Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Review
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the SoulsBuilt on the success of its Soulsborne saga (Demon's / Dark Souls, Bloodborne), From Software's reputation no longer seems to prove today. With Sekiro Shadows Die Twice, the Japanese studio is perpetuating its expertise as a craftsman specializing in high-challenge games. He nevertheless takes pleasure in playing with the codes of a genre that he has largely helped to popularize in recent years. A dose of Tenchu infiltration here, freedom of movement exacerbated there, fights with omnipresent technicality, if Sekiro seems in the first place to be a reinterpretation of the Souls formula, the title does not take long to reveal its own identity. An experience made up of deadly duels between thin blades, epic and demanding sequences and victories on the thread of katana…
THE TENCHU SPIRIT, THE SOULS 'SOUL
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the Souls with the double hat of president of From Software and director of the biggest hits of the studio told us during a recent interview, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice was born from a deep desire to reconnect with a typically Japanese setting with a gaming experience called "fantasy ninja". With several opuses from the Tenchu saga to his credit between 2003 and 2009, titles in which the player already embodied a shinobi, From Software is reinvesting in the action / infiltration sector and the soul of the Souls soul. The result is a game where discretion regularly pays off, but where the fight is still inevitable. As if to mark this renewal, the studio is renewing its publishing partnership with Activision, the publisher of previous Tenchu.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
Exit the character creation stage specific to the latest productions of the studio, Sekiro immerses us in the skin of "Wolf" in French (Sekiro in vo), a shinobi master in the art of katana and muffled step in the service of a young heir to the blood of the Dragon. It is time for internal wars and revolt in this medieval Japan of the 15th century tormented by the great upheavals of the Sengoku era. If this historical framework serves as the basis for the narrative framework of the game, it does not, however, force From Software to impose realism at all times. The environments and the bestiary quickly reconnect with the very dark artistic leg of the studio for the sake of diversity and aesthetics.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
The tutorial phase sets the tone, our hero is endowed with speech (something rare in a game From Software) and has a few choices of dialogues during interactions with the NPCs in the game. However, do not expect to hit the strand of Chat for hours at all corners of the pagoda, Loup is not the very talkative type and is satisfied with the verbal minimum during the exchanges. The opportunity for us to return to the localization of the game, translated into several languages including French, in writing as for audio tracks. Despite the good quality of the dubbing in the language of Molière, Japanese remains the default choice in order to immerse yourself in the world of Sekiro.
Side scenario, this hero equipped with functional vocal cords leaves a little more leeway to From Software to make his title less cryptic than his previous games. There are certain choices of dialogue during our exchanges with the NPCs and cutscenes punctuate the progression at certain key passages. However, do not expect to understand everything right away, the shadow hangs over many elements of the game and our interlocutors often remain as evasive as mysterious. Difficult on this point to gauge the life of a title whose duration will be as extensible as your death counter, still count between 25 and more than 40 hours to overcome a first game in discovery mode.
No character creation therefore and no choice of classes either, Loup is a shinobi, a ninja master of his art, equipped with a Katana in the right hand and a mechanical prosthesis in the left arm on which different combat tools will be added as the adventure progresses. Where Souls allowed us to embody different archetypes from scratch, to offer the player a class of beggar without any basic orientation, Sekiro Shadows Die Twice places us in command of an already trained fighter, a lurking assassin to his art, capable of defeating an adversary in a single well-felt counter-attack from the start of the game. And even if it means changing his formula, From Software also leaves on the sidelines any form of online or multiplayer; there are no messages left on the ground by other players, no invasion system, no cooperation either, you are alone facing the challenge.
NOTHING IS USED TO HIT, IT MUST BE CONTRASTED IN POINT
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
And this famous challenge does not take long to point the tip of his blade, from the first opponent to be more precise. In Sekiro, each enemy poses a potentially deadly threat if the player does not comply with the specifics of the combat system. Forget the wild reels with knives and the calm protection behind a shield, it is all about parades and active counters opening up often deadly finish move opportunities. The endurance management specific to gender experiences is here replaced by a posture bar that climbs as you parade with your saber. If this gauge reaches its maximum, our character is destabilized for a few seconds, thus opening his guard to stinging corrections.
Your opponents also have this famous management of posture, from the weakest trash mob to the toughest boss, most can exhaust their guard if there is good timing in your counters. The deadly dance specific to the productions of the Japanese studio is gaining in intensity here. We no longer face simple defensive "PV bags", but real fighters never to be approached lightly. The loop of gameplay created by the dynamics of the confrontations quickly reveals all its enjoyable potential, the passes of arms are always tactical, never messed up and bet all their success on an excellent timing on the part of the player.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
A timing that tends to get tough sometimes exponentially on certain sub-bosses as we will call them. These adversaries, never to be taken lightly, mark progress and differ from the rest of the enemy cast. They do not have their own closed combat zone like the major bosses of the game, but are placed on our way, in the heart of the environment which allows escape in the event of a bad quarter of an hour. Unlike basic opponents, their health bar gains an additional health gauge, so it is necessary to strike them twice "deadly" to overcome it. Do not expect to overcome them without a minimum of concentration, their power and their range of movements make a serious leap forward on the challenge side. These opponents force the player to give the best of himself so as not to bite the dust in just a few seconds.
