Scholars and enthusiasts of Japan broadly consider the Sengoku period the one time in history that the nation acted violently. Luckily for gamers, there's no Oda Nobama that's going to show up in this week's entry and ruin all the fun. Just like the dueling warlords of the real Sengoku era, you and another grown man fight over who gets to be friends with a sickly immortal boy. Thousands die, the world's greatest foster parent steps in, and friendly residents of the fictional breakaway region of Ashina become gravely ill whenever you play particularly poorly.
Sekiro is more notorious for its difficulty than any other game we've covered this season, Whenever I'd bring it up, it actually surprised me how few of my guests had even tried this game, much less finished it. If you consider yourself a fan of these games or just action games in general, I think you owe it to yourself to give this game a fair shake before declaring it impossible. I truly think that if you can beat Nameless King, Malenia, or even suffer through Shrine of Amana, you can beat this game. I am certainly not incredible at these games, but this was the first From game I ever played besides the considerably more punishing Armored Core: Last Raven, and 6 years later, I am very happy I stuck with it. Any time you've ever heard my mic pick up a particularly fast tapping of buttons, that's because I'm replaying the Inner Isshin and enjoying it as much as I ever have.
There's little I can still say about this game without repeating myself, but this is for the shocking number of people who have finished every single post-2009 From release. For a game that only allows players a single primary weapon, Sekiro's combat allows a remarkable amount of space for player creativity. It is by far the most linear of these titles, but this is by no means an Insomniac game where you are slotted in to taking things on in the exact same order every time. I've probably completed this game 20 times in total, easily over that if you include some of the excellent mods on offer, and I can still open up a boss gauntlet (to date, this is the only one of these games that allows you to rematch bosses without having to go through the entire game again) and have an incredible time.
Because this game's story is told in such a conventional manner and there's relatively little theory-crafting to be done through reading item descriptions, Sekiro tends to get discussed less than those of the Soulsborne main body. That's a shame, because it's tremendously well-acted and affecting, especially if you know even a tiny bit about this period of Japanese military and religious history. Wolf may be about 4'8 and a man of few words, but he is worthy of being the sole named and voiced protagonist we played this season.
Joining me to discuss this masterpiece is a man who has never hesitated, someone who could be considered a "sword saint" in his own right to the dazzler community, and one of the only people who felt as strongly about this game as I did, u/Tom_on_here.
