This is shit

Album Rating: 4.5

Just gotta activate ultra instinct.

Need to cut this cunts big ass feet off

Album Rating: 4.5

lmao. every time he makes a move of any sort get into the habit of spam-tapping L1 to block the damage. if he does his four hit combo where he swipes low twice, stomps with his left leg, and then ends with another close swipe, after the leg pushes you away (if you block it successfully), quickly run into him so you don't need to take chip damage from his flame swipe.

I've done my best when I'm not trying to think what's going on and trying to block. Just cunting about got me the furthest.
Hirata owl is a dumpster too

Also once you beat him is there anything of worth in the rest of the ashina outskirts to visit?

Album Rating: 4.5

go back into that temple right by the fight where the stairs are and there's some unique dialog with that lady who's in there who wouldn't give you the time of day earlier, and i believe a few items, otherwise the area is basically done. also, the hirata fight with owl you're referring to is one i haven't done yet. did you choose to remain faithful to him? sounds like we maybe got different endings.

Ah right. I don't know if I've the patience to learn the final boss. Doubt I'll be finishing even first play through. Rip.
Nah I followed kuro. This is a side bit where Emma offers you a memory bell

Use the whistle on the demon in the third phase. Stuns him.

Anyway Dark Souls 1 is full of flaws, most of them in the second half because it was rushed to completion. But all the other games.resemble the second half of Dark Souls far more than the first
That, and my issues with DS1 are far smaller than my grievances with the others (which would take too long to list while I type here on my phone.

Now as for the world design argument: Dark Souls had you walking through an interconnected world with logic shortcuts. You would often walk by old areas and see the way they change and how your side quests would progress.

Now with Sekiro it is technically interconnected, but every path leads to a dead end while Ashina acts as a hub, and the actual hub is on one of five or six branching paths. This discourages traversing areas again because you have to always be going back in straight lines (lines that in many instances only go ONE WAY, some areas you literally cannot get back out of without warping. So that means even though the world is constantly changing, you never get to hust stumble upon a new thing in an old area (and there are A LOT). You have to constantly be guessing where to warp if you want to find new stuff in old areas. It's awful. This should have been a slam dunk for Sekiro, a game with the best traversal mechanics of the series, but instead it turns into a constant warping slog in the second half, far worse than any of the other games.

And again, even areas on an individual level aren't designed as well as old levels from Dark and Demon's Souls (hell even Bloodborne if we're strictly talking individual sections). Sekiro is full of shortcuts, but they're often completely useless. I'd wager more than half the shortcuts I opened up went completely unused because they didn't work with the open level design Fromsoft was going for. Most areas were flat/vertical open sections without much or any clever interconnecting shortcuts and mazes that you needed to traverse at all. Fountainhead has exactly 1 good shortcut right at the end that is only useful if you're just doing bonus stuff or farming. And Hirata also has an entirety of 1 good shortcut that I found myself acually using multiple times. Otherwise these areas are designed as straight shots with a few branching paths, some that reconnect nicely, others that don't at all. They perfectly serviceable levels but they are not even close to anything in Demon's Souls or anything up to Anor Londo in Dark Souls.

One bone I will throw Sekiro is how you can actually get to Senpou Temple extremely early with the Headless shortcut. If the game allowed you to get back through there backwards it would be even better. I'm actually gonna be going through there on NG+ and seeing how much I can mess with the idea of the first boss. In Dark Souls there are 7 first bosses and I think if you can get through to Ashina Castle from Senpou that early then there could be a surprising amount of first bosses available, which would be a big tick for freedom through design.

Alright thirty hours in and I’m getting my ass handed to me either in Ashina Castle or by Lady Butterfly. As far as I know, there’s two routes to get to Genichiro with one being a mini boss that swiftly fucks me up, or through a bunch of samurai monk types fucking me up so bad by the time I get there there’s no way I’m taking on the head honcho.

I have almost no money left, leaving me to farm spirit emblems from low level enemies. Still love the game but I think it has me beat. This happened with Bloodborne about midway through too :/

How are you 30 hours in and still stuck on one of the first bosses

What have you been doing

Hopefully left it on pause overnight a few times

Or else .... :/

I do get on my phone a lot and have the game paused so steam has def been counting all that time I spent idling

Im over 50 cus I've paused and what not

Okay progress has been made. I’ve been playing the game like a fucking idiot. I’ve been playing way too defensively so I started playing more aggressively and I literally just beat the dojo mini boss without taking a hit in about a minute or so. Dealt with Lady Butterfly too, but Genichiro is still kicking my ass, I can barely even get one Deathblow in before dying. I’m gonna try to find more gourd seeds

Just learn Geni's attacks and block or even block dance and he'll go down with posture.

be super aggressive with Genichiro and try to counter his thrust attack for good posture damage. Most people I've talked to say he's taken several hours to beat. I'm back there on that roof fighting the Owl now. Game is so damn good

and since this is a music site, I'll comment on some music from Sekiro: the music during ANY apparition battle is so damn good. Also a huge fan of Lady Butterfly's theme.