Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition

it's a good game issa good game issa sword saint isshin sword saint Isshin, the Sword Saint

Sekiro is one of those games that gets better every time you replay it. Unlike many games, it offers a more simple and cohesive vision. It doesn't try to do everything at once - instead, it focuses on its core combat and movement mechanics, then gives you the space to learn them. That's what makes Sekiro's combat so satisfying, your success doesn't come from stat upgrades, but from your actual growth as a player.

This was my first Fromsoft game. Got it at launch on Xbox, Hated it. Put it down for a year. Then, during the pandemic, I decided "why not give this another go?" Proceeded to immeadiately 100% it. Its frustrating, in fact, down right infuriating at points. But in my opinion, its a masterpiece. Loved it so much I got it again on PC, and intend fully to 100% it again.

Folding screen monkeys hardest boss Edit: after finally beating the game, I have to admit... this is the greatest game Fromsoftware has put out. Kudos to them for trying something new with this game. Hoping for another game with these mechanics!

Absolute Sekino, gameplay wise my favorite FS Game, even if i still like Bloodborne better overall. I feel bad for anyone who only played this game at 60fps, it almost feels essential to have a higher framerate for this game. The only complaint I have are some hitboxes, most notable the Demon of Hatred, that fucker is hard as shit

Fluid combat, fun storytelling and stunning environment. The game is like nothing I've played before. While the learning curve feels steeper than most games, you adapt rather quickly and the dopamine you get from climbing the insurmountable hill that is a boss is a feeling few games can capture. I hate to admit it but I'm afraid few games will feel as rewarding as this journey as been.

My first Souls game. The graphics, atmosphere, and story are amazing. If you love Souls games, you'll experience the peak of difficulty in Sekiro. The combat mechanics strike a balance that requires patience and strategy. One mistake can result in instant death. Against bosses, patience and the right tactics are essential. But this difficulty is also the source of some of the most satisfying moments.

One of the most funniest Souls games ever made. Some say it's hard but I found it to be easy when I played it. Maybe Patience and Parrying is just my style?

I am not a fan of this game whatsoever, it's probably a skill issue and the fact that regular dark souls mechanics are so inbedded in my brain that the mechanics of sekiro in comparison to traditional souls games just completely threw me off.

10/10 loved the story,mechanics,combat Every single boss fight in this game is fun. Not spoiling too much but the final boss fight is like icing on the cake for this game, it has everything the game teaches you throughout and FORCES you to use and YOU WILL DIE until you learn. and yea you will die WAYYY more than "TWICE"

This games combat is spectacular I loved every bit of it BUT it lacks on boss quality and level design departman. Idk how but they managed to combine one of the best combot system in gaming with one of the worst boss lineup. That said when boss is good game gets really enjoyable thats why I'm giving 4.5 stars despite most of this review is negative.

My sole complaint is that this game can be grindy at times, and bosses dont give you that much exp, so getting more skill points/upgrade mats can be somewhat tedious. There are no other complaints. It is near perfect besides.

I understand I'm in the minority and that's fine. And fair warning, I'm okay at this game, not great. But this game has the three FromSoft specific complaints that I have for most of the games (including DS2 and Bloodborne which I've completed multiple times) 1) dark protagonists in dark environments fighting dark enemies on dark backgrounds looks cool until you're playing it 2) why is running so clunky 3) what I feel is artificial difficulty The real issue I take with this game is that you go out of your way to create such a robust, skill-expressive combat system built for exciting 1v1 fights, and then you constantly jam into large groups of enemies that you either run from to reset aggro or try to hack through. Even using stealth to trim down the group only goes so far until eventually you're in a smaller group fight. I really wanted to like this game, but there's too many hangups that I have to recommend it. The prosthetic tools are a cool addition, grappling adds some fun movement to help scout areas, and the stealth is impressively well done. But the awe and fun of the game as a whole is limited by moment-to-moment gameplay

This game has runbacks that are far too long for how quickly a boss can burst you down. This is a skill issue, however the game seems to punish you for trying to learn and overcome that skill issue.

Thus far, I think this is one of my favorite games of all time, as the combat feels incredibly good, the parrying is some of the cleanest that I have ever experienced, and, while this does come after defeating the (spoiler alert) blazing bull, I noticed that the combat feels challenging, yet fair, and when you get into that rhythm, my god it feels INCREDIBLE. Highly recommended, and is definitely worth the 30 dollars I spent on it (got it on sale), and even at full price, I think it's very much worth it.

