The Soulsy-ful Satisfactions of SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWENTY BAZILLION TIMES (Patreon)

I’ve found that during pandemic times that I, possibly much like you, have been playing a lot of video games. While they’ve always been a part of my media consumption, there’s something about quarantine that has allowed them to almost completely dominate my time. It’s as if most TV shows seemed to fit in a different rhythm of life, one that was often shared. Similarly, most of my communal movie watching has taken the form of rewatching familiar classics over Zoom calls, where we can socialize without fear of ruining the movie for others. But even with those nice little punctuation marks in our quarantined lives, many of us face nothing but the most amorphous timeframe from hour to hour… And we face it alone. 

But turning to video games provides two forms of relief. The first is the option for more social interaction, what with Animal Crossing still having its lovely ongoing moment (there may not be something that was better built for the now times). But there is also something about the solipsistic action of single player video games that helps me be at peace in that lonesome space. It’s not just the feeling of getting absorbed into another world, but also the feeling of self-reliance. It’s going into a challenging space and finding some way to survive, to excel, to create some measure of gain in a life where that is somehow achievable, unlike our own (for example, just last night I finished Subnautica, which I adore and recommend wholeheartedly on PC, but the PS4 was darn buggy and clippy and crashy, so consider it a warning). But of all my single player gaming experiences in the last few months, there is one that has stuck out in my mind above all else…

That’s because I finally got to play SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE.

Or more like die twenty bazillion times. Which I say in jest, because I understand how much that is a part of the draw. Like many of you, I love FromSoftware games so much. I of course also understand why so many people hate them! But for me there is something about the Dark Souls series and BloodBorne that make me so damn happy. On one level, it's sort of the same feeling I get when I go to an incredible restaurant: this sensation of "you're in amazing hands" and every bit of the experience has had thought and catering going into it. It all feels so supremely crafted to the millimeter. But it’s also like a lot of high-end Japanese restaurants in that there's very little ostentatiousness, no lavish decor, and no bells and whistles. Just this spartan quality with an utter focus on the beauty of the things that really matter AKA the food. And the food in this case is the perfection of the gameplay. 

Sure, there’s so many other video games I play where you have these beautifully crafted open worlds, or all these empowering abilities, or even great stories! But often I find there is very little “game” in them. Which is okay! I don’t think games have to be that gamey, let alone hard. I’m just noting how even Rockstar has rarely figured out how to up the ante from an endless slew of bad guys (which is why most of the delights are stunting or more meta-creative). But as cliche as it is to say, FromSoft is all about the game. It's diving into immense challenges that require such focus and clarity of goal. You have to figure it out. You have to stay zen. And then you have to get the timing down, which demands so much of your mind and body. And even when the game seems most cruel, it's always FAIR. And whenever I die I know exactly what I did wrong. And along the way, there are no games better at TEACHING you how to play them through the organic nature of what they demand from you. You don't pass sections until you have them down. And once you have them down, you really feel accomplished.

I actually wrote most of those thoughts right when I started playing SEKIRO. And now having finished it, the game might speak to those core values better than any other. It even might be my favorite game of all-time, if not certainly one of them. But superlatives are boring. What really matters is talking about the why. And the why of SEKIRO rests in so many moments, emotions, and stages. I characterized many of them in a way, way, way too long Twitter thread that most people found boring! Which definitely speaks to the idea that these games are not for everyone. Because they can easily feel impossible and frustrating, especially if you’ve never played one before. 

But my words of encouragement are not just about how they feel so damn rewarding when you beat bosses (and they do), it’s that these games are achievable if you really set your mind to it. Believe me, I’m not an awesome super coordinated gamer guy. But the game teaches you how to get better. It really teaches you to focus. It really teaches you discipline. It really teaches you to learn how to learn. And the result is a feeling that is so rare these days. A feeling of genuine growth. So know that while you were fishing on some island, I was studying the blade…

… I’m sorry I couldn’t resist.

* * *

So that’s the column for those who have never played the game before. But for those who have (or don’t care about spoilers), I wanted to take a “dear diary” approach to share my five part journey into the game, while also getting to the bigger point of satisfaction within all of it. I’ll be putting the dear diary tweets I made in italics and putting the bosses’ names retroactively in bold. Cool? Cool.

PART ONE - A TUTORIAL!??!

FromSoft games are famous for throwing you into chaos with almost no explanation. Here it’s a bit different, but for a few good reasons. For when you first take control of the main character, it feels so strange. You’re so much faster than your lumbering Dark Souls-y counterparts. And you realize how much more insane it feels to have the ability to jump in this series. At first, it also feels so loose that you don’t know what to do with that. Even jumping and grabbing a ledge feels weirdly impossible. You’re just this dumb baby falling in the wet grass. But if you’ve played these games before, you implicitly understand these feelings will slowly erode into feeling complete control and oneness. 

But then I can’t tell you how crazy it felt to have the game stop and actually tell you what to do. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tutorial elements are so insanely light compared to other far more hand-holding games, but it’s still a remarkable thing from FromSoft. But it really really really wants to make clear that parrying and blocking are a HUGE part of this game. And I’ll be honest, at first I sort distrusted it because it didn’t feel easy, but you later come to realize how much it’s true.

The other thing that’s strange is how much more story driven SEKIRO feels. The SoulsBorne entries are basically an endless series of cryptic teasing and reversals and DA FUQ explanations of corrupting demonry, largely because so much of the storytelling is beautifully environmental. Sure, you CAN dive deep into the lore and understanding of them, and I do sometimes poke around a bit, but also fully admit I don’t a lot. I just go fight who I gotta fight and have the emotional experience of that bizarre interaction. It works great! But here they really start digging into the relationships and objectives in a more human way (again, it’s more comparative to other FromSoft entries). It also helps that they’re introducing a very simple motive: I must protect this boy! I am committed to protecting this boy! But I still found the story set-up so effective that… 

“I just literally screamed at a moment in a cutscene early on…” -May 1

I am talking about Our Protagonist getting his arm getting cut off right near the start. It’s one of those WHOA moments, largely because the cinematic is also filmed so beautifully. I also had no knowledge of the game beforehand, so I had no idea that this would happen. But of course, most grave injuries in video games are a route to empowerment. Because almost immediately you get a bad ass prosthetic and suddenly you can build all these cool, helpful tools. But more importantly, it sets up the proper motivation of the story, which is… 

I MUST GET MY BOY BACK.

The whole opening with the Ashina Outskirts is just one of those great bits of design. It all feels challenging, but you start to get the sense of the things that will define the game’s core playing mechanic when it comes to navigating the spaces. It feels insane that you can suddenly sneak up to someone in a From Soft game and stealth stab them, but it immediately leads to a specific set of questions in order to execute this tactic: How much can an enemy see me? What are the sight lines? How much do I have to be stealthy? What happens if I just charge in? 

