Sekiro: First Impressions

Whilst all the buzz recently has been about another FromSoftware game – Elden Ring – I was actually more interested in playing Sekiro. It looked like a more significant departure from the ‘Souls’ formula. I don’t want to judge Elden Ring prematurely given I’ve not played it yet, but everything I’ve seen of it makes it appear to play like Dark Souls . . . but bigger.

Sekiro, on the other hand, appeared to be play quite differently, with gameplay focused more around stealth, and combat requiring a more aggressive approach. I’ve now played Sekiro for about 10 hours, so I thought I’d share my initial impressions of the game and what I hope for going forward.

I found the opening few hours of Sekiro to be pretty damn punishing. You begin the game with very little health and few combat options. It was, at least to me, a pretty nasty difficulty spike to get over. The combat just wasn’t quite ‘clicking’ for me. I felt frustrated. I turned the game off more than once because I was annoyed about what I felt was an unfair death.

But . . . I kept going back to it. I just had to grind my way through it and, once I’d cleared those first few areas, upgraded my health and gained some new combat tools, that’s when I really started to enjoy it. The combat finally ‘clicked’. I now had more options in combat. More tools at my disposal to approach encounters in different ways.

The first few hours of Sekiro were rough, at least for me. I’ve seen some people say the early stuff is the easiest, but I’ve actually been progressing more rapidly and easily since getting over that initial spike. I think part of the problem was how I was approaching the combat. I was trying to play it more like Dark Souls – standing off, dodging attacks, and then racing forward to strike.

But Sekiro isn’t Dark Souls and trying to play it that way is actually pretty detrimental to your success. Sekiro is a game where stealth is key. Every enemy I’ve encountered (so far) that isn’t a boss character can be one-shot with a stealth kill. So although you can try to fight each enemy in turn, it’s often easier and more efficient to stealth kill your way through an area. And stealth can also be used to great effect against certain boss characters who have multiple ‘lives’ in a fight, and an initial stealth attack will reduce this by one automatically.

And then we have the combat outside of stealth where it’s often more advantageous to remain close to your opponent, to use blocks and deflects, ready for a counter. Sekiro is a game that rewards aggressive play – it’s you who needs to be putting the enemy under pressure, not the other way around. Health isn’t nearly as important as posture and now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, I’m tearing through enemies that previously gave me trouble in seconds.

There is one big issue I have with the combat though and that issue is the camera and the lock-on system. There have been some pretty frustrating moments when, because I got too close to a wall during a fight, the camera shifts to compensate and I lose my lock on the enemy. This often results in me scrambling to readjust my view so I can reacquire my lock, and I’ve taken some nasty hits I couldn’t see coming as a result. It’s not happened often enough that it’s a major issue, but it’s happened enough that I need to mention it and I hope it doesn’t keep happening as I progress through the game.

I can’t say too much about the story at the moment, but I can’t say I’ve found it all that interesting. What’s really keeping me engaged is the exploration – finding hidden paths, optional bosses and entirely new areas. And I guess that’s what I want going forward. More cool locations, more cool enemies, and more unique boss fights.

Despite that frustrating beginning I really like what I’ve experienced so far of Sekiro and I hope it can continue to surprise, challenge and engage me going forward.