Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice – Review, Specs, Requirements, Wiki, GamePlay

About Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice

Game of the Year – The Game Awards 2019
Game of the Year 2019 – GameSpot
Best Action Game of 2019 – IGN
Over 50 awards and nominations

Carve your own clever path to vengeance in the critically acclaimed adventure from developer FromSoftware, creators of Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series.

In Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice you are the “one-armed wolf”, a disgraced and disfigured warrior rescued from the brink of death. Bound to protect a young lord who is the descendant of an ancient bloodline, you become the target of many vicious enemies, including the dangerous Ashina clan. When the young lord is captured, nothing will stop you on a perilous quest to regain your honor, not even death itself.

Explore late 1500s Sengoku Japan, a brutal period of constant life and death conflict, as you come face to face with larger than life foes in a dark and twisted world. Unleash an arsenal of deadly prosthetic tools and powerful ninja abilities while you blend stealth, vertical traversal, and visceral head to head combat in a bloody confrontation.

Take Revenge. Restore your honor. Kill Ingeniously.

Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice – Trailer

Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice -SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 8 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 | AMD FX-6300
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 | AMD Radeon HD 7950
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 25 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 Compatible

Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 8 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K | AMD Ryzen 5 1400
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 570
DirectX: Version 11
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 25 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 11 Compatible

Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice – Game Play

Sekiro:Shadows Die Twice-Review

Sekiro is by all means deserving of the Game of the Year title. The exploration, storytelling and visuals are on par with, and at times even surpass From Software’s older games, however the combat itself has been overhauled massively which makes Sekiro their best game to date.

It is the combat which Sekire: Shadows Die Twice above the rest, having great depth while remaining very simple. The bold decision to remove build variety allowed the developers to fine-tune every enemy in the game around the player’s move set. The player and enemies have health bars and posture-meters. If one’s health reaches zero they die, in the case of opponents, depleting their posture allows for an instant-kill, while the player is stunned and made vulnerable for a couple of seconds. Posture recovers over time but does so slower and slower as one’s health decreases, meaning that while an expert player can relentlessly attack the enemy to make quick work of them, one who is less confident in their skill can first decrease their healthcare to win in a more drawn-out fight, rewarding people for their skill while keeping the game fair for those with limited determination. The player can block attacks which prevent damage but raise one’s posture meter, however, timing a block just right will mean that the attack is instead deflected, resulting in far lower posture damage, deflected attacks also do not break posture, which in practice means that as long as one plays perfectly, their posture will never break. The player has two simple attacks, one to counter enemies with (heavy) and one to apply pressure with (light). Some attacks need to be evaded or countered, both of which deal extra posture damage, meaning that the player can keep on the pressure at all times. The player is also rewarded for dodging into the most perilous of enemy attacks with a window of opportunity, meaning that the right answer is never to back away or keep up the distance between you and the opponent, but to stick close, attack, counter, deflect and evade relentlessly. This system seems a tad daunting at first, compared to the simple „roll = iFrames, attack = deal damage” of older games, but once mastered, the combat feels dynamic and is stimulating beyond belief, making the player feel like they are always one step ahead of the enemy.

The game has many strong suits, characters’ questlines are much easier to follow now, the player has a lot of mobility which makes traversing maps infinitely more fun than in older games. The worldbuilding suffers a bit, with certain parts locked behind the completion of other events. Overall, the game brings the standard of the studio, however there are some failed mechanics as well. The two offenders being Prosthetic tools and Combat Arts, the special abilities of the game. Prosthetic tools give the player the ability to deal extra damage, stun or confuse enemies, sometimes dealing additional posture or vitality damage, however most of them are sub-par when compared to the simple spamming of light attacks, making them useless, others have gimmicks which are useless outside of very specific situations. This could have been improved by simply adding more of these situations into the game, for example there are 4 axe tools which are used to break shields, and yet the game barely has any enemies with shields, to the point where the axe becomes useless. The bigger issue however is that there are many tools which are effective, but their effect is nothing more than a stun, meaning that every time you use them, you get a couple free hits in, essentially making the fight shorter, which is no fun at all. The only tool which is of actual use to the player is the shuriken, since it gives the player the ability to knock down enemies mid-air, interrupt their moves and to close great distances with a follow-up slash ability, meaning that out of the 30 prosthetic tools in the game only the 3 shuriken variants are viable in most fights. The other issue is with combat arts, they are moves done with the sword, there are 17 of them, and yet they are almost all useless. They either deal damage, posture damage or close/create distance between you and the opponent. The main problem is that enemies simply block your attacks, which makes Combat Arts very unsatisfying to use, since spamming light attacks and countering what the enemy throws at you will always be more efective, the usable category of the Combat Arts fall into the same trap as some of the prosthetics, where they will deal a certain amount of damage to the opponent, simply making the fight shorter, at least these look cool but since you can only use them in very specific windows of opportunity to counter the enemy, they really don’t add variety to the combat itself. Combat Arts which close the distance between you and your opponent are a strict downgrade from the shurikens, which close distance very quickly and do not leave you vulnerable to enemy attacks.

To conclude, the Sekir: Shadows Die Twice misses some core mechanics, but the swordplay alone is so much fun to master that it leaves any other melee-oriented game in the dirt, without a doubt the best game I have ever played, so much so that when returning to other games I can’t help but feel like their combat is shallow. No multiplayer is a bummer but looking at how the game functions, it is plain to see that implementing it would have been a mistake if the lack of PvP and Co-op is what deters you, however, then you’ve got some mods to help you with that. On all other fields, the game brings the expected AAA+ quality, with the combat catering to the more dedicated player base, a Hard Mode that can be toggled on at the start of every playthrough as the cherry on top! I got the game as a gift but even at full price, this game is a steal! 10/10

**Review as seen on Steam