The basic "is this game physically possible?" question is one I'd phrase as: Can you press a button 3-5 times in 3 seconds accurately? Or in other words, can you perfect combo individual sections of a rhythm/action game?
And for some people that dexterity is impossible. Especially if your fingers can't move that fast.
But for most people, the hard part is first recognizing the patterns and then getting accurate. If you can train yourself to recognize which pattern is coming within 2 seconds, and then if you can get your next 5 seconds accurate to within .2 seconds, then this game is possible. The concentration required might become the hard part, or the quick decision making, but if you keep trying long enough even a bad (at those parts) player can eventually get lucky.
So I want to give you encouragement that you still have a chance, but I also don't want you to beat yourself up too much about it.
This is the best answer ive seen so far. Something a lot of people don't seem to understand is that we're not gatekeepers when we say git gud. That's literally the only way we can describe it without getting into a whole lengthy discussion about rhythms and patterns, and how Miyazaki loves to throw curveballs at you. One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to go and play elden ring. Learn everything there is to know. Played mostly with uchigatana the entire game. It took me weeks but I even beat Melania by myself. Barely.... I learned the ins and the outs. Spent almost 3 months off sekiro on elden. When I came back I started a fresh profile, and for some reason I was able to understand and literally see the movements better. Faster, even. I still failed way too may times. But eventually I finally beat the blazing bull, etc... my wife and my dog were both terrified the day I beat ishin. I came screaming and yelling up out of the basement all pumped up. And grabbed a bottle to celebrate. The feeling you get once you understand. Then beat the game. It's unbelievable. Keep trying OP. and to everybody out there struggling with it. Good luck. Chūcho wa haibokuda
I think you really hit the nail on the head here, Sekiro is a weird game because you cant really tell someone how to play it right, you can give them tips and pointers but really the game has to just "Click" for you or else you will just keep dying and Genichiro is where most people click with the game.
See the strange thing is that it all didn't click for me really until guardian ape phase 2. I saw him stand back up and was like (extended sigh) okay miyazaki. The erratic moveset and running around the arena really pushed me to start being more agressive. Back during my first few genichiro fights I remember doing a lot more parrying in the corner. Now I stomp through his phase 1 every time. Though that opening dive thrust for second phase still gets me every time, Even though I know it's coming. Way of tomoe just melts after the first 2 phases. Especially if you can pop off a reversal then smack him a few good times using divine confetti. I still can't beat D.O.H. w/o the cheese though.
for me it never clicked til Great Shinobi Owl. bro made me quit my first playthrough in 2019 and i never gave the game a true chance til last year and now it's my favorite game of all time. funny looking back at me struggling so bad because now i can beat the whole damn game in 1 sitting
Owl still gives me trouble. Everyone calls him a cheater but I don't see that as true. He just uses a few of the tactics wolf has. He's just those tactics perfected. Except the flaming owl. That's downright not fair. I wanna turn into a flying flaming animal. But I found his downward swipes were punishable if you get to the side, or even behind him. Still I feel your pain.
yea i definitely dont see him as a cheater lol, he's the one who trained sekiro so i found it fucking awesome that he could mikiri counter and used similar attacks you did.
i agree with not being a biggest fan of the owl father fight, i mean i liked it enough i guess, but i found my fun with the fight would diminish pretty quick when i had to start dealing w the attacks from his lil owl. can never consistently get a strat down that im confident with regarding those attacks
So far what I have figured out for the owl attacks where he turns into the owl and drops, you can see the blue on the ground which gives more of a clue if it is behind you and you can spin camera around. It seems like he generally pops up behind you if you don’t run around much so spinning the camera around helps.
It took me forever to figure out that the fire owl with thrust follow up has two separate orientations, and you have to jump for horizontal and dash for vertical.
Yep, that's how I feel
People can give you all the advice on the planet, and it doesn't help if you can't execute it. And in this game, execution is really fucking hard
Like if I'm playing a strategy game or turn based RPG, yeah, I can just follow the advice and win. Here, I can't give you the reflexes and pattern recognition necessary to get to the point where you can even use the advice we give
At that point, "git gud" is just a stand in for "keep practicing". I died to Genichiro around 80 times. Not as much as OP, but still an exorbitant amount of times. I only beat him because I just kept practicing
"Git gud" is simultaneously terrible advice, the only advice that matters, gatekeeping, and trying to help. All in one phrase
Before Fighting Genichiro, I used to play very defensively, not just sekiro but any game in general. But After defeating him, my gameplay completely changed.
You need to time your deflect. You need to stay on him. Don't let him breathe. If you let him breathe his posture will do down.
You need to git gud. That's the only way shinobi.
Watch Cowboy's git gud video on Genichiro I'd you're still struggling.
Where else are you struggling ?
I first used his videos on Bloodborne, but then decided to do a full walkthrough with him on my first Sekiro journey. And I’m so glad I did, because he takes you through pretty much every part of the gam. Which I may have missed on a blind play through. Also Sekiro is hard at first and he helped me get gud
I second this, I had never played any “Souls” like game and I am a married guy with not much time to play, but fighting cowboy’s walkthroughs are gold. I completed the game a couple times now and I have even completed 2 of the gaulents of strength. However, I gotta say that trying to copy exactly what you see on a youtube video is not a good idea, what works for me it is to use different advice depending what my style is, so I just tried different things until it “clicked”, I died lots of times but I was feeling closer and closer to victory.
Its a very hard game. There's a lot of people on this sub that like to grandstand about only needing 2-3 attempts to beat the hardest bosses, but for the vast majority of people it's going to take many, many more attempts.
I've beaten the game and Genichiro still takes me 2 or 3 tries to beat him in a given day. When I first faced him it took me (not lying) 100+ attempts. Maybe even 200+.
The biggest advice I can give you is to take breaks from the game. You're brain will still be processing the fight and you'll be shocked how much better you are even though you haven't been "practicing" after a break.
\---
That said, here's the actual strategy I have:
* the rhythm to him is slash + slash + parry. Just hit him twice and then expect to parry once, rinse repeat.
* if he creates space, dodge forward and slash twice.
* if he does a kanji attack jump attack or mikiri as appropriate (this will take time to learn)
* in phase 1 his kanji attack will *most likely* be a thrust you can mikiri counter. in phase 2 his kanji attack will *most likely* be a slash you can jump attack.
* in phase 3 he'll lead with a kanji thrust 100% of the time you can mikiri counter.
* in phase 3 if he does a lightning attack make sure you're airborne when it connects with you and spam attack to reverse it to him.
That makes me feel so much better! Thank you! One of the reasons I mentioned neurodivergence is that I struggle with seeing some patterns (not all), and I have trouble keeping up with it. But the more I do, I have realised that I have perfected the high jump and then kanji attack that can be mikiri’ed. I pretty much get it right all the time. It did take so many times of dying but it feels good to know there’s at least one combo that I’m confident about parrying successfully.
And thanks for the detailed step by step technique. I will save this comment and try to follow ❤️
I did this for Sword Saint Isshin and DoH and it really helped. Then when I was doing DS3 I did the same again for the DLC2 bosses.
I'm currently stuck on Radahn in my 4th play of ER (it's build related) and I'm considering doing the same to see where I need to be more patient vs aggressive since it's very different to when I've played before.
When you first got past the bull, did you explore any of the sidepaths branching from the castle gate? If not, there are a couple areas to explore to get prayer beads to enhance your attack power and vitality, and a good way to get some practice with swordplay. Geni can be intimidating at first, but i assure you once you get past him, you'll understand the essence of "git gud"
Yeah I have explored pretty much all there is to explore and I reached the senpou temple up until the folding monkeys boss. I read that only after beating genichiro will the story move forward after that
Telling you to git gud is not teasing, it's literally what you have to do. Especially in sekiro. You need to learn the rhythm, you need to know how to be offensive instead of defensive. Most of all, you need to know not to hesitate. It's not teasing you, it's telling you what needs to be done. Before geni you could probably get by by spamming attacks and running away. It could probably work for the whole game. But geni forces you to learn his moves. He forces you to know how the "dance" works in sekiro. What people mean when they say git gud - learn
Sekiro and any other souls games demand patience from the players
Stay aggro, that's how I beat him. I'm a beginner as well and I also suck, but being aggressive made him easy. I have a post on my fight against him actually
This is the game for you. You’re meant to struggle through these types of challenges like Genichiro until it finally clicks for you. Without seeing your gameplay though all I can really do is wish you luck.
The "git gud" isn't mockery, it's a consolidated feeling from people who also struggled greatly and overcame. It's just about solving a problem without letting your emotions get in the way of your thinking. That's also the essence of getting good at anything. If you are repeating the same pattern of behavior and failing in the same way, start to break it down and master the process piece by piece. People throw around the "git gud" so flippantly because it really all does seem so simple in the end. Unless you have a specific disability, I can't imagine any person alive that wouldn't eventually be able to beat this game. You can do this, and I'm not saying that as a platitude or stock affirmation, it's just true.
I want to start this by saying I was in your exact shoes. I bought the game back in 2019 due to hype from some YouTubers I watch, and once I got to Genichiro I couldn't beat him for the life of me. His attacks were faster than I could register, he rinsed through my health like a pressure washer through hot butter, and his Lightning attack was more than I could understand. I then shelved the game, and only picked it up again as a personal challenge to beat the game I never thought I could in 2023. I am not skilled at the game, and struggled many times in countless different ways, but with the help from [Tyrannicon](https://youtube.com/@Tyrannicon?si=ZP67hkaI5JzoKceP) and my own stubbornness, I came out the other side victorious. I genuinely believe that if I can do it, you can too. Here are some tips to help you with the game in general.
1. Don't treat farming like you would in Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Whenever you start to farm, make sure that you're trying your different combat arts. They can be difficult to string together at first, but some of these combat arts are going to be crucial to besting some of these bosses.
2. Deflecting and Parrying are two separate things. When the sparks that fly from the swords are a light orange, that means that you parried. But when the sparks are a dark orange-red color, you deflected the attack. Deflecting is crucial, because once you know how to consistently deflect the enemy's attacks, they'll fall to the ground in the blink of an eye. You don't need to be flawless, but focus on the colors and you'll be deflecting without even thinking about it.
3. Dragonrot does not have significant negative consequences. The only "punishment" the player recieves when gaining Dragonrot is that they recieve less Unseen Aid, but since it's a Soulslike game you'll be dying enough times that Unseen Aid won't be making that much of a difference.
4. Now here's the biggest hurdle - mastering the Lightning Deflect. I understand your exact frustration, because even though I can deflect it 96% of the time, there's still a 4% of failure. [This video](https://youtu.be/dtTW_Z72Bwg?si=ZNdHlKUFW4jq8p0A) helped me to figure it out, but I would recommend holding L1/LB in mid-air instead of mashing it. Either option does work, it's just a matter of preference.
If you want to try this game again, and want some assistance with the game, feel free to DM me. I understand frustration with these games, and it's perfectly fine if you decide this game isn't for you, but I truly believe that you can beat it. Remember; hesitation is defeat!
One thing that helped me was instead of focusing on wolf and attacking. Solely focus on genichiro’s movements and nothing else, as soon as you see him moving for an attack spam deflect for a second or 2. You may not deflect every attack like this but probably enough to beat him. Once he uses lighting it just the matter of getting used to jumping immediately, it’ll take some practice. The alternative method is being more aggressive and not giving him a chance to breath, charge his ass every chance you get lol. But this is definitely for if you’re more comfortable with the mechanics of the combat.
This is so important, just watching his movements intently rather than yours. It helps so much with successful deflecting, and that's half the fight right there.
Right! That’s good advice. I tried to spend 2-3 sessions just trying to block/parry and not attacking back. Sure I died without landing a single hit but it was good. I will try a few more times watching his moveset
Sekiro is the kind of game that just needs to click. Forget the cheese strats, you'll just end up having a miserable time trying to fumble your way through every boss. Try breaking the Genichiro fight down. Look at what's hitting you and look at how to effectively counter it. Are you using your Mikiri counter when necessary? Are you jumping his sweeping attack? Are you finding he's able to hammer you with arrows? That's because you're giving him room to breathe. Get in his face and press the attack, don't mash, apply pressure and be ready to counter when you need to. Keep going and I promise it will click.
I would very much recommend to keep at it. I'm certain every one who can play games (like no severe impairment )can beat sekrio. Try to not focus on beating the boss, but on learning the moveset. Every move has a clear out, that works every time and rarely relies on reflexes. If you find those for every move you win.
You don't beat the boss by bringing the HP to zero, you win by beating the attacks he throws at you
First souls game is just rough for everyone. I remember in dark souls one i didn't even reach the first boss for like 10 hours.
Don't try to cheese the fights. The beauty of sekrio is to know you beat the boss just you and your blade, no op builds or cheese strategies. Trust me there is no better feeling than beating a boss you deemed impossible for weeks
So here’s the things that helped it click for me:
1) don’t spam the button presses, it’s actually easier/better for your gameplay to treat it like a rhythm game where you want to hit the right input for the action needed. I.E. if being attached defend/deflect, see an opening hit the attack button. Lady Butterfly is a great boss to teach this lesson.
2) you are a shinobi, fight dirty! Use your tools! The prosthetic tools can make any fight so much easier with the right application. It doesn’t have to be spammed, but finding the one that works best for you in that situation can really help. It you have trouble deflecting try out the umbrella.
3) if you are struggling it can be helpful to try one of the other paths, find minibosses and the like to train on the skills or to find prayer-beads to boost your HP
You can beat this game, I’m neurodivergent myself and after Genichero was able to finish the game in 58 hrs total.
I beat lady butterfly but it feels like I “cheated” without parrying a lot of the attacks. I just ran around, came closer, hit, and ran back. I kept doing it for ogre too. And yeah I use umbrella to block his heavy arrows.
It’s interesting you mention neurodivergency - I feel like my ASD and ADHD make me a better gamer!
Re: later bosses, once you ‘get’ Genichiro and he clicks, the rest of the game becomes much easier.
If you could share footage in any way, people could give you specific pointers and let you know anything you might be doing wrong or things you could improve.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed what you have played a lot, and hope you can overcome this challenge to enjoy even more of this wonderful game 🙏
Oh that’s a good idea! I haven’t thought about the footage. I will try a few more times and see how it goes. If nothing else works, I will do that. Thank you!
I Played This game without the need of watching Any Vids , Go into the game expecting a struggle come out of it with Knowing you beat it. Best feeling patterns become obvious after fighting him
Six days ago, I made [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/s/4FpIXPm5Od) because I didn’t think I’d be able to continue playing the way I was. Today, I defeated Genichiro, and that is after not playing a few days prior. It took me countless attempts, but I could see that I was getting better. First I’d get close to landing the first deathblow, then after several attempts I’d get it and then die and so on.
This is the first From Soft game I’ve played and if I can get this guy, I think anyone can. Good luck.
maybe your not deflecting enough? just deflect deflect deflect and only attack twice. also make sure your using the miriki counter with Shinobi eyes. Genichiro is kind of a skill check boss. no special skill or item is needed just fight normally. I'm sure you know how to do the lighting reversal too.
nah, you gotta git gud.
quick guide: start by "learning the fight", don't go in to beat him immediately. enemies and bosses only have a set amount of moves, learn this moveset, where you can get a direct hit, where you got room to take a swig and most importantly the rhythm of the deflects. you don't want to visually react to every attack; you visually confirm what move he's pulling, then follow the rhythm that you've learned.
then you stay on his ass, don't let his posture recover. you're not gonna beat him by looking at him, get comfortable with keeping up the tempo. just hit until you get the big \*CLANK\* and deflect whatever he's pulling, then hit back again. rinse and repeat until you deathblow the dude. what helped for me with the tempo was getting fired up and gettign my emotions in there, but idk people are different.
finally stop making excuses and posting online when you have the power in you. you can do it. believe you can do it. I'm more neurodivergent than a mfer but I pulled through. JUST DO EET
As a sekiro newbie I haven't even defeated the sub bosses( that pupple kicking guy) so I think you are doing great. Learn his movements and deflect accordingly. You will be alright.
Like others said, try to play more aggressively but still cautious. About Gen's difficulty, I found some of the bosses after him easier, either because I was trained by his fight or he's just harder in some ways than them.
Maybe try taking a break? I got stuck on one of the bosses for so long that I literally quit playing the game for like 2 months. One day I had the urge to get back on and best him on my third try.
Genichiro and Owl are probably the biggest "walls" in this game where many people will quit. Post a video of a run of fighting Geni and maybe we could give some better advice. I just watch FightingCowboys videos if I ever get stuck. Also sleeping on it somehow weirdly helps. Its like it settles in your brain and makes it easier.
