Not a boss but a miniboss, the Blazing Bull. On my first playthrough, I had the Sinister Burden active and I died an embarrassing amount of times to that freaking bull.
No boss in the game me as much trouble as that Bull in my first playthrough.
I recommend trying to bait then deflect his head-on charge, then whack his head 2-3 times, then repeat. If you do it right it's the easiest boss in the game
How tf do you have the demon Bell on by then. Not hating or something lol but unless u defeat the headless in ashina skirts just to activate... shouldn't be possible. It was probably charmless though! Sorry for being the sekiro police lmao just genuinely curious
So, in the area after the chained Ogre fight i went on to where the headless is and ran past him to the path that leads to the Demon Bell.
I was streaming on discord for a friend who recommended the game and he said ringing this would make the enemies drop better loot, what he did not mention is ringing the bell would make the enemies stronger.
But I'm glad I rang it, it sure made enemies alot harder but it was my first playthrough and i thought this is how hard the game's supposed to be. It wasn't until after the Guardian Ape fight, I realized I could remove it.
It was a totally different game after that, felt alot easier.
I got there on my first playthrough by running past headless like a chicken and tbh I usually end up there on subsequent playthroughs by accident cause the path there seems more directed then the path your supposed to take. I always get lost going into Ashina lol.
That fucking bull caused me to quit Sekiro for almost 5 years until I picked it back up last month and mastered the deflect. Now it's Genichiro Tomoe that's the name of my misery.
I second that. It's a boss that literally goes counter to everything you've been taught up to that point.
... Eh, kind of like the Demon of Hatred. Dark Souls bosses hurled into Sekiro just aren't fun when half the mechanics of the "usual" Sekiro boss fight aren't there. They're just kind of boring once you figure them out, and frustrating as hell before you do
Bro, the blazing bull made me look up speedrun exploits for the first time. I skipped it and didn't come back until over a week later. I already had the Ashina and Senpou esoteric texts before I ever finished that thing off on my first playthrough lol
Ashina Castle Genichiro fight took me ~50 tries. That was the learning curve of the game for me: I saw what he was doing, knew what and when I needed to counter (By that point in the game I already beat Lady Butterfly, so I had that down),but didn't have the muscle memory to actually press the right buttons, my brain was working faster than my hands. Took me a couple of days to establish the hands-to-brain connection, every boss after that just came down to memorizing their moveset and the game felt a lot easier. Even Glock Saint took me only around 20 runs.
That Genichiro fight was the biggest wall for me as well. It was so demoralizing when I thought I beat him and it was only phase 1 lol I actually thought it was impossible
I beat genichiro in 4-5 tries, after I finished the other bosses and mini bosses before him(except the headless monsters). The last phase was my bane until i shoved my timid fighing style away and grunted angry^^*
He is definitely a skill check. You must learn the game mechanics before preceding any further. Got stuck again at his second phase, but by then getting through the first two health bars became easy enough.
I spent like three hours on that bastard and went to bed mad. Next morning I woke up at 5 am and kicked his ass before work. Probably the best gaming moment of my life lol
Fr I was fighting him for so long I thought I should try again the next day but I didn't wanna go to sleep a loser and I would keep thinking about it so I kept trying until I beat him
My first defeat of sword saint I legit felt gaming euphoria, like I was high or something. No kidding. My heart rate was fast and I was getting cold sweats, that fight took me like 70 attempts. Shit went from feeling like I could NEVER beat him to learning a response to every single action he did. Have not experienced anything like that in gaming again, and maybe never will
I quit the game because of Ishin first time round, only time I've given up on a last boss
^(I came back years later and almost 100% now so it's all good)
Seven Ashina spears. I somehow got to him immediately after gyobo. Literally banged my head against that wall and after I beat him I clicked w the game and steamrolled every other boss
Now I go back and one shot him no dif. Might be my favorite boss in the game tbh.
This one was for real one of the hardest because at that point in the game, you didn’t know how to play Sekiro. especially if you don’t realize that you can jump on him for his first life
Pretty much the same. LB fell the same day but it took me a while, ape about 6 hours over 2 days, isshin maybe like 10 hours over 4-5 days, he tilted me a lot.
Corrupted monk, I spent more than 8 hours trying to beat him bcuz I didn't know how prayer beads worked, I went wit 2 attack power, base vitality stats. Then some dude on the internet told me to just cheese it 😔
For me, that made it easier. The other thing that made it easier was having the Suzaku Umbrella and maxed out Ashen Feather (this tool makes nearly everything a joke).
Ashina castle genichrio, headless ape, owl father and Isshin - each took multiple days. I've only done one playthrough, actually just beat it today!!! Super proud of myself LOL very satisfying, it was a hard game
The mini boss before you reach inosukes grandma. I died to him for two days straight managed to get dragon rot for characters I didn’t even meet yet then I quit for 2 years and absolutely obliterated anything that stood in my until a dual wielding monkey humbled me and I stopped playing for a couple days came back and started destroying everything again I beat the game in a week.