Because health falls in no time at all in Sekiro and the gourds of care, in limited number, in the manner of vials of Estus of Souls only recharge on the condition of going to rest in front of one sculptures by creators, statues of Buddha checkpoint symbols between which the player can travel to facilitate his movements in the world. Note that all the enemies of the game, except the bosses and the sub-bosses reappear when we decide to rest in front of an idol. In short, to overcome the most complicated adversaries, tactics and patience will be your best allies.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
One of the possible approaches to the different challenges of Sekiro is infiltration. At no mandatory time, it is all the same a very practical tool of the panoply of our shinobi. We then crouch down to sneak into the tall grass and deceive the opponent's vigilance, we stick our backs to the wall in ninja mode, we jump on the roofs with our grapple in the idea of gaining height so to observe the terrain. There a group of little armed soldiers, here an ogre armed with a heavy mass which it would be better to eliminate quickly. The introduction of the grappling hook opens up new gameplay perspectives.
Our hero with the prosthesis full of potential can jump and clings to a host of points symbolized by a green icon on the screen. Tree branches, roof edges, hooks, we quickly get caught up in this little leaping game exacerbated by the level design while verticality imagined by From Software. Sekiro is a title much more fluid in its movements than its predecessors, much freer also to the point of regularly allowing the player to cross entire areas in just a few seconds without even having to worry about fights.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
Opponents still have a detection bar whose color indicates your degree of visibility. Suspicious when it is yellow, they attack as soon as it turns red. It is therefore advisable to advance with caution in Sekiro, to listen to certain dilaogues of NPCs in search of strategic clues and the ideal opportunity to place an attack as stealthy as it is deadly. Surprise an enemy from behind or from the air offers nothing more than the assurance of a deadly attack. Practice in a game where the slightest fight can go wrong. These same discreet eliminations will also remove a full life bar to the famous sub-bosses of the game, thus motivating the player to never rush headlong into the fray.
Everything would be for the best in this approach with the sweet scent of Tenchu if the infiltration was not somewhat weighed down by an artificial intelligence, after all, very basic. Sekiro regularly takes his feet in the carpet of AI with unpredictable behavior. If one takes advantage a lot of the very reduced field of vision of the adversaries, which authorizes the riskiest approaches without worrying too much, if one passes on their incapacity to react to the presence of the allied corpses, one suffers on the other hand too often certain unfortunate hazards such as detections through walls or sometimes suddenly omniscient adversaries. This certainly allows the player to take advantage of the weaknesses of the AI to switch certain situations in his favor, but in the long term induces a feeling of frustration.
PROSTHESIS US OF EVIL
In addition to his katana and his grappling hook, Loup has a very practical tool in place of his left arm, a prosthesis on which will be grafted various tools. Above all, we will have to find them around the world in places that are sometimes not always easy to spot the first time (we will come back to the very successful level design of the game in a next paragraph). Once the improvement in your possession, head for the ruined Sanctuary, a sort of game HUB where different NPCs await you, including a doctor linked to the improvement of the healing capacity of your gourd, a trainer who will help you refine your art of combat and the sculptor, a dry old man, central character of Sekiro since it is with him that you will install and improve your mechanical arm.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of SoulsSekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, The Soul of Souls
From the throwing of shurikens, to the heavy ax through a flame thrower or a volley of firecrackers, each prosthesis tool finds its usefulness in the face of a given type of adversary. It is possible to alternate in combat between three types of arm mechanisms to best adapt to the situation. The ax will for example break the wooden shields, the flames will weaken the enemies with red eyes, the lance will be ideal to maintain a certain distance with your opponents. The prosthesis is not just a simple gadget, it is an asset in our strategic arsenal and certain boss battles are greatly facilitated by its good use.
Be careful however, its use is not unlimited, each of its uses draws from your reserve of spiritual emblems to be recovered in loot on certain mobs, in certain levels or available for purchase from sculptor's idols. With a limited number of charges, the prosthesis tools are used strategically and offer Sekiro an additional level of tactics and customization of the character build.
NINJA THEORY
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
Because if the game of From Software does not offer a system of equipment linked to statistics, it compensates for this absence by the introduction of several skill trees where to invest the experience acquired by the sweat of our duels. The first tree concerns the wolf katana combat part and unlocks certain new techniques called combat arts to be equipped in the space provided for this purpose (only one technique can be active at the same time). The second branch covers the prosthesis part and offers a series of improvements and new advanced techniques which are very useful in the field. Passive bonuses are also in the game and gradually improve the offensive and defensive potential of our shinobi. By exploring the world and its secrets where after the defeat of some bosses, the player will discover scrolls of techniques related to other schools of martial arts.
