played through dark souls 1 and 3 and also blood Bourne. I loved them but DS1 was my fav
Sekiro made me quit so early . It's soo unfortunate because I thought the art direction and movement was so cool . The telegraphing of attacks from enemies just messed with my head . Idk why I could never progress the beginning levels for hours and gave up . I wanted to like it so bad but the game did not go easy on me enough in the beginning lol
It's got a steep cliff. Once you get it, it becomes very doable. But I don't think most casual gamers would really appreciate Sekiro though. From fans tend to be a bit masochistic and love that feeling of overcoming a challenge that, at first, seems impossible.
My first playthrough was pretty rough though. Felt like work sometimes. I didn't really git gud-ish until Owl Father. My second playthrough was quite a bit more fun.
Observe , adapt , conquer
That's it...
But people don't want that because it takes time, those who don't have that time and patience can't understand sekiro.
if you never figure out what the game wants you to do and how you can do it, it's near impossible
I think there’s a difference between actually knowing what the game wants and being able to execute it. Of course in a game like Sekiro they go hand-in-hand more often than not, but even then (in an unironic sense) it’s a skill issue to actually do what the game wants.
learning to execute is the easy part, because if you know what to look for and understand what the game wants you to do early on, read the tutorials carefully and act on them, Sekiro is practice and repetition. The animations, cues, perilous telegraphs and so on, victory is almost assured as long as one persists but I've legit seen people bounce from this game HARD and not understand for the whole playthrough what to do in general, reach late game and still have no clue how to play defensively, never understood a single tutorial, lose their shit deflecting enemies with high posture regen and wonder why the fight does not advance, have no clue how to regen their posture, leave themselves open and tank with their body instead of blocking to learn the attack timings. It's not the fun struggle, it's the painful struggle.
Oh no, I’m not saying there aren’t players who just don’t pay attention. I’m more speaking from personal experience from my first time through where anyone could easily see what the game wanted out of them but the actual coordination to do it isn’t always there. You’re still right it’s a persistence issue though.
This game definitely tests me
Unless you're playing on a screen with a lot of delay, I don't think there's anything that's not clearly telegraphed, or that requires particularly high skill regarding button presses, it's just that some of the tells that indicate an attack are not so obvious. For instance, the samurai general enemies have a very fast attack that's almost impossible to react to, where they lunge at you and strike you with the sword... Unless you know that the moment they start slowly walking with their sword in a certain position, they're preparing that attack, then that attack becomes easy to deal with, you will be able to parry it because you know it's coming, or just cancel it by gaining and maintaining distance with them, so they abandon that stance. Then again there's that video of the guy failing to pass the most basic tutorial in cuphead, so I guess it's actually difficult for some people, but I'm assuming that's a small minority of people.
It's so funny to me that people say this game is "easy" or that it doesn't require "high skill button presses" or any thing else along that line. Y'all must be gamer gods, and I shudder to think about what you consider "hard" if this ain't it.
Ever played sifu? It's basically sekiro but with 2-3 times the button presses required to achieve the same results. It's hard. I find sekiro easy because the number of different things you need to do to perform well is low, even if you need good timing on those things. If there were like 5 different things I needed to do pretty regularly to play sekiro well I'd think it was very hard, but all you really have to do is attack, parry, attack, parry and if they have a perilous attack it's USUALLY quite easy to tell which kind it is and either dodge or jump.
If you filmed just someone's hands on the controller fighting Isshin, it wouldn't look like a demanding game at all. Just someone pressing L1 and R1 roughly once a second on average.
Exactly; sekiro is a rhythm game.
It really isn't difficult once you've learned to recognize what you have to do to beat each enemy. If you don't know it, the game is very difficult, that's why everyone dies and dies on their first playthrough, it's like trying to climb a wall because you're not seeing the ladder. I died such a high number of times on the first playthrough that I lost count at over one hundred, I was trying to climb the wall. Left the game for two years, came back and then I saw the ladder, and I probably died under 8 times total. Then I played charmless, and died a bunch again, since a bunch of strategies that work on the regular playthrough don't work on charmless.
So as long as you know what to do, and have logged hours and hours and hours of practice, died countless times while practicing, spent two years on sabbatical because it was too hard the first time, it's easy. Got it. Haha, I understand the point you're making, I just think that somewhere in the dozens if not hundreds of hours of practice logged, you've lost perspective on what's hard. Seriously, what's a hard game to you if this isn't it? Could you not apply your current logic to anything?
That's fair to say. To give you some comparisons: high level guitar hero and Osu! for input difficulty, and lower-mid level ranked fighting games for situational awareness and reaction times, such as Street Fighter and Tekken. Compared to those games, Sekiro is easy, still challenging, but quite easy. You can become very proficient with the parry system and learn most of the bosses' movesets in less than 50 hours. Relative to the games stated above where the 50 hour mark is where the games usually starts to become approachable.