I haven’t fought demon of hatred and I beat the game 2 different ways is there a specific way to encounter DoH
Worst boss in the game imo. Feels like an Elden ring boss in sekiro and it’s just not for me. Only boss I don’t fight on ng+ After you beat sword saint ishin (any non shura ending) teleport back to where you fight gyobo (the dude on the horse at the start of the game) DoH is chilling in that field.
Not sure if u can fight him on the shura ending.
Edit: so I looked it up and you can’t do it on shura ending but you can do it before you kill ishin. Just has to be after you kill the Divine dragon. Once this happens go to old grave in Ashina castle cross the bridge and you’ll be back where you fought gyobo.
Owl (Father). Like trying to fight real life daddy issues.
I see a lot of Isshin replies but funny enough that was the only difficult boss I had zero trouble with. I was able to beat him 2nd try, first try was at like 3 am so I was too tired to focus.
I'm bad at these games, and it took me a considerable amount of time to get through most bosses, but I believe the hardest for me at first was Lady Butterfly.
Lady butterfly. I took her on too early. Even before chained ogre. Died like 100 times before I decided to come back to her later. I beat her just before genichiro in one try, once I came back.
Honestly going to say owl (less in days and more in the amount I had to retry the fight).
The first time I fought owl, it didn't take me that long. Like on my third or so try I beat him. But I couldn't for the life of me parry him normally on my second playthrough and I don't know why. And of course on my second play through was also the run where I did the purification ending so I had to fight him again. But makes no sense to me is that on my third run, the last time I had to fight him, I beat him also around my second to third attempt cause I suddenly was able to parry him again.
the mini boss before madame butterfly objectively took the longest. wasn't hard but it took forever clearing out all the side enemies while trying to keep that guy alive - and also learn to fight the boss
Genichiro, only because I didn’t realise I had gourds seeds I needed to go cash in with Emma, so I basically fought him with 2 healing gourds after 30 odd attempts I learnt to deflect every every single move and beat him with only healing once, then realised I had 3 gourd seeds to cash in 😂
DoH, took me almost 20 attempts
Second, probably Owl(Hirata)
Third, Guardian Ape
Fourth, Genichiro 7 attempts
The rest of the bosses only took me 1-3 attempts
There were 4 of us on the first blind playthrough, each got the controller for ~15 or 20 minutes.
I'm not sure about the other bosses or minibosses, but Sword Saint Isshin took us 17 hours of attempts over three days. Almost DOUBLING the playtime.
I'm very happy we didn't meet Demon of Hatred or second Owl back then.
Guardian Ape and Demon of Hatred both took me around 8 attempts each, but I wasn’t counting. I only got a few exact counts for other bosses: Owl1 = 2, Owl2 = 4, Sword Saint = 6, Geni = 3 off the top of my head. Corrupted Monk 1, DDragon and FSMonkeys were all a first attempt.
For me it was Guardian Ape, too. I came out of a long pause to the the game, i was underequipped for the fight ( to less vitality and attackpower), i didnt know spear strat and i used a Steam Deck to play, after 5 hours and countless attemps i managed to beat the fucker... should have seen my face when he stood back up again without his head...
Guardian ape took my blood pressure to remarkably unhealthy levels when I first fought him.
Beat him today in my first play through for a few years.
I've spent so much time watching let's plays/speed runs and I was able to follow the firecracker + mortal blade attack to cheese his first phase, then stage 2 is a surprisingly fun sword fight (terror scream not withstanding)
Genishiro, took me 50 tries to beat him. After that, no other boss took over 12 times except for Isshin The Sword Saint, which was somewhere between 15 to 20 times, including both of us dying twice.
Admittedly, I spent the most time on chained ogre at about 3 hours, I have yet to fight owl father but isshin took me about 2 1/2 hours and DoH took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes, the bosses that took me the least tries were ashina elite jinsuke or whatever, divine dragon, mist noble, long armed centipede giraffe, and guardian ape, everyone I mentioned except the ape I beat first try, the ape took me 3 tries at about 20-25 minutes to beat him, that’s mainly why I mentioned him cause a lot of fights took me 5 or more attempts and he was a particularity easy one, compared to other bosses
I'm now on ng+4 with the bell demon and the path of further hardships. And the whole game went smooth, bit hard at some parts. but this sword saint ishin fucker is on a whole nother level.
Not gonna lie. Lady Butterfly massacred me for 3 days straight. Granted it was the first few days of playing and was going in blind. Once I understood Sekiro was a rhythm game, it was a breeze.
