I heard you don t like our podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. But have you listened to 76 hours of it yet? Honestly, mate, it opens up after that. The 76-hour mark, that s when it clicks . But I understand if you don t have the time. Just skip ahead to this week s episode, in which we re talking about games about which we changed our minds. Listen in for the platformers we prematurely pooh-poohed and the Souls games that sucked before they were super.
Prayer Beads are an upgrade material found in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. You'll want to collect as many of them as possible to increase your Vitality and Posture attributes. Once you've collected four, you'll be able to make them into a Prayer Necklace at a Sculptor's Idol.
Most Prayer Beads are dropped by mini-bosses in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice but some are found lying around while others are missable past certain points in the game. Read on to discover all of the Prayer Bead locations that we've uncovered so far.
Ashina Outskirts
Hirata Estate: Estate Path Dropped by the Shinobi Hunter mini-boss. Follow the path to a bridge where you'll find two enemies with shields. The Shinobi Hunter is just beyond.
Hirata Estate: Main Hall Dropped by Juzou the Drunkard mini-boss. Return to the bridge in the previous step and jump off, moving upriver until you see a branch you can grapple. You'll find this boss after you move through a pond near burning buildings.
HIrata Estate: Hirata Audience Chamber There is a hidden room in the building behind the previous mini-boss. Once inside, there is a wall with a banner on the left. Interact with it to reveal a hidden passage leading to the room containing the Prayer Bead.
Ashina Castle
Some of these become unavailable after defeating bosses later in the game so it's advisable to collect them as soon as you have access to this area.
Ashina Castle: Dropped by the General Kuranosuke Matsumoto mini-boss. Head up the stairs from the Idol to find him.
Ashina Castle: Ashina Reservoir Defeat the Ashina Seven Spears mini-boss to get this Prayer Bead. You can find him in front of the temple that you visited during the Prologue.
Ashina Castle: Abandoned Dungeon Entrance You can purchase this one from the merchant in the tent next to the Idol.
Upper Tower: Ashina Dojo Defeat the Ashina Elite—Jinsuke Saze mini-boss to claim the Prayer Bead.
Senpou Temple
Senpou Temple: Shugendo: Dropped by the Armored Warrior mini-boss. This one cannot be missed.
Senpou Temple: Temple Grounds: Defeat the Long-arm Centipede Sen’un to get this Prayer Bead. He's in the lower building to the right of the building with a courtyard. Drop down on to the roof and find the opening.
Sunken Valley
Sunken Valley: Dropped by the Snake Eyes Shirafuji mini-boss. Drop down the cliff next to the Idol, using the trees to help.
Sunken Valley : Gun Fort This one is dropped by the Long-arm Centipede Giraffe mini-boss.
Sunken Valley: Gun Fort After you've defeated the previous mini-boss, look for a hole in the floor and drop through it. Move through the crawl space until you come to a cavern and a group of enemies. The Prayer Bead will be here.
Ashina Depths
Ashina Depths: Dropped after you defeat the Snake Eyes Shirahagi mini-boss. He's found in the Poison Pool area.
Hidden Forest: Defeat the Tokujiro the Glutton mini-boss to claim this Prayer Bead. He's just off the main path. Look for a tree to grapple on the left when you reach ghostly enemies to find him.
Water Mill: Dropped by O’rin of the Water mini-boss. She's straight after the Idol here. Walk past her and she will turn hostile.
Mibu Village: There's a lake to the right of Mibu Village. Jump in and dive down to find a chest containing a Prayer Bead.
Fountainhead Palace
Fountainhead Palace: Flower Viewing Stage Run forward and turn left around the building to find the Sakura Bull. Defeat it for a Prayer Bead and A Beast's Karma, which lets you hold more Spirit Emblems.
Fountainhead Palace: Flower Viewing Stage Dive into the water to your right and swim as deep as you can go. You will find a treasure chest near the corpse of a great carp, surrounded by luminous maggots. Look out for the bad wizards. You can snatch the bead and run if you'd rather not fight them.
Fountainhead Palace: Great Sakura Defeat Okami Leader Shizu on the branch of the great Sakura tree.
We'll update the list as we find more.
In the meantime, if you're having problems getting to grips with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, check out our combat guide.