The title thus has a satisfactory diversity of approach in the available builds, even if it is not possible to transform Sekiro into something other than a saber handler, we are not in a Souls remember. Another branch concerns prosthetic tools and requires investing both minerals to be found in the different spoils of the world and the Senses, the currency of the game that most enemies release when they die.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
The acquisition of skill points remains linked to a game mechanic with the potential for real frustration for some players. Each enemy killed advances an experience bar which, when completed, grants a skill point and takes us to the next level. The ideal scenario therefore involves killing enough opponents to accumulate points and then going to spend them on a skill tree where advanced techniques cost between three and six points.
Six skill points, this means that it is necessary to take six levels in a row during a game phase. Except that each of our deaths in Sekiro makes us lose 50% of the experience and money accumulated. The player will therefore regularly lose a good part of his progress without the possibility of recovering it. However, the situations where the challenge becomes drastically more difficult are legion in Sekiro, boss, sub-boss, ultra tough tough trash mobs, death is an integral part of our trip. We then feel almost obliged to use the good old technique of repeated farm mobs in certain areas to accumulate points with a minimum of security.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of the Souls
We then return to the idol of the sculptor to repop all these pretty people, repeat the operation and to you the assured experience points. This loss mechanism is an ingredient in the balance between challenge and satisfaction, a pillar of game design in From Software productions. It was not uncommon to farm in Souls to accumulate souls and level up, it is the same in Sekiro with the difference that the high challenge of the title will force you much more to do it.
A mechanism called "Divine Protection" nevertheless sometimes comes to avoid any loss in the event of death. It is linked to the overall performance of the player and his chances of appearance are indicated in the menu of sculptor idols. The less you die in battle, the more this percentage will increase; the reverse is just as valid…
Certain items recovered after the death of the game's bosses and sub-bosses also increase our attack and survival potential. Collecting four rosary beads, for example, increases our life and posture gauge, while memories of combat increase attack power by one level. It is therefore necessary to go to rub the highest challenges of the game to really progress, often in pain and at the cost of dozens of deaths on certain opponents who will undoubtedly give you a hard time.
DEATH GOES YOU SO GOOD
As its subtitle suggests, the shadows die twice in Sekiro. From Software wishes to make it clear to players that they risk dying regularly during the game, but that they will be able to get up. Coming from the line of the Dragon, our character has the amazing ability to rise from the dead in order to resume combat. A "continuous" output with two charges, the first of which is automatically reconstituted each time the idols are rested and the second is gradually regenerated when you kill enemies. Does this tolerance for death make Sekiro Shadows Die Twice simpler than these predecessors? The answer will depend on your ease in combat and your good understanding of the game mechanics. For our part, we consider the overall challenge of this Sekiro more full-bodied than that of the Souls. More technical in his approach, he is much more uncompromising at the slightest error; each enemy a minimum advanced will have no trouble putting you down in one or two attacks.
This resurrection advantage must therefore be seen as an additional tool in the panoply of actions of the Wolf. Faced with basic enemies, it offers the opportunity to stand up discreetly behind their backs in order to strike them with a deadly attack. Great you will say to me, here is a good technique to eliminate a boss. Nay unfortunate shinobi dust eater, From Software has everything planned since the bosses never lose sight of you when you are on the ground. We get up and better resume the fight in progress with a health bar filled only to half of its maximum. Coming back from the dead does not cause loss of experience points, only death, the real one, the one that makes us reappear at the last checkpoint induces this loss.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, the Soul of SoulsSekiro: Shadows Die Twice - The Spirit of Tenchu, The Soul of Souls
One would then think that the fear of death hovers less over Sekiro than over other From Software productions. It would be forgetting a little surprise prepared by the Japanese studio: the Plague of the Dragon (well! Whenever you die during your adventure, this mysterious evil will have a chance to affect the friendly NPCs you have encountered so far. Taken from a violent cough, curled up on themselves, they will find it increasingly difficult to communicate with the player, thus depriving him of certain interactions necessary for the completion of the additional missions of Sekiro. The plague also considerably reduces the chances of triggering the divine blessing. A sword of Damocles so hovers over the player's head at all times; the more he will die, the more his progress will be hampered. Fortunately, there is a way in the game to counter the effects of this ailment, a method of which we leave you surprised by the discovery in order to avoid spoil.
If the ability to be able to rise from the dead to resume the fight could mislead some about the accessibility of Sekiro, the game of the Japanese studio is not long in revealing its true nature of pure game from DNA From Software. Technical, demanding, often uncompromising in the face of error, it is nonetheless always as rewarding after the slightest success. With a dynamism exacerbated by the arrival of combat mechanics designed to give us the feeling of controlling a shinobi, Sekiro draws as much from Tenchu for a correct but flawless infiltration part, as from Souls for his memorable confrontations. The blades of the katanas collide with a mad class, while the player progresses in blood in the face of an increasingly full-bodied challenge; a road sometimes frustrating in some aspects, but where each small step does so much good for our player ego. An experience which, if it might discourage some, remains highly recommendable. In short, as the slogan of its big brothers would put it so well: Prepare to die…
0 comments:
Post a Comment