The answer is you die. But you start finding all these really specific strategies and trying to learn the timing to get hits off or deflect. That’s the whole thing: where SoulsBourne was so much about spacing, defense, or dodging, you immediately get the sense that this is going to be more about timing of your clanky swords! And just getting hits off in split seconds before you get hit! But what I love is that the first real challenge is NOT about that at all…

“So this chained ogre is the first pretty decent test huh... (by the opening standards)” -May 4

It took me two full days to beat this fucker. But again, it’s all about teaching you through repetition. You’re supposed to die a lot. You’re supposed to learn how to take out those three dudes really quickly to the point you don’t even think about them. You’re supposed to practice your mikiri counter timing on the third guy. And then, you're supposed to get hit a lot by that diving angry ogre. Because really, what it’s teaching you is the game’s basic laws of movement, dodging, and spacing. Wait didn’t I just say the game WASN’T about that? Yes. But you won’t even begin to understand parrying until you feel fluidity on the ground first.

It’s also teaching you the important mechanics like understanding the relationship between the posture meter and health. Because this is a boss you HAVE to work down health wise a bit before you can pull off a death blow. It also teaches you how to pull away and heal when you need to, purely by necessity. And even as I got better at fighting him, I was having those classic SoulsBorne trip ups where I was still getting caught on bad moments. Naturally, I got frustrated! But that’s part of it, to! So I also started turning to advice. I went and got the first flame vent, which in turn helps a lot (I still had to learn how to use it). I also had to learn how to use the spirit emblem system and stock up, etc. Again, none of these things would have been possible without the constant failures that drove me to look for systems… The constant dying also taught me about the Dragonrot system.

But I have to say, in the SoulsBourne series it’s these mechanisms that I hate the most (like the Humanity system in DS1). I get the idea behind them. You want to find a way to reward people that don’t die a lot, but instead it feels like a punishment against those that are ust trying to learn. And it’s a punishment that isn’t even *too* punishing, you just have to buy some items to make the rot go away. But it FEELS even more annoying because this result is something that isn’t really gamified, more an arbitrary hoop to jump through and keep fixing. Basically, the only reason it exists is to make me feel bad and like my repeated deaths are making people sick. But the repeated deaths are incentive enough, believe me. I don’t need the extra motivation. I’d rather just learn in peace.

Especially when fights move into their second day. I came into the Chained Ogre again with a clear head and I was instantly getting really close, but then started doing that thing where I get too tense or greedy when I'm really close to finishing him. A classic FromSoft error! Instead, you gotta get to that zen place where you don't even care that you are close to winning. You have to stay in the rhythm. Which is all part of what makes the fights so thrilling. Each run has its own story. Its own series of ups downs. I even had this great fight near the end when I had a bad break early, then got him on the run, like literally mopping the floor with him, then got too greedy when he was reeling and took one swipe too many and… he elbowed me and then threw me off the cliff.

“I HAD ONE HIT LEFT AND I GOT GREEDY WITH HIM GOING FOR AN ELBOW IM SO SO SO SOS SO SO STUPID DAMMIT FUCK, FUCK ME” -May 4

And then, of course, on the very next attempt I beat him. Which is often how it can work. But it came with that first dopamine hit big. That rush that makes you feel so dang happen. And little did I know, there would be several more coming. Because… 

“That was just set-up for another boss!?!?!? OH YOU CHEEKY BASTARDS.” -May 6

Immediately I was scared because going from boss to boss rarely felt so damn close together in the soulsborne games. Of course, this is also where I realized these were just mini-bosses (much to my fright). But turns out facing General Tenzen Yamauchi is yet another attempt in the game to teach you something critical. Looking over the situation, I knew that I wanted to clean out the surrounding bad guys (which is always my style, let alone in this game), so I got my stealth strategy pretty quickly by working off to the right and getting the alarm dude. I could then sneak down and get a deathblow on him… But then he handed me my fucking ass.

The problem is gotta learn how to play this fucker! And doing the sneak clear out every time is labor intensive! You can’t get in rhythm! Which again, the point. It’s the classic double task. It’s weird to say a game is trying to “teach” patience. For many, I imagine it feels like demand. But it’s the difference between hard versus cheap. If it was cheap, it would always be cheap. But when I was good at the game later, I could handle these guys / situations in two seconds. It’s just about going through that learning process. 

So we went through the cycles: I would clear out the space. Then he would wipe the floor with me on that attempt. I kept using the mikiri counter on the sweep and vice versa. Then I got more frustrated. I would attempt to just go in there and beat him, but quickly learned it doesn't work. Between the other dudes and the guns blaring, I last two seconds. Blurgh. But sometimes it’s not perfection… Sometimes it’s about when things “click.”

And holy crap, once I took the "you lead the dance" mindset the fight completely clicked. I stayed on him, led the pressure, knew his moves, filled up his posture meter, and then got my last stab. It wasn’t even that hard. All that build-up and training? It was learning what not to do. And the game, through these two bosses, has now taught you everything you need to know. But you’re sure going to need it. Because it’s about to get a lot harder. 

Because you’re going…

PART TWO - INTO THE FIRE

“The only thing that even comes close to the feeling of killing a hard boss is OPENING UP A SHORTCUT hell yes.” -May 7

The strange, labyrinthian designs of FromSoft games is so much a part of the fun. I know they can often feel so confusing, for you have environments that both broaden and show vistas and yet feel cramped and tightly wound. Which is why opening up shortcuts is one of the most thrilling things because suddenly navigating around dangerous enemies feels so much more low-stress. That being said, I’ll admit the punishing environmental challenges are much less in SEKIRO, which is appreciated. Same goes for the seemingly outrageous convenience of so many of the sculpture save points. 

In case you are unfamiliar, there are entries in the Soulsbourne games where the placement of saving bonfires is almost cruel. They’re designed to create incredibly challenging runs to the bosses and vice versa, but the challenges here are less about soul crushing loses of souls. I mean, my god, in SEKIRO they let you keep your points when you earn a whole one! In fact, the rhythms of grinding are much more stop / start in this one, you get to focus on it when you want to. The real challenge of the navigation is piecing together who you’re supposed to fight / where you’re supposed to go / what you’re supposed to do / and when you’re supposed to do it all, especially when you’re technically dealing with going back in time.

By the way, I love that SEKIRO is just casually a time-travel story. I mean sort of, it’s much more about dreams and memory and sins of the past going on in cycles and all that, but the Hirata Estates plotline / environment is just some fantastic stuff. I suppose I spent a little more time in the current timeline at this time then most did, because by the time I got to the Shinobi Hunter of Enshin of Misen I already had my mikiri counter pretty much down (I got good at it facing the one dude by the Ogre) and took him out in just a couple of attempts. But for everyone else, I imagine this is the point where the game “makes you” learn the skill. And nothing can highlight the difference of boss ease when you have a move down versus if you don’t.  

“I TALKED TO DADDY” -May 7

Moving further into the fires of the Hirata estates, you get the sad scene of losing your father / master / daddy boss. And while it felt somewhat obligatory in a way, I realize how simple and effortless it was in setting up what is to come. In other words, it’s good writing!

