Sekiro

Few games have such tight game design, story, lore, and characters blended so well into a single experience.

I don’t think I even want or need a sequel.

Wizards got all up in Commander and killed my interest in it.

Metroid 2 was really bad for this too. If I hadn’t been on a very long and boring vacation all those years ago, I probably would have never finished it.

Everyone should feel free to start their Metroid journey with Super Metroid.

I experienced few bugs in Sekiro, so I can’t comment on that. The buggiest/jankiest experience I’ve had with a From game was DS1 and that stuff did frustrate me to no end.

The difficulty spikes you speak of for Owl 2 and Demon of Hatred are kind of the point (you didn’t mention it, but Butterfly 2 as well). Those are optional story-focused bosses where everything is cranked up to 11. They are “challenge mode” encounters. This applies to Demon of Hatred especially. It’s basically a DS boss in Sekiro. The boss mechanics and combat mechanics clash with dissonance. It makes it challenging, but in a rather frustrating way because few other encounters are like it (maybe headless to a small degree?). You’re basically taking a test for a subject you didn’t get to study for so you have to learn on the job. It is definitely the fight that took the most attempts by a wide margin. Conversely, the final boss is the opposite: the culmination of all the things you’ve been taught put on dazzling display. It’s your final “performance” if you will.

None of this is to say the skill ask of the player is not demanding, because it is. The patterns required to respond during enemy aggression is different than a Soulslike, but I think it’s still in the same neighborhood. “When the enemy/boss does X, I do Y”, the difference being in Sekiro the strings of X and Y are much faster and there’s far more of them. If you don’t like that variation on the theme, well then that’s it… You don’t like it! There’s nothing wrong with not liking something. And I know some players describe an event while muddling through where something “clicks” and they suddenly “get it” and then enjoy it far more (this applies to all From games). But it’s possible Souls games will click for you and Sekiro simply will not.

Preface: I have played through DS1 multiple times, DS 3 multiple times, Elden Ring multiple times, and Sekiro twice. I love all these games to bits. I tried DeS, and while I found it fascinating, I came upon it too late and did not feel like proceeding as I have been spoiled by later titles.

Sekiro is beloved due to its very tight design. It asks the player to excel at a handful of specific skills rather than presenting a wide array of options and going “well some of this ought to work for you if combined correctly”. Is either approach better than the other? Subjective. But it’s easy to see why one or the other could appeal more or less to individuals.

That being said, with a narrower band of skills to sharpen comes more constrained encounters. Sekiro is (chiefly) a game about one-on-one combat where nearly every attack can be deflected. “Parry” really is the wrong word for the primary defensive option in Sekiro. Even attacks that are telegraphed with the big red “watch out!” warning actually CAN be deflected (though perhaps you’d be a fool to try). The game is clearly trying to get the player into the groove of trading strikes. You attack until sparks fly, the enemy disengages, or winds up an attack unhindered by your strikes. Then you are met with the defensive challenge: here is one or more attacks with different timings and potential responses. It is now up to the player to answer with whatever they feel is most effective. This may be deflect, block, dodge, jump, mikiri counter, consumable item, or shinobi prosthetic tool. You may find more than one answer fits and therein lies the player’s ability to be creative.

I would argue being creative within a more limited set of constraints does not necessarily diminish the quality of satisfaction one could experience. Being able to master - or at minimum become proficient with - a difficult set of skills despite constraints could even be argued to be far more satisfying as there is less opportunity to find some cheese in the massive toolbox that you would otherwise have access to. And it’s not like the toolbox you have in Sekiro is as small as some detractors seem to think. However, it is much smaller and focused than other titles… especially Elden Ring.

And this is me only talking about the combat. All the other aspects of the game are very well designed too, but I’ve said enough. Also, critics tend to focus on the combat anyway.

Same. That and Pizza Tower.

I don’t have crazy hours in it, but Noita is a game I tend to recommend to people. Hey, you! You! Person reading these words! Go play Noita!

You don’t gotta no-life it, just go play it a little! It’s fun!

On Steam… CS2 + CS:GO is probably at the top. I used to compete in league play. Practice, scrims, and matches and all that.

2nd is CS:S despite my last real session being 12 years ago, but that may be soon toppled by Elden Ring or 7 Days to Die.

Who knows how much time I’ve spent in LoL or WoW but I’m sure it’s in the “several thousand hours” magnitude for each.

They already do this. Skins have trade restrictions in the form of time delays after specific actions. Valve also clamped down on the features of their trading API.

The bad news is that it’s not an easy problem to solve and not solely in Valve’s hands. But to say Valve has done nothing is straight up false. Have they done enough? Debatable, but there’s no easy solutions.

I agree with most casual reviews that it’s a bit unpolished, somewhat buggy, and needs work in some areas, but on the whole is a decent foundation for a game and most importantly is FUN.

On the other hand, devs who promote pirating their work are the kind of people I do want to give money to.

I’m here to vouch for Baba Is You. Definitely play it until you can affect entire levels. It’s such a mind twist.