I absolutely hated this game when it came out... 6 years later, this could be my favorite FromSoftware game - possibly the best.

Not recommended for people other than masochist. There are some cool boss fights in the game, but almost half of the fights are just aids. Nevertheless, its a good game to go through once. Beat Isshin under 2 hours, I don't think I am bad at the game anyways.

Has some stutters during traversal and frame drops in very few areas. Despite that I think it is worth playing as it runs good during combat and if you have played Sekiro then you already know it has some crispy creamy combat.

I've been playing this game for 1500 hours pirated for the last 2 years. And I can say with certainty that it's one of the better if not the best game ever in my opinion. Now that I bought it, there will be 1500 more hours for sure. Tip: be careful on the mini boss Mist Noble. It took me 70 to 100 tries on him alone

Honesty a great game with a really high skill ceiling. Its challenging yet rewarding. The graphics and whole feel of the game is absolutely beautiful. The combat system is unique and fluid, i know I'm only just getting started playing but I'm having so much fun already.

maybe THE best game i have ever played. challenging - yes, but everything feels perfect. every parry feels amazing and the combat is awesome. sekiro was my first "souls" game - if you'd even call it that, but it made me fall in love with the genre despite the difficulty. the boss quality is consistently excellent and has some of the best fights in the series. if you like hard games, GO PLAY IT!!!

Can't believe it took me this long to finally play Sekiro. This deserves its GOTY title. My only complaint is that there isn't more. If Fromsoftware is working on a Sekiro 2 or something with sekiro-like combat, its now my most anticipated game. 82 hours in, beat the game 4 times, got all achievements, the only thing left for me to do is the Gauntlet of Strength: Mortal Journey. Not sure how much more I will play. I do want to play more and I might finish Mortal Journey but I do also feel like I finished everything I could possibly do. Only thing left is to perfect boss fights. First playthru I beat it blind and wow it seemed so much more difficult than it actually is. I can see a lot of people giving up on this game. Compared to other Fromsoft games like Elden Ring, there really isn't a way to get stronger other than progressing through the game. This game is truly the meaning of "get good", and "getting good" feels good. I struggled a lot at first but once you get a feel the bosses and learn the fights, it starts feeling really good very early. After beating the game for the first time I watched some "No Damage" fights on YouTube and that really opened my eyes to what this game can do. I didn't even realize how indepth the combat is until I watch some of those fights on x0.25 speed. Seeing how the shinobi tools were used and how everything that seems difficult is actually made to be perfectly countered, I started really wanting to redo boss fights and get better and better. The feeling of being locked in 1v1 with some of these bosses feels better than any game I've played, especially with the 3 "Inner" bosses. Beating the Gauntlet of Severance was one of the best feeling I've had in gaming in a while. 10/10 combat game. If you want to make a good combat game just shamelessly copy this.

Amazing game, fantastic mechanics I'm surprised aren't in the following FromSoft Games. Great fun! F*** Genichiro :)

Low key maybe the best souls game, probably more replayable than elden ring. The only thing elden ring has over sekrio is build diversity, The combat system in sekiro is the best one made by fromsoft.

I would consider Sekiro as one of the best FromSoftware games ever made. Overall, at its core, it’s a rhythm game. This game just hits different than anything you’ve probably ever played. The combat, the scenery—everything about it just feels so incredibly good. Spoiler Warning from here on – you’ve been warned. As an example: the Divine Dragon. It’s like the gimmick fight of Sekiro—basically like Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy from Elden Ring. The fight overall isn’t hard compared to anything you’ve really fought before him. It’s just the amazing atmosphere that makes the fight memorable for me. Everything about his attacks makes you feel something—it feels straight out of an anime. Or take Isshin, the Sword Saint, the final boss for any ending except the Shura ending. Yes, the fight is hard—incredibly hard—but there’s just something about this fight that feels so right to lose. You don’t fight against some bullshit god-creature like in Elden Ring. You fight against Genichiro’s grandfather, whose last wish was to fight for Ashina. And how he fights... He makes you regret every hit you take. He makes you scream in rage. He makes you mad. But it’s not some stupid Waterfowl Dance move he does—he just tests everything you’ve been taught so far in the game. And yes—he’s just the perfect final boss, in my opinion. It took me around eight hours to see his fourth phase for the first time. When he just starts catching lightning with his sword and makes you shoot it back at him... And when you see his poise bar slowly getting fuller—that’s when you really feel your heart pumping like crazy. For me, it was the first time ever experiencing something like that: The music gets quieter, your vision gets fixed on the game, you forget about everything around you, and suddenly you don’t even hear your stupid friends on Discord anymore. It’s just you and the game. And then, after eleven painful hours, you’re finally able to finish him. I almost cried out of pure joy—of finally being able to finish my playthrough. Isshin even motivates you to finally end it. Just such a unique experience. 10/10 – would recommend for anyone searching for a hard-as-f*ck game.

