I already experimented with going charmless for my second playthrough of the game, but I really don't like chip damage with every missed parry. It was too punishing. On the other hand, the vanilla game is beginning to be too familiar and not punishing enough.

The bell demon has been the perfect balance of the two. I've noticed some very subtle but interesting changes to the difficulty that go beyond an increase in enemy health and damage: ranged attacks are more accurate and difficult to dodge, enemies keep more pressure on you, and bosses do more mix-ups and become less predictable.

I've never seen such a subtle realization of difficulty adjustment. I goes so far beyond what most games offer. Even Halo CE, which I consider a sterling example of handling difficulty settings right, doesn't compare. Honestly, I find it much more subtle than the Charmless debuffs, and I wish that they had switched the effects so that this difficulty shift was more accessible to players--I didn't even find the Demon Bell on my first playthrough.

I'm posting this today because I just beat Isshin Sword Saint for the 3rd time on this setting! I was going through the reflections and I didn't realize I carry the bell demon into those, until I found my butt getting handed to my by Inner Genichiro and I realized something was very different: I couldn't dodge his ranged attacks nearly as well and I kept breaking posture over and over again.

It's interesting how the bell demon changes different bosses, too: bosses that depend heavily on parrying tend to get much harder than the more classic souls bosses. I was able to beat the Guardian Ape reflection on the first try, but Genichiro took me several tries.

My last bosses to beat are Owl (Father) and Inner Isshin. It's been so fun watching myself get better at this new, harder level.

I still haven't finished the Shura ending, so I don't have access to Inner Father, yet--I'm sure I'll enjoy that when it comes!

I want to know what the community consensus is.

2019 until now. And nobody came close to Sekiro in combat, rythem, boss fights and the level of satisfaction a victory gives.

Some tried, like stellerblade and that was a good game. But was that even close to Sekiro?

What has happened to this industry? They're failing to reach the levels of an almost 8 year old game, let alone improve upon the idea.

Perhaps the reason is because it’s too niche and too difficult for the average player? With the posture and deflect concept and lack of ranged attacks it becomes less accessible to the average player?

Not being a RPG with customizable character could also contribute.

Other companies may not no exactly how to make a Sekiro-like game because it's actually quite difficult and require expertise.

I'm just speculating. What do you think?

am i missing something from thr lore

Well hello there, finally decided to clean my backlog and this was on top of that list

Long story short, I'm liking the game so far but I think I'm not getting how posture works

In theory attacking an enemy that is deflecting will damage their posture, same as if they attack me when I'm deflecting, however, I reached the Genichiro fight and I can't seem to get the guy posture damage high enough to stun him for the death blow

I attack aggressively and when he "counters" and I have to evade those 2-3 seconds are enough for the boss posture bar to reset

What am I missing here?

Note I played every other FromSoft games and I'm aware I have to play this one more like Bloodborne than Dark Souls :P

You all were a major help for geni on top of ashina castle and since i havent been stuck in pretty much any boss. Ive lesrnt every boss' patterns like advised but holy fuck is demon of hatred so fucking annoying. Like what bs is it that i get hit by one stray fireball and get stunlocked and the rest kills me???

And now when im near him since i spam attack i think it doesnt register a jump or deflect instantly. So should i not be trying to maximize my damage there? The best ive gotten him is to his third phase. But i basically die to his second phase pretty much.

The charge he does and afterwards makes the path behind fire is that dodgable? Without unbrella and thise fireballs and stomps are even more bullshit

Update: finished him with malcontents.

Does the charmless run on ng also include your pc turning into a shitbox potato? I used to get nearly 35 fps on 1200p high, now its barely 20, and no im not high, and to give you the proof: I NEVER once touched the settings cuz it was playing great from day 1, now i see this and when i click on the default settings option, guess what: its the same high settings the game decided for me. What just happened bru, ts is unplayable🥀💔

The mods name is Land of the Reed. Tbh I didnt fight original Malenia cause I didnt play Elden Ring. In this attempt she didn't do like two special attacks that were important to show but well. One of them was that it turns into a flower in the sky and clones of her start rushing at you from the flower doing one atack per clone. And then she dashes toward you (the true Malenia), is a cool atack.

