Sekiro: Shadow die twice, holds strong at 90 on Opencritic based on 111 reviewers. GotY?

[RaptorChrist]

I finally put my vote in the poll. I do think Sekiro is my current Game of the Year. I tend to be rather impulsive, so I tried to hold off a day or so after finishing the game. I still think it's close between Sekiro and RE2 remake.

Since Sekiro is very similar in many ways to the other Soulsborne games, I wanted to give my thoughts on a few things..

Sekiro is fantastic. It's been awhile since I've played a game that offers such an intense rush of happiness when overcoming an obstacle. The movement and traversal options are extremely satisfying, and it's going to be hard to go back to a Souls game without them. As a result, the level design was very open-ended and combat could be approached in many different ways.

Stealth is possibly the biggest change compared to a Souls game. Some areas were crowded with enemies, but sneaking up and backstabbing an enemy, disappearing in a cloud of fog, and then repeating made for some really awesome encounters.

I also really loved the amount of unique mid-bosses that were on offer, with each battle being a new game of chess in the form of dodge, jump, deflect, attack, counter. Skill trees were something fresh and new to the series, something I'd very much like to see again in the future.

The ambient music is still stuck in my head. I swear there is a permanent eastern-sounding humming/droning stuck in my head ever since I began playing this game.

I do think there are a few things that hold it back, however. It felt to be on the shorter side compared to the other Soulsborne games, with less unique boss fights, a lack of multiplayer, and some overall character progression changes which I would have preferred if left untouched. I miss being able to equip my character with various pieces of gear, even if just for aesthetic purposes.

The areas that we did get to explore were beautiful, but a large part of the game took place in similar-looking areas, and some areas were re-used multiple times. It almost felt as though this game was meant to be a streamlined, smaller-scoped, spin-off title (in a good way). Bloodborne simplified/streamlined the mechanics of the Souls series, and Sekiro simplified them even more. (I tried to choose my words carefully with the previous sentence, as I don't want to trig-, er, upset anyone. I'm not saying Bloodborne is better/worse than a Souls game, just that the game took a "less is more" approach.)

Back to Sekiro. By removing most of the stats from the game (further following the path they took for Bloodborne), increasing idol frequency, and making many aspects less punishing (idols near bosses, falling off a cliff is no longer insta-death, ability to resurrect, pause menu), it seems like they wanted this game to be more accessible. Some people prefer a stream-lined, less is more approach. In terms of difficulty, however, I think it stacks up very well with the other Soulsborne games in terms of difficulty. I think there were a few design decisions that led to the developers focusing more on boss difficulty and less on world difficulty. Very few deaths occurred to me while exploring the world; almost every single death I had was due to a boss or mid-boss.

To conclude, Sekiro is the most fun I've had yet playing a game in 2019, and I look forward to playing through some DLC if they decide to make any.

Please don't mistake my ability to critique a game as anything more than just that.