Starker on 4/6/2020 at 17:00
I think the first boss is, depending on which path you take at the beginning, either the spear guy on a horse or the old lady who dances like a butterfly and stings like a mother***ing murder hornet.
Sulphur on 4/6/2020 at 17:07
What's a swordleader? Ohhh, you mean the fight in the field where you get your ass handed to you no matter what you do. Yeah, don't try too hard there.
Okay, I looked him up. Sorry to burst your bubble, but he's the first miniboss, and as you can tell, not very memorable. The bosses aren't folks you'll forget in a hurry.
Also for the love of all that's holy, don't let Lady Butterfly be your first boss. I took her out eventually (wined her and dined her, hm-hmm!), but that required patience, fortitude, and experience earned by studying and thwacking enemies elsewhere. I'm not saying you can't, but I'm saying it's okay to step off and come back later.
WingedKagouti on 4/6/2020 at 17:09
From what I've seen of others playing Sekiro, there are multiple named characters that could be considered the first boss.
Starker on 4/6/2020 at 17:16
There are multiple named minibosses who don't respawn, but the big bosses are those who drop memories when you defeat them, IIRC.
WingedKagouti on 6/6/2020 at 18:12
So I finished Control after getting it in the EGS sale and have been going over my thoughts on it.
I like it as a whole, but there are some things that really needed more care and love. The lip syncing is atrocious and the voice acting made me turn of the volume for voices. The grinding for materials if you want to upgrade all weapons was tiresome, especially since the materials were also used to make random general & weapon mods as well as upgrade how good mods you could get in the crafting screen. Then there are the random timed alerts, which make enemies spawn in a random location you have already visited along with a timer, more or less telling you to drop whatever you actually want to do right now regardless of how important it is to the story.
Still, the bad points did not stop me from completing the game. The story had enough interesting twists and turns to keep me engaged, even if some of those twists are telegraphed in planet sized letters. I will admit that a specific twist in the final act of the game got me in exactly the way the writers hoped to. The gunplay isn't super amazing and the various weapon modes are fairly standard, but it's competent enough. But what really makes the game work is the setting and the various powers you unlock.
While Telekinesis is essentially a gravity gun replacement, the way it is incorporated into combat is neat (especially when upgraded). It is also used in many puzzles, though these puzzles universally boil down to "take this item and put it into this slot". I didn't use the Shield much, in part because you're not forced to get it and I got it fairly late, but also because it prevents you from attacking while active without certain upgrades. The Mind Control ability saw far more use, especially against flying enemies, despite also being an optional ability. And once I got Levitation it felt like I was flying almost as much as I was walking.
The setting with The Oldest House, The Board, The Hiss, the people working at the bureau, the various Objects of Power and so forth was interesting to explore. My personal favourite was an optional encounter with a mirror, having a suitably creepy atmosphere even after you realise what is going on (which should be relatively quickly). But just the overall expreience of seeing more and more of The Oldest House, exploring new corners in old locations as they unlock with your progress through the story. And most locations have several bits of story sprinkled around, some related to the reason you're at that location, others giving background information on the characters you encounter and yet others that help build the entire world.
Overall, a thumbs up.
twisty on 7/6/2020 at 01:02
Yeah, that's the guy -- Sword Leader, Shigenori Yamauchi -- the mini-boss you encounter after speaking to that girl in the Moonlit Tower. I've died several times against him and haven't gone back to playing it since, for the reasons I mentioned earlier. I'll pick it up again after I get through a few more other games I'm juggling at the moment.
EDIT:
Decided to have a quick go and beat him with only getting hit once. The break must have made the difference, as before I was trying to play it like Dark Souls.
Sulphur on 7/6/2020 at 05:43
Yeah, whatever you do, don't play it like Dark Souls. It's the complete antithesis of a shield-bearing Dark Souls playstyle. Go aggressive when you're not parrying/dodging the shit out of everything.
Thirith on 7/6/2020 at 07:40
Is it more like Bloodborne In that respect, or is that one different yet again?
Sulphur on 7/6/2020 at 08:02
It's definitely more like Bloodborne in that you need to be aggressive, but at the same time it's different because the parry mechanic is the thing to master here, and it's more intuitive because you parry just as a weapon is about to hit you, which by definition makes it faster-paced and more about rhythm. The game's designed to give you far more mobility and allow for some amount of stealth for the low-level mooks. You also have your own posture gauge to manage in place of stamina during battles, so it's an interesting change of pace while keeping to other Soulsborne mechanics. It's basically if Tenchu and Souls had a lovechild.
twisty on 7/6/2020 at 08:29
I did a complete playthrough of Bloodborne just before trying Sekiro. The parry timing appears to require more precision than the former, at least at the beginning of BB anyway, but I'll reserve my judgement and return further comments to the souls forum, after I've spent more time with the game.