I don't get it, I must have missed some integral mechanics in the game. I was doing fine on normal until that last area and everything just seemed to be blocked or reversed back on me. 

I don't like Strategy games that force you into one style of play, why not give a better heads up about what's coming like the spy NPCs would tell you very simply in the early game than having to load a save after bashing your head agianst the wall and attempt again. It's just bad design, there should be freedom in building like Xcom EU or Fire Emblem and partly Unicorn Overlord (thst game is squeezing freedom of building narrow the linger Play. I know they aren't the same genres but it's the same idea with building parties. 

Divinity OS will never be beaten for turn based combat, Baldurs Gate 3 doesn't even hit it that close to perfection from the ten hours I've played. 

I never give up, except when I do.

SMT has one of the most straightforward and cool battle systems. Not sure why you struggled.

I haven't tried SMT, just Metaphor. I struggled cause I tried to approach every fight with intent to win instead of learning what the dungeons mobs were up to and swapping out things accordingly, the info brokers were never accurate enough so I'd often have 1 or two party members who couldn't do shit for entire fights and I refused to restart big sections of the game. In hind sight I would have just looked up a guide and glanced at what optimal party with the best attacks to win at a dungeon. If I do play SMT V and get in that mood then I'll definitely do that, can't believe I didn't think of it until just now, I'd play that game for the vine and I hear it can be done in 60 hours easy which is near abouts the length I wish Metaphor was refined to. 

Never stop, never stopping ✋️ 

Octopath Traveler nearly broke me. That final boss with the boss rush that you can't save after. Added an hour to each attempt at the final boss...and that final boss was extremely difficult, where existing strategies stopped working for me.

So I did the only smart thing and used the mod that let me save after the boss rush. And then attempted the final boss another dozen times.

Oh yeah, I heard of that. I was 10 hours in and when I found out I quit. Idk what they were thinking with that practically making their game unbeatable for anyone who isn't hard-core at these games. 

It really is just, "when it isn't fun any more." I've got better uses for my time than repeatedly bashing my head against the same wall for hours on end.

I have no tolerance for getting stuck for very long. Soulslikes are not for me, too much repetition and frustration. I want to feel challenged with a boss so that if I don't know every detail and tactic, I can still maybe do it by the skin of my teeth after 10 tries or something. I don't want to have to do homework and spreadsheets for each boss or google the "right way" to do something. It should be moderately challenging, a little forgiving and fun.

Well it's not like that, you don't need to Google anything, in Sekiro you simply learn the timing and patterns and be prepared for any attack cause of RNG. There's nothing complex at all about beating a souls like boss and especially not in Sekiro like games, it's about as simple as gameplay can get, you parry and hit, hit and parry and watch your meter. It's a simple back and forth rythymm and finding that rythym while allowing muscle memory to do the weight of the work.