One of the best combat systems in gaming history. Once it clicks, you won't be able to put this game down!

“Sekiro is a game that gives you no direction, hides its story, throws bosses in your face, and expects you to enjoy it. It feels more like a psychological test than actual entertainment. High review scores? Maybe it’s a masterpiece — for sadists. Not for me.”

game so good I remember literally everything after not playing for 4 years also while the games prices for the souls series and this are still a bit much after all these years, it's still worth it, especially with mods

Put this one off for years. It was the last on my list for Fromsoftware games. Man, was I dumb. Loved it.

10/10 Masterpiece! This game is amazing, but also the most frustrating game I've ever played (it's my first Souls-like game). The story mode is interesting, the soundtrack is fenominal, the gameplay is fantastic but very hard to master (I played this game with keyboard + mouse, btw.). The boss fights are VERY HARD, even the mini-bosses. I've given up many times, but something in my heart tells me I have to finish the game. Not to get all the achievements, but just to finish the game. So I tried, tried and tried. I wasted many hours on the same boss. When I reached the final boss (even though I had skipped Owl (Father)), I had a difficult time. The final boss reads my inputs and kills me every single time. So I did what they call a pro-gamer move: I just installed the "Sekiro The Easy" mod. AND BOY OH BOY! THIS MOD IS TOO POWERFUL!!! It only took me two minutes to beat the boss. XD (I wish I had found out about this mod earlier. T_T) I would still recommend playing the game without mods. I didn't use any mods before the final boss fight and I had one boss fight that took me 3 hours (I'm looking at you, Great Shinobi Owl). If you just want to experience the story mode, you should use the mod I mentioned. You have to treat this game like an open-world fighting game! Except that your health bar is gone after two hits. You have to parry like in Street Fighter 3 Third Strike, you have to dodge like in Soul Calibur, and you have to attack like in Killer Instinct, where the boss recovers after a few hits and gives you hell with COMBO BREAKERs or rushes at you like a tank. (I wish FromSoftware had included an easy or story difficulty mode so blockheads like me could enjoy the game without getting stuck on the same boss for several hours.) I don't know if I ever want to play a Souls-like game again, since I'm so bad at that genre. It's also very time consuming and I still have a lot of games in my backlog that I need to finish. Overall: Anyway, I'm glad this game is available on PC. It would be great if more FromSoftware games were available on GOG. Just for the sake of game preservation.

Hesitation is defeat. This really encapsulates this game's whole theme: you must trust yourself, persevere through the many challenges, and the game will reward you with a unique type of satisfaction. There is so much gold hidden in this game, if only you will climb the mountain to reach it.

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☑ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☐ Workable ☑ Big ☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☑ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☑ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☑ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☐ 9 ☑ 10

Strait up, it's too hard. It's definitely a good game. But it would be more fun if it was just easier. It's just too hard. Also the fighting is fun, but as everyone else has said, there's a very steep learning curve. And as soon as you 'get over the hump' the game gets harder. So you never really 'get over the hump.' The bosses are fun. One myth of this game is that you must "master the parry." While it's not totally false, you must also still use other techniques. Too many people will tell new players to "only work on their posture." It's not totally incorrect, but a pro tip to make the game a bit easier is that you also must be more aggressive than you think with your attacks, great with parry, also master the 'Mikiri Counter.' You can't simply win this game by breaking posture alone with a parry. You'll want to pull your hair out. This game is definitely not for the impatient. That being said, 8.5/10 from me. I'll update the review once I finish the game.

The gameplay it is not fun for me. I kill few easy enemies with no problem and then I reach some kind of miniboss that is extremely difficult to kill and I have to die over and over countless times. And each time, to reach the miniboss, I have to kill again all the easy enemies before. After I see some guide on youtube about how to kill the miniboss, e.x. "use this trick" or "use this specific move all the time", then the whole sequence repeats untill the next miniboss. If this is how souls-like games are then they are definitely not fun at all for me. Very repetitive and annoying gameplay.

