Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Review: An analysis of good game design
Reviewed on PS4
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a new action-adventure game from FromSoftware, that was released in 2019. It tells a story of the disgraced shinobi Wolf and his struggle to remove the curse of immortality from his loyal master. Sekiro is set during the Sengoku period of Japan in the fictional land of Ashina with rich lore and stories developed by yours truly Hayao Miyazaki. The gameplay is a combination of stealth, RPG, and rhythm game mechanics that deliver a fair but punishing experience unlike any other From Software Games.
Sekiro marks the departure of FromSoftware from its comfortable position as world class RPG specialist into the world of action adventure. The game’s protagonist, Wolf, is a fixed character and the players are given no choice to edit his appearance, although they can still control his actions and choices during some dialogues. Despite the Wolf’s arsenal of weapons and combat technique (which we will discuss later), the main weapon that the player will use the entire game is the Wolf’s katana, Kusabimaru. Weapon upgrades are limited only to the Wolf’s sword attack damage, and there are only two basic actions in the game worth mentioning, parry and attack. The limited customizations that Sekiro have are compensated with one of the most ingenious combat systems ever created. All enemies in the game have two kind of bars, health bars and posture bar. You kill an enemy by reducing their health bar to zero — everyone knows this. But you can also kill them by filling their posture bar to full, which triggers a chance to conduct an instant kill deathblow on the posture-broken enemy. Posture bar are filled when the players successfully parried the opponents’ attacks as well as pressuring their defenses. However, the posture bar will recover when the enemy is not being attacked or attacking. Most of the enemies in the game and all bosses have both health and posture bar, demanding the player’s mastery of this core gameplay mechanic. Wolf also need to pay attention to his own posture bar — when it gets filled, it will leave the player vulnerable to enemy attack. This is where the rhythm game comes to play. Players aren’t expected to keep spamming the attack button and win, the game demands their vigilance to balance their offense and defense as the enemy in the game is very capable of finding opening for a counter attack. The focus on timing removes the RPG elements of the previous FromSoftware game. There are no builds or leveling up in this game, the players are provided with all the tools they need to finish the game at the start, all they need is to master it, although certain tools are available to provide viable alternatives to the core gameplay of parry and attack.
Prosthetic tools, are tools available by searching the game world, and enable certain strategies against specific enemies and bosses. These range from simple shuriken, a heavy axe, or a flame thrower. In addition, combat arts — special moves that can be unlocked and purchased — and ninjutsu techniques — special jutsu available after stealthily deathblows enemy — are also available to further diversify the player’s options. However, as we’ve mentioned before, the core gameplay techniques of parry and attack is given the highest priority in the game. The player cannot defeat bosses with prosthetic tools alone, they need to master parrying in order to truly beat the game. Speaking of bosses, the boss fights in Sekiro is a test of the player’s understanding of the game’s mechanics. There is a clear difficulty increase of the bosses the later the game goes, not only that they deal higher health and posture damage to the player, but their attack also has more variations and tricks that the player needs to learn on how to counter each move. All of the boss fights in Sekiro are designed nicely, from the battleground, atmosphere, and music all corresponds to give a massive satisfaction when the player manage to beat every one of them.
Compared to other FromSoftware games, Sekiro introduce two new gameplay features we’ve noticed: verticality and stealth. From Demon Souls to Bloodborne, FromSoftware games tend to feature a linear level design with various shortcuts available. Elevation was indeed incorporated on their level design, but their design philosophy was clear — players were expected to defeat all enemies in their immediate vicinity; thus, the level was linear with a clear path to the boss. This was not necessarily the case with Sekiro, where the inclusion of grappling hook enables players to have a vantage point over the levels in Sekiro. High ground empowers the players with the power of information — they can see the position of their enemies with relative safety — thus giving them multiple options for engagement. The increment of available information was further compounded by the option of stealth deathblow. Wolf can instantly kill enemies who are unaware of his presence from multiple positions, from ledges to corners or even from above. The inclusion of stealth and the grappling hook makes the game a combat sandbox, where players can experiment to find the most efficient way of killing the enemies. Instead of the age-old RPG adage of focusing on the development of the player-made character, Sekiro focuses on the development of the player themselves. The game rewards creativity and skill through its gameplay design, with easy to understand core mechanics and punishing difficulty curve that demands perseverance and experimentation to achieve victory.
The story of Sekiro is a story about stagnation, mortality, and the human experience. The protagonist Wolf, is a shinobi servant of the Divine Heir, Kuro. Kuro possess a special bloodline that grants him and those he blesses immortality. This precious ability was sought after by the leader of the defected state of Ashina, Genichiro, in order to protect the land from the central power’s invasions. Kuro fears that immortality will corrupt the lives of men, so he tasked Wolf to find a way to end his immortality and his gifts. Throughout his journey, Sekiro travels through exotic locations, such as buddhist temples, gunfort valley, heavenly palaces, and dilapidated villages. His journey is also assisted by the Sculptor, a mysterious old man who understands the mechanism behind the prosthetic tools; Isshin Ashina, the ailing leader of the Ashina who claims Ashina’s independence in a coup 20 years before the story; and Emma, the medical doctor who is responsible for Isshin’s health. Sekiro have a more coherent story, objectives, and directions compared to older FromSoftware games. We’ve had no difficulty on understanding the game’s story and never felt a confusion on where to go next on the levels. The story behind the land of Ashina, the immortality-bestowing Fountainhead waters, as well as the secret behind the Dragon’s bloodline are clearly conveyed on the cutscenes and dialogues between Wolf and the NPCs. Side quests are also available in Sekiro, and it often fleshes out a character’s lore as well as providing a unique item in game for players who put effort to complete it. Nevertheless, as in true FromSoftware fashion, lore and story details that wasn’t put in the dialogues are available through item descriptions and level designs. Players who are familiar with FromSoftware’s character building can immerse themselves on the lore analysis and can discover countless videos on Youtube propagating speculations and intrigues on the story behind the lands of Ashina. The story and setting are a perfect match, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience it provides.
