Re: Sekiro
Okay so...I’m trying to take this slow and not be bitter that there is no “easy” mode. Hell, in the spirit of all things Samurai, the game, similar to their world:
You are either perfect or you die.
That said, I obviously got killed as soon as I encountered my first enemy. Now I just want to swing the sword for a bit and practice some; I’ve learned that dying too many times gives everyone in the village crotch rot or some shit. (They stop helping you?)
Google Fu say I need to find the Dilapidated Temple so that I can spar with Hanbei the Undying.
Sadly I cannot find a map to the temple, do I need to get to a certain part of the game before I am able to get there?
i accept that the game is stupid hard, but can I at least take a few practice swings with my sword before I face my first enemy?
To add - no “quick save” makes things all that much more interesting
When you first launch the story, you should start of in the initial tutorial area, think almost like Skyrim when you start escaping after the dragon shows up or the Souls games if you've played them. It's teaching you movement, basic attacks and how to defend yourself. Once you reach the prince (I think he's a prince It's been a while since I've played it, he's important to the story) is when you have to escape with him. You'll be fighting trash until you get to a sort of mini boss, he's going to be your first "real" challenge of the game and if I remember you can't progress if you don't beat him.
You need to be aggressive, attack whenever possible to fill up his posture (this works on any enemy, minus some specific ones you'll encounter later) meter to break his posture. But you need to be aware of when they are attacking you as well, get your block timing down so right as the attack is about to hit you, you deflect the strike and his posture is immediately broken. Be aware though, if an enemy has a bright red flash occur above them you need to try and get out of the way you can not deflect it and it will hit like a truck if it connects.
My advice for the beginning is look for alternate routes, and only take fights if you need to at first until you start getting the combat down. Once you beat the miniboss, there is a bridge if I remember correctly you can walk on the beams below it to avoid a lot of enemies.
Once you get to the exit area of the tutorial, you're going to be confronted by the main antagonist, YOU WILL DIE. Trust me, I only lasted about 5 minutes against him and I was trying my ass off, but he is fun to put your skills to the test and see how much damage you can do. Plus it's in a beautiful field of flowers, don't worry about dying just have fun with it.
Once you get passed that boss is when you will get a cut scene and you wake up at the Dilapidated Temple, this will be your main hub from the "outside world" so to speak. Hanbei is outside the temple and up the hill (?), there's a clear path to him.
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Don't worry about the Dragonrot (aka crotch rot) at this time, you should just focus on getting combat down. If you need to delete your game save to not get super penalized once you figure things out then by all means do that.
As
@Stretcher Jockey said, you can avoid many of the initial combat by taking alternate routes, however you will not progress whatsoever in this game if you don't learn how to deflect. I'd say just practice with the individual mobs in the starter area, they're not as fast as the enemies you'll face later on, and the attacks are heavily telegraphed nor are they the fastest.
It took me about 3 tries to get the first miniboss in the area, and around 20 to get a General that's also pretty early on (another mini).
Biggest advice would be to reflect about what happened in the fight, and what you can do to avoid it next time. It's a trial by fire game that likes to throw you in the deep end and fast, but as I've said if you can figure out how to swim the game becomes so much more.
If you have more questions or my word vomit was to directionless then let me know and I'd be happy to help.