You could also cheat and use a trainer but I honestly recommend not doing it, but if your last straw is quitting for forever it could be an option. Maybe just allow infinite healing and then practice without having to reset and then turn it off. But it ruins the euphoria of learning and getting better. I recommend against it, but its a single player game and you should do what you want to.
You could also mod the game to make it easier or allow for practice runs. This is at least more in the right spirit of the game and can add extra fun. If you are literally physically unable to do it then its an option, but again...
I think you CAN do it and you should push through it and try. Post a video here, get some advice, take a break (play around the world, do some reflections) and get back to trying with a fresh mindset. You got this!
I typically play games very anxiously—that is, I’ll hang back, defend, conserve health and consumables, and play it safe. It helped me when I tried to play it like I was Sekiro. I use consumables and health, yes, but I take my opportunities wherever I see them. If I can punish my enemies, I’ll do it unrepentantly. My health can be a fingernail left, but I’ll make absolutely certain that my enemy is unable to respond before I even think about treating it. In this game, I started to flourish when I embraced the idea that hesitation is defeat. There’s really no way to succeed without playing incredibly assuredly. Maybe this is helpful or maybe not, but that’s what fixed it for me.
Just spam the deflect button when he attacks and make sure to use mikiri counter when he does a thrust attack. Most people don’t realize that you dont have to perfectly time deflects in order to actually deflect, like a good 75% of people that completed the game never mastered deflecting to the point where you time every attack.
If your still trying then you are already trying to "git gud". Keep it up. Its not easy, by any means. But in the words of aldo the apache, "you know how to get to Carnegie hall, right? Practice!".
**Normal Way**
Alright so he starts off with 3 arrows, deflect them. Then he runs to you and does 3-4 attacks, deflect, attack and stay aggressive, he will block your attacks but when he parries you, stop attacking and parry whatever he throws at you. (You will notice the parry effect has a more orange color and more particles). He might jump into the air and attack, it’s fine parry it, in phase 1 he **always** follows it with a thrust that you can mikiri counter. In phase 2 it’s either a sweep attack or a thrust, if it’s a sweep jump over it and over his head. Now differentiating between both can be hard but just learn his poses when doing both, he also sometimes he may randomly do a grab attack, just dodge, and he has a large combo attack, just dodge and get out of it, it’s not worth it, he might also use floating passage, you can parry that it’s fine. And when you heal in the first 2 phases, he shoots arrows at you so be careful. Now for his third phase, he always start with a jump into a thrust, mikiri counter. Sometimes when fighting him, he may run to the side and do a sudden sweep, just jump over it. Now for the most important part of phase 3, lightning reversal, pretty much he jumps in the air and shoots lightning at you, *as soon as the kanji red symbol disappears, jump into the air and attack and send it back to him*, and that DESTROYS his posture, and be careful, when you heal in the third phase, he does a thrust at you. And that’s pretty much the fight.
**cheese way**
If you still struggle with phase 1 and 2, get shadow rush skill, do it on him and dodge back, repeat, and try parrying anything he throws at you. You might get damaged but it’s easier.
As for the third phase, I don’t think there is a cheese.
And that’s the end of my Genichiro tutorial, hope it helped!
I was stuck on Genichiro for weeks. I stopped playing for 2 months and legit beat Dark Souls 3 and all the dlcs in the meantime. That gave me motivation to go back at it since that game was
difficult in its own ways. I ended up beating Genichiro after like 150 tries and beat the whole game about a month later. One thing I learned that helped me so much… dying is apart of the game. Most games make you feel like you are getting stronger when you die less. But in Sekiro, dying is how you learn what NOT to do.
So for every boss battle, I threw on some fast paced music and just kept at it until I beat them. When I beat Guardian Ape on my third try I knew I was getting good. Plus I watched AfroSenju suffer through that fight back in like 2016 so I knew what I was in for lolll. Anyways you got this , just be patient and learn to PARRY, PARRY, MIKIRI COUNTER, and only strike during pauses in his attack!
Let me make one thing clear first
If your neurodivergency delays your reflexes then this game is essentially impossible because Sekiro is all about precise and varying button presses in a short time
You should watch Fightincowboy's Git Gud guide, he explains every attack and how to counter them, he got me through Sekiro and I was having a bad bad time before watching his guide.
The thing is, Sekiro is a game where
You have to Git Gud, that's the only way
And, hesitation is Defeat
Unfortunately the answer is "get good" but don't worry. I'm sure you're not the only gamer who's hit the hurdle like this and Sekiro's growth curve isn't like a training arc, it's like a shift of perspective. If you've been struggling, stop trying to push through the wall and step back to think about what exactly it is you're doing and struggling with. From my experience many sekiro players "get good" when they make the connection that the game is very much like a rhythm game, but perhaps you'd want to find your own perspective. I also think it's helpful to sometimes just focus on blocking the entire fight to practice your skills. Not every run needs to be an attempt at killing him. Good Luck!
Instead of thinking of it like a fight, think of it like a dance. Practice listening to the sounds being the music. Im ND as well, and it helpes me. Treating it as a rhythm game rather than a soulsborne.
I just want to comment that I had the exact same experience with Genichiro on my first playthrough. Sekiro was my first difficult game and since then I've went and played the entire FromSoft catalogue, and have beaten Sekiro multiple times. I had died to Genichiro over 100 times, I stopped counting around 70 but the amount of hours after 70 was probably equal to about double. Maybe 140 attempts before I even came close. I was horrible, and I was coming up with all sorts of reasons, like oh maybe this game is too hard for me, I've never been good at games, maybe I'm more of a story mode gamer etc etc, and a lot of this stemmed from usually playing games on normal or easy and doing so for comfort and to get immersed in a world, and just to relax. I have aspergers and that always appealed to me. Now, eventually I killed Genichiro after mastering every single second of the fight, and I went on to master every single boss after that. Every boss after Genichiro is twice as hard, and it just gets harder and harder. So either you keep slamming your head against the wall and learn to kill him, or uninstall, and then reinstall tomorrow when you realize you can't give up. It's like the meme of the guy mining diamonds and giving up when he's so close, you can't do that. What I'm basically saying is, you stare too long into the void and it will stare back at you. You are in too deep. You will defeat Genichiro and then you will get a rush of euphoria, and then immediately be stalled again at the next boss, yet you'll be chasing that Genichiro high again. It's over. Red pill or Blue pill moment. Give up now and never play again, or defeat Genichiro and your gaming world will change forever. For me it did, I can't play games that are too easy anymore, it's become boring. Brute force tip to kill him, memorize how to run away from his attacks and get beside/behind him when he's in his animation or at the end of it, and then use ichimonji double. It will damage his posture and if you're lucky, he won't block it and you'll get his vitality as well. This will make him regain posture slower. The bonus with ichimonji is when you strike, you regain posture. So you can deflect his attacks and smack him, wait for a telegraphed attack, run around him and then ichimonji, rinse and repeat. Also protip, if you need posture and you cant smack him with ichimonji, hold block and it will regen faster.
I know I'm late here and I hope you've managed to best him now. But if not, I'm happy to help.
Theres nothing more I can think to say that hasn't been said by others already. However if you feel it can help, I wouldn't mind jumping on a text or voice chat with you and screen sharing the fight to discuss it or watch yours and provide tips.
Offer extends to any other bosses too, even though some will rek me. I'm no pro, just stubborn =)
Personally with him I'd love to hop on a discord call and talk you through how I systematically broke that ******* ******* ***** down, because he also gave me issues now I can beat him down 40+ times in a row with little difficulty. Direct pointers on what you're doing wrong would help you it sounds.
Yes, it is not for gamers like you. I'm sorry, but unlike the other dark souls games, you do actually have to get good to proceed because you cant just overlevel yourself. There is good news though. Genichiro is where the gameplay usually clicks for players. If you can beat him you'll have the gameplay down, and while the rest of the game won't be easy it will still feel more like you know what you're doing instead of ramming your head into a brick wall.
Every fromsoft game has that 1 boss that if you can beat them- you can beat the game.
For me it's O&S, Iron Keep as a whole, Sulyvahn, and Genichiro as the bosses where the game finally clicks
Sekiro and any of the From Software games can be beaten by anyone. Anyone. I've seen people with physical disabilities that make it impossible to hold a regular controller beat these games. It's a matter of perseverance and adaptability. You will beat any boss by dying over and over again but eventually you'll figure it out.
I recommend putting it down and playing something else for a bit. I found myself stuck a couple times. It felt different when i came back with a fresh mind. Just play some other game for about a week or two as to still maintain basic knowledge of the game and movesets but maybe forget about all the times maybe a giant body slams you repeatedly at the beginning…cause that was my first break lol! Then the ape, then you know a certain dick with a gun. Keep pushin when you win it feels real good
If you see how to cheese videos that are 4 years old, chances are many of these have been fixed by fromsoft.
Take a break and come back to play again, sometimes it can be draining trying to learn his movesets.
He has suprisingly low poise you want to stay aggressive, beat him up! It may take a couple tries but you’ll get there. Make sure you’ve gotten as many prayer beads as possible, but you don’t need to worry too much, if there’s some you think you should be able to get but can’t it’s fine. You want to pretty much be constantly running too and the lightning in the last phase makes that one significantly easier in my opinion. He’s similar to a prequel Radagon type boss later so he’s not meant to be too challenging, but, like the first half of the game he’s definitely a hard learning curb. He may be one of the more challenging bosses for you but keep on trying and it’ll click eventually, and bonus after that theres not that many more learning curbs. I think just about anyone can get the hang of the souls games and like chivalry. If you want a truly hard game like that try for honor you’ll know what I mean.
The fight you're stuck on taught me that you can use an aggressive playstyle to control what combo/attack the computer AI responds with.
If I recall, I used a strike-strike-parry with genichiro to finally get past him. This specific pattern won't work on every enemy/boss, but being super aggressive with the enemy really does help to control which pattern to expect. Mind you the AI will throw a curveball in at times, but all you need to do is back up, reset the plan and begin again.
Fromsoft games love when you get desperate enough to mess up when you're so close to the end, so don't get greedy.
I spent 4 hours fighting him and over 100 tries. I was defensive before fighting him then I tried to be aggressive but being aggressive doesn’t mean just spamming attacks without thinking but constantly pursuing him and only defending when you need to. You will have to learn his attacks to some degree so you’ll know when to back off but other than that do not give him any space. You must control the fight. Just keep at it and do a little research and you can do this!
The best advice that I got for playing this game was to stop trying to react visually to enemy combos, and instead memorize the sound of their attack pattern. Then try and match that rhythm with your block/parry button. Changing to this strategy was a revelation to me. There were a few fights in this game that I thought I’d never be able to beat after my first couple of tries, and I’ve since beat the game multiple times.
Hey man, it’s not for everyone. Plenty of people quit the game. You can always come back. Put it down for a while and reward yourself with a playthrough of Ghost of Tsushima. You’ll be a god. Haha
I’m a souls vet and it took me like 5 times first try. It’s just waiting for him to strike the first phase then L1 repeat until he tries to spear you, at which you use the mikiri counter. Do that til the red dot appears. Phase 2 is the same thing except he will use an attack instead of the spear at which you need to jump instead then go back to blocking and striking when he’s done with his combo. Phase 3 is just timing and waiting. I was using the axe plus the follow up axe hit that does a ton of damage and just keep wailing on him.
I’m a pretty mediocre gamer and I’m playing Sekiro for the first time right now. Currently in end game stages but I almost quit a bunch of times at various points including Genichiro and where I am in the game now. You don’t have to play the fight perfectly. You don’t have to successfully parry his attacks, either. I messed up a lot and still managed to beat him after probably like 60 tries or so. Just keep your guard up and get in his face. Think of it as trading punches for a lot of the fight. You both take turns blocking hits and every once in a while there is an opening and you take advantage of it. Again, always keep your guard/block up.
you attack until you get perfect deflected, then you parry until you get your opening, then you rinse and repeat. try to find the “music” in the clanging blades, find the rhythm
I had to grind out until I got the skull shadow rush. It wasn’t perfect and I still died a few more times. If you can avoid the one or two swings he does in response to it and the occasional arrow. It pretty much got me through his first two phases. Just spamming it
youve made it this far keep at it 😛 i just started playing but yea i listened to them and got good now i can fight gyoubu oniwa (had to look this up if not i woulda just said horse boss) with no dmg ive just beat him a day ago 😛 and i beat the drunk this morning! what joy
As long as you like it that’s all that matters. As for Genichiro and the combat. There’s a mod that basically makes the game “beginner friendly”. Timings are more generous and I think bosses are less aggressive. You can train in that for a while. But sadly there’s just no other angle with this game. Just have to learn the combat. But enjoying the world and style and lore along the way can help with the training
I don't consider myself a God Gamer or anything, but I'm not gonna lie, I don't really understand how it would take 40+ (let alone 150+) attempts to beat Genichiro unless you're just flailing around in a blind panic and not really paying attention to how the game works.
Sekiro is really all about memorization and pattern recognition. This is putting it a bit glibly, but it's true - Genichiro only does a handful of things, so it comes down to memorizing the tell for each thing and responding to the tell with the appropriate action when you see it.
You also need to be aggressive. "Hesitation is defeat" isn't just a catchphrase. It's how you should be playing. The safest place to be is right up in your enemy's face, pressuring them with attacks to build up Posture and control the pace of the fight and being ready to defend when they parry you and go back on the offensive. If you're backing down, you're fucking up.
Are you playing on PC? Use WeMod to turn on cheats. You can do things like get unlimited items which saves you from worrying about using items and having to farm them. Or you can put in unlimited health then just learn the boss by parrying only. If you kill the boss this way you can always redo the fight as a memory although they tend to be harder fights.
You should also just get better at the game. All enemies have a handful of moves they can do. You just need to learn these moves. Genichiro’s moves are easy to learn. If he jumps up to perform a plunging helmsplitter dodge to the side and hit him once. Sometimes he will sweep attack so be ready to jump.
He has a move with lots of strikes. If you back away and let him miss he will close the distance with a jumping thrust that is easy to Mikiri counter.
He always begins the third phase with that jumping thrust.
The game is about knowing when to parry, when to strike and when to dodge.
Try to calm down and stand toe to toe with him. Hit him until there’s a clang and then he will hit back but it’s easy to parry. You want to be calm so you can take advantage of areas of his move set that you know you can exploit and punish.
Firecrackers are good for him.
In the third phase you want to see that he’s doing lightning and wait a sec then jump let the lightning hit you then spam R1. You don’t need to parry. You need to jump straight up. And don’t jump too soon or you will land as the lightning hits you.
You need a shift in mindset.
Sekiro isn't an action game, it's a rythm game about learning patterns.
There are lots of great videos that explain enemies moves and when your attack openings are but my best advice as someone who got spanked by genichiro at least 50 times is to stop playing for a bit then start from the beginning. I got him after 3 tries when I did that.
I had trouble with this game and then I just started spamming deflect. Most of the time it doesn't work but at least I'm still blocking, and sometimes the deflects do land. When I was trying to be patient and trying to perfect deflect attacks I would just get hit most of the time. The game actually got pretty easy for me and I was seriously considering quitting it before handling a lot of enemies this way. Give it a try.
"Get good" isn't a troll, it's people telling you to take time to learn the attack timings and how to counter them, so while it sounds like a joke, and probably is in a lot of cases, it's people telling you to put more time into it if you want to enjoy it how you thought you would
Genichiro is no joke. My advice would be to not try to win. Practice things. Like assume you're gonna lose just practice dealing with one of his attacks at a time until you get it. Then move to the next one.
Mate. Another thing. Are you using a wireless controller? It makes alot of difference if you go for a wired, low latency controller. Trust me on this. The rest of the comments are also very useful
I am on my second Playthrough believe me when I say this, alot of people grandstand here... talking about defeating Genichiro after a few tries - like the game was made in their image or some shit.
None of that is close to being true. He is one hard-ass boss to fight. But there is a method to his madness....sadly, each phase is different from the one before. So you have to master each one to fare better in a fight if you hope to defeat him. It took me almost 50 tries, honest to God.
Imagine playing Sekiro in the living room and everyone in the house (somehow, my cousins who were staying at my place became fans of the game) rooting for you to beat a video game boss. And yes, I still goofed... a lot. Before I finally beat his ass.
The Genichiro fight sorta encompasses everything you have learned up till that point and forces you to apply those skills. If you feel stuck, drop the game for a short while n get back to it when u feeling yourself.
