9/10: Sekiro takes From Software's hallmark challenging brutality and mixes in lots of bushido, parrying, stealth, and backstabbing. Hone your skills and overcome the bosses standing between you and your goal of aiding the Divine Heir!

You are Okami (Wolf), a disgraced ninja who begins the game moping in a hole in the ground. Afflicted with a case of protagonist-level amnesia, you are stirred to action when a mysterious woman drops a letter in your hole of sadness informing you that your master Kuro, the Divine Heir, is still alive.

Kuro, the Divine Heir, is blessed/cursed with the Dragon's Blood, which makes himself and you functionally immortal. Beyond serving as the primary macguffin that everyone is trying to seize control of, this manages to justify your multiple lives and ability to respawn in terms of the story, which is a nice touch.

Over the course of the game, the challenge you face as the shinobi of the Divine Heir is either defeating those who have captured him and Ashina Castle, or seeking out key items that Kuro informs you about. This takes you to around a dozen zones, ranging from temples to mountains to misty forests and even the divine realm which are all beautifully designed.

Along with this variety of areas comes a variety of enemies, each with their own movesets to learn. Being a From Software game, even non-boss enemies deal painful damage to you, and two or three enemies ganging up on you can be fatal.

At the very start your lack of skills, power, healing items, and general enemy knowledge means even standard enemies can put up a challenge. This is not a hack and slash game with a goal of getting huge combos. Rushing in and going wild will usually just get you killed. Instead it's all about being cautious, learning the timing of when to parry moves and when you can strike back one or twice, and persevering until the enemy Posture bar finally maxes out. Posture recovers quicker the more health someone has though, so reducing an enemies health helps break their posture faster. Once it does, you can instakill your opponent with an epic shinobi deathblow.

However, if your opponent kills you, you will lose half of your money and current level progress! While this does sound harsher at first than the way Dark Souls allows you to retrieve everything if you return to the spot you died, just make sure you spend your money and experience before you take any big risks in this game and you'll avoid the pain of losing all the experience you earned from a boss fight.

Mechanically, Sekiro makes a lot of choices that help the game feel bigger but also more opaque. There's no minimap to discern your direction or local landmarks. NPC's don't have indicators or glowing exclamation points indicating they need you to do quests for them. The game doesn't even have a section that tracks quests that you're actively on, which makes it even easier to accidentally miss out on some interaction or eavesdropping that's crucial to unlocking certain endings. Everything falls on the player to track and orient themselves over the course of the game, so consider playing with a guide if you want to unlock as much as possible on your first playthrough. That being said, unlocking everything requires multiple playthroughs anyway, so don't worry too much if you miss some collectibles or an ending the first time through.

The economy in the game is basic. There are some shopkeepers with limited quantities of useful items littered throughout the game, and there are some key items that need to be bought from time to time. You also use money along with certain materials to upgrade your shinobi prosthetic, which can contain shinobi tools like shurikens and a defensive umbrella once you find the necessary blueprints. Even so, it's easy to have found enough money to buy up all the limited stock items in the game even if you die numerous times and lose a bunch of money.

Instead of worrying about losing money, worry about losing experience. There's good variety of skills to unlock and towards the end they can take anywhere from 5 up to as much as 9 levels of experience to acquire! Trying to get all of the skills in the game is what necessitates the largest amount of grinding in this game for sure.

Yet Sekiro, much it's From Software siblings, is a mix of frustrating lows and satisfying highs.
Learning the ways to avoid detection before assasinating foes along your path? Satisfying.
Camera shifts unviewably close because you backed up into a wall in the middle of a fight? Frustrating.
Dropping in on an enemy or boss and removing a health bar with a surprise ninja deathblow? Satisfying.
Dying a dozen times to a boss? Frustrating.
Finally defeating a boss, or better yet doing it on the first try? Satisfying.

Ultimately, Sekiro's few flaws don't detract from the finely honed swordplay and design of the world and story. Though it doesn't hold the players hand and provide guidance, if you keep talking to NPC's and defeating bosses you'll eventually find the way to continue the story. Just keep parrying, mikiri counter thrusts, jump over sweeps, and keep chugging those healing gourds.