I spent 160 hours mainlining this enormous, magnificent, generous, hilarious, mysterious, beautiful game, and I have not by any means "Done Everything" although I'm not TOO far off of that. I just can't express how staggeringly BIG this game is, and I know to some people that's very intimidating - but this isn't a game where BIG means there's a lot of filler. Those 160 hours were spent exploring this gorgeous world and it's many varied and beautiful biomes looking for bosses, treasure, and secrets, and finding them in spades. I will never forget just sneaking around in the forest in the early game and stumbling onto an elevator that took me to an underground river network where the cave roof was full of stars - one of the most stunningly beautiful things I've seen in a video game.

I like to keep this brief so I'll save the rest of my thoughts for the essay I'm eventually going to have to write, but in short - everybody should try this game. There's an 80 dollar price tag in the way right now, so I get that that may be too tall an ask for people who don't think they'll enjoy it, or are worried that it'll be too hard for them. But I genuinely think there's something to love in here for every player, and all the game asks of you is to have the patience and curiosity to find it.

I understand why there's a real divide on this game among From Software fans. Dark Souls and its siblings are games of personal expression - you can play any way you want, you can tear the game into little pieces through a million different strategies and exploits, and the game will always bend to allow it (even if it spends some time pushing back at you). It might be difficult, but Dark Souls is a game that never says No.

Sekiro says No. It says No a lot actually. Sekiro is the culmination of From's Bloodborne and DS3 push to force players to play a specific style - a fast, aggressive, parrying melee specialist. You can't be a tank in Sekiro, you can't be a sorcerer in Sekiro, you can only be Sekiro. When you hit a tough boss in Dark Souls (or especially in Elden Ring), that's an invitation to hunt for weapon upgrades, new armor or rings, or come back at a higher level - when you hit a tough boss in Sekiro, it is a "you must be this good to pass" barrier, the kind of thing people think Dark Souls bosses are, but never have been.

Having said all that - I think the game is great! By ditching most of the RPG elements, From created one of the best and most demanding action games...ever? Probably ever. The controls feel as tight and responsive as they've ever felt - once you get the feel for the tight parry windows the responsiveness is incredible (and makes that recent Jedi Fallen Order game feel like you're swinging a lightsaber through molasses).

The area design, sparse storytelling, and creepy NPC's are as good as they've ever been, and the music might be the strongest in From's modern catalogue. The final boss is exactly as hard as everyone says he is - I spent half an hour to an hour a day for about a week and a half trying to beat him. Today I did it, and it's an achievement on par with the time I soloed Ornstein and Smough with the Demon's Greataxe (it's harder than it sounds, trust me).

Ultimately I think Sekiro's supreme difficulty works against it in one respect, that weakens the game a whole a little for me. I'm not referring to the boss difficulty, which I found ridiculous but rewarding, but more that the world itself is so incredibly dangerous that I often found myself just getting through areas as quickly as possible to get straight to the next sculptors idol or boss - what's the point of exploring when items aren't going to make you significantly stronger and you're likely to run into some outrageous optional miniboss that's going to send you to the You Died screen in 3 seconds. Exploring is dangerous in all modern From games, but the reduced RPG components of Sekiro mean that exploring is higher risk and lower reward than it's ever been - which is too bad! I know there's some cool stuff I missed out on (and there's a lot of stuff I only found because I looked up where to go, rather than stumbling on it naturally), but I'm sure as hell not going back into that meat grinder to find it! A game to feel good about beating, but not one I'm likely to revisit any time soon.