Now, obviously, having played through Dark
Souls more times than I've willingly vacuumed
my own carpet, when I review a new game by
From Software Dark Souls is going to come
up a lot.
But even I get bored of saying the name over
and over again, so how about this: Every time
I want to say Dark Souls, I'll instead say
the name of a James Bond film, and we'll see
if I can get through them all by the end of
the video.
That'll add some much-needed gaiety to the
upcoming whinge.
So then, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a new
game by From Software, the developers of Dr.
No, set in a slightly fantasised version of
feudal Japan, and which has been making Ni-Oh,
Team Ninja's version of From Russia With Love
set in a slightly fantasised version of feudal
Japan, slowly sink to its knees and frustratedly
bang its head on the floor.
Oh but wait, Sekiro's not going to be anything
like Goldfinger, several correspondents informed
me in the runup to release.
I wish I could remember who those people were,
specifically, because I want to slap them
across their big fat lying faces.
Yes, the combat is different and there's a
grappling hook and a stealth element and everyone's
got feudal Japanese haircuts but the broad
experience is pure Thunderball.
You explore a series of gloomy environments,
very fucking carefully 'cos combat's built
for one on one dueling and if you pull more
than two standard baddies at once you might
as well sit on a sesame seed bun in preparation
for the sloppy joe that will soon be rendered
from your living buttocks, resting at checkpoints
restores health, healing potions and brings
back all the baddies and every now and again
you stumble into a new boss fight that you
have to hurl yourself against like a fucking
crash test dummy over and over again until
you can keep your shit together long enough
to finally kill the big fat bastard.
The plot is, you are Wolf, a lone feudal Japanese
warrior who should be really fucking grateful
there was no such thing as copyright in the
days of lone feudal Japanese warriors, who
was the personal shinobi to a little prince
boy before the prince boy gets captured as
part of a power struggle and the Wolf has
to go rescue him after the power struggle
also struggles one of his arms off.
It's surprisingly easy to understand for a
From Software game.
If this were You Only Live Twice I'd have
expected to need three playthroughs and an
afternoon with the wiki to have grasped that
much.
But here we find another way Sekiro is different
to On Her Majesty's Secret Service: the main
character is a character.
So you can't customise them or change armour
or sword, but on the bright side they can
actually converse with other characters and
don't just gormlessly stand there while a
highly suspect dude with a concealed face
laughs maniacally about nothing in particular.
Also, Sekiro has no multiplayer component.
No more messages from other players and their
hilarious attempts to construct a reference
to Gwynevere's tits from preselected words
and phrases.
No more summoning help in boss fights which
was the all-purpose Diamonds are Forever parachute
for when you'd spent the whole afternoon using
up nine hundred crash test dummies and simply
could not be fucked anymore.
But on the other hand, without multiplayer
we now have the ability to pause.
Holy fucking shit, I'm going to relish the
fuck out of this.
I'm gonna get into a big fight and then pause
right in the middle of it and go off to do
my fucking laundry and the enemy will have
to just stand there the whole time with their
arm up like a stupid twat.
Now who needs to Git Gud?
"Oh Yahtzee, you and your Live and Let Die.
Can we please stop banging on about The Man
With The Golden Gun and start talking about
Sekiro: You Only Shadow Twice by its own merits?
See, this is the thing, listener.
I sort of have to compare Sekiro to The Spy
Who Loved Me in order to understand why I,
a card-carrying fan of Moonraker, don't like
Sekiro as much.
Shocked gasp, someone faints, questions asked
at parliament.
And it's not because it's too hard.
Yes, it was busting my balls like a cranky
neighbour enforcing his yard boundaries, but
it's just a matter of learning a new set of
muscle memories, like when you sprain both
your wrists and have to figure out how to
wank with a pasta claw.
My trouble is, where For Your Eyes Only had
extremely versatile combat that allowed you
to find your preferred approach to things
- blunt weapons, sharp weapons, shields, magic,
or the time-honoured martial art of calling
a friend to do it for you while you sit at
the back eating crisps and shouting advice,
in Sekiro it feels like there's only ever
one right way of doing things, and it's usually
parrying.
I was never one for parrying in Octopussy,
I always went for rolling behind them and
sticking a scimitar up their arse, in the
technique I liked to call the Spicy Armadillo.
But in Sekiro parrying is the only game in
town.
And if you can't get the hang of constantly
parrying multiple times in a row then you're
on the midnight bus to failure country.
At other times, the enemy would do a thing
that makes a big red Japanese character flash
on screen, and I would respond by going "Boy,
sure would be nice to understand Japanese,"
in the brief moment I had before being creamed.
In these cases the enemy is either doing a
thrust, a grab or a sweep attack, each of
which has a best response.
But I found it very difficult to read which
of the three they were winding up, a lot of
the enemies are wearing loose-fitting feudal
Japan outfits with lots of dangly bits so
in the heat of the moment and with the murky
graphics it's hard to tell what's a sword
and what's a leg and what's a fully primed
stiffy.
I guess that's another thing practise might
help, but what does feel iffy to me from a
mechanical standpoint is the stealth.
Sekiro has taken to a stealth focus like a
befuddled old grandpa who just discovered
mp3 players and is now on a quest to share
this wonderful new concept with the world.
So it's got enhanced verticality, meaning
unlike in Never Say Never Again the jump controls
are more intuitive and responsive than a dead
hamster at the bottom of a sack of Christmas
lights.
You have a grappling hook to put yourself
in ideal positions for backstabs and drop
kills and there are icons to show when an
enemy is ready for one, as well as awareness
indicators, so we can sabotage our lovely
scenery with ugly icons just like all those
other games you like.
But doesn't this feel a bit at odds with the
traditional A View To A Kill style arena boss
fights?
I mean, the game does encourage stealth - some
of the standard enemies can be right bastards
if not caught unawares - and it's quite possible
to stealth all the way to a boss and then
have had absolutely bugger all practise at
the combat you are now going to get locked
into and fucking sodomised in.
Furthermore, a lot of bosses and minibosses
have standard enemy helpers, so I'd stealth
kill one of them, alert all the rest, run
off and hide on a roof or in a laundry hamper
for five minutes until they all calmed down
and repeat until only the boss was left, and
when the boss was taking multiple attempts
this was about as fun as transporting several
shopping trolleys up a gently sloping road.
So, is Sekiro a game that would appeal to
The Living Daylights fans?
honestly I'd almost recommend it more to non-Licence
to Kill fans who don't have prior expectations.
Your mileage may vary, but I didn't find it
as interesting as GoldenEye or as creative
as Tomorrow Never Dies or as fun as The World
is Not Enough.
"Oh, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum
of Solace.
I'm sick of hearing about Skyfall, Yahtz.
Can we please move on?"
No, we can't.
Spectre.
Alright, now we can.