This is also a section where I started to get a feel for farming and picking up some helpful abilities. The whirlwind slash was a nice little boon, but for some reason I knew the things I wanted to aim for first were the noise and vision suppression. I just felt like it would be so much better for grinding and stacking up stealth kills and still feel good about that choice. But what I also love about this game is the grind of just stacking up souls doesn’t feel as linear. By having both a money AND a skill point system, I felt like I was balancing between the two in a way that felt more fair. To be honest, I never thought I'd want a skills tree in a FROMSOFT game, but of course they handled it SO elegantly that all I’m thinking about is going back through and getting more in my next play through. 

This is also a section of the game where it throws all sorts of fun rhythms and surprises at you like…

SNAKE SNAKE SNAKE BIG SNEK NO

NOPE NO NOT OK

I THOUGHT QUAKIES WERE A FEINT -

NO THANKU -May 7

That Giant Serpent shit was scary, but little did I realize this was going to be a litany of animal encounters in this sequence. Yes, the giant snake is essentially a gimmick boss where you have to find environmental solutions, but it’s still a damn compelling one. And somehow, it’s a weird thematic lead-in to the next entry…

Where you face Gyoubu Oniwa AKA the dude riding a big ass horse. At this point, you’re feeling confident and getting into the real feel of the game, but suddenly, it’s throwing this boss that can jump and move around and has massive size on you. But it honestly didn’t feel too scary. I discovered that I could get a bunch of hits on him if I ran right to where he stops every time. I realized early I could grapple and hit him pretty early (to be fair, I had the grapple attack, which helps a ton). But then I sort of plateaued for a few attempts. So much of it was just getting down that parry timing of his long swings and really getting good at when to throw the firecrackers. It’s funny, in retrospect it doesn’t end up feeling like even a top 7 fight in this game, but at the time I loved it znc probably beat him in just 9 attempts total? 

Man, after that fun boss, pretty much time to stride right into the castle! 

“I JUST SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS THE LOUDEST SINCE THE DOGS IN RESIDENT EVIL. FUCKING BULL” - May 9

In most FromSoft games there is this feeling that comes up sometimes where you feel like you are missing something. Which means you likely are! Sometimes there’s an item that really freaking helps, sometimes there’s a simple spacing strategy, and sometimes, it’s the fact that you didn’t know you could hold down the run button and go forever because you realize there’s no stamina in this game! It sounds insane that I even got this far in the game without using this, but it speaks to the idea of how some bosses MAKE you learn these critical things because there’s no other way around it.

But there were so many attempts at first where I couldn’t make heads or tails of how to attack this giant ass bull. I knew I wanted to stay behind him (even though hits on his head hurt him so much more). I used firecrackers, but it’s still just so easy to get side swiped when I'm playing the corners. I was also having a fuck of a time trying to find time to heal against him. But what’s when I got the advice you could just HOLD DOWN RUN and realized how much easier it makes things. I literally beat him in one attempt with that information, having had the practice before. It was so important to find out for this battle. And more importantly, learning that helps you everything that comes after (especially when needing to find space to heal or close gaps). 

From this point, it’s all about getting into Ashina castle and accomplishing your mission of getting YOUR BOY BACK. But there are some enemies in your way. Like General Keranosuke Matsumoto, who seems intimidating as all hell. Look at him there. Standing up the giant staircase, surrounded by enemies. I think to myself, “there must be a way around this” and so I went looking for one…

“AH MONKEYS WHAT THE HELL.” - May 13

I genuinely forget when the first monkeys show up in this game (I think it’s on the rooftops nearby) but it’s safe to say they would not be the last (nor the most memorable). Also on the roof? FUCKING NIGHTJARS. Enemies I hate so much but they’re ultimately more annoying than they are insurmountable. Those quick divey bastards are basically begging to be run by / avoided. And yet, this is also the sequence where you get used to a lot of the grappling hook stuff and acting like atman and using the ability to dive down to your advantage. 

Which, turns out, is exactly what you need to beat General Matsumoto at the top of the stairs. You take out his soldiers with some shrukens / hop down / hop out and get him by himself? Turns out the general isn’t that tough a fight at all, he just seems ominous. Again, notice how all the skills stack? Everything you learned comes together and it only took a couple of attempts. There’s so much of this final part of the sequence that is building me up and making the game feel easier. But I’ve played enough FromSoft games to know these moments are largely about “luring you into a false sense of confidence.”

Cause I was about to go inside and face some speedy boys…

PART THREE - INTO THE CASTLES

“I've been getting really confident and sailing along, but I just met Jinsuke Saze and he beat me so badly and so efficiently it would be like if real-life me tried to fight a samurai.” - May 13

This is the moment of the game that haunted me for a bit. Because Saze the first enemy you face with a truly SUPER QUICK and devastating attack. His double slice from the sheathe is so effective and has so much range, that it outright demands you learn the parry timing. Also, this is the first enemy that immediately pounds when you resurrect and that's both fucked and something I was totally waiting for the game to do. Still, I started fighting him in earnest. You can pick up the little flash of his steel which quickly indicates the signal to block (it’s still really demanding), but still you need to get that timing right on the second block. But I couldn’t do it consistently…

Which means that this was the first fight to, like, genuinely fuck with my head. ALL my instincts felt wrong. Out of fear, all my instincts kept drifting back to SoulsBorne entries that were about dodging and strafing. I thought this must be too quick to parry! (hint: it wasn’t, I just didn’t have it down yet). I felt genuinely at a crossroads, unable to get my timing right. Then I discovered that dodging left and constantly moving and chipping away, especially with the poisoned sabimaru worked wonders…So I cheesed him that way…. And I really was mad at myself for doing it. 

Here's the thing: with enough distance I totally understand these feelings are pretty ridiculous. But FromSoft games can make you get caught up in the feelings of the moment, even when the feeling is more meta conceptual than the usual frustrations. Because I felt like I was already really fucking good at the dodge and swipe mechanics of these games. It’s always been natural to me, especially after Bloodbourne. But this fight was trying to TEACH me something else and in the end, I fucking avoided it! And I honestly was mad at myself for that.

But so much of the journey in these games is about treating the emotional self, too. I took a break. I cracked open a beer and went and played CIVILIZATION V (my go to put-on-a-podcast-and-click-game). And I just let go of the feeling. Just as I was happy that I got to talk about these emotions online, for the thread had really taken on a space of commiseration. More to the point, I remember to tell myself that i actually got pretty okay at the double parry! And what’s more is I didn’t even realize I would have another chance later to redeem myself. 

But first, I had to go back in time and fight The Drunkard.

Turns out clearing the space before and bringing in your little friend Nogami Gensai to help really makes that fight easy, huh? I mean clearing the surrounding guys out isn’t easy per say, but I was pretty patient and it took me two attempts. But once you get to the drunkard you realize how much having a distraction just changes EVERYTHING about these fights. In SoulsBourne games, they’re sometimes a very helpful little element. But this was night and day. Turns out being able to get an angle at someone’s back just controls everything about the space around you. And in turn, makes me think about how much the sword combat system in this game really just fucking works.

