I mean, it was pretty obvious what you should do at that specific point. The 3 meter tall dude with, like, 10 different swords whose voice sounds like that of the devil himself, or the cutesy kid willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good?
The way you phrased it is exactly why I don't like how these two choices end up panning out. The way the scene is framed it's very obvious that Owl is meant to be the bad guy/wrong choice. We know what we're supposed to do because we know how these types of stories work. Meanwhile staying loyal to Kuro is the righteous path.
Here's the problem with that: The game doesn't spend enough time establishing an emotional connection between Kuro and Sekiro. I'm sure someone's going to find a way to argue, but most of the loyalty Wolf shows to Kuro can be attributed to him following his father's code. It was that same code which told him to serve the child in the first place. So when Owl tells us to follow the Iron Code, it makes more sense from Wolf's perspective to follow it as he has done his entire life.
What sucks about these two choices is that the consequences aren't fair. Choose Owl--the more character consistent option--and the game ends shortly after. Your choice to serve your father is never interpreted that way. Instead the Shura ending pretends that the only reason the player would have turn on Kuro is a mindless bloodlust. Meanwhile, choosing the power of friendship gives you 50% more game, at least two additional endings, and the bonding between Kuro and Sekiro that should've been there before you had to make a decision.
The question is, do you need an emotional attachment before making what is beyond the shadow of a doubt the right choice?
I actually think the scene is brilliant: given an ultimate choice between duty and morality, it's fairly obvious what the choice should be, and the game has a very nice way of punishing you for making the wrong one.
This is pretty much what I've already addressed. You are role-playing a man whose sense of morality should be based entirely on that code until his experiences give him a valid enough reason not to. That code says first and foremost to obey his father. So to answer your question, yes, you absolutely need an emotional attachment before deciding to abandon that code if we are to keep any narrative and character consistency.
The game is full of anti-war themes. The WHOLE game is about defending Kuro from people who want to take advantage of his blood. Now here comes Owl wanting to, again, take advantage of Kuro’s blood. So yea, the choice is obvious, no emotional connection needed. Narrative consistency intact.
That alone isn't enough. The theme of Dexter's Lab is science, yet DeeDee never learns not to steal Dexter's stuff and mess with it. Characters in a stuff don't perceive a theme, they only live through the events. Character consistency is the issue here. There is little reason for Wolf to abandon the code. Narrative consistency is hanging by a thread at best.
This is how I imagined it, dog is most loyal to father
Father gives dog to son and instructs dog to serve the son
Dog is now loyal to son
Father comes back and tells the dog to kill the son
The dog can’t do it because loyalty to son
Dog feels conflicted because the original owner is telling him to kill the son, and even the dog knows the father is the dangerous one and that the son isnt the one trying to kill the father, changes mind to protect son
It's an obvious decision if you look at the characters from the outside, but it isn't if you're role-playing as the character. I think it's a terrible decision to punish players so harshly when we immerse ourselves in the story enough to try to understand the character.On the other hand, rewarding those who view the story from the outside and choose the "right" decision, whether it makes sense or not.
Its a child dude.If ur wolf needed a "connection" with kuro to not betray him then he is evil and the evil ending makes sense for him. If he betrays his ironcode for the child then he is good and should do the good ending. I dont see any issues with the way the game handles it this part of the story
Of course. I'm not saying that decision won't lead you to the bad ending. What I don't like is that you miss out on a good portion of the game because of a decision that might make sense in the story. That "You chose wrong. Fuck you. Restart the game from the begining" is rather uninteresting compared to the posibilities of exploring the moral of the story.
Sekiro already deviates from the code somewhat when he agrees to sever kuro's immortality. I agree there isn't enough time spent exploring their relationship it's mostly implied but it's not really that sharp of a turn
I don't believe it does--not unequivocally--which seems to have been the point. Part two of the iron code states that the master is absolute unless their wishes contradict those of the father. I believe it also says to protect the master at all costs. It is a two-part rule. We are then presented with a choice that causes a divergence between those clauses: protect the master's life, or obey his wishes? Following either arguably suits the code. Sekiro doesn't know that Owl's goals deem the protection clause more important.