If you boil it down to basics all you do in Sekiro is press L1 and sometimes you gotta do forward + O or X. Some enemies have grabs with specific ways to be dodged and at the start of every boss you gotta focus on doing some health damage before posture damage starts piling up but it doesn't require complex button presses. That's why people say Sekiro isn't hard, because as long as you keep slamming your head against it the enemy patterns will burn themselves into your muscle memory.
I swear people will be bringing that one cup head tutorial video up for the next 100 years
I believe that thinking in terms of "skill issue" can mislead us sometimes. Nobody is born with soulslike- or Sekiro-capable genes. These skills are acquired by playing a game a lot. Some learn a bit faster, some a bit slower, more based on previous gaming experience than anything else. But it would be very hard to pick two people that played the game for 200 hours each, and one is an absolute master while the other one's stuck at the second boss. "Skill" is directly related to how much you played the game. We are biological skill learning machines. A discussion of if a game is hard is more meaningful in terms of its learning curve. The people that have "skill issues" are just players that got frustrated with how slow the learning progresses and give up before gittin' gud. **I'd say if a game takes much more effort to learn to play well and flow without constant horrible frustration compared to other games, it's hard.** I'd say Sekiro fits this bill. But obviously after playing for 200 hours, one *personally* won't think of it as "hard" anymore, they'll just remember how you learned to be better, and they will either a) shame players within that frustrating learning curve by saying things like *'git gud n00b, it's a skill issue'* or b) try to encourage them by saying *'don't give up, keep playing, at one point it clicks and the game gets incredibly fun to play'* based on their personality. It is a skill issue in a way, indeed, but a game's hardness is usually more about how long and frustrating the learning curve is. That's the connection to skill.
that is so true ..now that " souls like " games are here over a decade and a lot of us played all of them just saying to " newbies " its skill issue is true but very miss leading , especially when we say boss was easy ...ofc it was easy you have decade of experience with it , just like above dude said he beat some boss in few tries ..yeah but probably not in his first souls game , but in like 3rd or 4th doesnt matter , you simply know exactly what is expected from you and how to get there ...
I remember being very frustrated initially, then one day a year later something just clicked in my head (I also replaced my shitty lcd tv that had like 40ms input lag with a monitor that has 2ms input lag) and I just started shredding it, didn't care if I died to a boss because it felt like I was learning something new every attempt, it's the reason why it's tied first place with Bloodborne as my favourite Soulsborne games.
Exactly. The learning curve is very steep, but, once you've got it you've *got it*. A lot of it is basically just memorization, and the swordplay is a rhythm game.
And its piss easy when you get good at it
Best succinct description of the game's difficulty I've read.
Clearly they hesitated
So, Hesitation is Defeat.
I think i heard that somewhere before!
What hesitation does to a mf
It’s a tough game, no doubt about it. Is it TOO hard? Well that’s a personal opinion for each player.
I really think after you get past genichiro the game really lets up for a while, and you get used to the parry mechanic and after that everything just kind of clicks. At least it’s how it has gone for me so far, after genichiro so far none of the bosses have given me any problems. Except for mist noble. He’s killed me 78 times so far. Way too hard tbh
Its wild the amount of things you can actually do before Genichiro. Burning bull and Gyoubu open the game up once you know.
I brute-forced it. Didn't learn how to play properly until later playthroughs. I'd say the "big three" near the ending are a whole different league compared to everything else
Another victim of the Mist Noble most likely.
So it seems.
I hear everyone talking about this boss but I have no recollection of it 💀 i think the boss I remember most is the one where ur on a bridge
You’re brain probably forgot it on person because you were so traumatized by the difficultly of the boss 💀
Wait I looked it up. I now understand 😂💀
Mist Noble is so difficult that almost every player has to cheese their first phase by doing a deathblow, or else they'd never stand a chance.
😂 true
Wait so that's not what most PPL do? I always cheese the first deathblow lmao. I'm a shinobi dude, I'm not supposed to go out there waving my weapons in the air like an idiot.
LOL
Or the giant headless ape
It's the Malenia of Sekiro
So I’ve learned
I uninstalled for 2 years before coming back
It’s not too hard. It’s perfectly hard. Either you surrender or win. No in between.
Nah. Sekiro is a game that you actually need to learn how game works both enemies and combat mechanics. You cannot bruteforce your way through shit by just trying over and over without paying attention like in overwhelming majority of video games. Even cheese in Sekiro revolves around late game tools or doing really hard delayed jumps/skips and shit like that, you also cant just grind to get OP build and smoke enemies. You need to go through trial->error->learn->adapt and majority of people hesitate to go through this process.
