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[nenjin]

So this is out!

Really enjoying it so far. My first hot take is that it's a massively upgraded Tenchu infused with Dark Souls design principles.

It's Tenchu in that you have a lot of different tools at your disposal, and levels are fairly open and allow you to, if you're patient enough, stealth kill most enemies rather than fight them outright. You can usually run and hide and come back if things aren't going your way too. The combat vaguely reminds me of it, but dosed with a fair amount of Dark Souls-esqe timing and emphasis on dodging and blocking.

So far it's giving me that "if you die it's your fault" vibe, sorta like Dark Souls except with even fewer excuses for being dead because you're so much more mobile than your opponents. Fights seem easy and sometimes are, against the little guys. Smack, smack, smack, their posture breaks, sync kill. But then you'll not have the initiative or get stuck on terrain or be fighting in a suboptimal place and get wrekt all of the sudden. Multiple enemies at once is very spicy, archers are the fucking devil and there feels like a lot of potential depth to how good you could get at the game, when you combine all the combat techniques like deflects and counters, all the various tools, all the unlockable skills....like I said, Tenchu with a massive RPG and combat upgrade.

Levels are organized in a souls-style way. Hub, bonfires, enemies respawning, large in size, lots of exploration, weird NPCs doing saying weird things and giving you stuff.

The game feels tougher in some ways than Dark Souls, I think. It's possible to aggro a whole shit load of guys at once, and a single guy can take a fair amount of individual attention to kill since the will block you more often than not. So you often have too much to deal with when 4 guys are overlapping their attacks and rushing you constantly. I've died a lot so far getting in too deep with too many opponents and it was all la di da until:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I GAVE EVERYONE THE CANCER.

So I'm trying to play more carefully now, take my time, retreat and even bonfire if I need to.

I'm enjoying all the variety of enemies so far, including classic staples like "Packs of Dogs" and "Guy with Torch." The first samurai mini-boss was a lot of fun to fight.

Not sure I'm completely sold on combat atm. There's...a lot going on. And they have special counter moves to do against unblockable sweep and thrust attacks. Which basically asks you to do several kinds of predictive parries versus Dark Souls essentially one. Not sure how much I'm going to make use of that. Unless the same guy has really been kicking the shit out of you, I don't know how you're supposed to really learn and study their moves. The telegraph between an unblockable thrust or sweep seems difficult to tell, because you both have to do that, then get the timing on the parry as well.

The story is....japanese. Ninjas, samurai, lords, ladies, spoopy stuff, dragon stuff. Just sort of taking it in atm. In some ways the story and dialog is very blunt and straightforward for From, in others it feels like it's trying to be just as obscure or obtuse as Dark Souls often was. Seems like Activision was like "Please have characters properly explain core mechanics through the story." And yet there's still plenty deliberately obtuse stuff like Buff Icons without any explanation what they mean.

Anyways, it's definitely got the From Software stuff going on, and it's good.

[Egan_BW]

Died more than twice 0/10 false advertising.

Combat is a bit odd, still have to get used to it.

[nenjin]

First actual boss confirmed to be a pain in my ass. Finally got him by exercising maximum "don't be greedy."

[Egan_BW]

Still haven't fought any of those. Chained Ogre is already a pain.

[nenjin]

I figured that was the first boss, although the level goes on.

(Also is it just me or does it seem like a tongue in cheek "barbarian" reference. Guy his huge and blond and bearded.)

[JimboM12]

I figured that was the first boss, although the level goes on.

(Also is it just me or does it seem like a tongue in cheek "barbarian" reference. Guy his huge and blond and bearded.)

ah, conan the ronin. played by arnold sakamoto.

[MCreeper]

Quick question - any profit in finishing off random mooks with "critical hit" except being, as usual, invincible trough the whole thing? Gets rather annoying fast, especially considering that there is only one animation.   
Second one - is there only one sword available, or there will be more at some point? Diidn't follow the game very closely.

[Egan_BW]

Also you can buy a skill to restore a little health each time you perform a deathblow. It's awesome.

[nenjin]

Been through at least two bosses now. (You may substitute "Heir of Fire Destroyed" or w/e with "Shinobi Execution Performed.")

Man I'm enjoying these fights. Lady Butterfly was like....how the fuck am I going to beat this? Then I killed her after only 5 tries. Each boss has its only little logic revolving around Posture. If you don't leverage posture damage, they'll probably just kill you through attrition eventually. So while it seems counter intuitive to try to deflect big attacks, or continue to attack them even though they're blocking, it's what you gotta do to wear down that posture.

Except, of course, when that's not true at all. Even the mini-bosses in this game require some thought and attention to detail. The dude in the purple robe fucked my shit up six ways from Sunday until I realized I just had to hit him ONCE after dodging an attack, then GTFO, and rinse and repeat. No amount of deflecting or attacking his blocks would wear down his posture. Maybe there was something else with him I missed.

Most "tough guys" seem to follow the pattern of "you can hit me once or twice and then I will either start blocking, or attack through your attacks with something that will ruin you." If they start blocking, keep attacking, keep wearing down that posture if it CAN be worn down by normal means, then get ready to move because the counter attack is coming. So you can play really really carefully and get your one guaranteed damaging hit in and evade, or keep pressuring them and hoping you can read/get out of the way of the next attack. Playing extra careful takes longer, but it's safer....as long as you can keep avoiding the damage. But keeping the pressure on them can speed up fights a lot. It's how I eventually beat Lady Butterfly, because just being cautious and taking my one free hit was eventually losing me the fight. Keeping the pressure on her let me break down her posture faster and get that sweet death blow in.