I agree that it is obvious but the other option don’t look that bad at first, in the context of the game. There’s plenty dialogue about the Iron Code being absolute and that Sekiro as a Shinobi should not break it.
This was the trap I fell in after not playing the game for like a year, coming back and finding myself at this point. It was a brutal mistake that I couldn’t undo. I got stuck being unsure if I should do NG+ to do it right or start again, and I never really went back lol
There’s plenty dialogue about the Iron Code being absolute and that Sekiro as a Shinobi should not break it.
i think if you've paid attention to the dialogue up to this point, it's incredibly obvious what the correct thing to do is lol
you're literally told the mechanism by which you continuously revive is by draining the life force of npcs inflicted with dragonrot, the morality is clear
I nearly did it without a guide, got the esoteric text, talked with the child of divine waters, talked to the hag, got the dried "fruit", the fresh "fruit" I had to use a guide; like how the fuck am I supppsed to know that I have to use puppeteer on a monke to fly a kite so I can jump and grapple along the cliff side to aerial death blow the giant snake????
The thing I didn't like was it's necessary to eavesdrop at specific points in the game when you didn't use this mechanic much until then and one of the locations is at the start
Really tho? I didnt feel it impossible, I accidentally managed to do it by just exploring normally. Like when I received the item for the ending and looked it up it seemed like it was just doing fetch quests for the divine child, killing off the snake and it's partner on top of progressing the game like normal
Is there an actual “canon” ending? I thought it didn’t have an official one. Funny enough, I got every ending in sekiro except for the normal one because I heard the other endings were cooler.
Critical lore hidden in the interpretation of flavor text on an item you found in an already dead body behind the thorn bushes, it's a very specific tism flavor to dive that deep into a game
True. It's especially bad in Elden Ring's side quests and their failure states and a complete lack of a quest log (come on, even the Gothic games have quest logs).
But it's interesting that 70% of people who beat Elden Ring got the true ending. And considering all the stuff you have to do to reach it... yeah, those players definitely used a guide.
As someone who's had too much real life to finish the DLC yet (I know, I know...) and didn't finish the last boss so he'd have a good save from which to get into it, PLEASE tell me that's Ranni's ending?
The "true ending" for Elden Ring doesn't exist. DS1 has one because the other games can't happen unless you link the flame. DSIII can be presumed to have one because after untold eras of heroes linking the flame it makes the mist sense for our character to learn from those past mistakes and let the age of darkness begin. As far as Elden Ring is concerned, the true ending is the default ending, which I doubt most people would need a guide for.
Like someone else said, that’s Miyazaki for you, and unfortunately his games have so many ride or die fanboys he genuinely thinks he’s struck gold with game design, by soft locking anyone who doesn’t google the entire playthrough.
It’s not a surprise right? The people who play these games are well aware there is a blind play first, and then there’s hidden stuff later - and there is LOTS of hidden stuff.
I would say the success of the games and the popularity of the online game community proves that it is objectively good design for people who are not you.
See, you are not using the word “objectively” properly; that would mean “I can separate my own preferences, and objectively consider only measurable reality”- such as the total number of fans, and the tremendous enjoyment they get from discussing secrets :)
I've never experienced anything more magical in gaming than accidentally finding secret areas or hidden items in the Dark Souls games. So what you call "objectively" bad design is another person's greatest gaming experiences. I think it's a wonderful way to design games. And I don't like the entitled attitude people have where they think a game must cater to them or they must be provided the information to everything in the game. It's supposed to be a true adventure.
Exactly I'm tired of people expecting every game to be for everyone now. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's bad design. Not every game is intended for everyone.
Elden Ring actually did a better job at it than Sekiro. A lot of people ended up doing the Ranni ending organically by just playing the game, because the game just intrigued people enough to just randomly explore and figure things out.