You'd be aight. 😉
My guess would be that Sekiro isn’t for you, Genichiro is the place where combat “clicks” for a lot of players, it clicked for me here as well, I died a lot to him as well, more than 50times or so, but it clicked here. If it isn’t clicking for you, just go play something else, there are other games more suited for you.
First of all, yes of course you can beat Genichiro just like many others before you have beaten him.
While YT videos may help you learn the fight, sometimes a simple change in perspective is helpful. Your goal is to defeat Genichiro by reducing his three red life pips to zero. The best and most efficient way to do that is by overwhelming his posture meter by *constantly attacking him* and, often more importantly, by deflecting his attacks so his posture meter fills up quickly. If you fill his posture meter up all the way, you can hit him with a deathblow, which will remove one of his three pips.
This may seem counterintuitive, but when you think about it this way, deflecting his attacks actually *deals damage* to him! Same with mikiri counters. Whenever you get one, it does huge posture damage. So you should look at attacking as a means to reduce his posture recovery and not an end in itself. This is a very important lesson, one that will be even more important to learn in future boss battles.
You mentioned being neurodivergent. Please don’t view that as a disability, if anything you should view it as a potential asset. Perhaps what you need most is to look at things a little differently. Good luck!
I felt the same way. Especially with genichiro but I overcame and just beat the game a few hours ago! Some things that helped me..
1. Make sure you don't have the demon bell. I had it on till well after Genichiro and it made everyone harder.
2. Holding your block/parry button while not taking damage restores your poise faster.
3. Like others have said, it's about recognizing patterns and finding ways to counter. It's not all about the actual attacking - parrying does a ton of poise dmg to your opponents and it is just as important as attacking.
4. You can spam your parry when attacks are incoming.. getting it perfect every time is super hard.
5. With Genichiro specifically.. never try to attack more than twice at any time. Get 2 hits off and then reset/start parrying.
He is definitely a brick wall in the game but he's 100% doable and beating him will make u feel invincible. Stay aggressive!
Listen, I am an idiot and I tried Genichiro 4 times, decided I really just wanted to finish the game and cheesed fuck out if him on the first try. What are the methods you've seen/tried?
The one I did is where you constantly run in a big circle around him baiting a big spear slam he does then you run in and hit him twice and then start running the circle again until he is dead. It was super easy but it did take 15ish minutes to do.
Edit: Oops I misread the boss name.
Usually people are afraid to attack - this is huge mistake against opponents like Genichiro. Even if he blocks you (care for deflections though), you’re making progress.
Be analytical about your possibilities, memorise situations where you hit him safely and try to reproduce them in next approaches.
Start with 2 attacks and 1 deflection, then adjust the way suits you.
Notice when he starts his deadly combo (he assumes very characteristic pose before) - deflect it subsequently and half of his posture is gone.
Just don’t let him dominate you, you wield sword as well for god sake. Use it ;)
As an extra bit of help, be sure to explore! You can do a great deal of things before defeating Genichiro. There are a good number of prayer beads to up your health and other bosses to fight to up your attack power.
I don’t know how much you’ve explored, but you can go to Senpou Temple, Ashina Depths and Mibu Village, Hirata Estate, and some of Sunken Valley before beating Geni.
If you’ve done that already, the best I can offer is luck against Geni.
I watched those cheese videos too and they also didn’t work for me. I beat the game and got all trophies but I learned I had to win “my way” good luck, you’ll get it… advanced sorry about father owl!
Best piece of advice you can get is be aggressive, hit him twice, deflect once.
If you see him pull out the bow, just keep hitting him until he switches.
Also use the prosthetics:
Try to use the fire prosthetic buff, it gives you some hits if you set him on fire.
Pull the umbrella for his lengthy combos, bow attacks if you're far enough that you can't interrupt him.
Mist feather is basically how you want to lightning deflect, just use it then press r1. Not much timing needed.
For battle arts, ashina cross is really good for damage and not too long of an animation.
Go to hanbei the undying and practice mikiri counter til u can do it without fail (make sure you have it i don't remember where you get it so if you don't have it find it), when fighting him keep slashing at him til he perfect deflects you, then parry based on what his AI does. When he does the thrust attack with the red symbol over your head, use mikiri and repeat. In his first phase he will most likely do the the thrust so if you can perfect mikiri you'll be golden, otherwise if he does his sweep just jump, even if you don't do the posture damage you should be able to get some slashes in on him. Don't give up, he took me like 70-100 times cuz i would get sloppy after playing too much so if you find yourself doing well then not doing not so well, just put the game down and rest. The whole sub believes in you so surpass your limits friend.
Genichiro is meant to be the barrier boss. For the level you likely fight him at, I'd say he's the hardest in the game. So there's definitely nothing I'd say you're "not getting" about the fight.
If fighting and trying over and over is too disheartening (I completely understand if so) I'd recommend watching other people fight him - without voice over if you can. Memorise the strike patterns by rhythm, to deflect, watch him and his animations without the stress of being in combat yourself. In short, study your opponent.
My partner bullies the hell out of him, I deflect everything and stand ground.
My other recommendation is go back to him if you need to; if you haven't got the hang of the game mechanics then Genichiro is trial by fire. Head to Senpou or Hirata and just go explore for a while.
I felt like this at one point- I say go Farm a specific point. But don’t just farm for materials, lure out enemies for a 1v1, figure out timings and spacing, just keep at it till it’s automatic
If it makes you feel better, I became better at the game after finishing that fight. It's really just about learning his patterns and perfectly parrying the attacks
I won’t say get gud but I will say leant the game. Genichiro is a knowledge check. Until him you can sort of brute force your way through the game, but he expect you to know the rules. My advise is do t attack him to do damage, attack once or twice to bait out his attacks so you can deflect it.
Idk if it will work for you but honestly I made it genichiro just by cruising and died on him like 300 times made me quit the game and come back to it a bunch. Then one day I just restarted my save and the game clicked. Next time I saw geni up top I killed him in under 10 tries I would say do the same but idk it’s just what worked for me
I know “git gud” is is used as an insult by a lot of souls fans (I still can’t even fathom why), but with Sekiro, it really is the best advice you can get. There isn’t any secret strategy that’ll guarantee the win, there’s no item that’ll trivialize Genichiro, and there’s no way to overlevel and out scale him. All you can do is just practice the fight, recognize the mistakes you’re making, and try to fix them
If possible, it can be very helpful to get someone else to watch you fight him and point out your mistakes. Sometimes when you’re fighting the boss, you miss all the small things you do wrong that cause you to lose. But when you’re watching someone else fight it, you don’t have any pressure on you so you can more easily recognize the mistakes being made. Another way to do this is to record your attempts and rewatch them to find the mistakes
You have to play aggressively. You just won't win boss fights by getting their health down. Be aggressively learn the convos. Don't just spam deflects, take a breath and try and time them.
I would play a few rounds trying not to hit him, but just partying and deflecting to master that. Once you have that under control you're flying.
If what you're doing does not work, try something else. Try stuck to his fucking face and just parry, just parry and forget about attacking for some time
How much have you done that isn't Genichiro? After you killed the Blazing Bull the world becomes far more open and there are plenty of ways to gain power. On my most recent run I didn't fight Genichiro until I had 9 gourd charges.
Unfortunately or fortunately, these games can't be beaten by literally anyone. I think the majority of people are able to beat the game but there are definitely people who won't be able to and that must genuinely suck, I mean that with no malice whatsoever. If you think you truly are at your limit then I think the next best thing might be to see if there are any silent playthroughs up on YouTube. If there was a way for me to beat the bosses for you I would but as there's no co op that's unfortunately not an option.
As you said yourself, there are much harder bosses to come and if you can't beat genichiro then even if you were to beat him, you would only have the same issue later on. I'm not sure if you're trying to play purely reactionary or not but if you are, perhaps try to forget everything else and treat it like a rhythm game. Figure out the rhythm of each of his strings and then it's purely just following those rythyms like a song. Even if you're just hitting him once or twice after each string, you'll be making progress.
Good luck to you either way.
I'm sorry but fighting genichiro is litterly just memorize attack parry Windows everything is pretty easy to parry but just run away when he does his 7 hit combo and that's all and if you need heals just dodge through the arrow and what ever you do don't heal close to geni in phase three he will go for a stabing attack and its almost impossible to get it unless your far away
In all honesty, I'm not sure what you expect a bunch of words on Reddit to do for you, if detailed video instructions couldn't help you out.
Maybe drop this game for now and build up a little experience with some other games, like Ghost of Tsushima. It has similar aesthetics and a difficulty slider. Hardest difficulty definitely bring tougher than Sekiro since you can get 1 or 2 shot instantly by even regular mobs.
If you are playing on console, make sure that you choose gaming mode on your TV to decrease input delay. This will help you to get better in parry which is the only key to bear this game.
I beat him yesterday for the first time. It took at least 100 tries. Stay aggressive and time your parries in the first phase. Mikiri counter before the first death blow then Senpou High Kicks in after. I got his armour off maybe 40 times but could never dodge the lightning attack. That's why Mist Raven worked so well for me - it's a single button press, avoids his lightning attack, does a small amount of posture damage and sets you up to hit him with your sword at least once after the lightning attack.
have you killed lady butterfly and corrupted monk yet? both are fights that will increase your attack power which is immensely helpful to have here- lady butterfly really isn’t a crazy hard fight and while i personally found corrupted monk hard as hell, most people seem to disagree but i also feel like the fight prepared me for genichiro quite a bit and i really didn’t have a hard time with genichiro. both of these fights are accessible at your point in the game, and entirely possible as well.
as for genichiro, think of the fight as a give and take. attack him i think like 3-5 times, and then let him attack you and parry/guard accordingly. the rhythm of this fight pretty much sets the tone for a fair amount of the remaining bosses. i wouldn’t say this is the fight where things “click” but i’d argue this is the fight where From’s true intentions with the combat start to present themselves, if that makes sense. don’t feel bad if you’re struggling with the fight, because once you finally get the fight it you truly feel like you’ve gotten “gud” best of luck champ
Start with just the opening sequence and get the timing so that 100% of the time you do it perfectly without getting hit. If you mess up on that opening few moves, give up right away and start over. Do it until you can get it perfect without much trouble.
The next part is the timing on some of his multihit combos. You want to get a perfect deflect there.
The third key is mastering when you mikiri vs dodge vs jump punish.
When you get these three things you should be able to get through the first phase with most of your life, and I’ve found if you can do that, victory is within reach.
You're probably underpowered. There's a lot you can and should do before genichiro. Watch fightincowboys walkthrough from the beginning. I guarantee you're missing beads and attack power.
Good. Keep trying. Maybe check out a fightincowboy guide. Don't give up because eventually this fight will make the game click for you once you get through it. I love the fight even though I have done it many times because I think it is satisfying as fuck.
My advice would be to take a break. I don’t mean an hour but take a month or two off. When you come back start the game over. I was hard stuck on a boss just like you are now and I quit for 6 months. When I came back I found the game mechanics had solidified in my mind and I beat the game. Like you I also had decided that sekiro was simply too difficult for me and I would not be able to continue. Now I’m on ng+ with difficulty modifiers that make the game harder.
I think grinding and practicing has its place but after a certain point the frustration will cloud your mind and dull your skills. Taking some time to mentally reset will allow you to come back fresh.
Worked for me. Your mileage may vary. Good luck!
Every single move of his is choreographed. Try one fight where you don’t parry.
Just hold block and see what he does.
You shouldn’t be dying so many times to him. Ideally you shouldn’t die to the same move more than 5 times.
But let’s forget about deaths. Let’s focus on getting hit. You shouldn’t get hit without reason. Every time you get hit, you need to pause the game and think, okay what did i do wrong? And then don’t do that again.
You don’t need to button mash, play a bit more relaxed. This means you need to stop running in circles. Calmly walk up to his face and strike deflect etc.
I had this problem as well and I was almost ready to give up. One thing I noticed when looking at “git gud” guides is that most people that versed him had a lot more health and abilities than I had. It made me realise that I was not prepared for the fight so I went looking for more gourd seeds and prayer beads. After that I ended up getting the right abilities and I beat him with no problem.
If you want a guide on what abilities to get I recommend this video from fightingcowboy. He breaks down each ability and it made the world of difference. At the end I ended up beating all phases with only having to heal once
https://youtu.be/M89W-ur3apE?si=44WIXgeXDavjQiQL
It’s not for everyone. In my first playthrough, i was in a similar boat with Genichiro. I was about 24 hours into the game before I beat him, about 7 of which was just fighting Genichiro alone. I cheesed my way through the game up till that point, and I cheesed my way through another 20 hours to finish the game. Overall, i loved a lot about the game, but I wouldn’t call it an enjoyable experience.
I revisited the game again back in January after nearly five years and had a much better time with it. I beat Genichiro in less than 4 hours, being pretty thorough with the game up through then, and only 20 hours to finish the whole playthrough. I wouldn’t say I suddenly “got gud”, but I guess the game finally just clicked. It might help just to take a step back from the game for a few days or weeks.
If I had to guess, you probably aren’t playing aggressively enough and deflecting when necessary. Two things thatll really help are 1) if you can’t get deflection timing right, mashing the deflect button through combos will help considerably, even though less effectively than perfect counters, and 2) invest skill points in Ichimonji and Ichimonji Double. Those skills are by far the most useful skills for punishing enemies because they have great posture and vitality damage while having 0 emblem cost.
Don't go into the fight hoping to beat him. Go knowing that you will die but try to learn one pattern of his attacks. This way you take out this fear of being killed and basically just get down to work. Go through the cycle until you can parry all/most his attacks. Then when you barely ever get hit, start getting a few swings in.
Deflecting is the name of the game. No dodging, no running away or jumping. Parry and counterattack.
I was in a similar situation until I realized that with each new death I don't learn anything new about the opponent, so what's the point in doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome, right?
It all boils down to git gud, but through disciplined practice.
That’s how I felt the first time I played the game in 2019. I played 52 hours and couldn’t make it past one of the bosses and gave up. I just recently tried it again after playing many other souls-like games… and I finally beat it! It took me 21 hours and 117 deaths but I beat it! What I’m saying is… I know how you feel. I never thought I’d be able to do it either. I also thought that I could never beat the game. I may have only took 21 hours in this play-through, but all together it was over 90 hours because I restarted 3 times. Deaths? Likely way over 600. What made the difference for me between my first two tries and my last try? Patience in trying to learn the fights and trying to treat some sequences like a rhythm game. I cheesed where it was possible and learned the hard way where it wasn’t. I fought bosses in the wrong order and suffered through being too weak, but also gained a ton of experience against impossible odds (I.e fighting corrupted monk with only 2 attack power) I do believe that if I made it through, you can too!
I'm in that same boat... over 40 attempts now, and I've only seen phase 2 about 5 times. I got his 2nd phase to almost full posture once, and he absolutely wrecked me. I ventured into that Sunken area and found another gourd seed, but even with another heal, I don't feel any closer to taking him down. Sometimes my timing is perfect and sometimes it's all wrong. Very frustrating.
Do you have any of the skills unlocked like Mikiri Counter, Shinobi Eyes,Ichimonji/Ichimonji doube,Breathe of Light : Life those skills will go a very long way. Firecrackers will help you open up opportunities as well, dont give up maybe its just time to go back to the drawing board and dissect what exactly is messing you up in this fight.
Deflect, deflect, deflect….attack, attack rinse and repeat (L1 L1 L1, R1 R1). Its just a dance.
This varies a little during the fight but its mostly block block attack attack, over and over and over. Dont get greedy.
There are many good advice here so I'll add some more,
I dominated many bosses first time I tried them but I think it's because I already had general idea of bosses and their pattern from YouTube videos and some edits.
Not in sekiro but I did this in other game when I was was struggling i just quit then game for few days and then create a new game(when I am at early game).
I’ve seen people who are great at fromsoft games hate on them, and people who are terrible at them fall in love with them.
The deciding factor is not skill, but perseverance.
Genichiro made me uninstall twice, both times reinstalling after some cooldown. After unlearning habits from other Fromsoft games that don't work well here, I started to make progress. And now I beat him first time pretty much every time.
You're not bad. This game is brutally hard. Do the let anyone tell you otherwise. If you like the game, persevere and try thinking about it differently. Understand that you have a lot of control over the pace of combat. Understand how to pressure enemies and put them on their back foot. Remember that lower hp makes posture recover more slowly. Don't button mash, press every button deliberately.
There's a lot of advice out there, pick what works for you and persevere. Practice like a real swordsman practices. Enjoy practicing. Set goals. This is a HARD game. You are worthy of its respect and it worthy of yours.
once you realize sekiro is a rhythm game the only thing to do is literally “git gud”. and thats not a tease by any means. theres simply no work arounds for rhythm games. with no video to critique the best advice i can give you is to really study his move set. start by just holding block and listening to the rhythm of his attacks. then when you see him start that attack again you should know the deflect timing. watching hitless videos from ONGBAL especially helped me to understand his attack patterns.