That’s what I kept hearing about playing this game beforehand. That this was the closest thing that we can imagine to games feeling like real sword fighting (hint: it’s not really) mostly due to the sheer volume of parrying and how exhausting and dangerous that is). But this is the moment I really understood the architecture of the game and you want to get angles and find range and spaces. Which is good… Because I was about to need every advantage I could get…

“Okay, Lady Butterfly, Let's dance!” - May 13

This one actually went pretty well for me overall? I know the fight drove some people nuts, but I think I got the rhythm of her swirling kicks fair enough. But this was also one of those deceptive fights. At first, you can stay on her and be in rhythm and slowly build up her posture, even knocking her out of the air with shurikens. But the second she gets some space? Or you make one wrong move? OUCHIE. But really, one of the more challenging elements of the fight is how it introduced the z-axis in a real way. Suddenly, you have to incorporate jumping and it’s like GULP.

But it also teaches more lessons about resource management. The snap seeds are really effective, especially in dispelling the second round ghosts. So, of course, I accidentally used most of my snap seeds (I was trying to switch back and forth to heal). But soon you learn that you don’t want to bust those outs until you are ALREADY really good at the fight and you just need that little edge to put you over the top. It’s that simple! Yeah, it’s not simple at all…

“My genuine favorite part of this thread is when I'm getting tripped on a boss and I'm getting conflicting pieces of advice and it feels like the meeseeks chorus telling me to square my shoulders and keep my head down.” - May 13

The feeling is hilariously true, especially when what you really need is for a few things to click and then just get in the groove. Naturally, this conflict turned into that classic FromSoft stage of bossfighting where I was now objectively worse at the boss and they killed me very quickly upon entering. Of course, once I accepted this reality, I instantly transitioned to a zen attempt where I saw the matrix code and completely dominated the fight. Too bad I got greedy near the end and died! But then I came right back and beat her on the second time… of, like, the many that also came before. But I like how this tweet translated to this document…

“SHINOBI EXECUTION Smiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglassesSmiling face with sunglasses.” - May 13

Again, it was one of those times where every phase of the fight just clicked. When to parry, when to attack, how to hold down on the shuriken a split second so she doesn't block it, putting MYSELF in a corner so I don't get hit by the other ghost dudes, then using the columns at the last second to block them. Also using moments to reset and then run in. It was so much fun.

And then it all led into a great run against three quick mini-bosses, like the…

1. Armored Warrior! Maybe it's just that the boss seems so dang Soulsian, but dodge mechanics worked super great against him and I got him in three! (I’ll admit, the “you need to toss him off the side” was spoiled for me so I imagine that helps a lot on the number of attempts. And then I even hit this nice part of the game where I found a killer farming spot in Mt Kongo (near the hall). So I had time to get stronger before I fought the… 

2. Long Arm Centipede. I get that the battle is supposed to be easy as pie with that damn spinning umbrella (it can decimate his posture), but GETTING to that point and clearing the room and all the enemies was just such a pain in the ass. Then I remembered the old SoulsBourne logic. “just run past everyone and get the fuck in there.” Worked like a charm! Think it was two or three attempts, just had to get the basic rhythms of its quick attacks, then boom. Dead as a Centipede. Which is a real saying. Must be. Then it was on to..

3. Loneshadow Long Swordsman (that’s a dumb name) whose kicks never connected with me and I aced in one attempt (later versions would of course give me more trouble). At this point, I felt incredible. The bosses were clearly not “easy” but I wasn’t “getting stuck” the same way as others. I was picking up move sets, feeling good about how quickly I was learning these dudes. And then it was the realization that, like before, it was luring me into false confidence things. That things were likely about to get brutal. I literally tweeted and suspected as much. 

And then it happened…

“........... I just faced Genichiro. 

Like... how.” -May15

There’s so much to say here. People rightfully refer to this as the game’s “midterm exam,” because it’s the first fight that demands EVERYTHING you’ve learned so far in a single fight (it also throws some new things at you as well). But the first thing that becomes clear is that he seemingly has no weakness. He’s great at parrying and can switch between attack and defense at a moments notice (which turns out, is exactly what you need to learn too). But the real thing I noticed at first was how fast he can close gaps! Most fights to this point in the game give you lots more room as some stoic fighter holds his sword back. But he’s coming right for ya! So perhaps counter-intuitively, you get the sense you really just have to stay right on him. Which isn’t easy. You can get too TOO aggressive, which leads to missed parries / hits and he punishes you hard. 

So the real thing this fight teaches is balance.

Back when I fought Suze, I was like “do I do dodging or take the parry approach???” And the answer is “yes!” Because you have to do both. Genichiro is what finally teaches you this truth. There’s no way around it. There’s many attacks you have to parry. And some you have to dodge. Some combos give you a few moments to attack from behind. Some you can only get off when you first attack him. You really do have to memorize everything, but when you do? That’s when you find those little moments to hurt him. The cerebral “a-ha!” moments where you see the path through the fight!

But took work, work, work, work, work to be able to turn those mere “a-ha!” thoughts into muscle memory. I remember drifting into the anger stage early on. There were so many times he was hanging me up. I was missing my mikiri counters, not being able to tell the difference between the sweep and thrust (the tell of course comes BEFORE the red flashing sign). I also had trouble blocking his arrows. In frustration, I started watching videos of others fighting him, but again, the answer wasn’t going to be in some pro strat. I just had to ground myself in the constant training and failure. The difference wasn’t know-how, it’s that I was just so so so much better at the game itself. And getting to the point of confirmation of that…

*breathes*

I got two deathblows!!!!! 

... Then he went all THOR on my ass.” -May 16

Of course, there was a phase three! Hahaha, hey, it wouldn’t be the cruelest thing ever if there wasn’t! The great news is there was still this feeling of waiting for one last thing to *click* about the first two fight phases and this allowed me to finally find a little helpful secret. For I discovered there's this perfect little window to dodge right on his second swipe and get GOOD hits on him. It just gets to bad posture up just that slight bit faster which makes ALL the difference in the world for a three phase fight. I was feeling so much momentum!

And then I had to take a few days off for life stuff! Eh, it happens. At first it killed my momentum, but after a few times the fight was like riding a bike. I even made it to the final stage without dying consistently. All my reactions were muscle memory. Even with his behavior and move set being a slight bit different in the third phase, it all still felt in rhythm. I was in the zone. I didn’t even perfect the lightning swipe and hit him back! But still…

“At 2:35 on May 19th, 2020, I defeated Genchiro, Way of Tomoe

Many Thanks To You All <3 Smiling face with sunglasses” -May 19

This journey was so enthralling. I couldn’t imagine a harder challenge. And yet, there certainly would be ones that would make me look back at Genichiro and laugh. But I would also laugh in a different way at what came next…

PART FOUR - INTO THE MONKEY DENS

Wow, this game sure does love monkeys.

Which is great, cause I do too! But the folding monkeys sequence in the other heavenly dream world (at least I think that’s what it is?) is actually one of the few gimmick fights I like. Mostly because the whole thing just feels so silly, while also being sufficiently confusing, but not too punishing. I think I even made the mistake of doing the easiest ones first? I dunno, it was all kind of a monkey-hopping blur. I dispatched them after a few tries and soon it was time to be off on my continued adventure in the real world!

