Discussing Sekiro's shortcomings

[laxu]

So I thought a thread like the DMC5 one would be good for Sekiro as well. I love the game but I also have a number of complaints.

• Lack of NG+ content. This has been an issue in From games for a while but I wish they had added some unique content to make NG+ more worthwhile. Now it's just to get enough XP to unlock everything and see all the endings or do anything you missed etc.
• Bad economy. After NG there is barely anything worth buying yet minibosses you've defeated drop money bags. I felt in NG+ I had to choose what to buy with the money I had or grind some more but not so in NG+. You have so much sen that you might as well load it into a prosthetic and blast away. It would have been better to have minibosses keep dropping beads but instead require more of them for bracelets or reduce their effectiveness over the ones you can pick up in one playthrough.
• Most combat arts are not useful. They look really cool but apart from
  Spoiler: unlockable moves

  Ichimonji and Mortal Draw
  enemies can often just power through them while receiving damage worth maybe 2 regular attacks. Some of them require windups or stances that make them hard to pull off in a fight considering how aggressive most enemies are. All the ninjutsus are fantastic so I don't know why they gimped the combat arts so heavily.
• 20 spirit emblems is not enough. You can't really try things out against a boss and usually it's not enough to help you through more than one phase. I wish you at least got a partial refill after getting a deathblow on a multi stage boss fight. In regular gameplay they are acceptable though you still better not miss much.
• Spoiler: About bosses

  Reused bosses. At least have better reskins than a different color and maybe add a unique move or two to keep them more interesting. Phantom Corrupted Monk seems out of place and so does the placement of the True one too. You should be facing them at the end of Mt. Senpou based on the difficulty of the boss. Owl (Father) is a tedious fight that lacks all the tricks of the first fight that kept it fresh.
• Bugs! At the time of writing this thread the game still hasn't received a patch on PC to fix the issue with multiple monitors connected dropping framerate severely and there seems to be no reason why you can't run at above 60 fps when I'm happily playing at 120 with a mod and have seen no adverse effects from this.

 

[Hitomi J-Scrub]

The one problem with Sekiro is that it's almost too good.

 

[Guru_Godzilla]

Shadow rush is SUPER good against a lot of enemies and bosses.

 

[KillLaCam]

My only real issue is the lack of a character creator is annoying to me. I didn't see anything in the story that was better because it had a set character.

I do wish they'd learn from the way Nioh did NG+

Edit:
The enemy design is also alot less interesting to me than Souls and Bloodborne. Too many enemies are just human and the raging bull is the most boring enemy design ever.

 

[ianpm31]

Love the game but my biggest issue is the lack of effort into NG+. Why can't FROM do NG+ like Dark Souls 2? I love to see surprises and nice switch up of enemy placements from time to time.

 

[DFG]

My biggest problem was NG+ being lackluster and not as challenging. The first playthrough is God like, but compared to other action oriented games, if it wasn'tfor the trophies i wouldn't play it more than twice. I agree with most of what you said OP. The problem with the tools weren't the tools themselves, but the limit was too restricting.

 

[Gustaf]

i think From tried to make the game beatable EVEN if you dont use any ninjutsu, combat art or prosthetic.

which the way i played several of the latter bosses, i forced myself to not use anything but ako;s or confettis

 

[Kuro]

The grind for skill points is awful.

The game reuses too many bosses/mini bosses

Lack of content in general. Most of my playtime was just repeating boss fights rather than discovering new areas and dealing with that environment like in soulsborne games.

Somehow worse camera than previous games.

Terrible balancing of combat arts, prosthetics, and spirit emblems.

All the non boss beast enemies are way too easy

The game is supposed to be more story focused than soulsborne games but it did not feel like that at all beyond the fact that Sekiro talks and has more personal cutscenes.

Boss AI can be really buggy where it feels like its RNG whether they decide to spam their most dangerous attacks one after another.

