The Rhythmic Game That's Raising My Blood Pressure

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is designed to induce cardiac arrest

Demon of Hatred, indeed.

The musicality of motion, the importance of patience in concert with aggression. The serenity of trading blows, understanding that you'll likely never one-shot an enemy, and they likely should never one shot you.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a masterpiece (I'm like 5 years late, I know) but it also is SUCH a goddamn drain on my body.

I wrote at length last year about my first foray into the From Software universe. After hearing the universal acclaim, I dove headfirst into Elden Ring and became OBSESSED. The open world freedom, the fantastical aesthetic, the advance combat system and the plethora of spellcasting options. Elden Ring was a watershed moment for my understanding of what video games could be.

So naturally I tumbled down the From Software rabbithole. As someone who had avoided Souls games like the plague (heh) for a decade, no one was more shocked than I when I grabbed Sekiro, Dark Souls 2, and Dark Souls 3 on Steam when they went on sale. Followed shortly by tracking down copies of Bloodborne and the original Demon's Souls for console after my brother lent me his PS3 and PS4...Okay and the remastered versions of Dark Souls 1 just recently went up on Steam so I definitely bought that too.

But I've only had the gumption to try Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice so far.

And this game BREAKS my will to live.

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Hyperbolic, perhaps. But it's genuinely worth looking at why this game is so heartbreaking in its complexity and approach to combat.

Because Elden Ring was tough, but Elden Ring was not BRUTAL. Almost every battle had a clear path to victory and a means toward that path for any type of build you chose. It took time and it took thought, but you would get it eventually. Elden Ring also had the open world approach, meaning you could always leave an area and go explore anywhere else in the entire game. If you're stuck on a hard boss, go find a new weapon, level up, study other opponents, and come back later. Elden Ring was patient with the player and let you dictate your own path, which is perfect for someone like me who gets flustered very easily after I lose to the same boss 5 or 6 times and refuse to accept that I must be doing something wrong.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice REVELS in torturing players like me.

The game revolves entirely around combat, yes, but that combat is infinitely stricter than it was in Elden Ring. Whereas in Elden Ring I could snipe enemies from miles away with spells, then make my appraoch with buffs and take one big swing with a magic sword...Sekiro doesn't really offer that kind of 'cheesing,' as they call it. You CAN venture off on another path for a time — you can go and beat up weaker enemies to pick up experience for added skills and items — but that only lasts for so long. You will HAVE to figure out how to beat a particular boss if you want to get any further in this game.

Sekiro demands that you play by its rules. Despite having the illusion of freedom (the game is actually very linear, but it does a good job of letting you feel like there are endless branches in endless directions for you to explore and fight until you realize there’s a singular gatekeeper that’s holding you back from exploring further) there's no way to 'cheese' your way through most enemies. Enemies know how to deflect your shuriken if you try to snipe them. Many have armor to prevent surprise fire attacks. Others are incredibly observant and won't be easy to assassinate no matter how much to dampen your sound or visibility.

Which means Sekiro expects you to learn how to fight. How to parry, deflect, defend. How to stab, swipe, slash, and thrust. How to time and how to wait and how to assert yourself.

This all sounds fine. Elden Ring taught me that I like harder games than I thought I did and that I can work my way through soulslike-level bosses after enough tries.

But there's something different about Sekiro. There's another level to the difficulty in this game that I didn't experience in Elden Ring or in any other game I've ever played.

The bosses in Sekiro are fucking smart. Too goddamn smart.

They know your habits. They know you'll come at them with three slashes to start. They know you'll try to deflect the fireball with the fireproof umbrella. They plan for this and punish you for mercilessly for being too predictable.

They know there's music in the way combat plays out. The clanging of the swords and the tearing of flesh has a pattern to it by virtue of how long it takes for each character to muster the strength to swing and then follow-through. So even when you, the player, get into the rhythm and feel like you're engaging in a hotly contested battle, the NPC is playing along with you and is aware of when the rhythm breaks. Ready to dodge or parry itself.

This makes it so much harder. SO MUCH HARDER.

Because in any other game, the NPC bosses have a set of moves that are unleashed on you based on certain factors. How far away you are, how low your health is, how long the battle has gone for, what weapons are involved, etc.

But Sekiro's opponents don't necessarily initiate battle. They don't have an arsenal, just ready and waiting. Most bosses actually will wait for YOU to interact with them and make the first strike, and then they’ll pick and choose what best deconstructs your approach. They dissect your plan in real-time and blow it up in your face.

They already know which way you'll strike and when you'll do it. They can hear the same beat as you and rather than play on your cadence, they tend to move in opposition and land their blows on the upbeat, when you're recovering.

It's so counterintuitive. How, as a player, can you spend so much time in this game trying to master the melody of swordplay and have so many enthralling battles with field opponents, only to then enter an arena with a proper boss and find out that the sound scheme was a rouse. It's almost there to throw you off.

The only way to beat some bosses is to goad them into striking, hopping behind them, and taking some cheap shots at their backside. It goes against the music of the game.

That means Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is enacting multiple different versions of combat IN THE SAME GAME. Often times in back to back battles. Seamlessly. Gaslighting you in the game’s own diegesis.

You'll assume you've got things locked down. You've managed to plow through all iterations of the Headless Ape and the Corrupted Monk and assassinated the big stupid snake and poisoned the big stupid carp and you're farming the Palace with ease...

Only to find every remaining boss in this game doesn't play by the rules of anyone else you've fought so far. In fact, they work against it. As massive points of entropy in another harmonious universe. Like they know exactly what you did to get here and are prepared to upend everything you've learned just to break both the main character’s spirit and your own.

Which is why this game is making me feel almost dejected. I'm two boss battles away from the ending, and I just keep wondering, "why are the fights built like this?? This isn't what I learned! This is asking me to speak a new language after spending 50 hours learning something entirely different!"

It's eliciting physical reactions from me. Not just typical gamer rage, but genuine frustration. A microcosm of my usual anxiety-depression hills and valleys, compressed into a few hours a day where I just feel my heart punching against my chest, begging me to pick a pace and a beat and a rhythm and stick to it, already.

BUT THE GAME WON'T LET ME, HEART, THE GAME WON'T LET ME. I’m sorry. I will take medication soon.

While Elden Ring staved off my depression and Returnal helped me build tools to fight my anxiety, Sekiro is almost flaunting both in my face. Like as if my anxiety is telling me I’ll never intuit my strikes correctly and my depression is telling me I’m not smart enough to figure this out — and the bosses are REITERATING THESE EVIL THOUGHTS.

Will there be a resolution at the end of all this? Will I be able to say Sekiro taught me something powerful about my own emotional wherewithal?

We'll probably never know. Because fuck the Demon of Hatred so hard.