☠ Souls Series Symposium ☠

[MrPopo]

I'm two bosses in. The game definitely has more of the feel of Bloodborne, but then they made the parry mechanic harder and not have as satisfying of a payout. There is animation canceling, and you do still have iframes on dodges, but not as long as a Souls roll. So it's far more critical to understand enemy patterns and options and understand "this is a thing I can dodge, this is a thing I can parry, this is a thing I should just dash away from". I am enjoying the stealth mechanics for regular enemies; you can make your life significantly easier through taking advantage of it. And I like that the grapple is both a great disengage for when you accidentally pulled the room and gets used in some of the boss fights.

[Gunstar Green]

So I've gotten mixed signals from people on this:

Is Sekiro part of the "Souls" package or should it be considered its own thing with Souls influences? The consensus seems to be leaning towards the latter.

[prfsnl_gmr]

So I've gotten mixed signals from people on this:

Is Sekiro part of the "Souls" package or should it be considered its own thing with Souls influences? The consensus seems to be leaning towards the latter.

It kind of looks like a belated follow up to Ninja Blade (360)...

[MrPopo]

There is far too much Souls DNA to not call it part of the series. Not just the obvious stuff; there's all these little things that are straight out of the Souls engine. That said, it is definitely the most different of the series. You have a lot more freedom of movement (a dedicated jump button with a good amount of height, ledge hanging, the grapple, being able to fall a few stories before taking damage) and the story is much more coherent and focused. While there is still some "slowly learn important details that add context over time", the main plot is obvious from the start. The mysteries are more about contextualizing details that maybe update your character's motivations and the motivations of the antagonists. But so far, the main story beats all are pretty easy to understand; a lot of common tropes from feudal Japan stories. So I guess it does come down to what your specific dividing line is between what makes a Soulsborne game and what doesn't. I think the primary gameplay loop is still the same, and many of the environmental storytelling techniques are still there. So while some details are different, it doesn't feel like it doesn't belong; think of how different some successive entries in Final Fantasy have been, but at their core are still recognizable as Final Fantasy. Same thing here, in my opinion.

[Stark]

Monster design seems very Soulsborne as well.

[Sload Soap]

Is Sekiro part of the "Souls" package or should it be considered its own thing with Souls influences? The consensus seems to be leaning towards the latter.

The more I play Sekiro the less like a Souls game it feels. It's not an action-RPG so there's no choice in weaponry, stances and no leveling up, stealth is a major element, vertical movement is a major element, aggressive play is more valuable than in even Bloodborne, as is parrying. There's no reliable shield and trying to roll through most enemies attacks is unwise. On bosses and mini-bosses it's usually a big disadvantage. The posture system is set up in a way to make you want to receive attacks so you can deflect them and and counter. The sword parrying is a bit like Ninja Gaiden's but much, much more emphasized and is often your best form of attack on most enemies. So, the gameplay loop isn't quite the same as a Souls game.

That said, it also has an estus flask stand in, a Nexus/Firelink/Hunter's Dream hub, the controller layout is mostly the same and as Popo said the story telling, while slightly more involved, is still fairly minimal. It's got the aesthetic of a From game as well even with more traditionally human enemies. I think they were happy to let the marketing team play it off as a Japanese styled Souls which is fine. And although I drew a comparison, I wouldn't say it was very much like Ninja Gaiden either even with the shared elements. I mean you could argue with the grappling, arm attachments and stealth elements there's a bit of the Arkham games in there as well and some Onimusha in the sword clashes and way you hoover up money.

Overall for me, deffo the latter.

[Melek-Ric]

I haven't played Sekiro yet, but I read that FS initially planned for this to be a Tenchu title but decided to create a new IP instead. From what I've seen, it looks like a hybrid of Tenchu and Souls.

[MrPopo]

I think I've hit the point in Sekiro where I've started to adapt to how the game wants me to approach the combat. Like when I played Bloodborne, it took me a while to unlearn my Soulsisms. As mentioned, dodging is not the cure all that it is in the Souls games. It's still effective in the right circumstances, but the timing is much tighter (you have less iframes). On the flip side, you have a natural ability to chain a dodge into an attack that moves you towards the enemy, so against some foes you CAN very effectively do a pattern of dodge their big hit and counter slash. But it's definitely enemy by enemy. I've done two major bosses, two major minibosses, and several of the "scary version of a normal enemy" minibosses. And for each one I've had to approach them differently in how manage their attacks. One boss I could effectively stunlock with a special ability, but needed to react to the one or two options the boss had to escape, another boss was focused mostly on sprinting away from his attacks, then grappling in to get in damage, one miniboss was extremely vulnerable to one of my shinobi weapons, and another miniboss was heavily countered by parries to its very slow and very telegraphed attacks. There's no one size fits all combat solution in this game, which I think is the biggest difference from the other Soulsborne games combat-wise.

I'm also at the point of the game where it's branching into multiple paths with no obvious method to choose between them. The level architecture is getting more varied, and I'm having a lot of fun moving through the levels.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Sekiro is hard to compare to Soulsborne stuff IMO. It both takes a lot from it, but twists far enough away to be it's own thing.

I will say- I'm still iffy on the timing of parrying. I'm about 40/60 success/fail rate. Overall, I've definitely had some bosses whoop me good (Hirata estates boss) and others I stomped quickly (Ashina gate boss). Most take about 5 tries. I do enjoy the verticality of the grappling hook, but it also makes paths harder to figure out at times- do I grapple up? Drop down into that canyon and grapple that point? Go straight along this cliff?

And while branching, it does seem as though there are paths they want you to take before others, which can be frustrating and lead to missed bosses and the like.

[Gunstar Green]

I always suck at parrying in games so Sekiro is going to tear me a new one when I get around to it.

I'm working my way through Demon's Souls and will post my thoughts when I finish.