Spoiler: Ending spoilers.

The most complicated to get ending is very abrupt and not satisfactory at all.

and most important of all, no outfits without mods.

 

[Musubi]

My only real issues is the lack of a character creator is annoying to me. I didn't see anything in the story that was better because it had a set character.

I do wish they'd learn from the way Nioh did NG+

Click to shrink...

I dunno I actually somewhat cared about the story this time around because Wolf was his own character instead of some nameless cipher like in the souls games.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

To add on to the, most arts are useless, there is no meaningful progression which is a shame.

Prosthetics are too limited, so no new weapons to play with like in most every action game.
You gain health beads and increased attack power that are basically illusions that mean little outside of farming old areas because the next boss will still do half your health bar per hit and require basically the same amount of blocks and hits whether you came in there with an extra boss memory or not.
Posture breaking comes 70% through parries, so taking an additional 2% of their healh bar per 25% chance of successful attack means little. You feel roughly just as strong every boss fight through the game.

You still feel like a badass doing amazing looking things, but you are still the same fragile porcelain badass you were at the beginning of the game which disappointed me a bit.

i just don't see how the my could rebalance prosthetics in their current posture break system without breaking it. You can already slowly cheese bosses by chipping at their health

 

[StarskySilvers]

The game isn't flawless (it's real close though). But I don't like that people will count it's differences from Dark Souls as negatives.
I'm really glad From Software stepped out of the box again and made one of my favorite games this gen.

 

[jviggy43]

NG+ having different endings which lead to different bosses is actually pretty great for NG+ miyazaki wise sans DS2, but it absolutely could be better.

My gripes

-Camera is unacceptable in several fights in close quarters areas. In a game like this it needs to be better.
-Reused areas and enemies. I don't think this is a major issue like the camera but it certainly isn't preferable
-combat arts are generally not that useful outside of a couple
-emblems for tool economy is silly, just have a set limit like Estus that refills upon rest
-gimmick bosses are still awful and need to go

The game isn't flawless (it's real close though). But I don't like that people will count it's differences from Dark Souls as negatives.
I'm really glad From Software stepped out of the box again and made one of my favorite games this gen.

Click to shrink...

Yep these are stupid criticisms imo. I hate when people say "theres only one way to beat a boss" in a game that was explicitly design to have 1 play style

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

I wish some of the combat arts and prosthetic arms were more useful.

Also the game felt repetitive at the end. Going through the same environments and repeating some boss fights.

Honestly Nioh 2 if it addresses the isdues with Nioh 1 is going to be my ideal game of this type.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

Oh the camera and lock on can be shit at times.

In tight hallways it gets caught up on walls. And sometimes the lock on drops randomly.

 

[Deleted member 984]

Only being able to use one combat art, that prosthetics are limited by spirit emblems which also shared by certain items and skills so if you actually do want to experiment get ready to grind, that unlocking all skills is waaaay too grindy, that there is no deeper level of combat once you have parry down, bosses move sets are too limited for the simplicity of the combat system as many bosses and enemies share most of the same move sets, over use of mini bosses, so many story holes and lack of exposition with the method of narrative. The camera again.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

I think the game is amazing but there are definitely issues

1. Fighting (optional) bosses can still be incredibly tedious because they now often come with a group of friends that you have to kill before being able to properly fight the boss. Especially with the Spear miniboss that got annoying reallllllly fast.
2. I don't think I ever used any techniques and barley ever used any prosthtics aside from the firecrackers.
3. Reusing bosses is lame
4. All the character stories go absolutely nowhere at least in my game, that's kinda lame.
5. The Demon of Hatred feels like they threw in a leftover from a Souls game because they already had the assets on a harddrive somewhere. It doesn't fit the game at all and is probably the worst bossfight in any From game ever.

 

[rude]

They need to stop doing variations of Dark Souls and try something completely, completely new (aside from VR shit). The game is good, but that's all I really have to say about it.

