5/5 ★ – ColeTrain's review of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

If I absolutely had to pick my favourite game of all time Sekiro might be it. I don't know exactly where to begin but perhaps the best place to start is the very beginning with the story which takes place during the 1500's and a group of samurai known as the Ashina clan have taken control over most of Japan with their leader Isshin Ashina at the head of the attack this leads into a bloody battle which leaves a young boy to become an orphan who is later found at the aftermath by a ninja who's name is Owl he adopts the young boy and names him Wolf . Years later Wolf finds himself in the service of the next heir to rule Ashina , a boy named Kuro who is taken from his home by Isshin's Grandson Genichiro because Kuro belongs to a unique bloodline known as the Dragons heritage which can grant someone immortality and Genichiro wishes to use this in his quest to save his homeland from a rival group known as the Interior Ministry and their attempts to gain control , Wolf has a battle with Genichiro which he ends up losing resulting in the loss of Wolf's arm and he is left for dead however a man named The Sculptor finds Wolf and gives him a prosthetic one which he crafted for himself however he believes Wolf will find it useful in his quest to aid Kuro. Ok holy shit that was kind long winded ... well now on to gameplay so combat in Sekiro is really unique compared to From Software's other games as enemies have their standard life bar but something both of you share is what's known in this game as a posture meter which determines your and their own balance, how quickly you and they block attacks and how fast you and they recover from attacks depending on if it's a single strike or a flurry of them , your aim in combat is to either deplete their health which willl make make their posture meter fill faster or you need to parry them a lot which can also quickly fill their meter if you do it fast enough or just plain blocking their attacks will fill their meter until eventually their meter is full .Then after one last hit which will break their posture and you can perform a death blow which is like a special kind of stab move which can result in instant death for most enemies but other ones like bosses and mini bosses have multiple death blow markers you will need to remove in order to actually kill them, yet another thing you have which is obvious from the subtitle of the game is that you have the ability to revive. this is represented by red circles of which you start with two if you die you can come back from death however your second revive is unavailable to you until you get a death blow on your opponent.You have a variety of options during combat you can do standard sword strikes that are fast but weak , thrusts which are more powerful but take time to wind up and Combat Arts which are special abilities that let you do unique attacks. Some of these abilities include Whirlwind Slash which lets you do a spinning slash in 360 degrees , Shadow Rush which lets you do a long ranged thrust and you can also attack upwards with it, Ichimonji a strong overhead sword stike and many many others all of which require books known as esoteric texts in order to gain a specific skill tree to learn different Combat Arts and skills from. That's not all you'll need though Skill points are required as well to actually learn the skills and Arts , some needing multiple at a time to aquire the exact skill you want to have. Another trick Wolf has up his non existent sleeve is Prosthetic Tools which vary from Shuriken which Wolf can throw from a spring loaded launcher , Firecrackers which can stun human enemies and scare animals , a Flamethrower which can be used to burn enemies and even a Spear for long range thrust attacks just to name a fraction of the tools you have at your disposal, it all just works so well together. However there are things that don't work so well and while they are minor problems they can be very real annoyances in this game , for one you need items known as Spirit Emblems in order to use your Prosthetic Tools as well as certain Combats Arts which can use up multiple Emblems at a time and since you'll be using both of them fairly often you'll find yourself running out of Emblems pretty quickly after every attempt at a boss fight which means you have to kill enemies to get them, find them in certain locations or buy them from Sculptor's Idol's ( Sekiro's version of the Dark Souls bonfires) with money you can gain from killing enemies, and Emblems cost more the further you are in the game which can lead to grinding for them which can be kind of dull to do . Another issue is the camera lock on , if you lock on to enemies you will automatically face them however if you or the enemy goes far enough to one side out of the range of the games camera it will break the lock on and automatically turn the camera away from the enemy you're fighting which can lead to taking damage you could have possibly blocked or avoided had you been able to see the direction the attack was coming from . Despite those issues Sekiro : Shadows Die Twice is a phenomenal game and it's probably From Software's greatest masterpiece in my opinion. It's definitely worth a purchase .