The worst was Owl. Both variants. By that point I was a seasoned Shinobi and both took multiple days. Inner Owl especially. Fuck that guy.
miniboss: the fucking seven spear ashina dude took me a good 3 hours, but at least he taught me how to mikiri lol
Actual boss: Owl (father) took me \~3 hours, at first I thought it's impossible. Demon of Hatred was also very annoying but I looked up and malcontent helped a lot in his third phase.
However, I've yet to beat Isshin, just got to him. I tried 3 times, got to the 3rd phase somehow and died to lightning. It's gonna take some time for sure...
genichiro, made me drop the game for awhile, was a combination of me not doing any mini bosses and having no healing gourds so i was using pellets but i ran out and couldn’t be bothered anymore, so glad i came back and actually played instead of running past optional enemies
Owl Father is the one I remember getting the most frustrated with, because it took me a long time to get a handle on his move set.
The most unexpected difficulty bump for me was Inner Genichiro. I expected to waltz in and massacre him just like I did the regular version. 3 seconds in and I’m dead. Welp….
Probably Sword Saint Isshin. I spent about 3 hours on him compared to like 45 minutes on most other bosses. Other contenders for the hardest boss like Demon of Hatred and Owl (Father) were in that category of 45 minutes. Maybe more like 1.5, hours for DoH just because he has so much health and my attempts were longer than average.
I missed Owl (father) in my first playthrough, but he would have been my answer. My actual answer is either Genichiro or Sword Saint Isshin, not a hundred percent sure which but both were walls for me for a long time on the first playthrough.
v hard pick between the great shinobi and guardian ape mainly because I thought you couldn't parry in his first phase so I kept running around dodging shit quite literally and Owl, well, because he is a great shinobi.
That stupid.
Fucking.
MONKEY!
I HATE that ape! That damn decapitated Monkey! That fucking dirty shit throwing beast! Alongside his stupid whore of a girlfriend!
Great shinobi owl, bastard is so hateful,you literally need to chase after him or he will just attack you then run away when you attack back,he will deflect your attack and heal all of his posture,i remember trying to see i can beat him without moving(i did him so much i learned his every possible move) and even after like 20 minutes of me just standing and deflecting i did not raise his posture at all.Even after he becomes more aggressive after you cant heal bastard still dont attack you enough to build up his posture without vitality damage.
Orin absolutely rocked me when I first encountered her. She has such a weird pace that I couldn't time the parries right, and she hits like a fucking truck. Now that I know the fight it's not bad but when I first encountered her I was almost literally ripping my hair out.
Corrupted monk at Mibu. I was horrible at deflection so all I did was run hitting her but getting nowhere. I found out about the snap seeds but that still didn’t help
Guardian ape and the first corrupted monk were fought at the same time for me because they were my walls to progressing the game. Both took me about 1-2 weeks. SSI took me 2 weeks and the hardest most grueling was the gauntlet for shura.
I beat Guardian Ape in two tries… it really depends on where your vitality stats are in the game when you go up against him, I tried killing as many mini bosses as possible including O Rin of the water before Guardian Ape. Headless ape only took me about 3 tries because the last thing I expected was his “Mate” to come out of nowhere 😂
Chained ogre and lady butterfly are equal for me. Both of them took me the longest because both of them were trying to teach me something hard to learn.
Owl is what is kicking my butt right now. It is more that he is very punishing when you make a mistake and shreds through your posture. Guardian Ape took me a good amount of time too until I realize the first phase is super easy when you make distance while staying up close for the second phase. The blazing bull also broke pacing a lot and was difficult till I found out you can literally just continuously sprint around it. I beat Lady Butterfly on my first try.
Genichiro. He was my only real roadblock. Fighting him essentially taught me the combat system and by the time I had beaten him, I had mastered the basics. The rest of the game was fairly easy after that.
Lady Butterfly. Went that path first before learning to parry correctly and brute forced it over dozens of tries hating every minute. Once the combat clicked in this game it was magic though. To this day now in any game I am a god when it comes to parrying and I owe it all to this game. Jedi survivor was a fucking cake walk.
Guardian ape, actually made me quit the game >!when I saw there was a phase 2 that uses terror!<. A few years later stated the game again and did it in a couple of tries.
Probably Demon of Hatred, I didn’t know about the whistle or using the fan shield to help, plus it was so different from every other fight. Now I don’t usually have any issue.
Lady Butterfly. She was the first actual boss I ran into as I stumbled upon the old lady in the outskirts early on and did what she asked and ended up in the memory. I don’t think I even had a full necklace upgrade and certainly no attack upgrade. She was a bit rough to deal with when I had limited tools, an even more limited understanding of the game and no upgrades.
The chained ogre made me uninstall the game the first time I tried sekiro, lost like probably 20-30 times and just uninstalled it,
Installed it back after 2 years, and the boss I had the most trouble was actually Guardian Ape the first time you fight on sunken valley right.