 

[Timeaisis]

I thought the bosses were nothing to write home about. Same with the standard enemies. After about 3 hours, you've seen most the game has to offer in terms of enemy design.

 

[jb1234]

Lack of content is the big one for me. It can be the same length as the other games if you die a lot to the bosses but there's less areas and the ones that exist aren't really very interesting to me. I was hoping the setting would grow on me but it never really did.

 

[xendless]

I guess lack of build variation doesn't make me want to replay it, but I can accept DS and BB spoils you with options and for this game they wanted you to play in a specific way

 

[KillLaCam]

I dunno I actually somewhat cared about the story this time around because Wolf was his own character instead of some nameless cipher like in the souls games.

Click to shrink...

The only difference between him and the Soulsborne characters are that people already know him and that he speaks a few times.
I feel they could have done like Mass Effect and make a set character where we could customize their face . Even if we had to wear the same outfit and everything. I can't really see that taking away from the character.

 

[Cels]

idols are too frequent
camera sucks sometimes
when you deviate from dark souls and have a set character with set skills/abilities i expect for the game to be more tightly tuned for those abilities and to tell a better story with characterization of the main guy. i guess because sekiro is stoic and has to be allowed player choice (for the different endings) maybe they felt they couldn't make him too set one way or the other? the guy barely talks. idk.

the gameplay itself is amazing, just playing moment to moment is great. but yeah the game does have some flaws.

 

[Shin Kojima]

I'm sad they turned Dragonrot into basically a non-issue. The original idea where it could kill off NPCs sounds amazing. It might as well be called Dragonflu now.

 

[Zyrox]

The camera is suboptimal or at least was not designed with the mobility/area design in mind. Died quite a few times due to the camera going haywire.
I really don't like how restrictive the game feels either in terms of combat, with only 1 weapon and most combat arts being pretty underwhelming and most prosthetics being highly situational if not mostly useless. Even Bloodborne was a treasure trove of different playstyles compared to this (and that already felt watered down compared to the Dark Souls trilogy). It just makes a lot of the combat situations feel very similar and it kills replayability for me.
The bonfire placement is also really weird. There are multiple instances in the game where two bonfires are like not even 100 meters apart from each other. Like, what?
The reused boss fights were disappointing as well. Felt like they wanted to artificially stretch the game with that.
And this is more of a personal thing but I wasn't too hot on the environments. Like from a level design standpoint they were great but from an aesthetic standpoint like 70% of the game being a boring snowy mountain region really didn't do it for me.

 

[Kuro]

I'm sad they turned Dragonrot into basically a non-issue. The original idea where it could kill off NPCs sounds amazing. It might as well be called Dragonflu now.

Click to shrink...

I think it only really served as tension for players early in the game and maybe motivation to die less and get better at the game but it definitely felt half baked.

 

[Shadout]

For me, by far the biggest issue is lack of build options, as in slow melee, fast melee, defensive/shield, magic/ranged. As in the Souls games. I know that is not the kind of game they wanted to make. But it made the game feel lesser to me.
I also agree it is a shame they dont do more with NG+. Dark Souls 2 did it best in that regard.
Lots of boss resuses. I dont mind when it is done in fun/interesting ways, like the double ape boss.
The NPC quests are a lot less involved and interesting. Not a big issue, but in a game that seems like it want to be more story focused, it was a bit surprising.

 

[Nose Master]

The entire skill tree is awful, really. There's like... 3 must haves and then a mountain of garbage that overwrites other garbage.

The level design also shits the bed a bit after Genshiro, but that's every From game.

The flurry of minibosses is really unfortunate. They're never particularly unique (aside from maybe spear guy and voldo) and they're just shitty roadblocks. It's like having a black knight around every other corner.

 

[DC5remy]

I'm old and my reaction time must suck, so it's the games fault.