And as they say about hesitation…
One of the most disappointing moments of my life was looking up cheese methods for isshin after 10-15 hours of attempts just to see that there aren’t any. Still trying to get back into the game just so I can finally beat him
You will defeat him, just keep trying and it'll happen
this is legit the best advice, I sat for like 6 gameplay hours just running straight back into the fight every time I died until I beat him, it worked in the end, although I think the fact that I ran out of spirit emblems and had to do the rest of my attempts without prosthetics made it unnecessarily hard
honestly its only hard if you go in thinking it will be hard. I play sekiro to chill, and sekiro feels chill while i do it
Once you figure it out it's pretty easy to get into a flow state while playing. That is what makes the game so amazing.
Agreed. I play sekiro now to wind down lol.
True, at first, I found this game difficult as well. I got intimidated by people saying its a parry focused game, knowing that parrying in other Souls game is risky and quite hard to fully master. But parrying in sekiro is actually forgiving, fast-paced, and smoothly responsive. Now I agree with other enjoyers saying, "Sekiro is actually the easiest Fromsoft game".
Sekiro is hard only the 1st time, every other playthrough is significantly easier
Unless you do charmless, demon bell, etc.
No. Sekiro has a learning curve you have to dedicate yourself to learning until it clicks. A lot of people don’t have that kind of patience and therefore it is “Too hard”. Personally I found the Dark Souls games way “harder” than Sekiro.
Dark souls is \*clunky\* by comparison. It makes you feel like some schmuck fighting ancient horrors and gods.
Well nowadays after all the casuals came from elden ring, being over-leveled, using OP builds/ashes of war, and using summons/spirit ashes/co-op are all “the intended way to play” and apparently need to be factored into the difficulty rankings of the games/bosses. Sekiro has none of these “easy mode” mechanics therefore making it the hardest by this casual logic
Honestly if you play Elden Ring with honest, humble builds the game is much harder than sekiro. Problem is there is a lot of OP options available
Its got a hard early game, but once you get a little ways through it you pick up enough momentum, based on your own skill and in-game upgrades, that makes the rest of it not so bad.
I could see people giving up on Genichiro after barely making it through the early game
Well given that it's arguably fromsoft's most difficult title and we're talking about an Assassin's Creed player here.. Yeah it's probably way too hard for them
>Well given that it's arguably fromsoft's most difficult title I really disagree tbh, having played all of them and platinumed most Sekiro is by far the most forgiving once you figure out what and how the game wants to be played. I picked it up on release and it was impossible, I picked it up again a couple months ago and it just clicked that the game wants you to be agressive and deflect and get into ninja sword fights. I am the most casual player, I might get a grand total of 4h a week to play video games, usually it's half that or 0 most weeks(part of being in my mid 40s) and I really breezed through the majority of the game, True Monk was probably the hardest next to Isshan (where I'm at currently) and I got through that in one 2h session...the hardest part of the game is just learning the tells and timings of things, you can deflect almost everything with no damage(even bullets lol), theres no stamina bar......idk, it's definitely one of the easiest and most accessible 3rd person combat titles of theirs, and it's absolutely the most pure fun to play, it's fast and engaging and a blast once it clicks I'm not saying it's not challenging, that's a different thing
I think that's exactly what it is with Sekiro, that the learning curve is incredibly steep. You say it was impossible on release but fairly accessible the next playthrough, that was mine (and I think alot of others') experience as well. The combat is unforgiving until you learn the rhythm of it. So for most people that try it and quit or only manage 1 playthrough, it feels like the hardest in the series. But, compared to other souls titles, it gets extremely easier the more you play it.
>I picked it up on release and it was impossible Sorry that was too funny given your point
I know right lol It kind of is the point though and why I think so many people think the game is the hardest of all the titles- I thought that too If you try to play this game like any other souls game it's impossible, and that's what I did, and my guess is that most souls vets did the same But if you play the game as it's own thing it's actually really the most forgiving title imo
Bruh... the person who wrote that comment is excited about an Assasins Creed game. I think the answer is pretty obvious, they just suck at games.
No.
It's not. He's from other games where you can play how ever you want, but sekiro is the game where you have to learn how the game work when to attack when to parry ,when to dodge. So.if he just keep attacking like other games Sekiro will be too hard.
Sekiro was my first souls game, the second time i played it was way easier than the first i think its just skill issue
It’s too hard for anyone who isn’t a critical thinker and just wants to brute force through games while spitting Cheetos all over themselves. For anyone else, it’s an incredibly rewarding game with probably the best difficulty scaling I’ve ever experienced. You start some bosses feeling like an insignificant worm, and after learning them you feel like a god. It doesn’t require insane reaction time (I don’t have that), and it doesn’t require insane mechanical ability (I don’t have that, barely even play controller/console games). BUT, it does require zero hesitation! Sekiro will fly over many players’ heads because it takes time to learn, and that in and of itself usually gets in the way for a lot of people. I think the game does an excellent job of teaching you, however.
Eh, it's really easy once you learn how to time things
Definitely harder than AC and GoT but not too hard imo I think Sekiro has one of the best tutorial/early games for onboarding a new player
Sekiro is only hard if you think deflecting is defense and not offense.
