Sumez wrote:
I agree with all of this except from the parts where you called relying on deflecting "fun", and the combat tighter than the Souls series.
I'm not actually crazy about the reliance on deflect; it's fun when you've mastered it and learned enemy patterns, but there's a huge reliance on it as it's by far the best means of dealing with most enemies as there are far fewer enemies in the game with such massive posture that it's easier just to get a vitality kill on them. Deflect, Mikiri Counter, and Ichimonji Double for the posture heals are basically the key skills of the game.
You get very few i-frames on dodges or jumps; they're there but generally deflecting or getting the heck out of the way of stuff with a sprint is great. I also am not sure I like how deflecting can max out your posture meter (thus if you fail to deflect and normal guard you'll eat a posture break). I kinda wish deflecting had no posture penalty, or no penalty when you were above 50% posture.
I understand why they made deflecting the primary means of defense rather than the rolling in the Souls games as a means to set it apart. My Souls experience consists of like 15 minutes of DS2, so not super familiar with the series outside of footage, but the quick steps, the high speed sprint, and the deflect/Mikiri timing felt more intuitive compared to learning timing on Souls parries, and the deflection system of staying in someone's face gave me God Hand vibes of ducking and sidestepping, so I think that appealed to me.
I do wish there were more i-frames on dash though so that players could adopt either playstyle, similar to God Hand where you have a lengthy dodge that beginners will use a lot, and two more advanced dodges that are what experts use 99% of the time. Or how in Bayonetta you've got dodges, but eventually parrying becomes a possibility, and you can make dodge and parrying attempts. A system where deflecting was the optimal, higher end technique, with older style dodging being sorta viable but subpar woulda been cool. You can technically dodge a lot of stuff but the timing to i-frame through stuff is generally very slim, so generally the game is vastly easier when you focus on timing your deflects rather than trying to i-frame dodging through stuff. The majority of the fights are built around the deflection, with only a couple ones I can think of against larger enemies being more about staying the hell away from their attacks.
I also wish Perilous attacks were indicated with a different sound/colour - you not only have to not panic dodge/jump when the kanji flashes but you have to watch the enemy to see what kind of Perilous attack's coming. Less of an issue when you learn to watch the enemy and don't let your eyes get drawn to look at the Perilous symbol when it flashes. Most enemies only have a couple different Perilous attacks you can predict and learn so it's not a huge issue.
It's not a game for everyone though; it's got more in common with some of Platinum's beat em up titles than perhaps your average Souls game, mainly due to it being a single-player action game with minimal RPG progression elements and no kind of character customization or different classes/weapons to use outside of subweapons. Sekiro's much more limited in scope in that sense than a Souls game, but if you're someone who tends to constantly play with one specific build and use one specific weapon maybe it won't feel that unusual?
Steamflogger Boss wrote:
Bloodborne is just so fucking good.
It's the Souls game I want to actively try the most, but I don't own a PS4. I'll likely just borrow a friend's copy of one of the Dark Souls games for XB360 or something at some point. I'm currently playing Sekiro as it's been gifted to me by a friend. I just beat it yesterday (good ending), apparently the person who gifted it gave up on it and never cleared it so I'm feeling decently accomplished. Probably will play it a few more times in NG+.