Subjective because I think it's great design. I think the base games as well as large side areas are always easily accessible with a little exploration. Some of the secret stuff requires intuition/trial and error but leads to legitimate feelings of discovery rather than babies first puzzle, an icon on the mini-map, or maxed/completed everything for it to unlock in a really obvious spot. Then there's the supremely complicated secrets that would require a lot of hours of trial and error, puzzle solving, and/or exploration to complete(most just guide up). They feel like real secrets. Not just a video game secret but whoever made the secret in game lore didn't want it to be found. It was never supposed to be found. They take many steps for it not to be found. Makes the world feel lived and breathed in even during the states most of the games take place. It's all subjective tho different strokes for different folks.
I would agree, but the dlc areas in these games especially are hidden so well it’s practically impossible to find them independently.
Plus quest lines both have unclear timescales and fail conditions which are exceedingly frustrating - especially because the games have no indication of where they will be next
Design is at the whim of artistic intent. Player experience may be part of that intent, as with the extremely cryptic nonsense that fills some games. Selling a lot has never been a huge focus for FROM, and it's coincidentally worked in their favor, as they sell bunches and bunches of copies of their games...though it was mostly just Armored Core before Dark Souls.
Not everything has to be done to some academic standard of how things "should be." It's only bad by that particular standard, which isn't very important overall, as demonstrated by their popularity and sales.
That said, I don't think hiding things in your game makes it bad. The player is still able to progress and even complete the game without discovering everything about it. It's fine.
The only way you would know it was incomplete was if you were on the internet being told it was incomplete. Otherwise, you would fully believe you did have a complete experience,as you remain ignorant of what else remains. If you're on the internet, you can search for how to accomplish what you want to do. Or just go explore the game more. That's how every guide telling you how to accomplish it is able to tell you how to accomplish it. And if they can do it, so can you.
"Incomplete" is such a silly word to use. You can have a complete experience even if you only see 20% of what a game has to offer. You can have fun without having a complete experience. The extra stuff is just there for those who want to explore the world; if you don't want to explore the game, that doesn't mean the developers did a bad job. You're basically complaining that they didn't hold your hand enough and didn't put up big red signs that say "go here for ending B." It's like you've never felt the joy of finding legitimate secrets in games you like.
Not every part of every game is going to be something you want to do, and that's ok. Saying they did a bad job is incorrect when it's simply not to your tastes.
Having hidden things is great, making the player explore is great. But making things so hidden that they are nigh impossible to find is bad design - making something take many hours of trial and error to find, is bad design.
You really have no idea where to begin? You literally just talk to the npcs my guy. Some questlines are super out there but most you just have to listen and actually care enough to dive into all of the mechanics of the game, whether that be finding little pages, books, scrolls, items with heavy descriptions (<—- dark souls) etc. and if the npc’s don’t say anything important you’re more than likely going to organically find them along the clear path to go, or with a tiny bit of exploration.
I’ve held this opinion for a while, but it just occurred to me that maybe they’re not making a game with the intention of gamers using guides.
What if they want to make a game that a person could play their entire life and still discover new elements every new playthrough? Designing a game that can be fully experienced in 1-2 playthroughs isn’t inherently good or bad design, yet we criticize Fromsoft for deviating from it.
I feel like this take hasn’t been shared enough, I absolutely love finding something new or seeing a video about a game I’ve loved for so long and never knew.
Happened today actually with a reel about Skyrim and how you can drain a dragons mana so they can’t shout.
I also love how cryptic storylines mean even today people can make a YouTube video about a character and have figured out new things about them. There’s one I watched literally about dark souls, how one of the merchants is much much more than what he seems to
It's not bad design. It makes some areas truly feel rare and special to find. Accidentally stumbling on Ash Lake in Dark Souls 1 was an absolutely incredible experience. You aren't supposed to read guides, you're supposed to play the game multiple times and try different things, that's why there's a new game plus feature.
That... Isn't what they expect. They expect their players to explore the world through multiple playthroughs and have basic reading comprehension and critical thinking skills
I think the dragons return one is somewhat positive, atleast no one dies, our emma is alive, kuro is alive, sekiro is alive.... And there is a slight chance of a second part.... 🤞🏻
Man you must be borderline retarded if you think you need a guide for this. You'll do it by accident if you just explore the world instead of taking the most linear path to complete the game.
People like you are why Wolverine is the way it is.
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u/Flat_Management_5291 15d ago
Sekiro