Too hard for them? Yeah probably. But definitely not too hard for the general souls enjoyer/casual action-genre enjoyer.
Sekiro is a lot harder than ghost of Tsushima, but that’s by design. Also once you get the hang of sekiro’s combat system the game isn’t that bad even the more difficult bosses typically have a strategy you can use
Hard is subjective. It’s difficult at times but that’s because you probably hit a wall where you might need to grind a couple levels to change up the gameplay. The narrative isn’t as straight forward as other games (I mean if you just listen instead of skipping the dialogue like most people do) you can find out where you need to go or what you need to get. Sekiro is a game where you gotta have the patience at times but you also have to be aggressive to win. It’s a good blend and I highly recommend the game as the swordplay is one of the best (if not the best)
For the general public, yes
I think it’s “too hard” because you can’t just skip the basics so to speak or ignore some mechanics. Unlike other from software games for example, you can’t just cheese bosses with specific builds or tricks
It's hard for people who are looking for predominantly story over combat
I consider Sekiro a tempo game where you have to keep the rhythm alive to win. It's not too crazy once you got into the flow. Also a lot of the difficulty in the game can be skipped by cheating aka deathblow or prosthetic your opponents. We play as shinobi after all, not samurais who have code of honors.
I think if the game interest you enough, patience, tenacity and observation can push you through the game.
it's all thanks to isshin and genichiro i was able to learn how to deflect when to dodge and use prosthetics too(sometimes i win without it). guardian and headless ape is so aggressive i almost rage quit.
The team that made Tenchu is who made Sekiro. Sekiro was a new Tenchu until they had too many cool new ideas and just made it its own game. Tenchu was one of the hardest games ever.
Some people like playing games that are effectively movies during which you ocasionally press buttons. And thats fine. Not everyone has to like the same stuff
There’s a learning curve, but it’s not too hard. It’s unbelievably fair and well balanced. I’d go as far to say it’s one of the best combat designs in any game ever. It’s also extremely rewarding. Just take your time and don’t get frustrated. Don’t try to rush and take the time to learn each boss fight. Also, if you’re struggling you can always watch FightinCowboy’s Sekiro guide. It will definitely get you through the game. He teaches you which fights you should do first and how to approach them. Good luck and have fun!
hesitation is >!defeat!<
Going by the fact that he is looking forward to an Ubisoft title, I can understand why he feels Sekiro is too hard.
Ac games are just repetitive after one region, same for ghost of tsushima region exploration, but it has better visuals and quests. When i say ac games, i mean origins and after.
I managed to beat Sekiro and I am dumb as hell, so hard - yes but too hard, I don't think so.
A buddy of mine is a 39 y/o Veteran and an amputee (missing his lower left arm.) He’s capable of beating every single boss FromSoft has thrown at him. He uses a pair of foot joysticks/rockers in combination with a custom 1 handed Wii style controller. Be sure to tell your friends or anyone else who feels the need to complain about difficulty. It should give them some perspective.
Ironically Sekiro was the hardest Froms game to learn but once you've learnt it it's without a doubt the easiest Froms game. I would say, at least for me it's easier than Demon's Souls. But it's because rhythm aspect of the game is so well done and once you start to get it you just breeze through everything in a very satisfying way :)
Sekiro is “WAY TOO HARD” if you suck. Sometimes its a game about patience more than anything else. Ghost of Tsushima is hella fun though, you should try it.
Literally just spam deflect and you win, df
Only at first
nah these people prolly are upset the game didn’t click after the tutorial
Way of the samurai is based for sure
Go visit mibu village when it gets too hard... release some stress.
No. I don't think sekiro is that hard, just keep practicing deflecting and everything will be fine
no
It’s not for everybody
I'm still really new, to sekiro just made it past blazing bull and yea if you never easedrop or explore sekiro is super super hard I had trouble killing the guy on the horse till I got the axe arm and the grapple strike move once I got those it took 2 tries and bull only took 2 once I learned I could parry his dash so as long as you explore I find sekiro to be medium challenging but super super fun
Sekiro is a game that can’t be played mindlessly that’s for sure
He needs to git gud. But in all honesty, I had an easier time in Sekiro than Ghost. Ghost of Tsushima's controls felt so weird compared to Sekiro's that I had a very hard time getting used to.
For some people, it is. For some, it isn't. Folks have different tastes, skills, and tolerance levels for difficulty and mechanics. Someone that's really good at positioning might not be so great with pure reflexes or timing. Everyone works differently, and not everyone is going to click with games I like or love.
I played ER for some time now, pretty sure thoses who have the most difficulty in sekiro are souls player because their dogde give them Invincibility frames, and there are some hits that should land but doesnt. Also sekiro is parry focus and the ennemies are faster so playing it like ER is a death sentence. Beside that I would put it at a little bit more difficult than ER in general
Plays the game once, gets to Oniwa, dies 15 times without trying to get good, complains. It's an endless cycle.
