Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

I went back to this and just killed that bull with the flaming horns, died twice before I realised I could parry his charges?? That makes sense.

I’m obsessed with this game last few weeks. Just beat Owl Father in Hirata after many hours of failure (his firecrackers are devastating). Celebrated far too much afterwards!

The fights against Owl are two of my favourite boss fights of all time. Both fights it takes a while to get used to recognising and avoiding/countering his attacks, but once you do and you start getting into that rhythm, it's just so goddamn satisfying.

Platinum done this morning. Just a phenomenal game, kind of sad it’s over!

If any From title deserves a sequel it’s this one, the combat is too good to limit to one game!

Definitely go for platinum. After 3 months or so of not playing, I felt I had to relearn the timing/rythms etc.

Was glad I already had the platinum under my belt!

Yeah the tracking of enemies during both the wind-up and execution of their attacks can be.... frustrating to say the least. I remember getting really annoyed at another early game mini-boss who would hold his sword up like he's going to slice downwards, and no matter how many dodges I'd get around him, he could practically do a full 360 on the heel of one foot twisting around to hit me. But you get used to it once you start getting the timing and direction of your dodge right. Sometimes a dodge to the side is better, sometimes dodging backwards is better. Sometimes not staying too close to begin with is better.

The Ogre is definitely tough because of his wide grabs and how his attacks can track you. If you have a fire prosthetic on your arm he's pretty weak to it (enemies with glowing red eyes are weak to fire), so you can hit him with that and get a good few hits in before he recovers (even better if you throw a thing of oil first). If you don't have the flamethrower you might need to go to Hirata Estate if you haven't been there yet. Main advice though is keep distance. Once you've gotten one or two hits in, dodge backwards as much as possible, bait an attack, then go in for another few hits. The area at the base of the stairs is more open and I think there's a tree branch you can use to grapple over him to get distance.

Yeah I was trying to think if there was a way to get the first deathblow on the Ogre as I'm pretty sure you can't sneak around him. But I think on some tries I did manage to bait him out, hide to de-aggro him, then get the first deathblow from sneaking up behind him as he walked back.

Another tip I forgot to mention, as weird as it may sound, you can deflect/parry some of his grab attacks. Only moves where the red symbol appears above his head can't be parried. Other than that, even grabs can be parried/blocked.

Don't forget you can stun him with firecrackers.

There's an area called Hirata Estate you can access, but in fairness, it's not well explained to you how to get there.

If you met an old woman talking/crying about her son, she may have given you an item called Young Lord's Bell Charm. If you return to the sculptor and talk to him, he'll say something about offering it up in prayer. There's a Buddha statue in the sculptors shack, pray to it with the bell and you'll be transported to Hirata Estate.

It's a new area with different enemy types, and some good weapons/upgrades to find for your prosthetic, including an axe that can break shields, and a flamethrower attachment. It'll also help you level up a bit if you're getting stuck on the Ogre and want to move on somewhere else. Once you find the first shrine in Hirata Estate you can travel freely between both areas anyway. It's worth checking out.

But again, don't feel bad for missing it, because it's pretty poorly explained and I think I found it by accident and didn't know what the hell was happening when it transported me there.