Now, you’ll notice I haven’t talked too much about the different locations in the game yet, but that’s largely because I don’t think that the areas of the first half are really marked by some kind of grand measures of distinction between them? I mean, you mostly spent time in the intricacies of the Ashina castle sprawl of and the dense jungles of the Hirata Estates. Don’t get me wrong, I love the thoughtfulness of the design in every nook and cranny of these areas. I also love the beautiful pastiche of certain other areas, like the foliage around Mount Kongo, or the cool icy blues of the sunken valley, and even the soulsy hell-born horrors of the abandoned dungeon (oh wait no I hate that). But things were about to get weird as hell as I descended into the depths and passages and mibu villages the game had to offer… 

Like the second snake encounter! I love how I can SEE the snake below and still get scared shitless by it. I mean, that tends to happen when a giant serpent lunges and you seemingly start falling to your death. But in the waters below and the many of the areas around, I would face greater foes than this one…

“WHO GAVE THE MONKEYS SWORDS

THEN THERE WERE MANY MONKEY, I BEAT THEM

BUT THEN THERE BIG MONKEY BUT HE TOO BIG AND TUFF SO I RAN

THEN THERE WAS MUNKEY WITH *TWO* SWORDS AND IT WAS OUTRAGEOUSLY GOOD WITH THEM AND I DIED

WHAT IS HAPPENING -May 25

Just… so many monkeys, y’all. At first they seem like little nuisances and gimmicks, but the white monkeys with two swords?!?! Those fuckers were suddenly insanely difficult, especially when just trying to go toe to toe with them. It almost feels like a fun little joke on your expectations. But luckily, I got the pro tip that shurikens really mess em up, especially their posture, so it totally takes down the fears of monkey overload. Like I did in the abandoned dungeon earlier, I skipped the Shichimen Warrior until I knew I could load up on the divine confettis (from Soulsborne experience, I know that limited resource fights just make me awful so I may as well wait). I kept making my way through the creepy as hell mibu village before coming upon…

“O'Rin of the Water, I'm learning your moves, you don't scare me!*

*you scare me.” - May 25

What a great little mini-boss. I love the way her dialogue leads to the fight and then she has such a wonky fun rhythm to her various combos and swoops and dives. That’s the thing, right? Every boss has a rhythm and it’s all about staying right along to those beats (almost like RHYTHM GAMING you might say!) What’s funny about this particular fight is there were like five times in a row I controlled the whole fight and then right at the end she starts catching me. At first it was driving me mad, but turns out there was just a sneaky difference in her last combo hit in phase two. Once I got the timing right on the last parry, I could eke the fight out just fine. Totally one of those fights where it felt less like an ecstatic win, but more a mountain of relief that I wasn’t crazy!

Then came a point that happens in almost all my FromSoft experiences… I got to the Corrupted Monk and I just hit a wall. It’s wasn’t that I couldn’t figure out the process of beating him. It’s just that I didn’t want to go through the process of the process. I was tired. I didn’t want to learn any more. I didn’t want to be stuck. I didn’t want to use up my stupid snap seeds. I didn’t want to slowly inch forward with progress. I was tired. So I did my thing where I quit for a bit and hoped to come back refreshed, but…

“I took a few days off. I'm at corrupted monk. Gotta be honest. I'm just at the point where I don't really have emotional energy to just go through the process of learning how to fight this fucking guy. I'm seeing the strats (he's easy!). I've tried.” - May 27 

But here’s the thing! Being comfortable walking away from these games is part of the process of the process of the process. You have to remember it’s just a game. That it’s not worth getting utterly stuck in the stuckness. That you can take time away and not lose everything. That you don’t want to come back because you feel you have to. But you can come back when you are ready. When that itch really starts itching. So I took a few MORE days and then, in true FromSoft fashion, came back a few days later and beat him handily. Mostly because I figured out that you could dive under his lunge and it just helped so much in taking down his health. And having done this, I knew it was time to go back to a boss I had previously run away from… 

IT WAS GUARDIAN APE TIME. *blows airhorn*

So you’ll laugh, but I beat the Guardian Ape in just three tries! Even with a dead controller switch in the middle! I was so cocky about every bit of it, too. The spacing made so much sense to me and there was something about him very Bloodbourne / Souls-y about him (in a good way). The fight just made so much sense to me. And as I was standing there celebrating… I noticed a little something: “Is… is he moving again!?!?!?” I didn’t scream, but I quickly scrambled in a hasty panic. Then that grotesque, headless, sword clanking ape killed me instantly. 

I'm so happy that moment was unspoiled for me. Unfortunately, I also now came to understand why people thought this was one of the tougher fights. Phase two is just so, so different from the first phase (as would any fight where King Kong suddenly picks up a sword… and his own head). I too had some hiccups. I had trouble getting away from those terrors. Sometimes he wasn’t catching on fire. And the fight sort of depends on getting the timing right with his big dropping sword that swings straight down (which puts him on his ass if you block it right). But I still beat him on eight-ish tries, with the last one being one of those cases I thought I was a goner but had an extra life so I got that last hit off. Overall, just a solid fun and thrilling fight with maybe the best “moment” in the game.

From there I started farming and building up some skills. For some reason I was favoring the baseline bonuses over techniques. I liked having extra spirit emblems and better healing. I was also really good at building out my prosthetic tools, mostly sticking with shuriken / flame vent / sabimaru / firecrackers as my go to baseline choices (though the rest clearly had their specialities, like the umbrella’s defense). I know people loved the ichimonji double so I picked it up, but that one didn’t click for me (sadly) until much, much later. Anyway, I didn’t realize that I was about to jump into something much harder where I had to fight not one but TWO apes this time, but there’s the thing… 

“I JUST BEAT DOUBLE APE ON FIRST TRY

WHERE IS MY SEKIRO MEDAL

I AM A GOOD GAMER BOY.” -Jun 1

I genuinely don’t know how I pulled this one off. It’s just luck sometimes when it comes to picking the right approach. I did real good at the lone big boy and then I just instinctively knew how to go after the little ape and keep em separated. I never got greedy and never got ganged up on, either. Once I took out the smaller one then went right back to the big boy. Of all the cool moments I had in this game, this was me at my most “oh hell yeah, I did so good!” which is something I’ll definitely take after a month straight of playing this dang game. And from that point, I cooked right through the new Ashina castle sequence and took out all the loneshadows with swift abandon. As I neared the tower, the warnings from Twitter came. 

Apparently I was in the end game now…

PART FIVE - AND INTO HELL

I was told that depending on what choice you pick at the top of the castle, you could actually end the game now and thus I got very nervous. People told me “don’t worry, you won’t pick wrong,” but this discounts my massive ability to be a completely idiot. So I lightly googled and realized that it’s cool and I definitely wouldn’t make that decision to go all shura, but still, it didn’t stop me from reacting as such when the reveal hit…

“DADDY NO” - Jun 1

Such betrayal! I thankfully told Daddy that he couldn’t have my boy prince and that the iron code can go suck farts. He was none too happy about this. So he pulled out his very big Sephiroth sword and started murdering me over and over again. As one does.