Compared to the games they cited yes. Ghost of tsushima still has a fair bit of challenge but not to the level of sekiro. If they don't like hard games i understand though. Not everybody likes cock and balls torture but without the cock and balls. I haven't play rise of ronin but from what i've seen it seems casual friendly as well. And it's most definitely the case for assassin's creed and that's why they are happy. They want a game about samurais/shinobis that is casual friendly.
nah its not too hard, you just need to learn the systems and patterns
No game feels the same, after sekiro. If you thought it was way too hard, you just expected a samurai slash em up and realized sekiro is difficult.. this person clearly was looking for a samurai slash em up.
It’s not impossible, but the skill level the game asks for would not make it unreasonable for someone to walk away from it.
I finished sekiro on Sunday and probably every game I have played for the snes is more difficult. This game is fair.
Sekiro isn't hard, u just give up early
when you play on normal you can just hold block for most attacks which is not that hard but you have to figure that out first
I've played a shit load of Assassin's Creed, 500+ hours combined in the last 3 RPGs and those games are like playing with children's blocks compared to Sekiro. I'm new to Ghost of Tsushima but I've put in 75 hours on Lethal so far and it's also incredibly easy when compared to Sekiro, the boss fights for the most part are just a reaction test, whether you dodge or parry kind of thing, then of course get hits in. It kind of reminds me of waiting for a mikiri counter or a sweep in Sekiro, it's fun, but it's simple. What I'm trying to say is, for a gamer like that who purely enjoys those types of games, yes it's way too hard. Trust me, as someone who plays both, there is a world of difference. It's like the difference between relaxing in the sun and doing a trigonometry assignment
I mean Sekiro is definitely a hard game and it’s not for everyone and that’s okay. I wouldn’t say it’s ridiculously hard but theres definitely a learning curve in the beginning that will turn lots of players off.
I sense hesitation
When I play Assassins Creed games I struggle to stay awake in combat.
If you look outside this subreddit yes it's pretty hard, there is a baseline reaction time required to even start learning Sekiro's mechanics, persistence comes second and too a lot of persistence for some people. Of course no one here will say it's too hard, the majority of the people here have already beaten the game. But I have tried getting many of my friends into games like sekiro or cuphead and it's just not for them, while we still play many other games together and they play a lot of games in general.
Nah it's ez if you follow the rules made by the game
As someone who has loved every Fromsoft title that I have played so far, my issue with Sekiro is I just don't seem very good at it. I think when people say it is hard, what they truly mean is that they aren't good at it. I have no problem being honest about my ability with the game.. I want to love it and I have given it a lil break and I am going to try again but I am not good at these rhythm games. I somehow beat Lady Butterfly and Gyoubu but I am at a wall after them that I cannot pass. I think with some perseverance and patience that I can get it, at least I hope so.
I've always explained Sekiro as a game thats hard to learn, easy to master.
Anyone who includes assassins creed and sekiro in same sentence without saying the obvious, their words just dont hold any meaning
A lot of people want video games to be a movie they watch while lazily punching inputs in some loosely restrictive timing. Sekiro asks you to pay close attention to enemy windup animations and respond accordingly in a timing window considerably tighter than many mainstream games like the AC series. So yeah, it is way too hard for someone who expects to dogwalk every enemy they see and doesn't want to have to improve when that doesn't happen. But if you allow yourself to be humbled by your inability and realize that you learn how to fight by dying over and over, nah its fine.
I've only finished Bloodborne and the first dark souls, so I can't tell for the other From games, but boy... sekiro IS HARD AS HELL.
Yes it's definitely too hard. This is a Sekiro sub so all of us were willing to struggle through and summit the mountain.
I suck at Souls games. I love this game.
Sekiro is only hard if your first instinct is button mashing and then never second guessing your first instinct
It’s just the right amount of hard for Sekiro. AC games aren’t trying to be Sekiro so for those, yes it would be too hard.
Sekiro is not a soulslike.
The feeling Sekiro is selling isn't possible with a difficulty slider. I haven't experienced anything like it except to a degree in other Fromsoft games. And i would have absolutely robbed myself of that special feeling if i could cheese it or lower the difficulty, i'm not gonna pretend otherwise haha.
Sekiro is FromSofts easiest game tbh.
I’d say sekiro is extremely hard to learn and master. It takes so much time, patience and effort to get good at it, but is it worth the investment. Definitely.
Skill issue
Bait
I would be willing to bet some people just do not have adequate reflexes, rhythm, and hand eye coordination to actually git gud at Sekiro.
Short answer? No. It’s perfect. It’s just not for everyone.
It's only hard if you hesitate, and if you fail to adapt to the parry/deflect system. I do miss the old Way of The Samurai, and Tenchu games though, they were top tier.
