I wanted to like this game but it's clear that I am not willing enough to trudge through the tedious parts.

Sound design and environments make this a gorgeous and atmospheric game. I really enjoyed the beginning and the first two minibosses. The ogre was slightly annoying but not too bad. I also really liked the boss on the horse, what an exhilarating and fun fight.

But the game just went downhill fast after that.

Blazing bull. What an awful fight. Got it on my 4th or 5th attempt but that doesn't change how terrible it is. Then I ended up in a dungeon and tried to fight a shaman type miniboss. Gorgeous visuals wasn't enough to offset the tankiness of the boss compared to how quickly you die from terror. Had my fill after around three attemps at it.

Then I cleared an area that you revisit, sneaking around and stealth killing everyone before taking on a spear-wielding miniboss. I die to him in under 15 seconds. Which would be fine if each attempt at him wouldn't cost several minutes of my time since all the regular enemies respawn and you have to clear them all for another attempt. Apparently you can sneak towards the tower and stay on top of the staircase to avoid aggro from the normal enemies but that confines you to a very small space and restricts your movement massively. Also boring.

So I head off to dance around some rooftops, carefully taking out a bunch of feathery ninjas before getting instantly blown up by a kamikaze guy followed up by another kamikaze from a kite ninja. Not very pleasant. So instead of going back I decide to attempt the miniboss on top of the stairs. I take out one deathblow by stealth and proceed to get turned into swiss cheese by the posse of gunmen by his side. Again, not very pleasant. Apparently you can take out the gunmen with shurikens but that costs resource and is tedious to do, especially if you have to do several attempts at the miniboss.

Frustrated by these setbacks I head off to hirata estate. A fun level with some really nice fire visuals. I enjoyed tussling with the thieves, learning their patterns and deflecting arrows while finding a couple of shinobi tools along the way. I start to enjoy myself once more until I meet yet another miniboss by the name of Juzou the Drunkard.

Much like the earlier minibosses, this guy is also surrounded by his own personal militia of shield dudes, torch dudes, archers and regular dudes. You can't cleanly stealth them all because they are standing out in the open, all facing the same direction and John Sekiro is a shinobi who is literally unable to take out a dude silently. You can pop some funky candy to become almost invisible but John Sekiro will always stand up after a stealth kill. And this is one of those games where standing up is instant detection and crouching is the magic button that enables stealth.

I gave this encounter a couple attempts. You have an NPC that helps you and draws aggro and while it seems doable enough, I was also not enjoying myself in the least. Sprinting and leading on the enemies is easy enough but you can't really take on more than one at a time because there's simply too many overlapping attacks to deflect them all. So all you can do is just hope one enemy sprints ahead so you can quickly deplete his posture and deathblow him before the rest of the militia follows.

And each time you'd die to this boss you'd have to clear out this clown posse over and over again. That's three minibosses in a short period of time that all have a tedious militia of trash mobs around them just for the sake of tedious and dare I say artificial difficulty. I know that term riles up the staunch FROM fanboys but I think it's a term that perfectly describes these encounters.

I loved the first miniboss. I didn't even do the free stealth hit on him because I enjoyed fighting him so much despite getting my ass kicked a few times. The second one was also fine enough since his militia was more dispersed and I was able to take cover from the archers inside a building while engaging in an epic 1v1 duel against him.

But the subsequent minibosses have shown what kind of difficulty this game likes to throw at you. And that's the same kind of tedious and artificial difficulty Dark Souls 2 is known for, gank squads. Facing hordes of normal enemies is admittedly difficult for its own reasons but its the kind of difficulty that I find to be incredibly tedious and not enjoyable. Especially when the hordes of enemies are glued to a boss type enemy. You can use the firecracker tool to help out a little bit but even that is on a limited resource.

I tried to love this game. Deflecting feels great and the atmosphere is amazing. I was hungry for more and I was eager to see more of the game. But the miniboss militias have completely ruined the game for me. And from what I've read this design philosophy carries on throughout the entire game. I wish I could just instantly skip to the main bosses so I could continue to have fun with the game but that is not the case.

Tedious but doable given enough attempts. I'm just not willing to sink my free time into these kinds of encounters so I'd rather just go play something else instead.