 

[Dphex]

a little too many reused enemies and there could have been one or two areas more to the game.

combat arts not really thoughtful mapped on l1+r1, some of them much better than others. camera sometimes not up to the task.

all in all, it was a stellar experience.

 

[Master Alucard]

NPc subquests are weak and really don't go anywhere

 

[Viale]

I think the game is amazing but there are definitely issues

1. The Demon of Hatred feels like they threw in a leftover from a Souls game because they already had the assets on a harddrive somewhere. It doesn't fit the game at all and is probably the worst bossfight in any From game ever.

Click to shrink...

lol, definitely different strokes. DoH was one of favorite bosses in Sekiro and one of my favorites in From in general.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

The one problem with Sekiro is that it's almost too good.

Click to shrink...

This is me.

 

[lowhighkang_LHK]

I also think the enemies are way too easy and don't really train you for the bosses.

One example, you never get to practice the lighting deflect mechanic on an enemy until you actually fight a boss that does it. Which is supremely fucking stupid because it's the bosses' second phase. So you're trying to figure out the timing for it, you die - have to restart at a checkpoint, get back there, beat the easy ass first phase, then you get to experiment with the lighting deflect mechanic but your margin for error is pretty low.

It was easily the most annoying part of the game.

Oh and the Four Monkey Boss fight is cool in theory, but I always dread thinking of coming to it on replays.

 

[Res]

It is an excellent game and my goty so far, but it does have flaws.

-feels like there is less enemy variety than previous games
-more areas would been nice
-bloodstain mechanic is preferable to dragonrot
-not enough horror, but that's my preference
-npcs are better in previous games(consequence of miyazaki not writing them this time like previous games, perhaps?)
-skill trees are lacking, could have been better
-combat arts could have been more plentiful and useful

Level design and bosses are consistently great though

 

[Muffin]

Spirit Emblems are blood vials light. Not as bad, but still annoying. They had it right with DS1-3, especially in 3 which limited combat arts with your mana.

 

[Deleted member 1635]

Here are my main ones:

- Death penalty sucks compared to previous games.
- Dragonrot seemingly punishes you for attempting bosses over and over again, making losing to them even more frustrating.
- And yeah, the combat arts are mostly pretty lame.

 

[Cronogear]

There's an extremely harsh divide between the levels and the bosses. The levels don't train you at all for the bosses like they should. Combat and stealth are practically entirely different games. It's like if you took an Accounting class and the exams were over Biology.

 

[Dunban_Fyuria]

NG+ is pretty lame, you can make it harder by giving up a certain item but no items are remixed, no remixed enemy placements, etc. From really stopped trying with their NG+ after DS2.

Too much of a grind to get all the skills in the game. Obviously you don't need any of them but you still need to do multiple NG+ to unlock them (and even then you still gotta grind in certain areas to get the most xp) and some of the skills don't really feel rewarding by the time you unlock them.

Item farming is still dumb, it becomes a nonissue in NG+ but it can be a big issue for some players in their first run, it's pretty unbalance. Emblems being a farmable item is dumb, farming for confetti is also pretty dumb but it also make sense since it let you damage enemies even if they're guarding. They should've just add an item where it let you attack ghosts and it can replenish when you rest.

You can get away with spamming parry and get through the whole game if you can do it well. Minibosses are reused often and the enemy variety is alright but could be better. Some bosses have really bad hitboxes and the camera can get really bad. You can also just break some bosses or stunlock them, which you can debate is just rewarding the player for using their tools or learning the fight but I feel like it's also bad design.

 

[hey it's that dog]

I love the core combat but the rpg-lite elements don't feel like they really came together. You can succeed based on skill alone and all the prosthetics, items, and combat arts feel superfluous. They add some needed variety, but relying on them means grinding for resources if you die a lot, which most people do the first time through. I ended up avoiding relying on anything but my basic abilities.