Look. The Great Shinobi Owl is such a good fucking fight. My absolute favorite until this point. There’s also a certain beautiful / haunting circular logic to fighting him in the same exact spot you fought Genichiro. Because if I thought Genichiro was good at closing gaps? Holy hell could Daddy Owl hand him his ass in that regard. There ARE no gaps. Either he’s on you or you are on him. Worse, he can take away your healing if you fall in those little bombs. Worser, the very idea that Boss Daddy could mikiri counter ME felt like an affront to god, for it is the breaking of some unholy agreement with the heavens that only *I* could do that to enemies! Worsest, I really had developed an unfortunate tendency to use that thrust. GULP.

So once again you launch into the fight and get a sense of whether you can be hyper aggressive or favor evasion and dodge. But once again it would be all about finding that perfect balance between the two. For it would be memorizing his complete move set and just reacting. It would be muscle memory all the way down. First I worked at just getting the defense down. I seriously wasn’t even trying to hit him. Then once I felt more or less comfortable, I started testing attacks off of his combos and found three good opportunities to get some hits in. Then it was all building to that first cathartic deathblow…

“I GOT A DEATHBLOW. HIS SECOND PHASE ADDS POISON THAT STAYS THERE?!?!?! OH YOU DICK.” - Jun 1st

It stunk that this fight also came at a point in time where I was really busy and had trouble finding the time for good runs, but it wasn’t too bad. But it’s funny, even though his move set doesn’t change too much in the second phase, there’s just little spacing things that totally fuck up your normal way of coming at things. So I figured you really got to find the safe spaces! After all, I was at the point I could get that first deathblow *somewhat* consistently, but it seemed hard to string together a couple of flawless runs on this guy. I was super patient and was finding my hits, but he was always finding his too, especially when I tried to run and heal and do whatever else I needed to. I spent about a week on and off like this.

The big break came when I realized I have to be MUCH more aggressive in the second phase. Forget safe spaces, I couldn’t even let him get in the place where he COULD do that jumping poison thing. Not just because it hurt me, but because I lost far too much my posture build-up against him in giving that much space and avoiding his poison gunk. It was all about aggressive prevention. Once I settled on this tactic, I had a couple of great runs that were so close and intense it felt like my eyes were going crossed. It felt SO CLOSE and then finally…

“"THAT'S MY BOY111111111

ID IDD ID TI TI DID TITIDIIDD I I GOT HIM!!!!! <333333” -Jun 8

I felt elated, somewhat like I had killed the final boss in a way, but ha! You idiot! You’re not even close! There was still a whole lot more endgame to come (especially if I wanted to get the best ending). So I set after it! 

But it’s funny. I had just spent a week straight fighting Daddy Boss and it took up all my brain space. I literally couldn’t fight any of the regular dudes and freaking Lone Shadows were handing me my ass. But this is a common FromSoft thing. Fight styles change so dramatically that sometimes you have to find your balance again. Once I did, it was time to head into the endgame and max out as much stuff as possible. On the To Do list?

1. Go back in time to fight Owl (Father) AKA daddy again, but upon trying this I realized he had this super crazy move set that was downright terrifying. Also, I heard it might be the hardest fight in the game. Also Also, I didn’t feel like doing the same kind of fight I just did, so I noped out of that and saved the fight for later (and very glad I did). Also isn’t it weird that the version of him in the past is a much better fighter? Maybe he had dragon rot later, what do I know.

2. Fight The RED EYE guys - Doujun and Jinzaemon Kumano - which felt crappy at first because they were just so outrageously good at double teaming. You really gotta sneak in and out while cheesing fist boy so you can get sword guy alone. It wasn’t too bad though. A high attack power makes a huge difference in this one. And then…

3. It was FINALLY time to take on our undead jerks including the Shichimen Warriors and Headlesses (Headlessi?). Which brings us to the REAL discussion of resource-dependent fights in the FromSoft games…

They instantly turn me into a nincompoop.

That’s the real thing. It’s not that I don’t get the logic of adding some pressure to certain fights (you can only hurt the undead by popping some divine confetti!) But I'm so worried that I'm going to fuck the fight up and waste the limited resource that I just do the STUPIDEST SHIT. Yes, I know I can farm the materials in the late stage game, but it’s not a logic thing. I just suddenly can’t fight as well because it totally messes with my nerves! This time it was less the headless and more the fight with Seven Spears 2.0 at the top that really messed with me. I popped like ten wasted Gachin sugars to get rid of that dude who stands right by him and the pressure always made me so rattled and fucking crazy. I couldn’t even concentrate. 

I guess the thing that bothers me the most about it is it goes against the credo of "u CaN dO eVeRy FiGhT wItHoUt ThE iTeMs” which is mostly true with the other fights. But with this fight I couldn't find a single video on how to tackle these two without first popping the stealth sugar to get the first guy. I used an additional 14 gachins (which I had to waste time and farm for). And I *know* I was good enough to take care of him by that point, but I was so rattled and felt like I didn’t have the room / forgiveness to learn. Does that make sense? Every time it was just like I HAVE TO WIN. But it’s also funny how much venting about hating resource fights helps. Also, at this point I had finally unlocked mortal draw and holy hell is that a powerful swing. Once I took care of all of this, I was ready to start cruising with the big three endgame bosses…

But I immediately hit a snag with my first choice…

“OK - it's Demon of Hatred time.”- Jun10

I’ll be honest, I have never hated a FromSoft fight more in my entire life. It’s not the fact that it’s merely changing up what the game is expecting from you, because that’s a FromSoft tradition. It’s not even that it’s “a Soulsborne boss” in SEKIRO. Because the apes do that in a really fun way, as do the chained ogre, etc. In the end, the reason the fight sucks is because I believe it is badly designed. It’s just that simple. And I believe there five reasons why:

1. The hit boxes (comparatively) are fucking garbage. This is maybe one in a handful of times this has ever happened in FromSoft. game And yes, it usually happens with the larger sized bosses who pound their legs into the ground (it’s a hard mechanic to make work). But there were times where his legs are absolutely NOT hitting me, and yet, I was getting hit. Sometimes I swear I was three fucking feet from him. Even his lunging dash attack? Sometimes I was three feet to the left and still got nailed. The reason this is so important has very little to do with the actual getting hit and not liking that. It’s that hitboxes are all about trust. They’re the things that make you believe your eyes and feel like a fight is fair (and was the huge problem with Star Wars: Fallen Order, which tried to copy the dark souls model to agonizing results). As a player, getting hit when you swear you didn’t get hit makes you feel crazy. And it was happening so much in this fight that I couldn’t believe it.