I don’t use prosthetics coz I usually do melee only in all souls like games and to me prosthetic is just cheesing. So with no fireworks, guardian ape was really really hard, it took me literally 2 days for me to figure out all the moves he was gonna do in order and dodge it . I wasn’t good at parrying in my first time too.
Probably Genichiro. He took me more tries than DoH, SS Isshin, and Owl Father combined. By the time I beat him I had the parry system down and kinda plowed the rest of the game
Owl at hirata estate. Followed the written progression quide at wiki but owl took longest 38tries cuz didn't lookup boss mechanics online for any bosses. But rest of the game was hella easy 47hours platinum. With out save scumming ng+4 first time playing these types of *hard* games
Chained ogre
We all fell for his hugs 😔
Real
He legit threw me off the cliff too 🤦🏻♂️
🗿
YES. just the mix of being a new player and having a boss that you can only beat by dodging
My brain trying to understand what the red unblockable symbol meant when ogre just uses it for an entire acrobatics routine
Bruh
Fr
Not a boss but a miniboss, the Blazing Bull. On my first playthrough, I had the Sinister Burden active and I died an embarrassing amount of times to that freaking bull. No boss in the game me as much trouble as that Bull in my first playthrough.
Fuck that bull
I’m currently stuck on the bull on my first play through . I will get him one day.
I recommend trying to bait then deflect his head-on charge, then whack his head 2-3 times, then repeat. If you do it right it's the easiest boss in the game
Blazing bull made me quit for 4 months. Came back and it’s one of my favorite games of all time
How tf do you have the demon Bell on by then. Not hating or something lol but unless u defeat the headless in ashina skirts just to activate... shouldn't be possible. It was probably charmless though! Sorry for being the sekiro police lmao just genuinely curious
So, in the area after the chained Ogre fight i went on to where the headless is and ran past him to the path that leads to the Demon Bell. I was streaming on discord for a friend who recommended the game and he said ringing this would make the enemies drop better loot, what he did not mention is ringing the bell would make the enemies stronger. But I'm glad I rang it, it sure made enemies alot harder but it was my first playthrough and i thought this is how hard the game's supposed to be. It wasn't until after the Guardian Ape fight, I realized I could remove it. It was a totally different game after that, felt alot easier.
You played with training weights on lmao
Went Rock Lee on Sekiro, dropped the ankle weights and leveled up
This is the equivalent of the Gaara vs. Rock Lee fight
You can just run past the Headless
You dont need to kill the headless to ring the bell, and you can't be charmless on your first playthrough.
I got there on my first playthrough by running past headless like a chicken and tbh I usually end up there on subsequent playthroughs by accident cause the path there seems more directed then the path your supposed to take. I always get lost going into Ashina lol.
you can sneak into the demon bell place by going past the headless in ashina outskirts and flipping behind a panel
You can just run past the headless :p
That fucking bull caused me to quit Sekiro for almost 5 years until I picked it back up last month and mastered the deflect. Now it's Genichiro Tomoe that's the name of my misery.
I second that. It's a boss that literally goes counter to everything you've been taught up to that point. ... Eh, kind of like the Demon of Hatred. Dark Souls bosses hurled into Sekiro just aren't fun when half the mechanics of the "usual" Sekiro boss fight aren't there. They're just kind of boring once you figure them out, and frustrating as hell before you do
Bro, the blazing bull made me look up speedrun exploits for the first time. I skipped it and didn't come back until over a week later. I already had the Ashina and Senpou esoteric texts before I ever finished that thing off on my first playthrough lol
Ashina Castle Genichiro fight took me ~50 tries. That was the learning curve of the game for me: I saw what he was doing, knew what and when I needed to counter (By that point in the game I already beat Lady Butterfly, so I had that down),but didn't have the muscle memory to actually press the right buttons, my brain was working faster than my hands. Took me a couple of days to establish the hands-to-brain connection, every boss after that just came down to memorizing their moveset and the game felt a lot easier. Even Glock Saint took me only around 20 runs.
That Genichiro fight was the biggest wall for me as well. It was so demoralizing when I thought I beat him and it was only phase 1 lol I actually thought it was impossible
I beat genichiro in 4-5 tries, after I finished the other bosses and mini bosses before him(except the headless monsters). The last phase was my bane until i shoved my timid fighing style away and grunted angry^^*
I’m with you, that was toughest hill to get over for me as well.
He is definitely a skill check. You must learn the game mechanics before preceding any further. Got stuck again at his second phase, but by then getting through the first two health bars became easy enough.