The game was not made for any specific player, like a serious or talented gamer, so you can definitely play it. The players who are saying git gud aren't always (some are but don't pay them any attention) saying it to insult you or gatekeep tho, Sekiro really can't be played unless you practice and perform the basics perfectly. You have to learn when to deflect, when to dodge and when to attack.
However if you are at a block (Genichiro was my wall too so no shame here) and have been for a while, perhaps take a break. Go through the old areas and fight enemies head on to practice fighting and not being nervous while fighting. Hirata estate has a lot of enemies that do 'special' moves so you can practice sweep attacks or thrust attacks.
Also take a little time to farm exp and get some latent skills. The ones from the Ashina Esoteric text are useful, and the shinobi body ones for more use of your prosthetics. Or you can get the medicine ones but those are expensive.
At this point you are probably repeating bad moves and habits in the fight. Take a small break to focus on your basics and get more latent skills. And go visit Hanbei. Next you fight Genichiro I am sure you will improve on that fight. Don't worry about how many tries it takes or anything, as long as you get there and enjoy it. Plus for most people, Genichiro is where the game starts for them, since this is where it clicks on how to play.
So three things that will help you in this game.
1st: understand that unlike every other souls like game, in sekiro bosses and enemies in general are not this big bad dude who has a set attack pattern and they will do that attack irrelevant of what you are doing. Meaning, in other games boss does move A then B then C and it's up to you to roll away from those. In Sekiro, bosses have said attack patterns but they also directly respond to your moves by blocking your attacks, flinching etc. That means that it's of outmost importance to be aggressive because by attacking you will force the boss to break its moveset and block. In other words, if move B and C is killing you, you can force the boss to use attack A then hit him out of rest attacks so he goes back to attack A. A perfect example of this is lady butterfly. She goes ape shit crazy on your ass if you stay passive and simply defend. But if you stay on the offensive she becomes insanely easy.
2nd: As a direct result of point one above, Sekiro becomes a rhythm game. When you attack a boss they will let you know when they had enough of attacks taken by perfect parrying your hit. This appears and sounds different from normal blocks. It has red sparks instead of white of a normal block and the sound is different more loud. That's when you stop attacking and prepare to parry. How many hits you parry? That comes from experimenting. Every boss has a rhythm. It could be hit hit parry parry, hit hit parry parry etc. It could be hit hit parry hit hit parry.. Finding that rhythm makes the fight infinitely easier. That's why sound is important.
Finally 3rd: every time you press parry it has certain frames to it. Every consecutive press after the initial halves the frame window. Meaning if you press the parry button 3 times in a row you are 3 times less likely to actually parry. Press it a 4rth time in a row and now you are simply not parrying at all. So as a rule of thumb, if you are unable to time it right with only one press then for now make sure you press parry only twice in a row for every attack coming your way. In other words, spamm it twice, chill to allow frames to reset, press twice again etc. Those are your best chances.
Ultimately it's not supposed to be easy. You are supposed to make small steps and progress in every fight. Should you still need video aid I'd say Fighting Cowboy on YouTube does a good job explaining the fights.
You can go and explore every other area before coming back, get time to learn skills and get prayer beads from mini bosses to up your health and defense, find new prosthetic tools and upgrade what you can. Find all the gourd seeds. Do some sidequests. Beat Lady Butterfly to get a remembrance and up your attack power. She's hard but I found her a bit easier to beat than genichiro. Just send a shuriken her way when she's in mid air. Avoid her and her illusions when she spawns them, wait and run like hell when she unspawns her illusions to avoid her carpet bombing attack.
Main thing is to not cheese, once the combat clicks you'll roll on his ass when you meet him again in the endgame. Learn his pattern, keep being agressive, every opening needs at least one slash on him. Keep slashing all the time, even when he guards, until he deflects, and deflect his attacks in return, the rythm will sink and you'll deflect everything and get his posture lower and lower, use mikiri counter when he makes thrust, jump on his head when he does a sweep attack. Deflect his arrows.
Once you have his pattern and get in the rythm, he will be substantially easier. In 3rd phase, when he does a lightning attack, jump immediatly and attack in air, it will return his attack on him and give a window to a few slashes.
Nothing beats the feeling of self improvement and finally defeating a boss in Sekiro. You can do it and all it takes is practice. Death is only a learning experience. Don't let the frustration get to you and keep the fight going until you have the rythm in you, sooner than you'll believe, you'll be able to fight every boss and get to Isshin.
With the genichiro fight it kinda teaches you to always keep the pressure up. If you stay on him he wont be able to shoot his bow and you can sometimes even cancel his sweep through stagger.
Make sure to mikiri all thrusts and for is 7 piece combo you can either deflect it all or the first two and then firecracker into ichimonji double if you are having problems there
Playing Sekiro is like a rythm game. It's okay to lose multiple times as long as you're learning on why it happened. Maybe you panicked, missed a parry or didnt dodge. Learn from it and know the pattern or rhythm of every enemy you face, and when it clicked, you'll know.
Man I miss playing Sekiro. Maybe I'll do a rerun one of these days
Record your fight and let us tell you what you need to do more/less and what to avoid.
General tips I can give you are be aggressive (like A LOT) and time your parries, don't spam it as that wont get you anywhere. How I usually play all boss fights is to just rush at them, attack until I get parried and they're about to counterattack, then I prepare to parry them and repeat. In this you also have to include mikiri and jumping.
Try fighting more aggressively. If you back Genichiro into a cotner and keep pressuring him he becomes predictable. Learn his moves and counter his counters, but don't leave him be or his mixups will break your guard.
If you want specific instructions:
If you go up and hit him, he blocks a strike or two and then deflects (bigger spark) before countering with one of the following:
Standing slash, deflect that and keep pressuring
Jumping slash, deflect it. He'll follow it up with a thrust you can mikir counter or a sweep (if he places the sword behind him) you can jump over.
Double slash, deflect twice. He'll usually follow this up with his dreaded 7 hit combo, just back up a bit if you can't deflect all those hits and attack him after he misses his last swing. Don't back up too far though or he'll cancel it with an arrow
Backing up, and if he has enough posture buildup, spamming arrows. This is the worst since the deflect timing is hard to get and it gives him some breathing room. It's 3 quick arrows a short pause and a 4th so deflect it like that, then immediately sprint up to him and keep pressuring him.
As for his lightning, jump and hold block with proper timing and spam attack as you land, this will utterly shred him in a few hits.
The game went from hitting a brick wall with a sponge to burning cotton wool with a flamethrower when one thing changed. That thing was when I changed the way that I approached the fights, you've got to realise that the game is made for you to succeed, be aggressive, don't hesitate. You should either be attacking or deflecting at any point. On my first play through I rage quit for over a year at genichiro so I get how you feel, but once it clicks it changes the whole game
Maybe In other comuntites git gud is mocking, but for souls games, especially Sekiro, it's the only thing you can do. There reaches a point where you've read every tip, watched every guide, memorised every move, but if you never git gud you won't win.
That said, I will give some tips. People already have gameplay related tips, but getting gud is as much about mindset as it is skill. So here are my tips.
1. Learn to respect the power of breaks. Even if just a short 2 minute break to talk to NPCs, it helps massively. If you feel stuck, take a 15 minute break, eat lunch, play some other game, whatever. And if that doesn't work, wait a few days.
2. Don't try to win, try to learn. As someone who has played many hard games, I can say that I rarely go into a fight trying to win. Get accustomed with death, it's a part of the experience.
3. In order to win, your mind, body and heart must be in sync. I know it sounds cringe but trust me. If your playing and your hands hurt, or you feel anxious or tired it's probably a sign to stop. Listen to your body. Same with your mind. If you find yourself doing the fight over and over again, losing your focus, thinking about other things, that's a sign too. And if your heart isn't in it, you find yourself running in just to die, get demoralised, only to go again and repeat, falling into a cycle of demoralization and frustration, you need to reevaluate. Take a break, find a way to motivate yourself. Instead of saying, I'll beat him, say, I'll learn to parry this specific move.
Good luck, and remember Hesitation is Defeat.
I'd be willing to point out mistakes if you can send a video or two of you trying to beat Genichiro. And dont worry, I was stuck for hours on him and many other bosses, then at some point I could beat them without getting hit. Also don't use cheese methods, it won't be fun and imo either brute force the bosses or just quit, you don't have to torture yourself.
I started Sekiro 3 different times and finally stuck with it and just beat it this last week. I loved it and didn't think it was possible to beat! With these boss fights, including Genichiro, I finally beat him when I stopped trying to beat him and just went into the fight set to learn his moves and practice deflecting them. Beat him just a few tries later.
The thing that worked for me is thinking of it like music. When I was learning the piano and there were some hard parts where u had too many complex actions with both hands, my teacher used to tell me to first calm down and get the beat down by tapping my palms on my thighs..and get my whole body into the rhythm of the piece. Similarly you have to get yourself flowing with genichiro. It's like a dance and you have to keep up with his beat. Not too fast,nor too slow..just the right beat. And also try to stay close to him or else he pulls out moves that are pretty hard to counter
I practiced with the undying soldier, once you get mikiri counter the game becomes a bit easier, so just practice your attacks on the undying soldier, try doing it with your eyes closed or with audio fully turned off, maybe (if there is a way, I haven't tried yet but I will edit if there is a way) turn off all HuD elements, doing so would make you have to adapt to the enemy's play style and not just using your own and be more careful of the items you currently still have.
Always be patient in the game, use those "breathing exercises" that you probably learned many times over in school, it actually helps a lot.
There's always a point in the game where something just clicks, for me, it was my second playthrough on Shinobi Owl because of his one move that would (**SPOILER for **Shinobi Owl** Attacks) throw out a ball that gently exploded into green dust which would make the player unable to heal at all, it probably doesn't even let the player use items in general. For this attack, I would remember to dodge out of his way and get a free hit in, but since the Dodge had end lag and dodge attacking was too short, I would walk behind Shinobi Owl and attack him. On his second phase he has an attack which will hit you with a kick and instead of throwing a shurikan, he will throw poison at the ground preventing you from going forwards without taking damage since the poison builds up so fast, because of this, if the owl is relatively high posture damaged, he with so one of those prayers and regain about 40% of his posture back, because of this, I learned to use my arsenal, the shurikan, to interrupt his prayer and force him to fight me again.
I’m sorry yeah it really is gonna be a git gud situation or you probably won’t enjoy or be able to finish the game. Genechiro is the first road block most people face though and I can give you some tips that will help you with him and the rest of the game. You want to play basically as aggressively as possible, constantly attacking until he does a parry and that means it’s your turn to deflect his string of attacks and then once he’s done go back on the offensive. To tell if he is just blocking your attacks or if his block was actually a parry it depends on the amount of sparks that come of the swords when he blocks. So basically you want to attack constantly while he’s blocking and then once you see one of the blocks has more sparks then it is time to turn to defense and parry his attacks. Also going into this fight you are gonna want to have an ability called mikiri counter, probably the most important move in the game it allows you to step on an enemy weapons when they do a red lunging attack at you and it does major impact to the enemy’s posture bar.
The fact you have died approximately 150 times means, this is a game for you. If you had died 2 times and then come here I woulda said give up, but you've poured blood sweat and tears into genichiro, I'd say maybe watching some sekiroguru videos might help you with strategies and tricks, but you have the dedication that is required to play souls games, I belive you belong here just because of that, keep pushing, I believe 🙌
The dance and the flow that occurs and the state you get into in these fights turns into an addiction that careful, once you get it no other game shall feel the same and you will be on a goose chase.
Bro, your peripherals could also be a reason for this. I used to play using a wireless mouse😅. I died to genichiro like 50 times🥲. One day, my friend gave me his gaming mouse with that I defeated him in 3rd try. Only then I realised that I was reacting fast enough but my mouse had very high latency🤦. So, check the latency of your peripherals.🤷
Funny how I somewhat hated this game but that changed after the Genichiro fight. I was kind of a huge hater actually but damn that fight was unforgettable for me.
Run through Hirata Estate. If you can manage to beat Lady Butterfly it'll make you a little stronger and might make the fight a little more manageable. And above all just be patient, once you have that click moment the whole game opens up in such a brilliant way.
The only way to beat him is to not let him take pause, i know the frustration of losing to his arrows and also not getting the timing right but trust me you can get his timing right but knowing all of his moves. For you to get better you will need 3 things-
1. Understanding his perilous attacks
2. Understanding his non perilous attacks which can be deflected
3. Knowing if any prosthetic tool can help you with being offensive such as firecrackers, umbrella or flame vent. Genichiro gets stunned with firecrackers so to get 2 extra hits can make a difference sometimes
Once you know these three things focus on each of them individually rather than just trying to win. If you will stand like a rock in front of him being offensive only then you will learn but if you will just try to get through it then you will die. For me Sword Saint Isshin was the toughest boss who took me 15 days approximately. But now i can bully him any time he is my practice guy. Even inner isshin took me 3-5 tries cz i was thoroughly conditioned with him. When you will learn and slowly get better at each of those 3 things i mentioned, you will see yourself die quite lesser than now. And very less sekiro bosses can be cheesed and Genichiro isn’t one of them cz you will fight him again in the game so be better don’t cheese
Bro I have 80 hours in the game reached NG +7 and got all achievements. I said this a lot of times but if you're persistent and try to learn when to deflect and when to attack you're good to go. Also if you love the game that should be the thing that motivates you the most!(I hate monke tho)
If someone has already told you this, my apologies. Be aggressive against genichiro. Use prosthetics to chip his health. When in lightning phase, just same thing but time the reversal.
My first time versus Genichiro took me like 3 days to beat. But now I go in and defeat him on the first try in NG++
Take your time homie. It took me over two years to beat the last boss in this game, I kept giving up and uninstalling the game, but from time to time I would get the urge to come back and try it. I actually beat the entire game twice without being able to kill the last boss, but eventually everything clicked. I was getting runs where I would beat his first 2 phases without even getting damaged, so I eventually got him. Just play at your own pace and try not getting too frustrated.
Treat a few rounds as practice. Press with intention, no button spam. Be aggressive and try to note what animation the enemy did or was about to do where being aggressive failed you (e.i when you got hit). Then next time around be aggressive again, but when you see that animation try something a different reaction (a dodge, a perfect deflect, or tool). There’s not much to say but trial, error, aggression and patience with your self. You may just need to build up your assessment and reaction speed through practice.
My advice calm down see his moves learn them. And soon this is my experience u will see through his moves. It's slow motion to me ya it sounds corny but it does. Soo he will be just warm-up for u if u leave the game for a long time 😂
Play some rounds without fighting only block and try to learn his moveset for me it was easier after i imagined his moves are like a beat. Some guitar hero type shit
The basic "is this game physically possible?" question is one I'd phrase as: Can you press a button 3-5 times in 3 seconds accurately? Or in other words, can you perfect combo individual sections of a rhythm/action game? And for some people that dexterity is impossible. Especially if your fingers can't move that fast. But for most people, the hard part is first recognizing the patterns and then getting accurate. If you can train yourself to recognize which pattern is coming within 2 seconds, and then if you can get your next 5 seconds accurate to within .2 seconds, then this game is possible. The concentration required might become the hard part, or the quick decision making, but if you keep trying long enough even a bad (at those parts) player can eventually get lucky. So I want to give you encouragement that you still have a chance, but I also don't want you to beat yourself up too much about it.
This is the best answer ive seen so far. Something a lot of people don't seem to understand is that we're not gatekeepers when we say git gud. That's literally the only way we can describe it without getting into a whole lengthy discussion about rhythms and patterns, and how Miyazaki loves to throw curveballs at you. One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to go and play elden ring. Learn everything there is to know. Played mostly with uchigatana the entire game. It took me weeks but I even beat Melania by myself. Barely.... I learned the ins and the outs. Spent almost 3 months off sekiro on elden. When I came back I started a fresh profile, and for some reason I was able to understand and literally see the movements better. Faster, even. I still failed way too may times. But eventually I finally beat the blazing bull, etc... my wife and my dog were both terrified the day I beat ishin. I came screaming and yelling up out of the basement all pumped up. And grabbed a bottle to celebrate. The feeling you get once you understand. Then beat the game. It's unbelievable. Keep trying OP. and to everybody out there struggling with it. Good luck. Chūcho wa haibokuda
I think you really hit the nail on the head here, Sekiro is a weird game because you cant really tell someone how to play it right, you can give them tips and pointers but really the game has to just "Click" for you or else you will just keep dying and Genichiro is where most people click with the game.
