Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Contributor: Burntoutpixie

So you like Dark Souls, maybe even love Dark Souls. You’ve played through the trilogy a few times now, and have gotten pretty good at the game. You know how to parry (sometimes), how to dodge, and how to save enough stamina for that final attack to kill the boss. You’re ready for a new From Software experience and decide to pick up Sekiro because Ninja Souls sounds like fun. After a few, or many, deaths and a couple of bosses, you realize one thing: Sekiro is not Dark Souls.

Sekiro is Not Dark Souls

Most Sekiro challenge runners will tell new players that Sekiro is not Dark Souls. While it sounds obvious and a bit condescending on the surface, this advice is meant to change the way the player approaches the game. Sekiro is an action-adventure game and not an action-RPG. There are no builds in Sekiro, and there is no weapon variety. Though there is leveling and consumable items that can be used to vary the gameplay.

The other major difference from Souls is how the combat is handled. The Dark Souls trilogy encourages slow, methodical gameplay. You need to manage stamina and look for openings to attack. Sekiro has no stamina mechanics and encourages upfront, aggressive gameplay. In Sekiro, you have to make your openings and push the enemies back with sheer force.

Health Mechanics in Sekiro

Wolf, the main character in Sekiro, has two types of health bars. One bar is the standard health bar, if you get hit by an enemy, the health bar reduces. The secondary bar is a posture bar. The posture bar is a meter that slowly builds as you block attacks. When the posture bar reaches full, Wolf is put into a prone position for a few seconds leaving him open to perilous attacks. The lower Wolf’s health is, the faster his posture bar will fill up.

All enemies and bosses also have health and posture bars. Some bosses will block most attacks, which means their posture bar fills up. When an enemy’s posture bar fill out, the enemy can be killed. Similarly, the lower an enemy’s health bar is, the faster their posture will fill up. These mechanics are important for understanding how blocking and parrying work in Sekiro.

Parrying and Blocking

Sekiro has, arguably, the simplest combat controls. L1 will block/parry and R1 will attack. As you fight, you will trade blows with enemies and will either block/parry or attack.

When you hold L1, you will block an attack, similarly tapping L1 will block an attack or parry an attack. To parry an attack, you will need to tap L1 right before the enemy’s attack lands. When you parry, you will see sparks come off the clashed swords and you’ll also hear a louder clang. There are a few reasons to work on parrying and mostly perfecting the art.

Perfect Parrying an attack will not build your posture bar, and will double the posture damage on the enemy. If you’re posture bar is full, a perfect parry will keep it from breaking as well.

Being intentional about parrying will make parrying easier. Spamming L1 will decrease the parry window. E.G., If you start with a 2 sec window, each time you spam L1 and miss the parry, then the window decreases by 0.3 sec. While this doesn’t seem like a huge punishment, the window can quickly shrink and make it nearly impossible to get a perfect parry.

This is how the combat was meant to be played. Wolf will recover faster after a heavy attack if it was blocked with a perfect parry. The combat becomes exceptionally smooth.

A final note on blocking, if you are idling during a fight, holding block will decrease your posture bar. This is helpful for bosses that do a large amount of posture damage with a single hit, or if your health is really low and your posture is building up faster.

Dodging

Sekiro dodging as told by Souls Veterans:

“Dodging is basically worthless for many situations. I’d gotten so used to later From games that had become mainly ‘press the dodge button at the right time’ that I assumed Sekiro would be more of the same.”

“Completely contrary to [the previous] statement: I wish I’d known how good dodging was. The more I’ve played Sekiro the more I’ve realized how good dodge strats have been for vitality and just swag kills in general. Feels good dancing around bosses and not waiting for them to attack.”

Every attack in the game, with the exception of perilous grab attacks, is blockable or parryable. Dodging is still a viable strategy for many fights, and depending on your play style you may find dodging more viable than parrying.

Prosthetics and Combat Arts

Prostethics and Combat Arts replace the build type variety of Souls games. While they aren’t a direct replacement, they can be used in many different ways. There is a prosthetic and combat art for every situation. Some can be used to deal extra damage to bosses, some can stunlock bosses, others are just plain fun. Spirit emblems, used for prosthetics and some combat arts, are easy enough to pick up throughout the game or to buy. Don’t be afraid to get creative and try them out on different bosses.