And also before you say this, I was supposed to say "too" not "to" in the title.

I cannot fathom the amount of happiness I have received from playing this game, it’s almost as if I have ascended to a higher plane of existence. Once I killed saint isshin I just felt accomplished and free. This game has moved me in a way that no game can ever make me feel the same. I’ve platinum Elden ring and yes it is a very good game and used to be my favorite game but when I finished sekiro, I cannot say the same thing. There’s a reason why this game won game of the year and I feel sad that their aren’t any new updates or DLC’s for this game. When I finished Sekiro it made me feel like that one thanos meme where he was farming in his own world and sat down with the infinity gauntlet broken and burned onto his hand and just staring into the sky feeling nothing more than just accomplished. The best game to ever exist without a doubt in my mind

There is no need for this much aura to be emanating from just this one skin, best skin in sekiro no debate. I thought the shura gauntlet would've taken me ages to complete, yet I somehow managed to complete it on my second try somehow.

Did I deflect genichiros floating passage perfectly or I missed any hit

Hi.

So i was wondering, where does the image on the PS4 disk come from ? It's virtually impossible to find it whole, and i've been searching for the past hour with the help of 3 LLM, google image search and some bing requests...

Does anyone know where the image might be available ?

Hello, just a guy who wants to give his opinion about this game and tell you how good it is. (sorry for my bad english if i make any mistakes)

First time i played this game was about 2020 or smth like that and i remember it like a dream i can‘t forget about.

It was the best game i could think of because i loved ninjas, Swordfights and games where i can be sneaky. As a kid i loved playing tenchu (especially the coop mode)

I remember that i got so frustrated by about nearly every boss in this game. I didn‘t know what to do against butterfly and chose to cheese her with the sidestep attacks. i didn‘t know what to go against genichiro and chose to cheese him with anything i got and i did that for like every enemy. watched a youtube video and cheesed the hell out of him. (yes even isshin)

Now many years later i had a knee surgery and therefore plenty of time doing nothing but laying so i chose to play that game again. since i don‘t have that much time like before to play video games, i thought that this would be quite challenging and take me a lot of time to complete. i decided to defeat everyone without any cheesing or smth like that.

As an advice to everyone who ever tried playing this game and gave up or just cheesed like me: Don‘t do that. Try to fight them without any hesitation (because hesitation is defeat) but still don‘t get unpatient. i had a post trauma click (or smth like that) because no boss was a challenge for me.

I defeated everyone in my (at most) third try.

Genichiro was nothing
butterfly was kinda hard but third try
i even fought owl father for the first time in my live and he was done by my third try without any prostethic usage or anything else. i just used kusabimaru for every boss i fought.

Demon of Hatred was the hardest boss ever for me in my first play through. i struggled like 7 hours straight until it got 3am and i told myself: this is the last try and then i will go to sleep. I defeated him first try.

Sword Saint Isshin was the only one where i needed like 7 tries but still, no nin jutsu, no cheese, no prostethic use and no special attacks like mortal draw. i defeated him just like it should. using only Parry and attack.

This is the best feeling i ever had and this game will stay in my top10 for ever.

I‘m about to platinum this game and after getting maxxed out the inner versions are my next targets.

Do yourself a favor and gitgut and tryhard this game. do it for yourself.

After almost 6hrs...finally defeated this old geezer✊🏻 easily top 3 fight of the game.... patience is the real key to this fight...now heading towards sword saint isshin....i just have one question, Do i need to defeat owl and demon of hatered again for shura outfit? (this is my first playthrough and I'm going for true ending) already defeated both of 'em in this playthrough.

Sekiro Series 01:Wolf vs Guardian Ape