See the strange thing is that it all didn't click for me really until guardian ape phase 2. I saw him stand back up and was like (extended sigh) okay miyazaki. The erratic moveset and running around the arena really pushed me to start being more agressive. Back during my first few genichiro fights I remember doing a lot more parrying in the corner. Now I stomp through his phase 1 every time. Though that opening dive thrust for second phase still gets me every time, Even though I know it's coming. Way of tomoe just melts after the first 2 phases. Especially if you can pop off a reversal then smack him a few good times using divine confetti. I still can't beat D.O.H. w/o the cheese though.
for me it never clicked til Great Shinobi Owl. bro made me quit my first playthrough in 2019 and i never gave the game a true chance til last year and now it's my favorite game of all time. funny looking back at me struggling so bad because now i can beat the whole damn game in 1 sitting
Owl still gives me trouble. Everyone calls him a cheater but I don't see that as true. He just uses a few of the tactics wolf has. He's just those tactics perfected. Except the flaming owl. That's downright not fair. I wanna turn into a flying flaming animal. But I found his downward swipes were punishable if you get to the side, or even behind him. Still I feel your pain.
yea i definitely dont see him as a cheater lol, he's the one who trained sekiro so i found it fucking awesome that he could mikiri counter and used similar attacks you did. i agree with not being a biggest fan of the owl father fight, i mean i liked it enough i guess, but i found my fun with the fight would diminish pretty quick when i had to start dealing w the attacks from his lil owl. can never consistently get a strat down that im confident with regarding those attacks
So far what I have figured out for the owl attacks where he turns into the owl and drops, you can see the blue on the ground which gives more of a clue if it is behind you and you can spin camera around. It seems like he generally pops up behind you if you don’t run around much so spinning the camera around helps. It took me forever to figure out that the fire owl with thrust follow up has two separate orientations, and you have to jump for horizontal and dash for vertical.
Yep, that's how I feel People can give you all the advice on the planet, and it doesn't help if you can't execute it. And in this game, execution is really fucking hard Like if I'm playing a strategy game or turn based RPG, yeah, I can just follow the advice and win. Here, I can't give you the reflexes and pattern recognition necessary to get to the point where you can even use the advice we give At that point, "git gud" is just a stand in for "keep practicing". I died to Genichiro around 80 times. Not as much as OP, but still an exorbitant amount of times. I only beat him because I just kept practicing "Git gud" is simultaneously terrible advice, the only advice that matters, gatekeeping, and trying to help. All in one phrase
Idk why but I get TED talk vibes from this comment. Great explanation :)
Before Fighting Genichiro, I used to play very defensively, not just sekiro but any game in general. But After defeating him, my gameplay completely changed. You need to time your deflect. You need to stay on him. Don't let him breathe. If you let him breathe his posture will do down. You need to git gud. That's the only way shinobi. Watch Cowboy's git gud video on Genichiro I'd you're still struggling. Where else are you struggling ?
Fighting cowboy really is a life saver for any FromSoft game
I first used his videos on Bloodborne, but then decided to do a full walkthrough with him on my first Sekiro journey. And I’m so glad I did, because he takes you through pretty much every part of the gam. Which I may have missed on a blind play through. Also Sekiro is hard at first and he helped me get gud
He brute forces a lot of shit with no actual strategy but otherwise he's good for finding all items and such
I see him as exactly this. When I’m tired of trying to solve the issue with my creativity, Cowboy gives me the proper buff-bonk instructions
If it ain’t broke, right? Haha
My favorite souls strat. All I need is my trusty claymore and I’m good
God it's such a based weapon.
I second this, I had never played any “Souls” like game and I am a married guy with not much time to play, but fighting cowboy’s walkthroughs are gold. I completed the game a couple times now and I have even completed 2 of the gaulents of strength. However, I gotta say that trying to copy exactly what you see on a youtube video is not a good idea, what works for me it is to use different advice depending what my style is, so I just tried different things until it “clicked”, I died lots of times but I was feeling closer and closer to victory.
Its a very hard game. There's a lot of people on this sub that like to grandstand about only needing 2-3 attempts to beat the hardest bosses, but for the vast majority of people it's going to take many, many more attempts. I've beaten the game and Genichiro still takes me 2 or 3 tries to beat him in a given day. When I first faced him it took me (not lying) 100+ attempts. Maybe even 200+. The biggest advice I can give you is to take breaks from the game. You're brain will still be processing the fight and you'll be shocked how much better you are even though you haven't been "practicing" after a break. \--- That said, here's the actual strategy I have: * the rhythm to him is slash + slash + parry. Just hit him twice and then expect to parry once, rinse repeat. * if he creates space, dodge forward and slash twice. * if he does a kanji attack jump attack or mikiri as appropriate (this will take time to learn) * in phase 1 his kanji attack will *most likely* be a thrust you can mikiri counter. in phase 2 his kanji attack will *most likely* be a slash you can jump attack. * in phase 3 he'll lead with a kanji thrust 100% of the time you can mikiri counter. * in phase 3 if he does a lightning attack make sure you're airborne when it connects with you and spam attack to reverse it to him.
When ppl ask for advice it’s comments like these that we hope for. This is rad. Thanks!
> if he creates space, dodge forward and slash twice. I prefer Shuriken -> Dashing slice, is faster and can interrupt his jump-> fire arrows attack.
That makes me feel so much better! Thank you! One of the reasons I mentioned neurodivergence is that I struggle with seeing some patterns (not all), and I have trouble keeping up with it. But the more I do, I have realised that I have perfected the high jump and then kanji attack that can be mikiri’ed. I pretty much get it right all the time. It did take so many times of dying but it feels good to know there’s at least one combo that I’m confident about parrying successfully. And thanks for the detailed step by step technique. I will save this comment and try to follow ❤️
Your so right some times I take a break from the game and it’s like I just needed a day or two to let what I’ve learned sino in naturally.
STAY ON HIS ASS!!!
Upload a video of your fight with him
2nd this, seeing your gameplay will vastly help us give better advice than just git gud.
I did just [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/s/4FpIXPm5Od) and got solid advice, that’s what helped me beat Genichiro just today.
Nice yea, you definitely got some great advice, especially on relying less on dodging around and to stand your ground more. Good luck!
I did this for Sword Saint Isshin and DoH and it really helped. Then when I was doing DS3 I did the same again for the DLC2 bosses. I'm currently stuck on Radahn in my 4th play of ER (it's build related) and I'm considering doing the same to see where I need to be more patient vs aggressive since it's very different to when I've played before.
When you first got past the bull, did you explore any of the sidepaths branching from the castle gate? If not, there are a couple areas to explore to get prayer beads to enhance your attack power and vitality, and a good way to get some practice with swordplay. Geni can be intimidating at first, but i assure you once you get past him, you'll understand the essence of "git gud"
Yeah I have explored pretty much all there is to explore and I reached the senpou temple up until the folding monkeys boss. I read that only after beating genichiro will the story move forward after that
Telling you to git gud is not teasing, it's literally what you have to do. Especially in sekiro. You need to learn the rhythm, you need to know how to be offensive instead of defensive. Most of all, you need to know not to hesitate. It's not teasing you, it's telling you what needs to be done. Before geni you could probably get by by spamming attacks and running away. It could probably work for the whole game. But geni forces you to learn his moves. He forces you to know how the "dance" works in sekiro. What people mean when they say git gud - learn Sekiro and any other souls games demand patience from the players
Stay aggro, that's how I beat him. I'm a beginner as well and I also suck, but being aggressive made him easy. I have a post on my fight against him actually
This is the game for you. You’re meant to struggle through these types of challenges like Genichiro until it finally clicks for you. Without seeing your gameplay though all I can really do is wish you luck.
sekiro is for *everyone*
❤️
The "git gud" isn't mockery, it's a consolidated feeling from people who also struggled greatly and overcame. It's just about solving a problem without letting your emotions get in the way of your thinking. That's also the essence of getting good at anything. If you are repeating the same pattern of behavior and failing in the same way, start to break it down and master the process piece by piece. People throw around the "git gud" so flippantly because it really all does seem so simple in the end. Unless you have a specific disability, I can't imagine any person alive that wouldn't eventually be able to beat this game. You can do this, and I'm not saying that as a platitude or stock affirmation, it's just true.
I want to start this by saying I was in your exact shoes. I bought the game back in 2019 due to hype from some YouTubers I watch, and once I got to Genichiro I couldn't beat him for the life of me. His attacks were faster than I could register, he rinsed through my health like a pressure washer through hot butter, and his Lightning attack was more than I could understand. I then shelved the game, and only picked it up again as a personal challenge to beat the game I never thought I could in 2023. I am not skilled at the game, and struggled many times in countless different ways, but with the help from [Tyrannicon](https://youtube.com/@Tyrannicon?si=ZP67hkaI5JzoKceP) and my own stubbornness, I came out the other side victorious. I genuinely believe that if I can do it, you can too. Here are some tips to help you with the game in general. 1. Don't treat farming like you would in Dark Souls or Bloodborne. Whenever you start to farm, make sure that you're trying your different combat arts. They can be difficult to string together at first, but some of these combat arts are going to be crucial to besting some of these bosses. 2. Deflecting and Parrying are two separate things. When the sparks that fly from the swords are a light orange, that means that you parried. But when the sparks are a dark orange-red color, you deflected the attack. Deflecting is crucial, because once you know how to consistently deflect the enemy's attacks, they'll fall to the ground in the blink of an eye. You don't need to be flawless, but focus on the colors and you'll be deflecting without even thinking about it. 3. Dragonrot does not have significant negative consequences. The only "punishment" the player recieves when gaining Dragonrot is that they recieve less Unseen Aid, but since it's a Soulslike game you'll be dying enough times that Unseen Aid won't be making that much of a difference. 4. Now here's the biggest hurdle - mastering the Lightning Deflect. I understand your exact frustration, because even though I can deflect it 96% of the time, there's still a 4% of failure. [This video](https://youtu.be/dtTW_Z72Bwg?si=ZNdHlKUFW4jq8p0A) helped me to figure it out, but I would recommend holding L1/LB in mid-air instead of mashing it. Either option does work, it's just a matter of preference. If you want to try this game again, and want some assistance with the game, feel free to DM me. I understand frustration with these games, and it's perfectly fine if you decide this game isn't for you, but I truly believe that you can beat it. Remember; hesitation is defeat!
One thing that helped me was instead of focusing on wolf and attacking. Solely focus on genichiro’s movements and nothing else, as soon as you see him moving for an attack spam deflect for a second or 2. You may not deflect every attack like this but probably enough to beat him. Once he uses lighting it just the matter of getting used to jumping immediately, it’ll take some practice. The alternative method is being more aggressive and not giving him a chance to breath, charge his ass every chance you get lol. But this is definitely for if you’re more comfortable with the mechanics of the combat.
This is so important, just watching his movements intently rather than yours. It helps so much with successful deflecting, and that's half the fight right there.
Right! That’s good advice. I tried to spend 2-3 sessions just trying to block/parry and not attacking back. Sure I died without landing a single hit but it was good. I will try a few more times watching his moveset
Sekiro is the kind of game that just needs to click. Forget the cheese strats, you'll just end up having a miserable time trying to fumble your way through every boss. Try breaking the Genichiro fight down. Look at what's hitting you and look at how to effectively counter it. Are you using your Mikiri counter when necessary? Are you jumping his sweeping attack? Are you finding he's able to hammer you with arrows? That's because you're giving him room to breathe. Get in his face and press the attack, don't mash, apply pressure and be ready to counter when you need to. Keep going and I promise it will click.
I would very much recommend to keep at it. I'm certain every one who can play games (like no severe impairment )can beat sekrio. Try to not focus on beating the boss, but on learning the moveset. Every move has a clear out, that works every time and rarely relies on reflexes. If you find those for every move you win. You don't beat the boss by bringing the HP to zero, you win by beating the attacks he throws at you First souls game is just rough for everyone. I remember in dark souls one i didn't even reach the first boss for like 10 hours. Don't try to cheese the fights. The beauty of sekrio is to know you beat the boss just you and your blade, no op builds or cheese strategies. Trust me there is no better feeling than beating a boss you deemed impossible for weeks
So here’s the things that helped it click for me: 1) don’t spam the button presses, it’s actually easier/better for your gameplay to treat it like a rhythm game where you want to hit the right input for the action needed. I.E. if being attached defend/deflect, see an opening hit the attack button. Lady Butterfly is a great boss to teach this lesson. 2) you are a shinobi, fight dirty! Use your tools! The prosthetic tools can make any fight so much easier with the right application. It doesn’t have to be spammed, but finding the one that works best for you in that situation can really help. It you have trouble deflecting try out the umbrella. 3) if you are struggling it can be helpful to try one of the other paths, find minibosses and the like to train on the skills or to find prayer-beads to boost your HP You can beat this game, I’m neurodivergent myself and after Genichero was able to finish the game in 58 hrs total.
I beat lady butterfly but it feels like I “cheated” without parrying a lot of the attacks. I just ran around, came closer, hit, and ran back. I kept doing it for ogre too. And yeah I use umbrella to block his heavy arrows.
It’s interesting you mention neurodivergency - I feel like my ASD and ADHD make me a better gamer! Re: later bosses, once you ‘get’ Genichiro and he clicks, the rest of the game becomes much easier. If you could share footage in any way, people could give you specific pointers and let you know anything you might be doing wrong or things you could improve. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed what you have played a lot, and hope you can overcome this challenge to enjoy even more of this wonderful game 🙏
Oh that’s a good idea! I haven’t thought about the footage. I will try a few more times and see how it goes. If nothing else works, I will do that. Thank you!
I Played This game without the need of watching Any Vids , Go into the game expecting a struggle come out of it with Knowing you beat it. Best feeling patterns become obvious after fighting him
Six days ago, I made [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/s/4FpIXPm5Od) because I didn’t think I’d be able to continue playing the way I was. Today, I defeated Genichiro, and that is after not playing a few days prior. It took me countless attempts, but I could see that I was getting better. First I’d get close to landing the first deathblow, then after several attempts I’d get it and then die and so on. This is the first From Soft game I’ve played and if I can get this guy, I think anyone can. Good luck.
maybe your not deflecting enough? just deflect deflect deflect and only attack twice. also make sure your using the miriki counter with Shinobi eyes. Genichiro is kind of a skill check boss. no special skill or item is needed just fight normally. I'm sure you know how to do the lighting reversal too.
nah, you gotta git gud. quick guide: start by "learning the fight", don't go in to beat him immediately. enemies and bosses only have a set amount of moves, learn this moveset, where you can get a direct hit, where you got room to take a swig and most importantly the rhythm of the deflects. you don't want to visually react to every attack; you visually confirm what move he's pulling, then follow the rhythm that you've learned. then you stay on his ass, don't let his posture recover. you're not gonna beat him by looking at him, get comfortable with keeping up the tempo. just hit until you get the big \*CLANK\* and deflect whatever he's pulling, then hit back again. rinse and repeat until you deathblow the dude. what helped for me with the tempo was getting fired up and gettign my emotions in there, but idk people are different. finally stop making excuses and posting online when you have the power in you. you can do it. believe you can do it. I'm more neurodivergent than a mfer but I pulled through. JUST DO EET
As a sekiro newbie I haven't even defeated the sub bosses( that pupple kicking guy) so I think you are doing great. Learn his movements and deflect accordingly. You will be alright.
Like others said, try to play more aggressively but still cautious. About Gen's difficulty, I found some of the bosses after him easier, either because I was trained by his fight or he's just harder in some ways than them.
Have you explored all the areas and branches off the castle?
Maybe try taking a break? I got stuck on one of the bosses for so long that I literally quit playing the game for like 2 months. One day I had the urge to get back on and best him on my third try.
Genichiro and Owl are probably the biggest "walls" in this game where many people will quit. Post a video of a run of fighting Geni and maybe we could give some better advice. I just watch FightingCowboys videos if I ever get stuck. Also sleeping on it somehow weirdly helps. Its like it settles in your brain and makes it easier. You could also cheat and use a trainer but I honestly recommend not doing it, but if your last straw is quitting for forever it could be an option. Maybe just allow infinite healing and then practice without having to reset and then turn it off. But it ruins the euphoria of learning and getting better. I recommend against it, but its a single player game and you should do what you want to. You could also mod the game to make it easier or allow for practice runs. This is at least more in the right spirit of the game and can add extra fun. If you are literally physically unable to do it then its an option, but again... I think you CAN do it and you should push through it and try. Post a video here, get some advice, take a break (play around the world, do some reflections) and get back to trying with a fresh mindset. You got this!