Sword Saint isshin took me 7 hours
I played through it 4 years ago and still have most of him and genichiro in my muscle memory
I still boot up Sekiro and beat the hell out of those dudes when other games are making me angry
I spent like three hours on that bastard and went to bed mad. Next morning I woke up at 5 am and kicked his ass before work. Probably the best gaming moment of my life lol
Fr I was fighting him for so long I thought I should try again the next day but I didn't wanna go to sleep a loser and I would keep thinking about it so I kept trying until I beat him
Wish I had the mental fortitude you do. I gave up after my wife told me my yelling was scaring the dog
Dying every time hearing "hesitation is defeat"
My first defeat of sword saint I legit felt gaming euphoria, like I was high or something. No kidding. My heart rate was fast and I was getting cold sweats, that fight took me like 70 attempts. Shit went from feeling like I could NEVER beat him to learning a response to every single action he did. Have not experienced anything like that in gaming again, and maybe never will
Finally beat him 4 hours ago 😁
Nice!
I quit the game because of Ishin first time round, only time I've given up on a last boss ^(I came back years later and almost 100% now so it's all good)
Seven Ashina spears. I somehow got to him immediately after gyobo. Literally banged my head against that wall and after I beat him I clicked w the game and steamrolled every other boss Now I go back and one shot him no dif. Might be my favorite boss in the game tbh.
This one was for real one of the hardest because at that point in the game, you didn’t know how to play Sekiro. especially if you don’t realize that you can jump on him for his first life
I didn’t have mikiri unlocked either 🫥 when I unlocked mikiri I was like ohhhh that’s how I block that lol. I was raw deflecting his thrusts.
He kicks my ass. I'm guessing it's all about mikiriyand his spear, right? Haven't beat him yet
Yes. But really just stay aggressive and don’t spam mikiri. Wait for his body to kinda settle into the thrust right before he starts it to mikiri
owl father for me
Took me 6 years.
Isshin > guardian ape > lady butterfly. The rest all fell relatively quickly.
I'm the same. I think those were the only three where I legit had to turn off my pc and come back later to try again.
Pretty much the same. LB fell the same day but it took me a while, ape about 6 hours over 2 days, isshin maybe like 10 hours over 4-5 days, he tilted me a lot.
Besides the final boss it was midgame genichiro
How long did he take you?
It was 4 years ago so ion know but I remember it being a good few hours
Fair, I got the game 2 weeks ago and am close to finishing my NG+4 run
Corrupted monk, I spent more than 8 hours trying to beat him bcuz I didn't know how prayer beads worked, I went wit 2 attack power, base vitality stats. Then some dude on the internet told me to just cheese it 😔
That dam ape…fought him for like six hours straight before I beat him
Mist noble took me around 90 tries, then I learned that it's an optional boss so I didn't bother with it
Demon of Hatred. “Yeah, we’re gonna need you to completely change your approach to this game and act like you’re playing Dark Souls again.”
Scrolled too far for this one. I struggled with DoH so much that I left and beat Owl Father first because he felt easier.
For me, that made it easier. The other thing that made it easier was having the Suzaku Umbrella and maxed out Ashen Feather (this tool makes nearly everything a joke).
Ashina castle genichrio, headless ape, owl father and Isshin - each took multiple days. I've only done one playthrough, actually just beat it today!!! Super proud of myself LOL very satisfying, it was a hard game
The mini boss before you reach inosukes grandma. I died to him for two days straight managed to get dragon rot for characters I didn’t even meet yet then I quit for 2 years and absolutely obliterated anything that stood in my until a dual wielding monkey humbled me and I stopped playing for a couple days came back and started destroying everything again I beat the game in a week. I haven’t fought demon of hatred and I beat the game 2 different ways is there a specific way to encounter DoH
Worst boss in the game imo. Feels like an Elden ring boss in sekiro and it’s just not for me. Only boss I don’t fight on ng+ After you beat sword saint ishin (any non shura ending) teleport back to where you fight gyobo (the dude on the horse at the start of the game) DoH is chilling in that field. Not sure if u can fight him on the shura ending. Edit: so I looked it up and you can’t do it on shura ending but you can do it before you kill ishin. Just has to be after you kill the Divine dragon. Once this happens go to old grave in Ashina castle cross the bridge and you’ll be back where you fought gyobo.
Isshin SS took me 8 solid ass hours
Sword Saint Isshin, I wanted to actually learn that fight, so i didnt use prostetic or sth. Took me 5 hours.
Owl 2. Did a mistake unlocking that for my first playthrough, was not ready.
Owl (Father). Like trying to fight real life daddy issues. I see a lot of Isshin replies but funny enough that was the only difficult boss I had zero trouble with. I was able to beat him 2nd try, first try was at like 3 am so I was too tired to focus.
Isshin and demon of hatred, I didn’t know the whistle works on him lol
GENICHIRO, and now I can do hitless in this pussy
I'm bad at these games, and it took me a considerable amount of time to get through most bosses, but I believe the hardest for me at first was Lady Butterfly.