[h1] Not recommended unless you enjoy dealing with gank squads in a game that gives you very little tools for crowd control and has combat that is tailored to perfection when it comes to 1v1 duels [/h1] I wanted to like this game but it's clear that I am not willing enough to trudge through the tedious parts. Sound design and environments make this a gorgeous and atmospheric game. I really enjoyed the beginning and the first two minibosses. The ogre was slightly annoying but not too bad. I also really liked the boss on the horse, what an exhilarating and fun fight. But the game just went downhill [b] fast [/b] after that. Blazing bull. What an awful fight. Got it on my 4th or 5th attempt but that doesn't change how terrible it is. Then I ended up in a dungeon and tried to fight a shaman type miniboss. Gorgeous visuals wasn't enough to offset the tankiness of the boss compared to how quickly you die from terror. Had my fill after around three attemps at it. Then I cleared an area that you revisit, sneaking around and stealth killing everyone before taking on a spear-wielding miniboss. I die to him in under 15 seconds. Which would be fine if each attempt at him wouldn't cost several minutes of my time since all the regular enemies respawn and you have to clear them all for another attempt. Apparently you can sneak towards the tower and stay on top of the staircase to avoid aggro from the normal enemies but that confines you to a very small space and restricts your movement massively. Also boring. So I head off to dance around some rooftops, carefully taking out a bunch of feathery ninjas before getting instantly blown up by a kamikaze guy followed up by another kamikaze from a kite ninja. Not very pleasant. So instead of going back I decide to attempt the miniboss on top of the stairs. I take out one deathblow by stealth and proceed to get turned into swiss cheese by the posse of gunmen by his side. Again, not very pleasant. Apparently you can take out the gunmen with shurikens but that costs resource and is tedious to do, especially if you have to do several attempts at the miniboss. Frustrated by these setbacks I head off to hirata estate. A fun level with some really nice fire visuals. I enjoyed tussling with the thieves, learning their patterns and deflecting arrows while finding a couple of shinobi tools along the way. I start to enjoy myself once more until I meet yet another miniboss by the name of Juzou the Drunkard. Much like the earlier minibosses, this guy is also surrounded by his own personal militia of shield dudes, torch dudes, archers and regular dudes. You can't cleanly stealth them all because they are standing out in the open, all facing the same direction and John Sekiro is a shinobi who is literally unable to take out a dude silently. You can pop some funky candy to become almost invisible but John Sekiro will always stand up after a stealth kill. And this is one of those games where standing up is instant detection and crouching is the magic button that enables stealth. I gave this encounter a couple attempts. You have an NPC that helps you and draws aggro and while it seems doable enough, I was also not enjoying myself in the least. Sprinting and leading on the enemies is easy enough but you can't really take on more than one at a time because there's simply too many overlapping attacks to deflect them all. So all you can do is just hope one enemy sprints ahead so you can quickly deplete his posture and deathblow him before the rest of the militia follows. And each time you'd die to this boss you'd have to clear out this clown posse over and over again. That's three minibosses in a short period of time that all have a tedious militia of trash mobs around them just for the sake of tedious and dare I say artificial difficulty. I know that term riles up the staunch FROM fanboys but I think it's a term that perfectly describes these encounters. I loved the first miniboss. I didn't even do the free stealth hit on him because I enjoyed fighting him so much despite getting my ass kicked a few times. The second one was also fine enough since his militia was more dispersed and I was able to take cover from the archers inside a building while engaging in an epic 1v1 duel against him. But the subsequent minibosses have shown what kind of difficulty this game likes to throw at you. And that's the same kind of tedious and artificial difficulty Dark Souls 2 is known for, gank squads. Facing hordes of normal enemies is admittedly difficult for its own reasons but its the kind of difficulty that I find to be incredibly tedious and not enjoyable. Especially when the hordes of enemies are glued to a boss type enemy. You can use the firecracker tool to help out a little bit but even that is on a limited resource. I tried to love this game. Deflecting feels great and the atmosphere is amazing. I was hungry for more and I was eager to see more of the game. But the miniboss militias have completely ruined the game for me. And from what I've read this design philosophy carries on throughout the entire game. I wish I could just instantly skip to the main bosses so I could continue to have fun with the game but that is not the case. Tedious but doable given enough attempts. I'm just not willing to sink my free time into these kinds of encounters so I'd rather just go play something else instead.