Also when your grappling hook comes up during a boss fight, it seems like a really good idea to do it. On Gyuro it interrupted most of his attacks and let me get in tons of free damage.

Really impressed with the variety of enemies and AI behind them. Regular guys can be savage, and the archers especially are fucking snipers that will punish every wrong move you make. They're even good about timing their attacks when they know you're coming around a corner. I like how bosses have a variety to them too.

Lastly, this does feel like a really great samurai/ronin/ninja movie. All the bosses and important bad guys are larger than life characters, like the big drunken swordsmen. While I'm not necessarily super hot on the story, I love how the world is being delivered. I thought I'd be kinda bummed to not be fighting undead and demons all day, but these ghastly looking human guys and the mega bosses and stuff are simply great. Leaving the language on Japanese has just made it that much better.

[nenjin]

When they ask me why the whole world has cancer, I will have only one thing to say.

Snake Eyes Shirafuji.

You made me do this From Soft.

Snake Eyes Shirafuji is cancer.

I think this is where the actual game starts.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Holy shit, this bitch. Has a quick, unblockable move that will take 80% of your health and there are exactly two ways to deal with it: deflection or jumping backwards or to the side. Nothing else seems to avoid it that I have unlocked. She has so many quick follow up FU attacks that easily do anywhere from 40 to 50% of your health, and they're all ranged. It took me probably 30 deaths to realize that jumping out of the way of her attacks had a way higher rate of success than dodging, by far. It took me another 30 deaths to realize that I could block some but not all of her ranged shots. If I had posture left. After blocking 3 other attacks prior to the follow up FU shot.

I think I died at least 100 times. This has by far been the hardest fight, and they knew it. The arena is tiny. There are snipers all around. There are cliff ledges all around. This fight really tests whether or not you can keep up with a constant stream of attacks, and the range of viable response to them is very tight, as is the timing. It also teaches spacing, because bad spacing in this fight gets you dead, quickly. Every attack has to be on the mark. Every dodge has to be on the mark, in the right direction, for pretty much every one of her attacks bar her regular swings. Her uber attack caught me dozens and dozens of times mid-move and just wiped me out, to the point I had to basically wait for every response she made to see if was coming, jump back, and charged thrust strike her. She's one of those fights you have to really keep the pressure on her to neutralize her ranged attacks, but then baits you into a move that's hard to dodge and is guaranteed taking a flask or killing you. So you pretty much have to learn every move.

If this is the caliber of fucking MINI-BOSSES going forward.....this game to me is officially harder than Dark Souls.

This fight has also taught me why the charged R1 thrust attack is da best. It closes the gap between you and the opponent, does pretty significant damage for a single strike, and only rarely gets deflected since most? enemies can't block it. It was the mainstay of my damage in the fight.

Also.....I'm kinda torn on the Prosthetic. In general it's cool, but when it comes to mashing your face against a tough boss fight, you end up using a shitload of resources. It kinda reminds of Dark Souls where I'd save my humanity/embers until I knew fights before I'd pop them and make a "real go of it." Here it's like that, only even more so. I could spam half of my tools to maybe make fights easier, but I'd end up running out of pretty much everything quickly since I'd be dying and have no money and need to go farm cash just to buy more ammunition. Not to mention all the buff food that isn't exactly plentiful. Part of me wishes they'd just give you a set amount every time you spawn, instead of having this stockpile you have to constantly be refilling, just to use half of your friggin abilities. It's no big deal as you're making your way through levels, but you can easily burn through a sizeable stockpile of ammo during a tough boss fight.

[MCreeper]

Dont read spoilery stuff, don't read spoilery stuff, it's the first fromsoft game i'm playing without reading trough the wiki three times over.
Yeah, japanese language is a big bonus. Always sounds so funny for me.

[MCreeper]

Somewhat spoilery question.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In Hirata Estate i accidentally dropped myself off the bridge and into the river before shinobi hunter, and found secret way to burning estate idol and Dzudzo the drunkard boss fight. Later, i defeated shinobi hunter, and wounded Owl in dead end behind him told me to go trough the cliffs and cemetery. But i did not see any cemetery! So, question is, is the way i gone was the "proper" one, or i actually missed the one i was supposed to go by?

[nenjin]

Yeah there is a main route you could have taken. You may have missed a thing or two. FWIW, I've been constantly going back to previous levels and finding routes and areas I missed the first time.

[nenjin]

I realize that now. Still, having beaten Genichiro, I still think Shirafuji is a much tougher fight.

[Cthulhu]

I beat genichiro on my first try.  Snake eyes shirafuji was hard but i got the hang of it eventually and beat shirahagi handily.  You want to stand a ways back, never hit more than once or twice from neutral, and watch for the grab and shoot animations, thats where you can do damage.  By half health or so her posture starts going up fast and you can get closer and deflect for the kill.

My favorite boss is

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

guardian ape.  Feels unique with his fast wild movement and the animations for both phases are great, the real natural movements of the first phase and the unsettling sinuous sliding around of headless.

Also protip get any posture related skills you can find, ashina text has several.  A lot of bosses are trivial with posture skills and maybe gokan sugar.  I heard a lot of complaining about centipede giraffe but he was ez, and so was o'rin once i got a feel for her