Patient Gamers

Started playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice this week. I may or may not have bought it because I got it mixed up with Ghost of Tsushima, so the fact that it's essentially Bloodborne but in Japan caught me a bit off guard, but it's not bad. There's been three separate times now where I've gotten stuck on a boss, closed the game thinking "I hate soulslike games, this was a waste of money," and then beat the boss on my first try the next day.

It seems like they took into account the fact that you can't summon friends when they tuned the difficulty. It's not easy by a longshot, but it's not as impossible as other Fromsoft games.

The posture gauge is my favorite game mechanic. Having both defense and offense move the fight along makes it so much less of a slog than other soulslikes. Normally I just dart around the battlefield getting one light attack in every 30 seconds, but this game has me standing right next to the boss, actively rewarding me for memorizing telegraphs and attack patterns. It's super satisfying.

ETA: I almost forgot another good thing about this game! You don't level up individual stats one at a time! Some see this lower level of customization as a drawback, but I see it as an improvement. You'll never get to the end of the game and hit an insurmountable roadblock because you levelled up stamina too much. You can get every skill and use every tool. Boss fights become a matter of mutable equipment loadouts instead of irreversible level choices.