Sekiro has got to be the absolute best game that I just do not personally enjoy. After three attempts at beating the game, separated by a year or so each time, I finally found it within myself to complete it. After looking forward to the next Fromsoft game since Dark Souls 3 dropped in 2016, Sekiro kind of just left me emotionally distraught.

We were told that this wasn't gonna be a Souls game, so it's partly on me, because I was definitely like, "Hell yeah this is gonna be weeb-Souls," but there's no build variety, no leveling, no equipment to swap around, no different play styles, and that was my biggest gripe with it. My Sekiro is your Sekiro is my great grandma's Sekiro, and so on.

This isn't always a bad thing; there are plenty of games with a clear way the developers intend for you to play, but the Sekiro combat just did not mesh with my preferred playstyle in the least, and with it being such a difficult game, it took a lot of adjustment and fighting my muscle memory to beat this. Typically, I'd rather run around in my undies with the fastest roll available and a giant beatstick, but unfortunately that just isn't an option here.

Stealth was a cool mechanic to put in this kind of game; even though I usually despise stealth, it's never forced here and is instead just an easy way to take out some tougher mobs if you want. I also liked that bosses and minibosses were not exempt from stealth attacks! I very much did not expect to be able to just merc dudes with multiple health bars and skip half of their fights, so I have to admit that was cool.

Another big issue I take with this game is that you only get one, maybe two, mistakes in a fight before you're dead. Especially near the end of the game, it felt like most of the fights I was taking I had to damn-near perfect in order to beat it, because the first time I'm hit, I'm going down. I didn't explore everywhere and get the prayer beads to boost maximum health, so that could also have been rectified if I had taken my time more, but it never feels good to die instantly out of nowhere.

Coupled with that, Sekiro fights were different from Souls in the sense that you HAVE to know the bosses' moves and combos in order to win. Because you need to parry their attacks to break their posture, (usually), you need to know their wind-ups, how many slashes/swipes are in a combo, whether there's follow-up, range, all of that, which just typically isn't possible to react to on a first attempt. I'm not saying you should be able to just insta-clap any boss first try, but there are plenty of bosses in DeS, DS 1/2/3, and Bloodborne that I beat first try just because I was good at timing dodges and reading bosses. But if you take the same playstyle here and just dodge around, you're not going to get anywhere. This could be related to my preferred playstyle clashing with the game, but I thought it was worth mentioning as I haven't felt like this with any other From games I've played.

It really sucks that this is the way I feel about the game, because I recognize that objectively it's incredible, and I do like the story, the music, the visual design; basically any part of it that doesn't involve me actually playing the game. Regardless, if we share similar taste in games, I'd go ahead and skip this (unless you have some masochistic need to complete all modern From games, like I did, in which case, good luck).

Cinematic playthrough here: https://youtu.be/Wzya2PRK1co