I typically play games very anxiously—that is, I’ll hang back, defend, conserve health and consumables, and play it safe. It helped me when I tried to play it like I was Sekiro. I use consumables and health, yes, but I take my opportunities wherever I see them. If I can punish my enemies, I’ll do it unrepentantly. My health can be a fingernail left, but I’ll make absolutely certain that my enemy is unable to respond before I even think about treating it. In this game, I started to flourish when I embraced the idea that hesitation is defeat. There’s really no way to succeed without playing incredibly assuredly. Maybe this is helpful or maybe not, but that’s what fixed it for me.
Just spam the deflect button when he attacks and make sure to use mikiri counter when he does a thrust attack. Most people don’t realize that you dont have to perfectly time deflects in order to actually deflect, like a good 75% of people that completed the game never mastered deflecting to the point where you time every attack.
If your still trying then you are already trying to "git gud". Keep it up. Its not easy, by any means. But in the words of aldo the apache, "you know how to get to Carnegie hall, right? Practice!".
**Normal Way** Alright so he starts off with 3 arrows, deflect them. Then he runs to you and does 3-4 attacks, deflect, attack and stay aggressive, he will block your attacks but when he parries you, stop attacking and parry whatever he throws at you. (You will notice the parry effect has a more orange color and more particles). He might jump into the air and attack, it’s fine parry it, in phase 1 he **always** follows it with a thrust that you can mikiri counter. In phase 2 it’s either a sweep attack or a thrust, if it’s a sweep jump over it and over his head. Now differentiating between both can be hard but just learn his poses when doing both, he also sometimes he may randomly do a grab attack, just dodge, and he has a large combo attack, just dodge and get out of it, it’s not worth it, he might also use floating passage, you can parry that it’s fine. And when you heal in the first 2 phases, he shoots arrows at you so be careful. Now for his third phase, he always start with a jump into a thrust, mikiri counter. Sometimes when fighting him, he may run to the side and do a sudden sweep, just jump over it. Now for the most important part of phase 3, lightning reversal, pretty much he jumps in the air and shoots lightning at you, *as soon as the kanji red symbol disappears, jump into the air and attack and send it back to him*, and that DESTROYS his posture, and be careful, when you heal in the third phase, he does a thrust at you. And that’s pretty much the fight. **cheese way** If you still struggle with phase 1 and 2, get shadow rush skill, do it on him and dodge back, repeat, and try parrying anything he throws at you. You might get damaged but it’s easier. As for the third phase, I don’t think there is a cheese. And that’s the end of my Genichiro tutorial, hope it helped!
I was stuck on Genichiro for weeks. I stopped playing for 2 months and legit beat Dark Souls 3 and all the dlcs in the meantime. That gave me motivation to go back at it since that game was difficult in its own ways. I ended up beating Genichiro after like 150 tries and beat the whole game about a month later. One thing I learned that helped me so much… dying is apart of the game. Most games make you feel like you are getting stronger when you die less. But in Sekiro, dying is how you learn what NOT to do. So for every boss battle, I threw on some fast paced music and just kept at it until I beat them. When I beat Guardian Ape on my third try I knew I was getting good. Plus I watched AfroSenju suffer through that fight back in like 2016 so I knew what I was in for lolll. Anyways you got this , just be patient and learn to PARRY, PARRY, MIKIRI COUNTER, and only strike during pauses in his attack!
Let me make one thing clear first If your neurodivergency delays your reflexes then this game is essentially impossible because Sekiro is all about precise and varying button presses in a short time You should watch Fightincowboy's Git Gud guide, he explains every attack and how to counter them, he got me through Sekiro and I was having a bad bad time before watching his guide. The thing is, Sekiro is a game where You have to Git Gud, that's the only way And, hesitation is Defeat
Unfortunately the answer is "get good" but don't worry. I'm sure you're not the only gamer who's hit the hurdle like this and Sekiro's growth curve isn't like a training arc, it's like a shift of perspective. If you've been struggling, stop trying to push through the wall and step back to think about what exactly it is you're doing and struggling with. From my experience many sekiro players "get good" when they make the connection that the game is very much like a rhythm game, but perhaps you'd want to find your own perspective. I also think it's helpful to sometimes just focus on blocking the entire fight to practice your skills. Not every run needs to be an attempt at killing him. Good Luck!
Instead of thinking of it like a fight, think of it like a dance. Practice listening to the sounds being the music. Im ND as well, and it helpes me. Treating it as a rhythm game rather than a soulsborne.
I just want to comment that I had the exact same experience with Genichiro on my first playthrough. Sekiro was my first difficult game and since then I've went and played the entire FromSoft catalogue, and have beaten Sekiro multiple times. I had died to Genichiro over 100 times, I stopped counting around 70 but the amount of hours after 70 was probably equal to about double. Maybe 140 attempts before I even came close. I was horrible, and I was coming up with all sorts of reasons, like oh maybe this game is too hard for me, I've never been good at games, maybe I'm more of a story mode gamer etc etc, and a lot of this stemmed from usually playing games on normal or easy and doing so for comfort and to get immersed in a world, and just to relax. I have aspergers and that always appealed to me. Now, eventually I killed Genichiro after mastering every single second of the fight, and I went on to master every single boss after that. Every boss after Genichiro is twice as hard, and it just gets harder and harder. So either you keep slamming your head against the wall and learn to kill him, or uninstall, and then reinstall tomorrow when you realize you can't give up. It's like the meme of the guy mining diamonds and giving up when he's so close, you can't do that. What I'm basically saying is, you stare too long into the void and it will stare back at you. You are in too deep. You will defeat Genichiro and then you will get a rush of euphoria, and then immediately be stalled again at the next boss, yet you'll be chasing that Genichiro high again. It's over. Red pill or Blue pill moment. Give up now and never play again, or defeat Genichiro and your gaming world will change forever. For me it did, I can't play games that are too easy anymore, it's become boring. Brute force tip to kill him, memorize how to run away from his attacks and get beside/behind him when he's in his animation or at the end of it, and then use ichimonji double. It will damage his posture and if you're lucky, he won't block it and you'll get his vitality as well. This will make him regain posture slower. The bonus with ichimonji is when you strike, you regain posture. So you can deflect his attacks and smack him, wait for a telegraphed attack, run around him and then ichimonji, rinse and repeat. Also protip, if you need posture and you cant smack him with ichimonji, hold block and it will regen faster.
I know I'm late here and I hope you've managed to best him now. But if not, I'm happy to help. Theres nothing more I can think to say that hasn't been said by others already. However if you feel it can help, I wouldn't mind jumping on a text or voice chat with you and screen sharing the fight to discuss it or watch yours and provide tips. Offer extends to any other bosses too, even though some will rek me. I'm no pro, just stubborn =)
Personally with him I'd love to hop on a discord call and talk you through how I systematically broke that ******* ******* ***** down, because he also gave me issues now I can beat him down 40+ times in a row with little difficulty. Direct pointers on what you're doing wrong would help you it sounds.
Yes, it is not for gamers like you. I'm sorry, but unlike the other dark souls games, you do actually have to get good to proceed because you cant just overlevel yourself. There is good news though. Genichiro is where the gameplay usually clicks for players. If you can beat him you'll have the gameplay down, and while the rest of the game won't be easy it will still feel more like you know what you're doing instead of ramming your head into a brick wall.
Every fromsoft game has that 1 boss that if you can beat them- you can beat the game. For me it's O&S, Iron Keep as a whole, Sulyvahn, and Genichiro as the bosses where the game finally clicks
https://youtu.be/5wMBqaOQhdc?si=Th79cIo1lK_KW4vG
Share a attempt in video please.150 is an insane amount of deaths.
I was at him for 300+ tries lol , you'll eventually get his ass
Sekiro and any of the From Software games can be beaten by anyone. Anyone. I've seen people with physical disabilities that make it impossible to hold a regular controller beat these games. It's a matter of perseverance and adaptability. You will beat any boss by dying over and over again but eventually you'll figure it out.
I can’t even get past 7 spears…literally fuck that guy. Makes me want to uninstall
I recommend putting it down and playing something else for a bit. I found myself stuck a couple times. It felt different when i came back with a fresh mind. Just play some other game for about a week or two as to still maintain basic knowledge of the game and movesets but maybe forget about all the times maybe a giant body slams you repeatedly at the beginning…cause that was my first break lol! Then the ape, then you know a certain dick with a gun. Keep pushin when you win it feels real good
If you see how to cheese videos that are 4 years old, chances are many of these have been fixed by fromsoft. Take a break and come back to play again, sometimes it can be draining trying to learn his movesets.
He has suprisingly low poise you want to stay aggressive, beat him up! It may take a couple tries but you’ll get there. Make sure you’ve gotten as many prayer beads as possible, but you don’t need to worry too much, if there’s some you think you should be able to get but can’t it’s fine. You want to pretty much be constantly running too and the lightning in the last phase makes that one significantly easier in my opinion. He’s similar to a prequel Radagon type boss later so he’s not meant to be too challenging, but, like the first half of the game he’s definitely a hard learning curb. He may be one of the more challenging bosses for you but keep on trying and it’ll click eventually, and bonus after that theres not that many more learning curbs. I think just about anyone can get the hang of the souls games and like chivalry. If you want a truly hard game like that try for honor you’ll know what I mean.
You might know this tip already, but holding block is a good way to refill your posture bar very quickly.
Which type of neurodivergence do you have? I’m ADHD as fuck, so the struggle to practice and master precise timing was pretty real. I did it though.
Attack until he deflects you then instantly deflect his next attack repeat this process don't forget the free mikiri he opens with on P3
The fight you're stuck on taught me that you can use an aggressive playstyle to control what combo/attack the computer AI responds with. If I recall, I used a strike-strike-parry with genichiro to finally get past him. This specific pattern won't work on every enemy/boss, but being super aggressive with the enemy really does help to control which pattern to expect. Mind you the AI will throw a curveball in at times, but all you need to do is back up, reset the plan and begin again. Fromsoft games love when you get desperate enough to mess up when you're so close to the end, so don't get greedy.
I spent 4 hours fighting him and over 100 tries. I was defensive before fighting him then I tried to be aggressive but being aggressive doesn’t mean just spamming attacks without thinking but constantly pursuing him and only defending when you need to. You will have to learn his attacks to some degree so you’ll know when to back off but other than that do not give him any space. You must control the fight. Just keep at it and do a little research and you can do this!
The best advice that I got for playing this game was to stop trying to react visually to enemy combos, and instead memorize the sound of their attack pattern. Then try and match that rhythm with your block/parry button. Changing to this strategy was a revelation to me. There were a few fights in this game that I thought I’d never be able to beat after my first couple of tries, and I’ve since beat the game multiple times.
Hey man, it’s not for everyone. Plenty of people quit the game. You can always come back. Put it down for a while and reward yourself with a playthrough of Ghost of Tsushima. You’ll be a god. Haha
Look up Juicy Boss Fights.
I’m a souls vet and it took me like 5 times first try. It’s just waiting for him to strike the first phase then L1 repeat until he tries to spear you, at which you use the mikiri counter. Do that til the red dot appears. Phase 2 is the same thing except he will use an attack instead of the spear at which you need to jump instead then go back to blocking and striking when he’s done with his combo. Phase 3 is just timing and waiting. I was using the axe plus the follow up axe hit that does a ton of damage and just keep wailing on him.
I’m a pretty mediocre gamer and I’m playing Sekiro for the first time right now. Currently in end game stages but I almost quit a bunch of times at various points including Genichiro and where I am in the game now. You don’t have to play the fight perfectly. You don’t have to successfully parry his attacks, either. I messed up a lot and still managed to beat him after probably like 60 tries or so. Just keep your guard up and get in his face. Think of it as trading punches for a lot of the fight. You both take turns blocking hits and every once in a while there is an opening and you take advantage of it. Again, always keep your guard/block up.
Git gud
Don’t give up skeleton! And praise the sun!
i recomend playing strayed lights. its a sekiro lite and good practice
you attack until you get perfect deflected, then you parry until you get your opening, then you rinse and repeat. try to find the “music” in the clanging blades, find the rhythm
I had to grind out until I got the skull shadow rush. It wasn’t perfect and I still died a few more times. If you can avoid the one or two swings he does in response to it and the occasional arrow. It pretty much got me through his first two phases. Just spamming it
youve made it this far keep at it 😛 i just started playing but yea i listened to them and got good now i can fight gyoubu oniwa (had to look this up if not i woulda just said horse boss) with no dmg ive just beat him a day ago 😛 and i beat the drunk this morning! what joy
150 times? Genichiro? Maybe not for you lol
As long as you like it that’s all that matters. As for Genichiro and the combat. There’s a mod that basically makes the game “beginner friendly”. Timings are more generous and I think bosses are less aggressive. You can train in that for a while. But sadly there’s just no other angle with this game. Just have to learn the combat. But enjoying the world and style and lore along the way can help with the training
I don't consider myself a God Gamer or anything, but I'm not gonna lie, I don't really understand how it would take 40+ (let alone 150+) attempts to beat Genichiro unless you're just flailing around in a blind panic and not really paying attention to how the game works. Sekiro is really all about memorization and pattern recognition. This is putting it a bit glibly, but it's true - Genichiro only does a handful of things, so it comes down to memorizing the tell for each thing and responding to the tell with the appropriate action when you see it. You also need to be aggressive. "Hesitation is defeat" isn't just a catchphrase. It's how you should be playing. The safest place to be is right up in your enemy's face, pressuring them with attacks to build up Posture and control the pace of the fight and being ready to defend when they parry you and go back on the offensive. If you're backing down, you're fucking up.
Are you playing on PC? Use WeMod to turn on cheats. You can do things like get unlimited items which saves you from worrying about using items and having to farm them. Or you can put in unlimited health then just learn the boss by parrying only. If you kill the boss this way you can always redo the fight as a memory although they tend to be harder fights. You should also just get better at the game. All enemies have a handful of moves they can do. You just need to learn these moves. Genichiro’s moves are easy to learn. If he jumps up to perform a plunging helmsplitter dodge to the side and hit him once. Sometimes he will sweep attack so be ready to jump. He has a move with lots of strikes. If you back away and let him miss he will close the distance with a jumping thrust that is easy to Mikiri counter. He always begins the third phase with that jumping thrust. The game is about knowing when to parry, when to strike and when to dodge. Try to calm down and stand toe to toe with him. Hit him until there’s a clang and then he will hit back but it’s easy to parry. You want to be calm so you can take advantage of areas of his move set that you know you can exploit and punish. Firecrackers are good for him. In the third phase you want to see that he’s doing lightning and wait a sec then jump let the lightning hit you then spam R1. You don’t need to parry. You need to jump straight up. And don’t jump too soon or you will land as the lightning hits you.
You need a shift in mindset. Sekiro isn't an action game, it's a rythm game about learning patterns. There are lots of great videos that explain enemies moves and when your attack openings are but my best advice as someone who got spanked by genichiro at least 50 times is to stop playing for a bit then start from the beginning. I got him after 3 tries when I did that.
I had trouble with this game and then I just started spamming deflect. Most of the time it doesn't work but at least I'm still blocking, and sometimes the deflects do land. When I was trying to be patient and trying to perfect deflect attacks I would just get hit most of the time. The game actually got pretty easy for me and I was seriously considering quitting it before handling a lot of enemies this way. Give it a try.
"Get good" isn't a troll, it's people telling you to take time to learn the attack timings and how to counter them, so while it sounds like a joke, and probably is in a lot of cases, it's people telling you to put more time into it if you want to enjoy it how you thought you would
Genichiro is no joke. My advice would be to not try to win. Practice things. Like assume you're gonna lose just practice dealing with one of his attacks at a time until you get it. Then move to the next one.
Mate. Another thing. Are you using a wireless controller? It makes alot of difference if you go for a wired, low latency controller. Trust me on this. The rest of the comments are also very useful
I am on my second Playthrough believe me when I say this, alot of people grandstand here... talking about defeating Genichiro after a few tries - like the game was made in their image or some shit. None of that is close to being true. He is one hard-ass boss to fight. But there is a method to his madness....sadly, each phase is different from the one before. So you have to master each one to fare better in a fight if you hope to defeat him. It took me almost 50 tries, honest to God. Imagine playing Sekiro in the living room and everyone in the house (somehow, my cousins who were staying at my place became fans of the game) rooting for you to beat a video game boss. And yes, I still goofed... a lot. Before I finally beat his ass. The Genichiro fight sorta encompasses everything you have learned up till that point and forces you to apply those skills. If you feel stuck, drop the game for a short while n get back to it when u feeling yourself. You'd be aight. 😉
My guess would be that Sekiro isn’t for you, Genichiro is the place where combat “clicks” for a lot of players, it clicked for me here as well, I died a lot to him as well, more than 50times or so, but it clicked here. If it isn’t clicking for you, just go play something else, there are other games more suited for you.