The game does a good job telegraphing enemy movements and intentions. Despite the variety of lighting in the game, players should have minimum difficulty of seeing the opponents in front of them, although they should still be careful of offscreen enemies. Most importantly, the game includes a sound cue and visual warning against the enemy’s “perilous attack”, which are unblockable attacks the require specific countermeasure to face. This makes battle feels fairer, although at the expense of difficulty. The game also telegraphs enemy combat status through music, atmosphere, and visual marker above the enemy, which provides the player the information on which enemies they can stealthily deathblow. The music was on point depending on the setting, level, and enemy status, particularly during the boss fights, which increases the tension and satisfaction on fighting these difficult enemies. Overall, the game does a good job of presentation, with little to no performance hiccups and it manages to give a clear and concise direction of enemies, levels, and directions on where to go next.
Despite our enormous praise we’ve attributed to Sekiro’s gameplay, it doesn’t come with its weakness. Its biggest weakness and what we believe will be the biggest reason people turn away from this game is its difficulty. FromSoftware’s design philosophy believe that a difficult game will improve the enjoyment of the player, as overcoming harsh obstacles gives that much more meaning to the engagement of the player to finish the game. Unfortunately, not everyone shares their enthusiasm. Sekiro is a difficult game to master. Learning the mechanics was easy, creating a habit from said mechanics is not. Players are expected to die, repeatedly, during the early part of the game. It requires patience and perseverance to ingrain the game’s mechanics into the player’s reflexes, and it might not even be enough. The late game bosses in particular, require a near perfect dodge, parries, and attacks that a single mistake can end Wolf’s life. There is no way to reduce the game’s difficulty, only increase it. Some boss fights also become unnecessarily hard due to the camera’s incapability of following the actions, which limits the player’s ability to see the boss’ movements and attack patterns. The problem of bosses is also compounded by the duplication of several “mini-bosses” in the game. The major bosses have their own distinct arena, music, and attack patterns while the mini-bosses serve as an obstacle or optional objective that drops unique loots. The recycling of the mini-bosses reduces the enemy variety that Sekiro has although it doesn’t reduce our overall enjoyment of the game. Lastly, from the gameplay standpoint, our criticism is directed to the mechanic surrounding Dragonrot and Unseen Aid. We’ve mentioned that death is very punishing in Sekiro. In addition to the loss of Sen and battle experience, when enough death is accumulated a disease called Dragonrot can affect NPCs that interacts with the Wolf. The Dragonrot also reduces the chance of receiving Unseen Aid, a chance for Wolf to retain his Sen and battle experience when killed. The Dragonrot can be removed by following through a short quest, and while it serves to give further consequences to the player’s death, in our opinion it only serves as a small nuisance that doesn’t bring anything new to the game. In addition, the unreliability of the Unseen Aid further questions the purpose of such mechanics in game. With 30% default chance of receiving the Unseen Aid, players can’t rely on the Unseen Aid to maintain momentum and learn about the game. We feel there are better alternatives to Unseen Aid and Dragonrot to punish and reward players upon their demise, that can have a heavier impact on the story or more reliable to help the players.
Although we’ve praised the story here, it certainly takes a backseat to the gameplay. The story only serves to give a purpose and legitimacy to the actions of Wolf, and although the voice acting quality is excellent, story is certainly not the priority of FromSoftware. NPC mouths barely moved during dialogues, and Wolf is hardly a talkative protagonist. Cutscenes are rare and short, mostly to introduce a boss fight or show a significant plot development. Players really need to put effort to find the subtle lore details and the payoff is barely satisfactory. My argument is, this is not a game for people who wanted to be spoon fed a good story, the players need to be able to enjoy the gameplay first before they can find satisfaction in the story. Graphically, the game is average looking. Although the environment detail is impressive, players won’t find detailed facial expression or high quality cutscene in this game. Graphically, Sekiro looks average. The game’s engine does its job although not the best looking one. On the issue of performance however, the game can sometimes stutter and massive frame drops can be experienced when a lot of enemies is fighting on the screen. One action sequence in particular involves around 20 or so monkeys, and the heavy demand for performance stutters the movement of the monkeys until they look like caricatures on our PS4 copy of the game. As the players will really try to isolate enemies to make it one versus one (it is quite difficult to tackle multiple enemies head on, particularly in the late game), this performance issue will mostly affect the player’s movement on navigating the level and has minimum impact on the overall combat experience.
Overall, Sekiro is a must buy for any FromSoftware fans or action game enthusiasts. Players are rewarded in proportional with their efforts. Discipline and perseverance will make the game enjoyable and mistakes will be heavily punished. This game will truly make you feel like a ninja.
We rate it as a 9/10.