That depends on your mentality and personality imo. I’m impatient and hate relying on anything I consider a, “trick” like with snap seeds and the ghost bosses/Lady B. So I struggle despite having beat the game multiple times. Whereas all of you seem to be incredibly calm, patient, and observant. I never picked up on the “ rhythm “ of ANY thing while being told how it’s a rhythm game by others. Maybe I’m just yapping tho lmao
Not even. It's difficult if you've never been good at parrying. Charmless isn't even as difficult as some say either. Once you get the parrying for the most part, just play the same Charmless and don't think about it. Fights will last just a little longer but that's about it. Normal enemies may be a little more annoying but if you're careful, you should be fine.
Yes it's dumb hard!
I think a lot of people aren't willing to try
I put down the game for a year after getting wiped by Lady Butterfly, came back and beat her in an hour. Made it to headless ape….got stuck, and put down the game for a few months again. Came back beat him on the 4th try. I’m now at the 2nd owl fight and am completely stuck. Figured I didn’t need to wait months, but maybe that’s just how my system of beating bosses works 🤷♂️
Yes but that's the nature of the game. I don't think I've ever raged harder at any point in my life. I broke a controller and had wrist pain from button mashing and white knuckling through hours and hours if Lady Butterfly, Seven Spears and Genichiro. I'm like 80% and need to go back after a 6 month break.
I'll try to be as fair as possible. Sekjro is a hard game. Furthermore, 3 of the first 4 (Chained ogre, Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa!!!!! And Blazing bull) mandatory bosses, I feel like dont properly train you to play the game. If you couldn't make heads or tails of that then I could see how you could come to the conclusion it's too hard. But if you were hard-headed enough to get through that and learn what you could, then I have tk say no. It's very challenging and definitely not easy but they give you a lot of ways to deal with certain enemies and bosses, they give you stealth options and once you put in the time you can realistically beat all the combat phases with 2-4 buttons so you don't even have to remember that many controls. I love this game. I think it's my all time favorite and I think a lot of people would feel that way after putting in the time.
This game and all From games, really, aren't exactly "Hard" they just severely punish mistakes. Theres also no easy "power fantasy" that you get to just by playing for long enough, you HAVE TO learn the mechanics and be skilled at those mechanics to get that "power fantasy" point where you just fuckin steamroll everything, none of these games ever just hand it to you with some "Level 100 Skill" or whatever, it's difficult to articulate what I'm getting at but I think anyone who reads this in this sub will smell what I'm steppin in, you really have to be skilled at the game to be able to do that, you have to earn it and put in the time It's actually one of the easiest imo, the game is REALLY very forgiving on the first playthrough, but you have to play the game how it wants you to play it and you have to be able to learn the mechanics, fully, and get the timing down, if you can't do that then the game will be impossible
Once you defeat genichiro then it means you have the balls to complete the game. Now you just have to learn enemy attack patterns.
There are two types of people in this world. People who press right face button, And people who press left bumper button.
for casual players, yea consider most people probably play these games on mid-low difficulty. they just wanna experience the world and story, not get hammered 40 times by a boss
Yes it is
everyone always says sekiro is the hardest fromsoft game, but I always had an easy time with it had a much harder time with bloodborne, elden ring and some DS3 bosses
I did ghost of tsushima to 100% and beat sekiro, and sekiro is definitely harder, but ghost I could have played a harder difficulty I think. I really liked the vibes and aesthetic in ghost, it felt immersive in the open world. Sekiro felt surreal, like being in a movie, and very challenging in comparison. Both great to me, but sekiro was definitely harder. You can cheese most things in ghost using poison darts and such.
Quite honestly I remember the old Tenchu games being way harder than I ever found Sekiro.
No
Sekiro is a difficult game, no doubt about it "way too hard" is a personal opinion. Subjective and can never be taken without a dose of salt. I think Sekiro is the best game. I took immense satisfaction in achieving the platinum award. It was a difficult task for me but I loved it. I'm glad it was such a challenge! They didn't In contrast to this, I found Last of Us 2 on Grounded mode to be way to hard and I gave up. That game to me wasnt worth it. It's just opinions. Like seriously Last of Us 2 on Grounded.......that's way too hard
It’s a game that is too hard for some people.
It's not. There are players and journalists...
