Sekiro's Difficulty: Challenging, But Not ABNORMALLY So (My Honest Take)
11Is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice a very difficult game, as so many say? Is it the most difficult Souls game ever made? I was led to believe so after reading many articles and players' opinions. Although they differ, for me it seemed that the overall consensus pictured an abnormally hard Souls game, but it turned out not to be the case for me. There is a learning curve, but getting better comes organically through sheer repetition and without much distraction regarding farming, exploration, and tons of items. Most of your attention will be on getting good with the relatively limited mechanics. You'll spend more time practicing (checkpoints are very close to bosses) than on other things, and many items are not even required to do well in this game.
This realization was eye-opening, as I didn't expect that to be the case. It's indeed subjective, but this means that you won't really know for sure until you try it yourself. I believe it's more about having the ability to mentally endure the learning curve and accept repetition without giving up. It's more about mental endurance, and although there are tough bosses, for most bosses, you'll find that players' opinions differ about the difficulty of each boss. What is for one one of the most difficult bosses, for another it was a smooth run. There are exceptions, but overall, the game has its learning curve, but it's not the hardest Souls game that I've played. It's much more accessible in my opinion because of its 'rhythmic' gameplay that is learned through sheer repetition if needed.
This is based on my first playthrough and I do intend to cover all bosses down the road. There might be bosses that will be tougher than others, but based on my first run, it wasn't as bad I though it would be. A finished the game in 6 days. I see myself a BELOW AVERAGE player that usually find souls game to be hard if challenged directly without any unfair aid. I did get better the more souls game I play, as experience also plays a significant role, as there are thing that are common among souls games, so it's easier to avoid and skip newbie mistakes.
I believe that this game might be very difficult if it's the first souls game for one, same as Elden Ring was for me when I first tried it as my first souls game. I just wasn't used to this type of difficulty curve, but I learned and got much better playing souls game after that.
Just my thoughts, what are yours?
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