Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs

2. The Tutorial Is So Gentle

The most immediately noticeable quality of Sekiro, aside from it's gorgeous environmental design, is its incredibly user-friendly opening area. The game has a really gentle introduction to each of its mechanics in a way that does not feel overwhelming.

When you first gain control, you don't even possess a weapon, and the game instead teaches you mobility and stealth before combat, which is a very interesting and welcome deviation from the norm. Similarly, when we do receive a means of defending ourselves, we are slowly drip-fed techniques so that we may gradually learn everything that our shinobi can do, more advanced skills are all locked off until later, to let you get to grips with the basics of combat first.

Button prompts are plentiful, and the ability to pause the game to read the tutorial messages, as well as using it to take a break from intense gameplay, all culminates in a very comfortable opening hour with the game. Not that I remembered it had a pause, most of the time - it's a very welcome addition.

Even still, this is a Souls game, and we are very quickly reminded of that when we face our first real "boss", as all of that comfort and security is completely shattered, and we have to get back to work to build it back up again. This is the perfect title for those looking to get into these tough-but-fair action games, but may have always been a little intimidated by FromSoftware's other titles.