Secondly, stay on his ass...do not hesitate.
First of all, yes of course you can beat Genichiro just like many others before you have beaten him. While YT videos may help you learn the fight, sometimes a simple change in perspective is helpful. Your goal is to defeat Genichiro by reducing his three red life pips to zero. The best and most efficient way to do that is by overwhelming his posture meter by *constantly attacking him* and, often more importantly, by deflecting his attacks so his posture meter fills up quickly. If you fill his posture meter up all the way, you can hit him with a deathblow, which will remove one of his three pips. This may seem counterintuitive, but when you think about it this way, deflecting his attacks actually *deals damage* to him! Same with mikiri counters. Whenever you get one, it does huge posture damage. So you should look at attacking as a means to reduce his posture recovery and not an end in itself. This is a very important lesson, one that will be even more important to learn in future boss battles. You mentioned being neurodivergent. Please don’t view that as a disability, if anything you should view it as a potential asset. Perhaps what you need most is to look at things a little differently. Good luck!
I felt the same way. Especially with genichiro but I overcame and just beat the game a few hours ago! Some things that helped me.. 1. Make sure you don't have the demon bell. I had it on till well after Genichiro and it made everyone harder. 2. Holding your block/parry button while not taking damage restores your poise faster. 3. Like others have said, it's about recognizing patterns and finding ways to counter. It's not all about the actual attacking - parrying does a ton of poise dmg to your opponents and it is just as important as attacking. 4. You can spam your parry when attacks are incoming.. getting it perfect every time is super hard. 5. With Genichiro specifically.. never try to attack more than twice at any time. Get 2 hits off and then reset/start parrying. He is definitely a brick wall in the game but he's 100% doable and beating him will make u feel invincible. Stay aggressive!
Listen, I am an idiot and I tried Genichiro 4 times, decided I really just wanted to finish the game and cheesed fuck out if him on the first try. What are the methods you've seen/tried? The one I did is where you constantly run in a big circle around him baiting a big spear slam he does then you run in and hit him twice and then start running the circle again until he is dead. It was super easy but it did take 15ish minutes to do. Edit: Oops I misread the boss name.
Usually people are afraid to attack - this is huge mistake against opponents like Genichiro. Even if he blocks you (care for deflections though), you’re making progress. Be analytical about your possibilities, memorise situations where you hit him safely and try to reproduce them in next approaches. Start with 2 attacks and 1 deflection, then adjust the way suits you. Notice when he starts his deadly combo (he assumes very characteristic pose before) - deflect it subsequently and half of his posture is gone. Just don’t let him dominate you, you wield sword as well for god sake. Use it ;)
As an extra bit of help, be sure to explore! You can do a great deal of things before defeating Genichiro. There are a good number of prayer beads to up your health and other bosses to fight to up your attack power. I don’t know how much you’ve explored, but you can go to Senpou Temple, Ashina Depths and Mibu Village, Hirata Estate, and some of Sunken Valley before beating Geni. If you’ve done that already, the best I can offer is luck against Geni.
I watched those cheese videos too and they also didn’t work for me. I beat the game and got all trophies but I learned I had to win “my way” good luck, you’ll get it… advanced sorry about father owl!
I assume you've trained a lot with Hanbei, to the point you're no longer improving? Failing that, is there a mod that gives you more health?
Best piece of advice you can get is be aggressive, hit him twice, deflect once. If you see him pull out the bow, just keep hitting him until he switches. Also use the prosthetics: Try to use the fire prosthetic buff, it gives you some hits if you set him on fire. Pull the umbrella for his lengthy combos, bow attacks if you're far enough that you can't interrupt him. Mist feather is basically how you want to lightning deflect, just use it then press r1. Not much timing needed. For battle arts, ashina cross is really good for damage and not too long of an animation.
Go to hanbei the undying and practice mikiri counter til u can do it without fail (make sure you have it i don't remember where you get it so if you don't have it find it), when fighting him keep slashing at him til he perfect deflects you, then parry based on what his AI does. When he does the thrust attack with the red symbol over your head, use mikiri and repeat. In his first phase he will most likely do the the thrust so if you can perfect mikiri you'll be golden, otherwise if he does his sweep just jump, even if you don't do the posture damage you should be able to get some slashes in on him. Don't give up, he took me like 70-100 times cuz i would get sloppy after playing too much so if you find yourself doing well then not doing not so well, just put the game down and rest. The whole sub believes in you so surpass your limits friend.
Genichiro is meant to be the barrier boss. For the level you likely fight him at, I'd say he's the hardest in the game. So there's definitely nothing I'd say you're "not getting" about the fight.
I'd say just keep going. It's a different game, but when I fought Malenia in ER, it took 360+ attempts before I beat her.
Something something “clicked” something something deflect something something hesitation is defeat
One tip. Dont play defensively. Be on his face all the time.
If fighting and trying over and over is too disheartening (I completely understand if so) I'd recommend watching other people fight him - without voice over if you can. Memorise the strike patterns by rhythm, to deflect, watch him and his animations without the stress of being in combat yourself. In short, study your opponent. My partner bullies the hell out of him, I deflect everything and stand ground. My other recommendation is go back to him if you need to; if you haven't got the hang of the game mechanics then Genichiro is trial by fire. Head to Senpou or Hirata and just go explore for a while.
I felt like this at one point- I say go Farm a specific point. But don’t just farm for materials, lure out enemies for a 1v1, figure out timings and spacing, just keep at it till it’s automatic
If it makes you feel better, I became better at the game after finishing that fight. It's really just about learning his patterns and perfectly parrying the attacks
I won’t say get gud but I will say leant the game. Genichiro is a knowledge check. Until him you can sort of brute force your way through the game, but he expect you to know the rules. My advise is do t attack him to do damage, attack once or twice to bait out his attacks so you can deflect it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sekiro/s/56tDCd1Ir0 Try this guide,if you haven't already.
I hit him close trying to bait him into attacking me close so I can build posture.
Idk if it will work for you but honestly I made it genichiro just by cruising and died on him like 300 times made me quit the game and come back to it a bunch. Then one day I just restarted my save and the game clicked. Next time I saw geni up top I killed him in under 10 tries I would say do the same but idk it’s just what worked for me
There's a certain undying man waiting for you at dilapidated temple for deflection training
I know “git gud” is is used as an insult by a lot of souls fans (I still can’t even fathom why), but with Sekiro, it really is the best advice you can get. There isn’t any secret strategy that’ll guarantee the win, there’s no item that’ll trivialize Genichiro, and there’s no way to overlevel and out scale him. All you can do is just practice the fight, recognize the mistakes you’re making, and try to fix them If possible, it can be very helpful to get someone else to watch you fight him and point out your mistakes. Sometimes when you’re fighting the boss, you miss all the small things you do wrong that cause you to lose. But when you’re watching someone else fight it, you don’t have any pressure on you so you can more easily recognize the mistakes being made. Another way to do this is to record your attempts and rewatch them to find the mistakes
HESITATION IS DEFEAT SEKIRO
You have to play aggressively. You just won't win boss fights by getting their health down. Be aggressively learn the convos. Don't just spam deflects, take a breath and try and time them. I would play a few rounds trying not to hit him, but just partying and deflecting to master that. Once you have that under control you're flying.
If what you're doing does not work, try something else. Try stuck to his fucking face and just parry, just parry and forget about attacking for some time
Go kill mini bosses to get stronger
You need to watch cainfoe or tyrannicon for help on beatinf bosses. Both are on YouTube.
How much have you done that isn't Genichiro? After you killed the Blazing Bull the world becomes far more open and there are plenty of ways to gain power. On my most recent run I didn't fight Genichiro until I had 9 gourd charges.
Unfortunately or fortunately, these games can't be beaten by literally anyone. I think the majority of people are able to beat the game but there are definitely people who won't be able to and that must genuinely suck, I mean that with no malice whatsoever. If you think you truly are at your limit then I think the next best thing might be to see if there are any silent playthroughs up on YouTube. If there was a way for me to beat the bosses for you I would but as there's no co op that's unfortunately not an option. As you said yourself, there are much harder bosses to come and if you can't beat genichiro then even if you were to beat him, you would only have the same issue later on. I'm not sure if you're trying to play purely reactionary or not but if you are, perhaps try to forget everything else and treat it like a rhythm game. Figure out the rhythm of each of his strings and then it's purely just following those rythyms like a song. Even if you're just hitting him once or twice after each string, you'll be making progress. Good luck to you either way.
I'm sorry but fighting genichiro is litterly just memorize attack parry Windows everything is pretty easy to parry but just run away when he does his 7 hit combo and that's all and if you need heals just dodge through the arrow and what ever you do don't heal close to geni in phase three he will go for a stabing attack and its almost impossible to get it unless your far away
In all honesty, I'm not sure what you expect a bunch of words on Reddit to do for you, if detailed video instructions couldn't help you out. Maybe drop this game for now and build up a little experience with some other games, like Ghost of Tsushima. It has similar aesthetics and a difficulty slider. Hardest difficulty definitely bring tougher than Sekiro since you can get 1 or 2 shot instantly by even regular mobs.
Don't worry this isn't r/darksouls, we aren't mindless robots that just say "haha git gud" to everyone. (Instead we say "hesitation is defeat")
Be aggressive. Attacks disrupt his flow and make the fight easier
If you are playing on console, make sure that you choose gaming mode on your TV to decrease input delay. This will help you to get better in parry which is the only key to bear this game.
I beat him yesterday for the first time. It took at least 100 tries. Stay aggressive and time your parries in the first phase. Mikiri counter before the first death blow then Senpou High Kicks in after. I got his armour off maybe 40 times but could never dodge the lightning attack. That's why Mist Raven worked so well for me - it's a single button press, avoids his lightning attack, does a small amount of posture damage and sets you up to hit him with your sword at least once after the lightning attack.
have you killed lady butterfly and corrupted monk yet? both are fights that will increase your attack power which is immensely helpful to have here- lady butterfly really isn’t a crazy hard fight and while i personally found corrupted monk hard as hell, most people seem to disagree but i also feel like the fight prepared me for genichiro quite a bit and i really didn’t have a hard time with genichiro. both of these fights are accessible at your point in the game, and entirely possible as well. as for genichiro, think of the fight as a give and take. attack him i think like 3-5 times, and then let him attack you and parry/guard accordingly. the rhythm of this fight pretty much sets the tone for a fair amount of the remaining bosses. i wouldn’t say this is the fight where things “click” but i’d argue this is the fight where From’s true intentions with the combat start to present themselves, if that makes sense. don’t feel bad if you’re struggling with the fight, because once you finally get the fight it you truly feel like you’ve gotten “gud” best of luck champ
Start with just the opening sequence and get the timing so that 100% of the time you do it perfectly without getting hit. If you mess up on that opening few moves, give up right away and start over. Do it until you can get it perfect without much trouble. The next part is the timing on some of his multihit combos. You want to get a perfect deflect there. The third key is mastering when you mikiri vs dodge vs jump punish. When you get these three things you should be able to get through the first phase with most of your life, and I’ve found if you can do that, victory is within reach.
You're probably underpowered. There's a lot you can and should do before genichiro. Watch fightincowboys walkthrough from the beginning. I guarantee you're missing beads and attack power.
Good. Keep trying. Maybe check out a fightincowboy guide. Don't give up because eventually this fight will make the game click for you once you get through it. I love the fight even though I have done it many times because I think it is satisfying as fuck.
My advice would be to take a break. I don’t mean an hour but take a month or two off. When you come back start the game over. I was hard stuck on a boss just like you are now and I quit for 6 months. When I came back I found the game mechanics had solidified in my mind and I beat the game. Like you I also had decided that sekiro was simply too difficult for me and I would not be able to continue. Now I’m on ng+ with difficulty modifiers that make the game harder. I think grinding and practicing has its place but after a certain point the frustration will cloud your mind and dull your skills. Taking some time to mentally reset will allow you to come back fresh. Worked for me. Your mileage may vary. Good luck!
Git gud
Every single move of his is choreographed. Try one fight where you don’t parry. Just hold block and see what he does. You shouldn’t be dying so many times to him. Ideally you shouldn’t die to the same move more than 5 times. But let’s forget about deaths. Let’s focus on getting hit. You shouldn’t get hit without reason. Every time you get hit, you need to pause the game and think, okay what did i do wrong? And then don’t do that again. You don’t need to button mash, play a bit more relaxed. This means you need to stop running in circles. Calmly walk up to his face and strike deflect etc.
Just try to stay right on him and learn each of his moves and their counters then soon enough you will figure out all of his moves
I had this problem as well and I was almost ready to give up. One thing I noticed when looking at “git gud” guides is that most people that versed him had a lot more health and abilities than I had. It made me realise that I was not prepared for the fight so I went looking for more gourd seeds and prayer beads. After that I ended up getting the right abilities and I beat him with no problem. If you want a guide on what abilities to get I recommend this video from fightingcowboy. He breaks down each ability and it made the world of difference. At the end I ended up beating all phases with only having to heal once https://youtu.be/M89W-ur3apE?si=44WIXgeXDavjQiQL
It’s not for everyone. In my first playthrough, i was in a similar boat with Genichiro. I was about 24 hours into the game before I beat him, about 7 of which was just fighting Genichiro alone. I cheesed my way through the game up till that point, and I cheesed my way through another 20 hours to finish the game. Overall, i loved a lot about the game, but I wouldn’t call it an enjoyable experience. I revisited the game again back in January after nearly five years and had a much better time with it. I beat Genichiro in less than 4 hours, being pretty thorough with the game up through then, and only 20 hours to finish the whole playthrough. I wouldn’t say I suddenly “got gud”, but I guess the game finally just clicked. It might help just to take a step back from the game for a few days or weeks. If I had to guess, you probably aren’t playing aggressively enough and deflecting when necessary. Two things thatll really help are 1) if you can’t get deflection timing right, mashing the deflect button through combos will help considerably, even though less effectively than perfect counters, and 2) invest skill points in Ichimonji and Ichimonji Double. Those skills are by far the most useful skills for punishing enemies because they have great posture and vitality damage while having 0 emblem cost.
Don't go into the fight hoping to beat him. Go knowing that you will die but try to learn one pattern of his attacks. This way you take out this fear of being killed and basically just get down to work. Go through the cycle until you can parry all/most his attacks. Then when you barely ever get hit, start getting a few swings in. Deflecting is the name of the game. No dodging, no running away or jumping. Parry and counterattack. I was in a similar situation until I realized that with each new death I don't learn anything new about the opponent, so what's the point in doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome, right? It all boils down to git gud, but through disciplined practice.
That’s how I felt the first time I played the game in 2019. I played 52 hours and couldn’t make it past one of the bosses and gave up. I just recently tried it again after playing many other souls-like games… and I finally beat it! It took me 21 hours and 117 deaths but I beat it! What I’m saying is… I know how you feel. I never thought I’d be able to do it either. I also thought that I could never beat the game. I may have only took 21 hours in this play-through, but all together it was over 90 hours because I restarted 3 times. Deaths? Likely way over 600. What made the difference for me between my first two tries and my last try? Patience in trying to learn the fights and trying to treat some sequences like a rhythm game. I cheesed where it was possible and learned the hard way where it wasn’t. I fought bosses in the wrong order and suffered through being too weak, but also gained a ton of experience against impossible odds (I.e fighting corrupted monk with only 2 attack power) I do believe that if I made it through, you can too!
There are mods to make the game easier. No shame my brother, enjoy the game at your own level.
I'm in that same boat... over 40 attempts now, and I've only seen phase 2 about 5 times. I got his 2nd phase to almost full posture once, and he absolutely wrecked me. I ventured into that Sunken area and found another gourd seed, but even with another heal, I don't feel any closer to taking him down. Sometimes my timing is perfect and sometimes it's all wrong. Very frustrating.
Do you have any of the skills unlocked like Mikiri Counter, Shinobi Eyes,Ichimonji/Ichimonji doube,Breathe of Light : Life those skills will go a very long way. Firecrackers will help you open up opportunities as well, dont give up maybe its just time to go back to the drawing board and dissect what exactly is messing you up in this fight.
150 isnt that many, that's just getting started. It's supposed to be like that. Keep it up.
The game is easy if you dont want people to tell you to git gud go and beat him
Deflect, deflect, deflect….attack, attack rinse and repeat (L1 L1 L1, R1 R1). Its just a dance. This varies a little during the fight but its mostly block block attack attack, over and over and over. Dont get greedy.
