That's not exactly true, both for if you're talking about progress as in experience, and if you're talking about progress as land covered.

In Souls games Souls are both currency AND progression since they help you level up. 

In Sekiro the death system makes you automatically lose half of your experience and money earned. 

It's also really misleading to say that this game has a more forgiving checkpoint system than Devil May Cry 5. The way Sekiro works, checkpoints are a vital part of the game. The way checkpoints work in DMC5, they are almost a non-entity and they're really only used for no-damage runs or when you fuck up really bad, in which case the user always has to instigate the use of a checkpoint. In other words you may lose more land covered in DMC5 using a single checkpoint compared to a single checkpoint in Sekiro, but no one uses the checkpoint system anyways because that's the point of having endless revives, whereas you'll be forced many times to restart at checkpoints in Sekiro upon your 2nd death in a row. You'll end up spending way more time recovering land in Sekiro. You could argue that the revive system in DMC5 punishes you more because you have to use red orbs or a gold orb, but not really because you have plenty of those and in DMC5 you'll die like 4 times on normal mode. Whereas in Sekiro you will continously lose EXP and Currency (you can also revive with full health in DMC5 unlike in Sekiro thus far at least). 

I would personally say that this is the kind of game where you will be replaying parts of it over and over again - even in just the first few hours. I wouldn't recommend it if you don't like games like that or don't have the time. It's just not for everyone as Runa said.

Yeah I agree that this game is the only real GotY contender. Nintendo has some good games coming out this year, but none of them scream GotY yet. MS is down and out. MK11 would be good, if it wasn't for all the content carving. Biomutant looks promising, but its a new IP, so flip a coin on whether or not it will be good. Outer Worlds is supposed to be fairly linear, so a bit of a step back from New Vegas, and Fallout 3. 

P.S. That White Ape boss is Wyald from Berserk. You have been warned!

Bought a new gaming laptop recently lol RTX2070 or some crap in it.

Note: I wrapped my post in a spoiler tag, but I only really mention names of bosses, tools, and locations.

Damn, I feel like I've been playing this non-stop and yet so many people are farther than me. I guess that's why this is a gaming forum.

I haven't fought anymore major bosses yet I don't think (still just fought three), but I progressed fairly far through several areas.

Also, I keep getting that droning noise stuck in my head that plays as ambience in a few areas.

I go by my own rule as it seems to work for some/a lot of the bosses, mini-bosses included, always bring your firecracker prosthetic, luckily it worked on him, then as usual, deflect most if not all of the attacks until I posture break the boss, good thing this boss fight is quite easy as he only has 1 life pool compared to the Great Ape, only took this guy down on my 2nd try.

And of course, there is an even easier way to take this boss down, and it's with the

lol, well there will probably be some other boss that ends up being the bane of my existence which everyone else finds trivial. :P

It might be due to the number of upgrades I'd acquired at that point. I know I had two damage upgrades (memories), and I think 6 healing waters. It only took a few attempts to get the first phase of the fight down, but I found it extremely difficult to recover and heal after he switches form. I'd start healing and he'd jump attack me before I could get the heal off, and I died several times because of this. 

How well do you feel you've been exploring? I've scoured every inch of every area and branching path, and the exploration in most cases is rewarded very well. Also, I progress through the areas in the order the game presents them to me in the "Travel" menu. The exception is Hirata Estate, but I explored it anyways as when I prayed at that shrine and warped there, I was expecting it to be a short memory of some sort, but it just kept going.

There certainly aren't many games that grip me the way every single Souls game has done. I can't wait to see what they do next.

Souls games are partly inspired by berserk, read the manga and be captivated,shocked,thrilled,sad,happy,traumatized and after that you can join our hiatus family.

Please try it,its art is truly amazing and each page is a masterpiece.

Damn I can't wait to fight that thing. So cool. Damn FromSoftware hit the mark with this one. Miyazaki is a god.

What are the absolute must have skills to acquire in your opinion?