The limit on emblems and abilities requiring emblems is also pointless. Emblems should have been more like estus, not like grass or blood vials, recharging to max on death, but still replenished by pickups or kills between deaths.

The number of unique bosses is a little disappointing I guess, but really liked the mini boss system and the beads as rewards.

 

[Deleted member 13015]

When you compare it to its SoulsBorne brothers, it is lacking.

But when you view it as its own thing, its own game, it has enough content to satisfy me as a player.

 

[Roygbiv95]

Wall-running as an unlockable skill in the sequel.

 

[R.T Straker]

I don't really have much to say against Sekiro but I'm also not gonna comapre it to Souls since it's not that.

- Camera still sucks as per typical FS fashion
- Spirit Emblems and their whole system sucks, specially since they increase the prices per the more you play
- NG+ isn't great and there isn't a lot of replay value
- Dragonrot is actually useless
- The enemy AI during stealth is a bit braindead but that was to be expected
- English VA is terrible
- Recycling of some bosses

 

[Res]

When you compare it to its SoulsBorne brothers, it is lacking.

But when you view it as its own thing, its own game, it has enough content to satisfy me as a player.

Click to shrink...

Tbh when it was announced as an action adventure game I was worried that the game was gonna be much shorter than the souls games, like 10-15 hrs or so. I'm glad that the size is pretty comparable

 

[jviggy43]

NPc subquests are weak and really don't go anywhere

Click to shrink...

Oh damn yeah this is another area that is super disappointing.

 

[StreamedHams]

The grind for skill points is awful.

The game reuses too many bosses/mini bosses

Lack of content in general. Most of my playtime was just repeating boss fights rather than discovering new areas and dealing with that environment like in soulsborne games.

Somehow worse camera than previous games.

Terrible balancing of combat arts, prosthetics, and spirit emblems.

All the non boss beast enemies are way too easy

The game is supposed to be more story focused than soulsborne games but it did not feel like that at all beyond the fact that Sekiro talks and has more personal cutscenes.

Boss AI can be really buggy where it feels like its RNG whether they decide to spam their most dangerous attacks one after another.

Spoiler: Ending spoilers.

The most complicated to get ending is very abrupt and not satisfactory at all.

and most important of all, no outfits without mods.

Click to shrink...

Christ almighty, thank you for posting this for me.

 

[JudgmentJay]

The scrapped Dragonrot mechanic sounds really cool, but I understand why they cut it. Can you imagine the tears? Still sucks that it turned into an all but inconsequential mechanic though. That and the fact that a lot of skills are useless are my two biggest complaints.

 

[Deleted member 16609]

The grind for skill points is awful.

The game reuses too many bosses/mini bosses

Lack of content in general. Most of my playtime was just repeating boss fights rather than discovering new areas and dealing with that environment like in soulsborne games.

Somehow worse camera than previous games.

Terrible balancing of combat arts, prosthetics, and spirit emblems.

All the non boss beast enemies are way too easy

The game is supposed to be more story focused than soulsborne games but it did not feel like that at all beyond the fact that Sekiro talks and has more personal cutscenes.

Boss AI can be really buggy where it feels like its RNG whether they decide to spam their most dangerous attacks one after another.

Spoiler: Ending spoilers.

The most complicated to get ending is very abrupt and not satisfactory at all.

and most important of all, no outfits without mods.

Click to shrink...

You said everything I wanted to say. And I like to add the disappointing stealth system did it to me.

 

[Unkindled]

Shadowfall is better than those 2 combat art you mentioned and only take's 2 spirit emblems to use.

 

[DevilMayGuy]

My main complaints are the camera being ass sometimes and the skill grind being a bit excessive. Behind that, I loved my 75 hours with the game and was actually interested in getting the Platinum more than many of their other games

 

[BrutalInsane]

One thing I would love for this game is a randomizer. You're totally right about NG+, if you know how to clear out a patrol from an area from your first playthrough, it's rinse, wash and repeat.