Sekiro

You can't do the bosses of either until after you've killed Genichiro. The only "main" boss you can do before him is the monk at the end of Mibu Village.

Again though, don't JUST concentrate on the deflects. Sometimes it's good to block, sometimes it's good to quickstep and go in with a strike that'll do additional vitality and posture damage. Each encounter is designed a bit differently.

Also why the fuck have I never used mist raven before, it's awesome.

Haha! I think we're all just beaten down by life at this stage and our previously free-flowing minds have turned to shit 💩. Great job though mini-wunty 👍.

I congratulated Phattso in the Pigwhip thread, but I'll do it here too. Congrats on beating Genny! Onwards now, Ninja-phatts!

Personally I would do Senpou temple. It's not that hard, there's one hard enemy type that only shows up like twice. The boss is piss easy and there's lots of relatively easy enemies you can get lots of resources from. It's basically a free weapon damage upgrade.

Personally I recommend doing Senpou -> Sunken Valley -> Depths/Mibu. Don't do Sunkey Valley last though whatever you do, iirc the boss gets powered up if you leave it for last.

Maybe I'm misremembering but I'm sure I read that if you do the other two areas first he gets a buff to compensate for your increased attack power. Might be wrong though.

Now onto Mibu!

I suppose if you're stronger by that point, it just evens out anyway

I didn't even realise there was an invisible monkey in the senpou fight. I accidentally killed it while I was killing a different one.

Indeed! Sometimes I'll go hours without killing one, and then three will come along at once.

Snake Eyes and Caterpillar sent to meet their makers. Slightly odd in that they’re both mini bosses that I couldn’t get a sneaky stealth deathblow in. Had to do it the hard way.

Luckily I’d just spent seven years practicing deflects with my mate Genichiro, so neither of them remained upright for long.

This is what the ancients called "hubris" as I'm fairly certain the next actual boss is going to F me in the A for real tho.

Should only really be the first phase the fazes you with ape if you're good with the ol' deflects.

That Guardian Ape is a bit of a handful then, eh?! Must've had a dozen runs now just trying to learn the patterns and look for any weaknesses I can exploit. Every time I've tried to get up close and personal I'm getting creamed, so working on the assumption I need a new tactic.

So I'm presently trying to complete The Flung Poop Protocol, whereby I hand back and bait out the shit flinging, then race in - block the poop (eeewww!) - and get a few cheeky hits in.

I haven't finished the phase yet, but that's feeling like my current best avenue for success. Amazingly, I was able to run around for several minutes just watching the dude without either of us landing a (s)hit! Intriguing fight, I'm enjoying it despite making slow progress.


On the topic of slow progress, I realised I hadn't been back to the opening area of the game where I was down a well. There's a whole new area there (and I'm assuming I'll find Mibu Village that was mentioned above). Got through one mini-boss at the entrance (great scrap in tight confines there) and found some mystical prick with floating skulls that I've noped out of, sprinted on and found yet another Snake Eyes encounter. So! Lots of avenues to progress, lots to explore.

And I have 10 skill points to spend! Should probably figure out where to put them.