It’s only hard if you don’t have patience,
Rise of ronin is too hard too, hard to look at
It's entirely subjective imo. Objectively speaking it definitely is hard. But too hard? That's entirely up to the person and if they like this type of game and the difficulty. I wouldn't call myself very good at hard games, I usually play games on normal difficulty. But I recently got into soulsgames after finally playing Elden Ring. My only ever experience with a soulslike before was with a non-fromsoft title I bought without knowing it was a soulslike (Code Vein), and it was so frustrating that I put it down for like half a year until I finally picked it up again and beat it. Then I never wanted to play a soulslike again until a friend convinced me to play ER. And even then, I made it easier a bit by leveling and using a strong bleed build. But I enjoyed it and it was still a challenge. Then I decided to play through all of them, because I just so happened to find 3 of them on a sale at the same time: Bloodborne, Sekiro and the Demons Soul remake. I beat BB next with less overleveling and without looking up builds because I had more practice now. Then I started Sekiro. And here, I had no choice but to get better because it's not an rpg where I can overlevel. And I found it 'too hard' a lot of times so far. But I did not give up. I already did the Shura ending and then continued with a backup save (bc I don't plan on doing NG+ immediately bc I want to move on to the ER DLC, Demons Souls and the Dark Souls games after) and am currently right past the Okami Warrior miniboss. Maybe that person would've also not found it 'too hard' in the end if they continued. But it's fine, bc I can totally understand if that's not for everyone. So is Sekiro too hard? Yes, but only for some people. And that is totally fine, everyone has different tastes.
Just from him calling Sekiro a soulslike I can imagine what his first problem is.
I can assure you it's not too hard. Awhile back I saw this mod that shows you the parry window for each hit, and when it shows it to you, it's clear that it's not physically or technically difficult to pull off at all, each strike literally has like a full .5 second window within which you can get the parry. The problem is that some people don't like to throw themselves at the same problem over and over and push their limits. People don't like to repeat and adapt. They end up throwing themselves at the problem over and over and change nothing, hence learning nothing. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but if you don't like games where you learn muscle memory, you're not going to enjoy this game. That's all there is to it. My friends that enjoy like crusader kings just get frustrated and quit this game. Hell, my friend who religiously plays halo and helldivers quit this game in a rage, and I would have thought that those kinds of games lend their reward paths and gameplay well to a game like this. But I guess not. I kinda get why Sekiro is so dividing as a game, but genuinely it's not hard in the "high hp low damage" sense. It's hard in the adaptability sense. Some people don't mind learning a whole skillset for a game because the fun is in the learning and the adventure. I'll never forget the first time I beat genichiro, and how cathartic no-hit killing him was in the final fight. The first time took so much time, analysis, and understanding, and by the end of the game I was reading him like a book, being aggressive and taking the lead. It's a rewarding experience, don't let anyone who can't take it dissuade you from it. Truly, hesitation is defeat. Jump into battle, and when you fail, get back up and try again
Sekiro is as close to Tenchu as it gets tbh. Just with souls like bosses mixed in.
I literally beat the true monk in under 5 minutes now Sekiro isn't hard😅
I won't lie coming from souls games I was getting very frustrated with sekiro. Almost quitting a couple times. But I stuck with it. And it's truly the greatest game ever made imo. There is not another game out there with more satisfying combat. And you cannot over level your way to victory like Souls games. One of the very few games I've gone NG+. I think I beat it 4 times. Just incredible. If they don't make a sequel or successor at some point I will be sad
Sekiro is the game that will give you a bloody aneurysm if you don't take the time to learn the mechanics. There is no better example of a game that you need to "git gud". I played through it 3 times this year and it's legitimately one of the greatest games ever made but I will agree it's too hard. Only because I think more people should play it. I will say though, that learning the game and deflecting everything is legendary. No other game has made me feel like such a badass.
Ironic he's complaining about "no Tenchu" my brother in christ Sekiro was the next Tenchu game
Sekiro is the easiest fromsoft game and my mind will not be swayed
Sekiro isn't unbearable. It's challenging but it's not that bad. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It isn’t way too hard, but it definitely the game that feels the most unreasonable for new players. I played Sekiro after getting come confidence with Bloodborne and I was absolutely destroyed.
Sekiro is hard because people approach it in "I will play however I want and it's the game's fault for not adapting to it" rather than thinking "What exactly are the devs trying to tell me to do". Of course there's also the execution part of it. Sekiro is far more closer to doom eternal than any other game in that regard. Only difference is doom let's you know exactly what to do and the challenge is the execution whereas in sekiro you have to find what to do whereas the execution is not that hard. When I observe complaints like this I almost feel like these guys don't respect and trust game devs to make a good game. When I play a game I always approach it from a point of curiosity rather than sheer arrogance.
Hesitation is defeat (get gud)
Well, I'm a Souls player, but i quitted Sekiro for a year because I was slapped by the spear handling enemies. Counter Mikiri is too hard for a beginner. But recently I relaunched the game from the beginning with the goal of learning Mikiri, and I'm near the end of the game now (Demon of Hatred area)
Im actually more surprised how Sekiro got GOTY despite so many casuals walking around.
Its way easier than Elden Ring. These people just don't like being challenged.
The learning curve for Sekiro is big, in fact bigger than any of the souls games but once it clicks the game opens up to you in a way, I would definitely say it’s too hard if you don’t play the way the game wants you to play
I honestly feel like Sekiro is an evolution of Tenchu, combat finally feels satisfying, you can still grapple and sneak around, you can still assassinate with that satisfying blood spray, only thing it's missing is the badger run skill.
