Started playing it today. For two minutes I couldn't get a handle on how the parrying worked. The timing seemed razor thin. I kept hitting R1 over and over, but no parry went off. What the hell? How hard is this game? Then I calmed down, reread the instructions and realized I was supposed to hit L1. Whew!

Ran around the first little area, and encountered the first sub-boss, that requires two deathblows to kill. The game told me that I needed to either dodge, jump, parry, duck or dodge. If you can dodge a sword you can dodge a ball! I failed to get the concept. Went back to train with Mr. pleasestabmealot! and finally memorized it. Went back, jumped on his head to break posture and won easily.

Wandered around fighting enemies for practice. Kept using revive until the statue guy got sick. I hope all my dying and reviving doesn't seriously screw me over. Oh well, the first few hours are just for practice anyway.

So far I really, really like the parrying system. In Dark Souls mistiming a parry would make you vulnerable for a large window. In Sekiro you can just go right back to blocking almost instantly. Posture system feels awesome. Feels like you can kill pretty much anyone in five seconds flat if you are good enough.

Stealth works fine, but I like killing people the old fashioned way for good Sword practice.

Edit: Also the framerate just felt off. Normally 30 fps looks fine to me, but something about this at 45 fps just looks wrong. Maybe the framerate is varied back and forth?

Yeah, I really enjoy the game and I have taken my time not trying to kill every miniboss or boss right away.  I have grinded for points and played around with the different skills to see how effective they are.  Each boss who is weak to something I made sure to be prepared which allowed me to enter those fights without to much dying. 

I would definitely say this is not a souls or even boodborne type game.  Though there are mechanics from those games the way the main game plays is totally different.  For people who thought souls were to plotting and slow, This game is the answer.  I find aggression is the key to this game and keeping pressure is rewarded then pulling back.  

If that's supposed to be offensive, I am gay. I would love to be the Gay of the Year. Please, vote for me.

OMG the Game is hard, well, mostly because I'm not an expert and veteran of the genre. I need more practise, but loving it. Genichiro was hard, I'm exhausted :D

And the are other 10 Bosses to beat ??!!

Glad to see this thread maintaining traction, and a few more people picking up the game. I managed to beat the Old Monk second try (almost first try but I wasn't prepared for a boss fight to start and even though I tried warping back to the shrine, the animation takes so long I ended up being forced to fight).

That unlocked me a new mechanic for exploration. I remembered a few places where this could be used, and traveled around collecting some items, but there are most certainly areas I just don't remember. The one I remembered most led to my third Headless boss. I was completely out of confetti for this one, but I think my stats were upgraded enough to where it wasn't too difficult with just the terror-removing item.

Now I've got 16 vitality and 8 attack power, and 9 healing sips. I also found two more prayer beads (one in a super clever location that seemed to require me to jump out of the water to get enough height to grapple into a building).

I really want to play more today, but I'm trying to limit myself to a couple hours per day so I don't finish it too quickly. We'll see how that holds up.

As for GotY? For me, this and RE2 remake are fine contenders. I played through RE2 remake three times, but it is a shorter game. Maybe once I finish this game I'll be able to make a decision.

Either this game is really long or there are a ton of bosses near the end of the game. Assuming Genichiro was your third, are there 13 then? I have fought seven bosses that have awarded memories, which seem to coincide with the achievements, and if I'm really only at the halfway mark then I am thoroughly impressed with the length of this game.

In truth, there's really only like 8 actual unique boss fights in the game. There's a few which are more gimmicky than real fights, and then there's some which are variations/tweaks of previous fights.

Yes, but most of the skills you can get aren't exactly going to make or break your experience with the game. There's a few which are quite nice to have, but for the most part they're just there for flavor, and there's also quite a lot which are just bloat if you ask me.

Ya, Floating Passage is pretty nice. Fast attack, respectable damage, and no spirit emblem cost. Search for the merchant once you gain access to the memory area.

Not really worth it, you're better off focusing on the latent skills. The early skill with the two swipes is better(forgot the name) as those five hits from the floating passage will most likely just get blocked or parried.