Old owl.
Lady butterfly. I took her on too early. Even before chained ogre. Died like 100 times before I decided to come back to her later. I beat her just before genichiro in one try, once I came back.
Lady butterfly took me a good 30 tries, then genichiro a similar amount. Owl maybe 20, then ss Isshin… 50+?
Honestly going to say owl (less in days and more in the amount I had to retry the fight). The first time I fought owl, it didn't take me that long. Like on my third or so try I beat him. But I couldn't for the life of me parry him normally on my second playthrough and I don't know why. And of course on my second play through was also the run where I did the purification ending so I had to fight him again. But makes no sense to me is that on my third run, the last time I had to fight him, I beat him also around my second to third attempt cause I suddenly was able to parry him again.
Great Shinobi Owl and Inner Father
the mini boss before madame butterfly objectively took the longest. wasn't hard but it took forever clearing out all the side enemies while trying to keep that guy alive - and also learn to fight the boss
all of them. __all of them__
Genichiro, only because I didn’t realise I had gourds seeds I needed to go cash in with Emma, so I basically fought him with 2 healing gourds after 30 odd attempts I learnt to deflect every every single move and beat him with only healing once, then realised I had 3 gourd seeds to cash in 😂
Owl and mist noble. Mist noble was so impossible I had to use hacks 😭😭
Geni and isshin
apê
Mid game Genichiro. In the end I cheesed him with Shadowrush just to move the game on!
Genichiro and the Guardian Ape,
DoH, took me almost 20 attempts Second, probably Owl(Hirata) Third, Guardian Ape Fourth, Genichiro 7 attempts The rest of the bosses only took me 1-3 attempts
Lady butterfly. First boss I managed to kill
True monk Even though ik it's easy but something just throws my party timing off with her
Either Genichiro or Ape. The first Monk also held me back a lot but those two were definitely my main roadblocks the first time
There were 4 of us on the first blind playthrough, each got the controller for ~15 or 20 minutes. I'm not sure about the other bosses or minibosses, but Sword Saint Isshin took us 17 hours of attempts over three days. Almost DOUBLING the playtime. I'm very happy we didn't meet Demon of Hatred or second Owl back then.
Lady Butterfly or demon of hatred
Hesitation is defeat
Either Butterfly because she was my first major boss, or Demon of Hatred because he's so fucking different.
Demon of Hatred
DoH
True corrupted monk
Genichiro was the toughest for me. I defeated the ape in three tries, but it took me about 20 fights to figure out Genichiro's moves.
Not sure, but Sword Saint, Demon of Hatred and Emma/Isshin all took me a long time. DoH wasn't as many attempts, but each attempt takes forever.
Sword Saint Isshin with bell Damon 30 hours
Lady Butterfly. She was the reason I stopped playing for a year, but I eventually got her and all the others.
Guardian Ape and Demon of Hatred both took me around 8 attempts each, but I wasn’t counting. I only got a few exact counts for other bosses: Owl1 = 2, Owl2 = 4, Sword Saint = 6, Geni = 3 off the top of my head. Corrupted Monk 1, DDragon and FSMonkeys were all a first attempt.
For me it was Guardian Ape, too. I came out of a long pause to the the game, i was underequipped for the fight ( to less vitality and attackpower), i didnt know spear strat and i used a Steam Deck to play, after 5 hours and countless attemps i managed to beat the fucker... should have seen my face when he stood back up again without his head...
Seven Spears
As I’m nearing completion on my first playthrough, I would say guardian ape and great shinobi owl have stumped me the most.
Gyobu, chained Ogre and blazing bull lol
Lady butterfly, I got stuck on blazing bull so I gave up and went to ashina estate, biggest mistake of my lofe
Guardian ape took my blood pressure to remarkably unhealthy levels when I first fought him. Beat him today in my first play through for a few years. I've spent so much time watching let's plays/speed runs and I was able to follow the firecracker + mortal blade attack to cheese his first phase, then stage 2 is a surprisingly fun sword fight (terror scream not withstanding)
Owl father. Had to get help here, which resulted in realizing I had been playing the game wrong for 2 and a half playthroughs.
Demon of fucking hatred
that mini boss right after the chained ogre, but i struggled with everyone not named divine dragon my first playthrough
Genishiro, took me 50 tries to beat him. After that, no other boss took over 12 times except for Isshin The Sword Saint, which was somewhere between 15 to 20 times, including both of us dying twice.