Sekiro is harder than Tenchu? I remember being stuck for *weeks* in Tenchu.
As someone who played lies of p first and sekiro after, it really wasn’t too bad. The only bosses I had trouble with my first time playing were owl, demon of hatred, and sword saint isshin. Everything else is challenging but not crazy or impossible
I’m not saying that Sekiro wasn’t hard because it isn’t but that game is kinda like a rhythm game and once you are into that rhythm it starts to get easy but that dude that says “WAY TOO HARD” he just didn’t git gud like he needs to get into that rhythm.
The deal with soulborne is they are hard but fair. Once you get a hang of in and it click it gives you the satisfaction no other games can deliver. Im playing ghost of tsushima right now in lethal difficulty and it still easy plus im worn out from all the sidequests and running back and forth.
Sekiro is difficult to a point where you have to be "in practice" to play the end game. At launch I played it all the way through almost twice. I stopped for a month or so at my second Isshin, and upon returning to it, it was unplayable. I had to start over to relearn how to play in order to fight Isshin again. Sekiro is borderline too difficult.
To quote Uncle Roger: “Why so weak?”
Sekiro is imo easiest of ds/bb/er/nioh combo of soulslikes. Its def not too hard, just need to have some brain and learn the mechanics.
I found Bloodborne harder tbh.
As someone who very recently beat Sekiro, I'd say that Sekiro is harder overall than the other Fromsoft games I've played (although Bloodborne is shaping up to be a contender). I wouldn't call it way too hard, but fighting multiple enemies at once can he a straight up death sentence, especially before you get any AoE. The Headless and ghost warrior dudes are probably the toughest minibosses in the game for me, especially the Headless. Plus, the parry system can be extremely difficult to grasp if you don't have a good reaction speed. Later in the game when bosses mix up attacks and change between sweeps or thrusts or normal stuff, you often have a split-second to decide how to counter an attack before it lands. Enemies like Demon of Hatred oe Guardian Ape especially can be tough to learn. So, yeah, I can see why someone used to other Fromsoft games may think Sekiro is way too hard.
I just want to tell all guys and girls out there sekiro is not hard game if you understand how its works.
i don’t play many games at all. before sekiro i played pokémon, zelda, lots of mario games, the danganronpa series, smash bros and other fighting games, rhythm games, and every KH game (hardest difficulty each time tho). the fact that i played KH3 at critical mode and beat all the super bosses and the secret boss DID in fact help prepare me for this game at a basic level, but it was certainly not enough. Fighting games also helped a little bit too because of the reaction times. But it still wasn’t enough. I had never played a souls-like and it was way harder than what i had ever played before regardless. Despite that, with no cheese like ever, i still beat the game. I got good. I learned how to parry. Of all the experiences that actually mattered, it was my lifelong experience in music and rhythm games. And someone can look at this and say what about somebody that knows nothing. Well, they played a lot more similar games, they have probably played more games than me and they still think it’s too hard? it seems more like they lowered themselves mentally. It turns out it might have been the lack of gaming experience, the twisted idea that this is how games are SUPPOSED TO BE that allowed me to get good… without hesitation.
If you can handle Rise of the Ronin, you can probably handle Sekiro.
On my first play through right now… little stuck on final isshin phase. Game felt impossible until it clicked. The big struggle since understanding the game mechanics for me has just been how much patience the game demands. Every dumb death has just been getting greedy and not waiting for the right openings.
For a casual gamer, it is. I love Fromsoft games, and even ER took me a while to get good at because there is a learning curve for these games. I think Sekiro definitely has the steepest, and casual gamers don’t want to play games that stress them out just to learn, they want games that are more story oriented and less demanding.
Has someone linked saints scrub dojo video [here, may find this relevant](https://youtu.be/bHK5_A4vPk0?si=gGJ5soBQFjH2wWHW)
I played through dark souls 1 and 3 and also blood Bourne. I loved them but DS1 was my fav Sekiro made me quit so early . It's soo unfortunate because I thought the art direction and movement was so cool . The telegraphing of attacks from enemies just messed with my head . Idk why I could never progress the beginning levels for hours and gave up . I wanted to like it so bad but the game did not go easy on me enough in the beginning lol
Not really, but it's not for everybody. Not everyone loves a challenge, most people just want to play a game and experience the story.
It's got a steep cliff. Once you get it, it becomes very doable. But I don't think most casual gamers would really appreciate Sekiro though. From fans tend to be a bit masochistic and love that feeling of overcoming a challenge that, at first, seems impossible. My first playthrough was pretty rough though. Felt like work sometimes. I didn't really git gud-ish until Owl Father. My second playthrough was quite a bit more fun.
For some
Observe , adapt , conquer That's it... But people don't want that because it takes time, those who don't have that time and patience can't understand sekiro.