One of my favorite games of all time with the best fighting system ever created. Highly recommend!

I prefer Ghost of Tsushima and Lies of P over this. But hey it is nice to see that some of the cooler mechanics of this made it into Elden Ring Nightreign, so that's a positive thing.

Best action game mechanics EVER - if you like action, CHALLENGES, martial arts, and fast paced battles - this is for you Decent graphics for its time, not the best story ever but decent with minimal dialogues, minimal grinding for upgrades, skill based (you will get punished very hard especially against bosses if you panic or don't react accordingly)

The movement is clean, fighting and parrying are very satisfying, and its pretty straight forward as you get into it

Sekiro is an absolute masterpiece. As one of my first Souls-like games, the experience was both frustrating and exhilarating. There’s no better feeling than struggling against a boss that’s been cooking my buns for two hours straight and finally defeating them. Aside from its intriguing story and memorable characters, Sekiro’s gameplay is what truly sets it apart. One thing you’ll often hear people glaze about is the combat, and rightfully so. The mechanics can be tough to grasp at first, but once it clicks, everything begins to flow like water. There’s nothing more satisfying than landing a chain of perfect deflects and hearing the rhythmic clanging of swords. What started as one of the most frustrating gaming experiences I’ve ever had has turned into something I wish I could relive for the first time all over again.

Probably has the best gameplay out of all fromsoft games. Furthermore, due to lack of leveling, the game prevents you from overleveling, which also means you almost never have to grind. However, early game mini-boss runbacks can be a pain. Looking at you Juzou.

Super satisfying! Charmless from ng+ should be default difficulty and really wish we got a dlc with a bunch of new bosses and like different stances or something

After making it to NG+6 I can confidently say that this is the best game I have ever played and it will probably hold that title for a while. The games combat mechanics are unrivaled by any other souls-like. I hope Fromsoft releases another game with similar mechanics.

A masterwork of a video game. Great exploration with a groundbreaking combat system for its time. Sekiro came to influence many games after it. If you haven't played it and you like challenging combat games, you owe it to yourself to play it. It's one of Fromsoftware's finest.

Hardest Soulsborne game, I dont know about that. Its hard dont get me wrong but i dont think its harder than all the others, its just instead of rolling away you have to parry, for some this might make it harder but honestly if you have beat the others and you can master the pary system you can beat this game with out doing one swing of damage (aside from the deathblows). not to mention you can ressurect makeing the game vary forgiveing to the damage you take. over all great story, great combat, outstanding visuals, and over all a 10/10 experience. would recommend P.S - the 4 faze isshin boss is the hardest boss ever created for any video game, ever took me 20+ hours for that one boss

The "shinobi hunter" spear miniboss is absolutely brutal, and almost made me quit. I eventually modded him into the ground and was able to enjoy the rest of the game.

One of the best games ever made. What sets Sekiro different from most games is that the skills in game are good, but not necesary. Outside of 1 or 2 skills everything else is just nice to have. So that means that throughout the jouney is not only the character that gets better, but mostly the player. I am pretty confident that after playing the game 3 or 4 times you get almost unbeatable. This is one of the few games I feel confortable to beat at level 1. It is such a madterpiece in terms of combat that it makes you(the player) more scary than the character

PEAK! I love this game so much, 100% it on PlayStation, then bought it for Steam and am trying to do the same thing.

Good game! Was definitely worth every penny. Also, Hesitation is Defeat!

I loved the game it does get annoying when u get a pop up screen of item you gotten like 1000 times, but i love how its sticks out, out of dark souls genre. This helped me learn how to parry and block better.

6 years later, in the midst of year 2025 where everyone and their cousins trying to integrate their own version of 'Parry' into their games. Sekiro is, hands down, still the best Souls-like and it's not even close. For me, this game surpassed even the original Dark Souls themselves. Sekiro's combat and Deflect, especially, is absolutely the best feeling you could have from parrying attacks that STILL no other game can mimic even if they try. This game doesn't need any of the RPG numbers to tell you how good you are. Here, you get to accumulate actual battle experiences yourself and this game is a mirror that reflect your skill as a player, and show you that today you can always be better than yesterday if you don't give up.