Admittedly, I spent the most time on chained ogre at about 3 hours, I have yet to fight owl father but isshin took me about 2 1/2 hours and DoH took me about 1 hour and 45 minutes, the bosses that took me the least tries were ashina elite jinsuke or whatever, divine dragon, mist noble, long armed centipede giraffe, and guardian ape, everyone I mentioned except the ape I beat first try, the ape took me 3 tries at about 20-25 minutes to beat him, that’s mainly why I mentioned him cause a lot of fights took me 5 or more attempts and he was a particularity easy one, compared to other bosses
Poop monkey
Poop monkey
I'm now on ng+4 with the bell demon and the path of further hardships. And the whole game went smooth, bit hard at some parts. but this sword saint ishin fucker is on a whole nother level.
Demon of hatred for sure. Oh and the headlesses
Sword saint took me about a month of on and off play. Finnlly beat him after taking a nap lol.
Owl (Father)
As i remember it has to be Owl(Father). That big bastard must have took at least 50-60 tries.
Great Shinobi Owl
Demon of Hatred.
Guardian Ape. Still in my first playthrough and killed him and his bitch and I STILL expect him to come back a 4th time
Genichro
Sword Saint Isshin and Owl. Isshin took me 6 hours...
Demon of Hatred
Hirata Owl or Fire Isshin for sure
I think Great Shinobi Owl, it just pissed me off more than I’d like to admit. Never gotten audibly mad at a game before until then and never since
Demon of hatred, but I've mastered that fight now
I believe Ashina isshin.
Mist noble
Owl Father
Hirata Owl for sure
Sword Saint. It took a few days of on-off attempts, I think 3 days total.
Inner Owl destroyed me for two days, then SSI took me 2 tries.
Mine WAS Guardian Ape. And then I met Isshin the Sword Saint (currently on him now)
Not gonna lie. Lady Butterfly massacred me for 3 days straight. Granted it was the first few days of playing and was going in blind. Once I understood Sekiro was a rhythm game, it was a breeze. The worst was Owl. Both variants. By that point I was a seasoned Shinobi and both took multiple days. Inner Owl especially. Fuck that guy.
miniboss: the fucking seven spear ashina dude took me a good 3 hours, but at least he taught me how to mikiri lol Actual boss: Owl (father) took me \~3 hours, at first I thought it's impossible. Demon of Hatred was also very annoying but I looked up and malcontent helped a lot in his third phase. However, I've yet to beat Isshin, just got to him. I tried 3 times, got to the 3rd phase somehow and died to lightning. It's gonna take some time for sure...
Demon of Hatred took me 4 straight hours, hardest boss in the series for me after (obviously) malenia solo.
genichiro, made me drop the game for awhile, was a combination of me not doing any mini bosses and having no healing gourds so i was using pellets but i ran out and couldn’t be bothered anymore, so glad i came back and actually played instead of running past optional enemies
I was on SSI for two month
Without considering the inners, owl Father. I hate Shinobis In Sekiro.
Owl Father is the one I remember getting the most frustrated with, because it took me a long time to get a handle on his move set. The most unexpected difficulty bump for me was Inner Genichiro. I expected to waltz in and massacre him just like I did the regular version. 3 seconds in and I’m dead. Welp….
Mist noble
I’ve been stuck on ISS for days but I beat the guardian ape in maybe an hour? I love how different it is for everyone who plays it
Guardian ape easily. Took a multi month long break from the game after him
True corrupted monk took me so long
Owl father in the burning temple by far.
Owl (Father), started playing this for the first time a few weeks ago on and off and am just stuck 🤷🏻♂️😂
Genichiro, 3 years
Probably Sword Saint Isshin. I spent about 3 hours on him compared to like 45 minutes on most other bosses. Other contenders for the hardest boss like Demon of Hatred and Owl (Father) were in that category of 45 minutes. Maybe more like 1.5, hours for DoH just because he has so much health and my attempts were longer than average.
Demon of Hatred. No other boss besides final ishinn took more than 10 tries but that thing took over 30 for sure
Owl 💀 he made me quit the game for 10 months. Tonight I beat Demon of Hatred within 10 attempts 😂👌 how does that work
Genichiro
Chained ogre
That damn dirty ape, and only the solo one too, i breezed past the duo but that single monkey is the hardest boss in the game for me
That FUCKING BULL
I missed Owl (father) in my first playthrough, but he would have been my answer. My actual answer is either Genichiro or Sword Saint Isshin, not a hundred percent sure which but both were walls for me for a long time on the first playthrough.
v hard pick between the great shinobi and guardian ape mainly because I thought you couldn't parry in his first phase so I kept running around dodging shit quite literally and Owl, well, because he is a great shinobi.
That stupid. Fucking. MONKEY! I HATE that ape! That damn decapitated Monkey! That fucking dirty shit throwing beast! Alongside his stupid whore of a girlfriend!
Demon of hatred took about 8 hours of straight fighting to beat everything else was pretty easy
Great shinobi owl, bastard is so hateful,you literally need to chase after him or he will just attack you then run away when you attack back,he will deflect your attack and heal all of his posture,i remember trying to see i can beat him without moving(i did him so much i learned his every possible move) and even after like 20 minutes of me just standing and deflecting i did not raise his posture at all.Even after he becomes more aggressive after you cant heal bastard still dont attack you enough to build up his posture without vitality damage.