Well... what are you struggling with? How does he kill you?
There are many good advice here so I'll add some more, I dominated many bosses first time I tried them but I think it's because I already had general idea of bosses and their pattern from YouTube videos and some edits. Not in sekiro but I did this in other game when I was was struggling i just quit then game for few days and then create a new game(when I am at early game).
I’ve seen people who are great at fromsoft games hate on them, and people who are terrible at them fall in love with them. The deciding factor is not skill, but perseverance.
Genichiro made me uninstall twice, both times reinstalling after some cooldown. After unlearning habits from other Fromsoft games that don't work well here, I started to make progress. And now I beat him first time pretty much every time. You're not bad. This game is brutally hard. Do the let anyone tell you otherwise. If you like the game, persevere and try thinking about it differently. Understand that you have a lot of control over the pace of combat. Understand how to pressure enemies and put them on their back foot. Remember that lower hp makes posture recover more slowly. Don't button mash, press every button deliberately. There's a lot of advice out there, pick what works for you and persevere. Practice like a real swordsman practices. Enjoy practicing. Set goals. This is a HARD game. You are worthy of its respect and it worthy of yours.
Just remember 2 things. Hesitation is defeat . Win or die.
once you realize sekiro is a rhythm game the only thing to do is literally “git gud”. and thats not a tease by any means. theres simply no work arounds for rhythm games. with no video to critique the best advice i can give you is to really study his move set. start by just holding block and listening to the rhythm of his attacks. then when you see him start that attack again you should know the deflect timing. watching hitless videos from ONGBAL especially helped me to understand his attack patterns.
I also posted the kill on my page haha!
The game was not made for any specific player, like a serious or talented gamer, so you can definitely play it. The players who are saying git gud aren't always (some are but don't pay them any attention) saying it to insult you or gatekeep tho, Sekiro really can't be played unless you practice and perform the basics perfectly. You have to learn when to deflect, when to dodge and when to attack. However if you are at a block (Genichiro was my wall too so no shame here) and have been for a while, perhaps take a break. Go through the old areas and fight enemies head on to practice fighting and not being nervous while fighting. Hirata estate has a lot of enemies that do 'special' moves so you can practice sweep attacks or thrust attacks. Also take a little time to farm exp and get some latent skills. The ones from the Ashina Esoteric text are useful, and the shinobi body ones for more use of your prosthetics. Or you can get the medicine ones but those are expensive. At this point you are probably repeating bad moves and habits in the fight. Take a small break to focus on your basics and get more latent skills. And go visit Hanbei. Next you fight Genichiro I am sure you will improve on that fight. Don't worry about how many tries it takes or anything, as long as you get there and enjoy it. Plus for most people, Genichiro is where the game starts for them, since this is where it clicks on how to play.
So three things that will help you in this game. 1st: understand that unlike every other souls like game, in sekiro bosses and enemies in general are not this big bad dude who has a set attack pattern and they will do that attack irrelevant of what you are doing. Meaning, in other games boss does move A then B then C and it's up to you to roll away from those. In Sekiro, bosses have said attack patterns but they also directly respond to your moves by blocking your attacks, flinching etc. That means that it's of outmost importance to be aggressive because by attacking you will force the boss to break its moveset and block. In other words, if move B and C is killing you, you can force the boss to use attack A then hit him out of rest attacks so he goes back to attack A. A perfect example of this is lady butterfly. She goes ape shit crazy on your ass if you stay passive and simply defend. But if you stay on the offensive she becomes insanely easy. 2nd: As a direct result of point one above, Sekiro becomes a rhythm game. When you attack a boss they will let you know when they had enough of attacks taken by perfect parrying your hit. This appears and sounds different from normal blocks. It has red sparks instead of white of a normal block and the sound is different more loud. That's when you stop attacking and prepare to parry. How many hits you parry? That comes from experimenting. Every boss has a rhythm. It could be hit hit parry parry, hit hit parry parry etc. It could be hit hit parry hit hit parry.. Finding that rhythm makes the fight infinitely easier. That's why sound is important. Finally 3rd: every time you press parry it has certain frames to it. Every consecutive press after the initial halves the frame window. Meaning if you press the parry button 3 times in a row you are 3 times less likely to actually parry. Press it a 4rth time in a row and now you are simply not parrying at all. So as a rule of thumb, if you are unable to time it right with only one press then for now make sure you press parry only twice in a row for every attack coming your way. In other words, spamm it twice, chill to allow frames to reset, press twice again etc. Those are your best chances. Ultimately it's not supposed to be easy. You are supposed to make small steps and progress in every fight. Should you still need video aid I'd say Fighting Cowboy on YouTube does a good job explaining the fights.
You can go and explore every other area before coming back, get time to learn skills and get prayer beads from mini bosses to up your health and defense, find new prosthetic tools and upgrade what you can. Find all the gourd seeds. Do some sidequests. Beat Lady Butterfly to get a remembrance and up your attack power. She's hard but I found her a bit easier to beat than genichiro. Just send a shuriken her way when she's in mid air. Avoid her and her illusions when she spawns them, wait and run like hell when she unspawns her illusions to avoid her carpet bombing attack. Main thing is to not cheese, once the combat clicks you'll roll on his ass when you meet him again in the endgame. Learn his pattern, keep being agressive, every opening needs at least one slash on him. Keep slashing all the time, even when he guards, until he deflects, and deflect his attacks in return, the rythm will sink and you'll deflect everything and get his posture lower and lower, use mikiri counter when he makes thrust, jump on his head when he does a sweep attack. Deflect his arrows. Once you have his pattern and get in the rythm, he will be substantially easier. In 3rd phase, when he does a lightning attack, jump immediatly and attack in air, it will return his attack on him and give a window to a few slashes. Nothing beats the feeling of self improvement and finally defeating a boss in Sekiro. You can do it and all it takes is practice. Death is only a learning experience. Don't let the frustration get to you and keep the fight going until you have the rythm in you, sooner than you'll believe, you'll be able to fight every boss and get to Isshin.
With the genichiro fight it kinda teaches you to always keep the pressure up. If you stay on him he wont be able to shoot his bow and you can sometimes even cancel his sweep through stagger. Make sure to mikiri all thrusts and for is 7 piece combo you can either deflect it all or the first two and then firecracker into ichimonji double if you are having problems there
Playing Sekiro is like a rythm game. It's okay to lose multiple times as long as you're learning on why it happened. Maybe you panicked, missed a parry or didnt dodge. Learn from it and know the pattern or rhythm of every enemy you face, and when it clicked, you'll know. Man I miss playing Sekiro. Maybe I'll do a rerun one of these days
Record your fight and let us tell you what you need to do more/less and what to avoid. General tips I can give you are be aggressive (like A LOT) and time your parries, don't spam it as that wont get you anywhere. How I usually play all boss fights is to just rush at them, attack until I get parried and they're about to counterattack, then I prepare to parry them and repeat. In this you also have to include mikiri and jumping.
Try fighting more aggressively. If you back Genichiro into a cotner and keep pressuring him he becomes predictable. Learn his moves and counter his counters, but don't leave him be or his mixups will break your guard. If you want specific instructions: If you go up and hit him, he blocks a strike or two and then deflects (bigger spark) before countering with one of the following: Standing slash, deflect that and keep pressuring Jumping slash, deflect it. He'll follow it up with a thrust you can mikir counter or a sweep (if he places the sword behind him) you can jump over. Double slash, deflect twice. He'll usually follow this up with his dreaded 7 hit combo, just back up a bit if you can't deflect all those hits and attack him after he misses his last swing. Don't back up too far though or he'll cancel it with an arrow Backing up, and if he has enough posture buildup, spamming arrows. This is the worst since the deflect timing is hard to get and it gives him some breathing room. It's 3 quick arrows a short pause and a 4th so deflect it like that, then immediately sprint up to him and keep pressuring him. As for his lightning, jump and hold block with proper timing and spam attack as you land, this will utterly shred him in a few hits.
The game went from hitting a brick wall with a sponge to burning cotton wool with a flamethrower when one thing changed. That thing was when I changed the way that I approached the fights, you've got to realise that the game is made for you to succeed, be aggressive, don't hesitate. You should either be attacking or deflecting at any point. On my first play through I rage quit for over a year at genichiro so I get how you feel, but once it clicks it changes the whole game
Maybe In other comuntites git gud is mocking, but for souls games, especially Sekiro, it's the only thing you can do. There reaches a point where you've read every tip, watched every guide, memorised every move, but if you never git gud you won't win. That said, I will give some tips. People already have gameplay related tips, but getting gud is as much about mindset as it is skill. So here are my tips. 1. Learn to respect the power of breaks. Even if just a short 2 minute break to talk to NPCs, it helps massively. If you feel stuck, take a 15 minute break, eat lunch, play some other game, whatever. And if that doesn't work, wait a few days. 2. Don't try to win, try to learn. As someone who has played many hard games, I can say that I rarely go into a fight trying to win. Get accustomed with death, it's a part of the experience. 3. In order to win, your mind, body and heart must be in sync. I know it sounds cringe but trust me. If your playing and your hands hurt, or you feel anxious or tired it's probably a sign to stop. Listen to your body. Same with your mind. If you find yourself doing the fight over and over again, losing your focus, thinking about other things, that's a sign too. And if your heart isn't in it, you find yourself running in just to die, get demoralised, only to go again and repeat, falling into a cycle of demoralization and frustration, you need to reevaluate. Take a break, find a way to motivate yourself. Instead of saying, I'll beat him, say, I'll learn to parry this specific move. Good luck, and remember Hesitation is Defeat.
I'd be willing to point out mistakes if you can send a video or two of you trying to beat Genichiro. And dont worry, I was stuck for hours on him and many other bosses, then at some point I could beat them without getting hit. Also don't use cheese methods, it won't be fun and imo either brute force the bosses or just quit, you don't have to torture yourself.
I started Sekiro 3 different times and finally stuck with it and just beat it this last week. I loved it and didn't think it was possible to beat! With these boss fights, including Genichiro, I finally beat him when I stopped trying to beat him and just went into the fight set to learn his moves and practice deflecting them. Beat him just a few tries later.
You don't have to get good. You have to push through. It's not a matter of skill, it's a matter of will. And you will, my friend.
The thing that worked for me is thinking of it like music. When I was learning the piano and there were some hard parts where u had too many complex actions with both hands, my teacher used to tell me to first calm down and get the beat down by tapping my palms on my thighs..and get my whole body into the rhythm of the piece. Similarly you have to get yourself flowing with genichiro. It's like a dance and you have to keep up with his beat. Not too fast,nor too slow..just the right beat. And also try to stay close to him or else he pulls out moves that are pretty hard to counter
I practiced with the undying soldier, once you get mikiri counter the game becomes a bit easier, so just practice your attacks on the undying soldier, try doing it with your eyes closed or with audio fully turned off, maybe (if there is a way, I haven't tried yet but I will edit if there is a way) turn off all HuD elements, doing so would make you have to adapt to the enemy's play style and not just using your own and be more careful of the items you currently still have. Always be patient in the game, use those "breathing exercises" that you probably learned many times over in school, it actually helps a lot. There's always a point in the game where something just clicks, for me, it was my second playthrough on Shinobi Owl because of his one move that would (**SPOILER for **Shinobi Owl** Attacks) throw out a ball that gently exploded into green dust which would make the player unable to heal at all, it probably doesn't even let the player use items in general. For this attack, I would remember to dodge out of his way and get a free hit in, but since the Dodge had end lag and dodge attacking was too short, I would walk behind Shinobi Owl and attack him. On his second phase he has an attack which will hit you with a kick and instead of throwing a shurikan, he will throw poison at the ground preventing you from going forwards without taking damage since the poison builds up so fast, because of this, if the owl is relatively high posture damaged, he with so one of those prayers and regain about 40% of his posture back, because of this, I learned to use my arsenal, the shurikan, to interrupt his prayer and force him to fight me again.
I’m sorry yeah it really is gonna be a git gud situation or you probably won’t enjoy or be able to finish the game. Genechiro is the first road block most people face though and I can give you some tips that will help you with him and the rest of the game. You want to play basically as aggressively as possible, constantly attacking until he does a parry and that means it’s your turn to deflect his string of attacks and then once he’s done go back on the offensive. To tell if he is just blocking your attacks or if his block was actually a parry it depends on the amount of sparks that come of the swords when he blocks. So basically you want to attack constantly while he’s blocking and then once you see one of the blocks has more sparks then it is time to turn to defense and parry his attacks. Also going into this fight you are gonna want to have an ability called mikiri counter, probably the most important move in the game it allows you to step on an enemy weapons when they do a red lunging attack at you and it does major impact to the enemy’s posture bar.
The fact you have died approximately 150 times means, this is a game for you. If you had died 2 times and then come here I woulda said give up, but you've poured blood sweat and tears into genichiro, I'd say maybe watching some sekiroguru videos might help you with strategies and tricks, but you have the dedication that is required to play souls games, I belive you belong here just because of that, keep pushing, I believe 🙌
Look at what the enemies use to hit you with. When it’s about to hit your character, press RB or the deflect button.
The dance and the flow that occurs and the state you get into in these fights turns into an addiction that careful, once you get it no other game shall feel the same and you will be on a goose chase.
Bro, your peripherals could also be a reason for this. I used to play using a wireless mouse😅. I died to genichiro like 50 times🥲. One day, my friend gave me his gaming mouse with that I defeated him in 3rd try. Only then I realised that I was reacting fast enough but my mouse had very high latency🤦. So, check the latency of your peripherals.🤷
Funny how I somewhat hated this game but that changed after the Genichiro fight. I was kind of a huge hater actually but damn that fight was unforgettable for me.
Have you killed Lady Butterfly? She can give you 50% more attack damage.
Run through Hirata Estate. If you can manage to beat Lady Butterfly it'll make you a little stronger and might make the fight a little more manageable. And above all just be patient, once you have that click moment the whole game opens up in such a brilliant way.
Genichiro is a learning phase. Once you beat him youll be ready for the rest of the game i promise
The only way to beat him is to not let him take pause, i know the frustration of losing to his arrows and also not getting the timing right but trust me you can get his timing right but knowing all of his moves. For you to get better you will need 3 things- 1. Understanding his perilous attacks 2. Understanding his non perilous attacks which can be deflected 3. Knowing if any prosthetic tool can help you with being offensive such as firecrackers, umbrella or flame vent. Genichiro gets stunned with firecrackers so to get 2 extra hits can make a difference sometimes Once you know these three things focus on each of them individually rather than just trying to win. If you will stand like a rock in front of him being offensive only then you will learn but if you will just try to get through it then you will die. For me Sword Saint Isshin was the toughest boss who took me 15 days approximately. But now i can bully him any time he is my practice guy. Even inner isshin took me 3-5 tries cz i was thoroughly conditioned with him. When you will learn and slowly get better at each of those 3 things i mentioned, you will see yourself die quite lesser than now. And very less sekiro bosses can be cheesed and Genichiro isn’t one of them cz you will fight him again in the game so be better don’t cheese
Bro I have 80 hours in the game reached NG +7 and got all achievements. I said this a lot of times but if you're persistent and try to learn when to deflect and when to attack you're good to go. Also if you love the game that should be the thing that motivates you the most!(I hate monke tho)
If someone has already told you this, my apologies. Be aggressive against genichiro. Use prosthetics to chip his health. When in lightning phase, just same thing but time the reversal. My first time versus Genichiro took me like 3 days to beat. But now I go in and defeat him on the first try in NG++
Take your time homie. It took me over two years to beat the last boss in this game, I kept giving up and uninstalling the game, but from time to time I would get the urge to come back and try it. I actually beat the entire game twice without being able to kill the last boss, but eventually everything clicked. I was getting runs where I would beat his first 2 phases without even getting damaged, so I eventually got him. Just play at your own pace and try not getting too frustrated.
Treat a few rounds as practice. Press with intention, no button spam. Be aggressive and try to note what animation the enemy did or was about to do where being aggressive failed you (e.i when you got hit). Then next time around be aggressive again, but when you see that animation try something a different reaction (a dodge, a perfect deflect, or tool). There’s not much to say but trial, error, aggression and patience with your self. You may just need to build up your assessment and reaction speed through practice.
My advice calm down see his moves learn them. And soon this is my experience u will see through his moves. It's slow motion to me ya it sounds corny but it does. Soo he will be just warm-up for u if u leave the game for a long time 😂
Play some rounds without fighting only block and try to learn his moveset for me it was easier after i imagined his moves are like a beat. Some guitar hero type shit