why i HATE Sekiro - Shadows Die Twice

Hello, welcome back to a new video game

review. So recently I've been playing

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. It's kind of

like a Japanese ninja samurai action game,

and as an avid fan of Japanese culture and

anime and pretty much all things Japan, I

thought I would absolutely love this.

Unfortunately, I really did not enjoy any

of this game. This has probably been one

of the most frustrating, annoying games I

have ever had the displeasure and

misfortune to have to— had to play. So

straight off the bat, as soon as you start

the game, it's already annoying because

even though I'm playing on PC, all of the

control layout seems to be on controller,

and it's telling you the button layouts

and buttons controls as if you were using

a controller. So it would say press A to

jump, press X to roll, press right trigger

to use item, when I don't have any of

these buttons, and I don't know what right

trigger is or X is or E is or A is because

I'm playing with a keyboard and mouse. So

I had to kind of guess what all of the

buttons had. It's just really lazy game

design because they don't even bother to

change the control scheme layout to the

keyboard and mouse even though it's

obvious I'm playing on a PC. And maybe you

would say you're supposed to play the game

using a controller. Well, I don't want to

use a controller, and if I don't have a

controller plugged in, it should recognize

that and then tell me which buttons I have

to press using a keyboard. So after

fumbling around for 15 minutes trying to

figure out the stupid controls, I finally

found out how to do basic attacks,

dodging, and stuff like that. And the

swordplay gameplay mechanics in the game

are just not very fun. It's very

unresponsive, very sluggish. Fighting the

enemies didn't really feel like an

enjoyable activity. So the main character

in the game, he moves very slowly and

unresponsively. Very annoying to jump and

grab onto edges, very annoying to try and

get a lock-on on the enemy, and very

unresponsive when you're doing blocking

and dodging and parrying. I mean, he's

supposed to be an agile ninja warrior and

he moves like a granny. I don't know why

he's so slow. And the whole sword

combat fighting system is very, very

basic. You don't really have combos or

special moves. You've got like a light

attack and then a heavy attack that you

charge up by holding down the mouse

button. And then you can parry and do a

counterattack, and you can also roll

around. And there's also kind of like a

stealth element. You can sneak around and

you can do a backstab which instantly

takes down an enemy. And this is all great

and good and everything, But the

frustrating thing to the combat is it only

takes a couple of strikes to take you

down. So you might get quite far in the

game and then you get taken down by a

couple unlucky hits that you were not able

to block or parry. And then you start all

the way back from where you came from.

The bosses in the game are also really

annoying. Basically, they've got this kind

of health bar, which is not really a

health bar. It's just the stamina bar and

you keep hitting them and eventually the

stamina bar goes up and when it's full,

then they can't block anymore, and then

they'll kind of collapse to the ground.

Then you can do a special move on them,

and usually you have to do this twice on

each boss. The problem is the bosses can

2-hit take you down most of the time. And

there's also platforming in the game. You

get this grappling hook and then you just

kind of swing around like you're

Spider-Man. And that's all there is to the

game really. You got a bit of platforming,

climbing up ledges, sneaking up buildings,

and then you've got very basic bare-bones

ninja samurai kind of sword fighting,

which I was not very impressed with. Now,

if I had to compliment the game, I do like

the atmosphere and the art style, and the

voice acting is very good. As someone who

knows Japanese and is fluent, I didn't

really have too much of a problem

understanding the Japanese without any

subtitles. It's just because the game's

set in the olden days and they do speak a

little bit differently back then in the

samurai times. But apart from, you know,

the weird old-fashioned way of speaking,

which was sometimes a little bit difficult

to understand, I reckon I could understand

about 80% of it, so thanks Sekiro for

making me feel confident in my Japanese

ability again. I do like the atmosphere of

the samurai times and how kind of

melancholic and brooding the backgrounds

and the music themes are, but apart from

that, I just really couldn't force myself

to play the game any longer. I just kept

dying and dying and dying, kept having to

be sent back to the starting zone, kept

having to do the same, same thing over and

over again, fighting the same enemies

until I get to the boss and then get 2-hit

killed again, and then to start all over

again. It was just really frustrating,

really annoying. I don't know why the main

character is such a weakling that it takes

only 2 hits or 3 hits to take him down

when it takes like 100 hits to take down

an enemy. If I had to recommend some

suggestions for the game to make it more

fun, I would recommend that the sword

hits— when they hit the enemy, it should

be able to decapitate limbs. I want to see

real-time physics in action like Chivalry.

If my sword hits their leg, I want to see

their bloody leg coming off. And I want to

be able to pick up their weapons. I want

to be able to pick up any kind of weapons

the enemy soldiers have, if it's a spear

or an axe. Why do they all have boring

samurai swords? Can they have something

else? So in conclusion, yeah, the game's

very disappointing. I would not recommend

buying this at full price or at any price.

Even if the game was free, I wouldn't play

it because it's just not really fun and

it's just annoying. But if you like being

stressed out all the time, you like being

annoyed and frustrated, then maybe you'll

love this game, but it's just not for for

me. So using my gaming scoring system, I

would have to give it a, hmm,

1.2 out of 10. And if you want an actually

good kind of ninja samurai game, I would

recommend Ninja Gaiden. That game was

snappy, fast, had loads of weapons, had

decapitation, had loads of cool combos,

and the controls weren't sluggish and

unresponsive. Ninja Gaiden blows Sekiro

out Out of the water.