Alex Klontzas

I am deeply conflicted about Sekiro because I think it does a lot of things wonderfully well, and also simultaneously fails a lot of systemic promises. :( what's the system design equivalent of a problematic fav that's problematic because of the numbers and not the content?

What don't you like so far about it?

The Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic is godawful. They blast a red symbol over the target's head (which pulls attention away from where you actually need to look [Forward/L/R/Low]), it's death if you fail on meaningful content, and it's incredibly twitch dependent.

To be clear, world is glorious, poise meter vs. non-boss NPCs is glorious, movement is stellar, thematics are A+ (holy shit red bibs are emotionally brutal). It's solely fighting "important" NPCs where the game goes from great to godawful in a flip of the switch.

I had a lot of trouble with those too at first cause I always try to dodge (DS/BB habits). Eventually I realized all of those are actually blockable for massive poise damage or more easily avoidable without dodging, but in typical From fashion, it isn't obvious at first.

I was in the same boat as you until a certain boss, then I went back and figured out the mechanics of the game fresh instead of trying to Bloodborne everything and the entire thing clicked for me