Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice | Prepared for the scars on your hands?

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, a game developed by FromSoftware that was released in 2019, shows us an evolution of the previous games of this company. Patience, action and suffering, is an important feature in this game and if you've had the chance to play a DarkSouls or Bloodborne, you'll know what I mean.

With this new IP, FromSoftware brings us quite interesting features and one of them is the narration of the story in contrast to its other releases.

The story, don't worry I won't be doing any spoiler, focuses on a boy with some peculiar characteristics and we'll have to use a Shinobi warrior to face a series of difficulties that will push you to your limits. With this warrior, we will have to make our way in a Feudal Japan, located in the XVI century, dominated by clans and the wars between them. In the middle of the fiction, you will find some elements of the real history that give this video game that special air.

You will forge your own Shinobi path, you will have to learn skills and not only the character, you must also learn them and that is because, from the beginning of the game, the difficulty is present, but in an exquisite way. It challenges you to try again and again to fight against bosses, to analyze every move, not to attack unnecessarily because, if you fail, you can end up dead. This makes the combat analytical, but do not think it will be boring, it is a shinobi and its speed, movements and weapons will always give you entertaining battles.

From the beginning of the game, you're caught up in its history. When I acquired this game and I must confess that I'm not a fan of darksouls (while recognizing what a good game it is), Sekiro caught me up. I started playing and didn't stop until I finished it completely.

I can say that in some moments I remembered the game Tenchu, the stealth, walking on the roofs and watching the enemies to kill them in a surprise jump, the weapons, in short, gave me good memories.

As in Darksouls, Sekiro's bosses are THE BOSSES. We'll find them in two types, the mini-bosses and the main bosses. Each one will get the best out of you, but, you will always look for the next one to know what it will be: monster? human? devil? ghost? The truth is that the bosses in Sekiro are very well structured and give a special touch to the story, and even if you discover their weak points easily, finishing them will be a challenge.

The game map is a unique map where the whole story will take place, we will have Buddha statues (the bonfires in darksoul) that allow you to rest, improve your skills, teleport from one point of the map to another. But well, resting isn't always the best thing, because by doing that, all the enemies are revived. Think before you do.

The game's general enemies are intelligent enough to finish you off and even the smallest can do it very quickly. I must admit that at the beginning it was hard for me to dominate some combat skills, but then, I loved to go directly to fight, without thinking twice. Patience is not my forte in video games and the best defense is a good offense.

In Sekiro when you die, you can resurrect, but nothing is free or easy in this game, by doing that you will lose half of your money and accumulated experience. But, there's always a worse one, dying is going to cause a plague, a kind of illness among some characters that can be important in the development of the story or to acquire skills and you'll have to cure them, otherwise they'll die.

I can comment that the game has 4 endings, a perfect excuse to play it 4 times. I must tell you that in the first round I took 69 hours of gameplay with almost everything at 100%, I only needed to kill some special enemies and 1 point of life but the good thing is that in the next time to play, you keep the skills and everything acquired. This time the enemies won't have it so easy.

If you want an adventure game, stealth, action, with role-playing elements, a game that will give you a fairly polished story, that will give you hours of gameplay and that will leave you with scars on your hands, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is what you're looking for.

Personal score:

• History 9/10
• Gameplay 10/10
• Soundtrack 9/10
• Graphic aspect 9/10
• Entertainment 9/10
• Game hours 10/10

_{All images are screenshots taken directly from the game in its PC version}