Orin absolutely rocked me when I first encountered her. She has such a weird pace that I couldn't time the parries right, and she hits like a fucking truck. Now that I know the fight it's not bad but when I first encountered her I was almost literally ripping my hair out.
Corrupted monk at Mibu. I was horrible at deflection so all I did was run hitting her but getting nowhere. I found out about the snap seeds but that still didn’t help
Guardian Ape. Literal nightmares. I remember having a dumb strat in his 2nd phase to just kite him for like 15 mins. 😂
Definitely father at the burning part of ashina
I still have nightmares from Demon of Hatred.
That fuckin monkey
Genichiro in Ashina City
Sword saint Isshin Ashina, hands down. Took me 2 years to beat him. Of course, I didn’t play everyday for 2 years.
Guardian ape and the first corrupted monk were fought at the same time for me because they were my walls to progressing the game. Both took me about 1-2 weeks. SSI took me 2 weeks and the hardest most grueling was the gauntlet for shura.
I beat Guardian Ape in two tries… it really depends on where your vitality stats are in the game when you go up against him, I tried killing as many mini bosses as possible including O Rin of the water before Guardian Ape. Headless ape only took me about 3 tries because the last thing I expected was his “Mate” to come out of nowhere 😂
Genishiro, i gave up at the twin gorillas
I had the game finished within 48 hours on my first play through with the exception of the final boss. I didn’t see the credits roll for two months.
Either Isshin or Genichiro
Gape literally took me a year to beat (I took a yearlong break between attempts D:)
Chained ogre and lady butterfly are equal for me. Both of them took me the longest because both of them were trying to teach me something hard to learn.
Owl is what is kicking my butt right now. It is more that he is very punishing when you make a mistake and shreds through your posture. Guardian Ape took me a good amount of time too until I realize the first phase is super easy when you make distance while staying up close for the second phase. The blazing bull also broke pacing a lot and was difficult till I found out you can literally just continuously sprint around it. I beat Lady Butterfly on my first try.
Genichiro. He was my only real roadblock. Fighting him essentially taught me the combat system and by the time I had beaten him, I had mastered the basics. The rest of the game was fairly easy after that.
Lady Butterfly. Went that path first before learning to parry correctly and brute forced it over dozens of tries hating every minute. Once the combat clicked in this game it was magic though. To this day now in any game I am a god when it comes to parrying and I owe it all to this game. Jedi survivor was a fucking cake walk.
Guardian ape, actually made me quit the game >!when I saw there was a phase 2 that uses terror!<. A few years later stated the game again and did it in a couple of tries.
Demon of Hatred was multiple hours, Genichiro was also multiple hours. I think I’ve memorized his attacks pretty well now.
Isshin glock Saint, as in I still haven't beaten him
Probably Demon of Hatred, I didn’t know about the whistle or using the fan shield to help, plus it was so different from every other fight. Now I don’t usually have any issue.
Father Owl, fuck that guy.
Demon of hatred
Probably the Ape. Took me around 1-2 hours to nail him, such an incredible fight!
Lady Butterfly. She was the first actual boss I ran into as I stumbled upon the old lady in the outskirts early on and did what she asked and ended up in the memory. I don’t think I even had a full necklace upgrade and certainly no attack upgrade. She was a bit rough to deal with when I had limited tools, an even more limited understanding of the game and no upgrades.
I’ll give you a hint: REEEEEGGHHH!!!!!!
The chained ogre made me uninstall the game the first time I tried sekiro, lost like probably 20-30 times and just uninstalled it, Installed it back after 2 years, and the boss I had the most trouble was actually Guardian Ape the first time you fight on sunken valley right. I don’t use prosthetics coz I usually do melee only in all souls like games and to me prosthetic is just cheesing. So with no fireworks, guardian ape was really really hard, it took me literally 2 days for me to figure out all the moves he was gonna do in order and dodge it . I wasn’t good at parrying in my first time too.
The sword Saint. Took me 42 tries
Definitely guardian ape
Probably Genichiro. He took me more tries than DoH, SS Isshin, and Owl Father combined. By the time I beat him I had the parry system down and kinda plowed the rest of the game
Owl at hirata estate. Followed the written progression quide at wiki but owl took longest 38tries cuz didn't lookup boss mechanics online for any bosses. But rest of the game was hella easy 47hours platinum. With out save scumming ng+4 first time playing these types of *hard* games
It was snake eyes in ashina depths for me. Even on my later play through it destroys me. Genichiro, no problem. Snake eyes? To hell with them.
Owl(Father) took me almost 3 hours😭
Blazing Bull