Sekiro. It took me about 45 minutes of back-to-back attempts, but I finally defeated Genichiro Ashina. While he wasn’t quite the “git gud” experience I’ve heard him to be (that experience still lies with Juzou for me), he was far and above the most challenging fight thus far. His move set isn’t as expansive as I expected, but where he really brings the challenge is the variations in his attack patterns. He does have quite a few moves, but he utilizes them well by mixing them up in a variety of ways. I noticed that he would cancel some combos part way through and switch to a different attack or combo. Almost all his attacks have reasonable tells, so it never felt unfair, but you definitely have to pay close attention and react quickly.
He uses all three types of unblockable attacks, and I liked how he used them. The first one he uses regularly is a thrust attack. He seems to be able to use it on its own after a long-ish wind up, but I rarely saw this one. I most often saw it as the second attack in a combo. He would jump in the air and perform an overhead attack with his sword, and then immediately follow up with the thrust attack. I loved this attack, because the jumping slam was pretty easy to deflect, and the Mikiri Counter (an unlockable skill that counters a thrust attack and deals some hefty posture damage) is pretty generous with its timing. I could pretty much just mash the circle button after deflecting the jumping attack, and I would get it without fail. Unless I held the thumbstick in any direction, in which case I’d dodge the attack, which was frustrating because that caused me to miss out on some easy posture damage. Where this fight makes things fun is that in the second phase, Genichiro also begins using a sweeping attack after that jumping attack. He always uses the the sweeping attack the first time he does the jump attack in the second phase, but after that, he can use either the sweep or the thrust. Both of these attacks allow for good posture damage, but you have to pay attention to which one he’s going to use. I loved that the fight did this, because it meant I couldn’t just relax when he used this combo. That’s not even mentioning the fact that he can cancel the attack after the combo. I even witnessed him use the jump attack twice in row without following either up with an unblockable.
Phase three is, in some ways, the easiest. He seemed to have less health and a little less posture, and he always opened this phase with a jumping thrust attack that could be Mikiri Countered for some quick initial posture damage. About 75% of the time, he followed this attack with one unique to this phase: he jumps in the air, channels lightning, and then whacks you with it. This attack cannot be blocked to countered—but only while on the ground. Fascinatingly, the only way to counter this move is to jump in the air, deflect/block the lightning attack, and then perform an attack, which allows you to essentially reverse the attack on him. This allows for more good posture damage, and it stuns him for a few seconds. He can then use this attack throughout this phase, mixing it in with his normal move set. I had a little more trouble with it when he used it after the first time because sometimes I realized too late that he was using that particular attack, but by the third or fourth attempt of this phase, I realized the animation for him prepping to jump for this attack is unique and noticeably different than any of his other jump attacks. Really, the hardest part about this phase was that the first few times I made it here, I was out of heals and low on health. As I steadily improved, though, that changed, and I eventually emerged victorious.
If I had one complaint about this fight, it’s that stupid bow. Holy crap, did I hate that thing. For whatever reason, I never learned to consistently avoid, block, or deflect his bow attacks. Blocking was generally easiest, but the posture damage I received just wasn’t worth it. Running left or right seemed to be the most consistent way to avoid getting damaged or staggered, but depending on how close I was and if I’d just performed an attack, I couldn’t always pull that off. I found that the fights in which he frequently used the bow resulted in my worst performances. The only thing I liked about the bow was the pressure it put on healing. Any time I created space and used the Healing Gourd, he whipped out that bow and took aim. The brilliance of this moved is that the time it takes him to aim and draw is just long enough that he fires right as the gourd animation finishes, giving you just enough time to sprint left or right to avoid damage. This makes healing a little stressful, obviously, because the bow does about as much damage as the gourd heals, but I loved the fact that it kept me from getting complacent. It taught me to be constantly on my toes. I even learned that if your spacing is right, you can sprint left or right and forward to avoid this attack, close the distance, and perform a running attack before he recovers from firing the shot. It’s not a significant advantage, but it proves that, for all this fight’s difficulty, there are decent opportunities to take advantage of.
I know I have a tendency to ramble in these posts, especially when I’m talking about the bosses, but I just enjoy talking about them. If any of you do actually read these posts, I appreciate that. Hopefully they don’t bore you and leave you wondering why you sat through this inane wall of text.