2. You lose the reticle constantly. I understand that sometimes it happens in fights with walls where you’re getting cornered. Hell, it’s part of why you didn’t want to get pushed into the corners during the Great Shinobi Owl fight! But it fought this guy like a hundred times and it always felt like fucking chaos. Between the uneven ground and debris, the high jumps, I kept losing my aim in critical moments in these fights. In a game full of exacting inches and punishing measures of close-combat of control, this fight introduced an element of ugly randomness that wasn’t refreshing, but, to me at least, completely unwelcome.

3. The three hit combo swing / stomp doesn’t have a clear enough tell, especially when you have to constantly be trying to get hits under him and then get out of the way. So much of the rest of his move set / stomps were tough, but it still felt more or less fair. Even his super quick lunge. But this is the one didn’t. It may sound like I’m splitting hairs, but having a clear tell is beyond critical because being able to subtly differentiate moves is everything. Especially for combos that can literally kill you in one go. And with debris and uneven ground? In a hundred attempts, I literally never figured out what to do with this move other than “get lucky sometimes when it misses you.” Which is a horseshit expectation.

4. The fact that I did the best THE FIRST THREE times out of 100 tells you the real fucking problem: It’s a pure reflexes fight that isn’t about learning. Everything I love about FromSoft games is built around the mantra of “this is hard, but you can learn this.” You build up and up with this steady rhythm. And yes, you sometimes fall backwards along the way, but there’s an overall curve toward growth. With this fight I was getting objectively worse. The last 20 times I couldn’t even get a deathblow. You’ve seen me talk about the other fights and the ups and downs. You know I can play this game. And I can play the SoulsBorne ones too. I know these games. I wasn’t even tired. I was awake and alert and centered, yet I would do better when I would have this paranoid skittish spinal cord that wasn’t even thinking about it.

5. The real thing that gets me is the “why.” Never in all my time have I given up on a boss in the FromSoft games. And within each of those, you “find” the game within each boss. There’s always a “why” as in what is the game trying to teach me? What is it testing? What does it want me to learn? With the Demon of Hatred, I honestly couldn’t find it. It’s a miserable incarnation of its name. A proverbial knuckle-ball of a boss that you have to luck your way through in certain respects. I watched so many other videos, but none of them seemed to offer something that made it click. While every boss has its admirers, comparatively speaking, I can barely find anyone who likes this fight. Which means that to me, in the end, it’s the rare FromSoft error in judgement. Maybe a few tweaks could save it, but it’s also a failure of execution to communicate the things the could have been after. And I fucking hate it. I mean…

“I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really fucking hate this fight.” - Jun 12

Again, I had never given up on a FromSoft boss before. And yes, there’s harder, more exacting fights int he game, but few else that felt so sloppy and indiscriminate. This fight made me feel insane. I was legitimately WORSE at him after three fucking days. Worst of all, I never knew what I was doing wrong. So I just snapped and made a decision…

“I cheesed him so hard off a cliff and I have precisely zero regrets.” -Jun 12

Then right after I learned that the Demon of Hatred was actually the sculptor fwend who helped my shooty boom boom arm and then I had SO MANY REGRETS. But more regretful was this lingering sense of unfinished business. An emptiness insane that was exacerbated by this rash decision.

But perhaps karmically, the game then threw me into my second round with Jinsuke Saze (Red Eyes Edition) AKA the guy I cheesed a bit by not parrying enough. I beat him in like two attempts doing it the right way and I gotta say, it handed me so much needed perspective to ground myself in. It’s okay to cheese sometimes. It’s okay to not want to fight something, along with the knowledge that I could try again (just as I got a chance with Saze). I could take on Demon of Hatred in New Game Plus and exact my revenge! Or not at all! Maybe one day it would just click. With that understanding, I found my center again. And and I knew it was time to take on Daddy Boss again… 

… in THE PAST. Dun dun dunnnn.

I’m actually glad I waited because OWL (Father) was hands down my favorite fight in the game. Brutal. Quick. Just deadly beyond belief. I had so many questions, like what do I do with that tight lunging sword sweep!??!? It's like jumping over it feels wrong, but I can't dodge the side form it either??? But it’s amazing how you just start picking up the ebbs and flows anyway. I really wasn’t tweeting much about it. I was just IN IT. I couldn’t tell you if I fought him eight times of eighty. It was just that perfect graph of getting better and better at him. The way you learn to dodge his owl attacks and throw it right back. The way you learn to get mikiri timing even though YOU CANT EVEN SEE HIM! It’s the ultimate “see the code of the matrix fight. And then?

“I BEAT OWL(FATHER) II BEAT HIM I BEAT AHEIM I BEAT HIMMMMM. 

Oh my god that was one of my favorite fights of all time. I had such balance/control and he was barely getting it hits first round- god I'm so happy that last part was crazy, it got all the way down to last bit of life. -Jun 16

I was on cloud nine. And from there, the victory lap was all about last looks. I took care of all my resource / fish scale gathering in the fountainhead palace, which was such a gorgeous area for the last part of the game. I got the completed mask to buy more attack power. I farmed some fulminated mercury and upgraded all the items I could. I had (technically) beaten all the optional bosses. I did everything I COULD do in a single playthrough… which means I was ready… 

It was time to return to the field where my arm got chopped off.

Meaning it was final boss time! Which is a fight I could talk so much about. Starting with the fact it’s not just a technical challenge, or even a head game, it’s a marathon. A four phase fight where you first have to quickly dispatch a weakened Genichiro before taking on a younger and wildly varying Lord Isshin. When I first started wading in, it didn’t seem horrible! The Genichiro fight almost feels like this meta reminder of how far you came, “remember this fucker who you thought was impossible? Now you can take him out so easy!” But the real danger of him is the way you constantly have to remind yourself of how to fight him every single time. Because there are very different styles between him and Isshin. Thus, constantly throughout the fight you will get in rhythm and then come back to this fucker only to suddenly forget everything you know. I mean look no further than my agony right here from later in time… 

“Y'ALL WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING, I LITERALLY CAN'T GET PAST GENCHIRO AND HE'S A LITTLE FUCKING SHIT, I'VE NEVER HAD SOMETHIN SO WEIRD HAPPEN, I FEEL CRAZY, BUT I CANT QUIT, I HAVE TO BEAT HIM TO PROVE IM JUST BEING SKITTISH AND THIS IS ALL IN MY HEAD, BUT ITS GETTING WORSE.” -Jun 16

Starting with Genichiro is demanding of your brain and patience because Issihin is no slouch, either. His first phase moves are lightning quick and merciless but he also gives you so so so much space. It almost feels like he’s baiting you (which he is), but it’s also a sequence that you learn pretty quickly. Why I even got to that first deathblow way sooner than I thought I would! And then…

“HOW DID HE PULL A SPEAR OUT OF HIS ASS

WHO GAVE HIM THAT GUN

okay I'm taking a break.” - Jun 16

Upon reaching his sinister phase two, all I wanted to do was get to that stage consistently so I could figure out how to fight him! But here's what that looked like in practice: Die against Genchiro 23 times cause I forgot how to play this game. Then die in the first round against Isshin or Genichiro for the next 15 times. Again, this fight was a marathon. I had to take so many breaks and have confidence in myself that I didn’t have to do it all in one big run. And after a few patient days it got to the point where I could perfect my way past Genichiro 80% of the time. Then with Isshin I was getting second stage about 60% of the times from there. Yeah, I didn't like that I have to use like five heals, but I was finally getting to the space where I could actually learn his phase two.

