Critical Cycle

Sekiro released to worldwide praise in March 2019, with sparse updates and no DLC since. While I enjoyed the game for its learning experience and rhythmic kinaesthetics (seriously show me a game that has such a smooth flow of animations between attacking, parrying, dodging, etc., it's hypnotic), I thought the combat was fairly shallow compared to FromSoft's last titles. This critique will focus on its lack of gameplay depth and how that plays out across its different modes of play, rather than trying to cover all kinds of other (just as valid) metrics of quality. I'll start with describing my experience with and approach to the game, so you know where I'm coming from and what I spent 350 hours doing. Then I'll break down Sekiro's core mechanics and what depth is, do an obligatory Dark Souls comparison, and look at how broken the structure is in terms of stealth and traversal. I'll then make some broad points about content design as to how it all works in pra