And MAN was that stage hard to figure it out. I kept wondering when the fuck I could heal against this dude. Because it was night and day because you go from a round where he gives you ALL THE SPACE IN THE WORLD to a round with no space ever. And so MUCH of this fight is the rapid timing between block and striking, but I got into this weird mistake where I’m sometimes Ichimonji-ing him (which I finally figured out just in time for endgame) just because the hitting of block and strike are so close together it thinks I’m hitting both at once! But still, I pressed on. And one time I actually strung together a decent run even though I was on my last legs..

“MADE IT TO THIRD STAGE BUT INSTANTLY DIED :D” - Jun 17

But once I got there, it was like I finally figured out the rhythm of phase two and got in a groove with all his swoopy nonsense (particularly in dodging under his lunge, a lesson from the corrupted monk). But the sheer demanding nature of being able to switch up styles back to back to back just kept hitting me, too. I kept just slipping at one stage or another. It was such a marathon that I’d have that thing where my hands hurt and I was going cross-eyed and tired, but I was afraid if I quit I’d lose my rhythm and never do as well as I’m doing right now! Plus, if I never beat the boss my entire twitter thread would have been in vain and everyone would be sad at me.

I can’t tell you how many times I fought him. I can’t tell you how many times I slipped back. I can’t tell you how many times it felt like I wouldn’t get it. But I just kept steady. I kept getting up. But I noticed that I was really getting good at the first two phases. I was noticing that I barely was needing to heal any more. Then one time I squeaked into the third stage and was so close to getting him that I SCREAMED and started shaking. It was my best run ever, full of perfect runs and then I just lost it at the end. I could have given up. But instead, I went right back at him again… and guess what happened?

“I DID IT I DIODKFJD JIDD DDI D ID DID TI TI BEEEEEAATTTT HIM IDE DDID;LAKSDFJK ;MY HANDS ARE SHAKING AOMOHG OMGMGG GJGOGMG G GI DDID IT I DIDE IT DID DIDDIFIDAJF;LKASDHFLKSJFA;SLKDFJASKL;KLFJSL;KFJSDDKLFF

I DID IT Smiling face with sunglasses.” - Jun 17

And here’s the video if you want to see the ending yourself.

The final attempt was so great. I was just absolutely doing great on him, barely needing heals and then the second phase was just this incredible back and forth. I got out by the skin of my teeth at some points, but I luckily picked up an extra life going into phase three. Things felt in rhythm. I pulled off a lightning reversal early and got the posture up. Right near the end he ALMOST got me with his whirlwind swipe (you can see in the video) but I was staying near him. I still got so greedy right near the end and I died when I should have blocked. But I got back up and with one amazing bit of clarity, I saw the lightning coming, perfectly timed my jump, and - BAM - zapped him back. I knew I had it then what with his posture bar so high. So I ran in.

And I beat the fucking game.

EPILOGUE - SUPERLATIVES AND FINAL THOUGHTS

I opted for the dragon tears ending. I figured the one that took the most work to accomplish was likely the most rewarding, so it felt right to me. And for a story full of birth / death cycles, I loved the idea of finding the most healing paths within each. It was such a beautiful way to say goodbye to this game. And when I did, I suddenly felt nostalgic for everything I had just experienced. Even all the things that bothered me just didn’t matter as much any more. It was like letting go, whether it be the highs, the lows, or even the struggle itself. Still, I started thinking about the things I loved most and the little superlatives I could offer…

Favorite fight: Owl (Father) - intense, gorgeous, fluid, and beating him was my biggest "see the matrix moment" where I was in total control. Just perfect.

Least Favorite: Demon of Hatred, which I argue outright doesn't count. Because it's not that iT's A sOuLsBoUrnE boss, it's that it's a BAD Soulsbourne boss. One that featured the rare hitbox problems and chaos created by the uneven environment. Meaning it’s the rare Fromsoft fight I don't call out for “too cruel design” on, but outright "bad design" on.

Coolest achievement: Beating double apes on first try!

Lamest personal moment: Cheesing Jinsuke Saze the first time.

Scariest moment: SNAKE / Guardian Ape part 2

Funniest moment: THAT MONKEY'S GOT A SWORD

Favorite Skills / Abilities: Part of the reason I really want to go back for New Game Plus is to explore a lot of the other moves I didn’t get last time. I also wish I got better with the Ichimonji double earlier because HOT DAMN does that thing do a lot of posture damage. Also having the mortal draw at your disposal can make quick work of a lot of people that bugged me. I guess it’s fun knowing what more fun can be had. Which helps me realize something in turn… 

Sure, superlatives are fun and something likely different for each of us, but now having finished SEKIRO, I have a different question…

What was the point? 

Sure, I could talk about the game’s themes of birth and death cycles, the problems of going “shura” and being consumed by fire. But as compelling as those are, what makes them more compelling is how they also double for the emotion of playing the game itself. Few experiences can make you feel both the futility AND calm of death quite like a FromSoft game. Same goes for the emotion of being stuck or feeling accomplished in overcoming a challenge. And while I know some gamers like looking at those fights as a matter of bragging rights, it’s honestly hard for me to be that way. I can’t use it to define anything, nor should I. 

Because there’s always someone faster and better. Just as there’s nothing about such performance that really speaks to our character. Moreover, what does it really mean to be good at hitting buttons fast at the right time? In the end, it’s just about the emotions involved along the way. Because we know that sports aren’t really about putting a ball through a hoop. It’s the personal narratives we lend to those actions and how they make us feel in turn.

And for me, the action isn’t even really in the game itself.

Because playing SEKIRO resulted in the longest / least accessible / most pedantic twitter thread I've ever written. I've lost like 600 followers. It must have been so boring to people who had no idea what I was referencing! And so rarely was I digesting or spitting out things to help someone unfamiliar make sense of it. Nor was I even making jokes. So often it was questions like "how do I get spacing with this dude's move? How do I block x?" It was about expressing frustration, or talking through my own myopic process of something that I was going through alone.

So why did I keep doing it?

Easy… So I didn't have to go through it alone. For the real thing about solipsistic single player video game experiences is that ultimately the goal is take those singular experiences and put them back into the world as communal ones. To talk about them. To share and commiserate about our journeys and find the commonalities or differences that bind us. For games that make their headway by testing the mind and body, this is the measure of the soul. And it is by far the most satisfactory element of all of it. To that power, know that you were all there, helping me through it. So this is dedicated to all of you. Know it meant so much in a game that not only was one of my favorites of all time, but could have made me feel so isolated. And remember the real lesson that comes from that difference… 

No one does anything alone.

<3 HULK

Huh… Writing about all this has made me miss it.

Welp. I think I’m going to go start New Game Plus :P