Memories are just one way you can upgrade your attack in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. You can also upgrade with the help of the Mask. Unfortunately it’s split into three pieces and requires you go for a bit of Shinobi style fishing, and the merchants are particularly picky about how many scales are needed to buy the pieces from them.
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There is now a dedicated [cms-block] where you can find tips for the many bosses of the game.
There are four different endings in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The ending you get will depend on various decisions you make during the game. Read on if you want to find out how to unlock each of the different endings.
As you'd imagine, there are spoilers ahead for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. If you'd rather not risk it, click away now
Shura
This is the fastest—and easiest—ending to obtain. Once you've defeated the Guardian Ape and the Corrupted Monk, you'll head back to Ashina Castle where you'll meet up with Owl on the rooftop. You'll be given the choice to obey either him or Kuro. If you choose to obey Owl, two boss fights will be unlocked and you'll receive the Shura ending.
Purification
Follow the steps above to reach the Ashina Castle rooftop and once again be given the choice to obey Owl or Kuro. This time, choose Kuro and fight Owl.
Once Owl has been defeated, head to Isshin's tower to eavesdrop on a conversation between Isshin and Emma. Next, you want to head back to Kuro and eavesdrop on him from a corner in his room. Rest before talking to Emma and agreeing with her decision. Rest once more and talk to her again.
Now head to the Old Grave Idol to find Emma and talk to her once more. Head to the Dilapidated Temple and eavesdrop on Emma's conversation with the Sculptor. Talk to Emma again and you'll receive a bell that you should use at the Buddha Statue.
Head to the Hirata Estate and defeat two mini-bosses before heading to the room where you fought Lady Butterfly and prepare to fight a much tougher Owl.
Once you've done that, proceed with the game normally and the ending will unlock once you beat the final boss.
Immortal Severance
Reach the Ashina Castle rooftop again to be given the choice between obeying Owl or Kuro. Choose Kuro and do not return to the Hirata Estate. Follow the story as normal and this ending should unlock once you beat the final boss.
Return
Make your way, once again, to the Ashina Castle rooftop. Choose Kuro and defeat Owl when given the option.
Head to the Temple Grounds Idol and dive into the pond to find the Holy Tome: Infested scroll (as well as a Prayer Bead). Now you'll want to head to the Inner Sanctum and talk to the Divine Child and give her the scroll. Talk to her and accept and eat any rice she offers you. Rest and talk to her, again eating any rice she gives you. Repeat until she asks you for a persimmon. Hand one over and she'll give you more rice. Keep talking to her until she gives you rice for Kuro. Give the rice to Kuro.
Head back to the Inner Sanctum and talk to the Divine Child once more then leave. When you return she should no longer be there. To find her, head to the Hall of Illusion and talk to her in front of the Great Tree. She'll need another scroll, so head to the cave just left of where you used the bell to access this area. Give her the scroll and she'll ask for two serpent fruits.
You'll need to obtain both serpent fruits from the Giant Serpents. The Fresh Fruit can be obtained by heading to the Senpou Temple and drop down to the right of the first Idol. You should spot a kite mechanism. Use the Puppeteer Ninjutsu on the enemy next to it and he'll use the kite for you. Head along the path and grapple the kite to find another area with a Giant Serpent. Kill him to receive the Fresh Fruit.
For the Dried Fruit, head to the Bodhisattva Valley Idol. Follow the river in the opposite direction of the Guardian Ape boss fight. You'll find a cave containing another Giant Serpent. Stealth your way in and find a monkey beneath a grapple point. Use the Puppeteer Ninjutsu on the monkey and he will distract the Serpent long enough for you to head through the door and grab the Dried Fruit.
Head back to the Inner Sanctum and hand the fruits over to the Divine Child. Rest and talk to her until she gives you Frozen Tears.
Progress with the story as normal until you reach the final boss. You'll need to give Kuro the Frozen Tears to get the Return ending.
Genichiro Ashina is a boss from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice located in the Upper Tower Ashina Dojo within the Ashina Castle area. You encounter him immediately after the Ashina Elite—Jinsuke Saze boss fight by climbing through the window and making your way up on to the roof.
Genichiro Ashina strategy
Genichiro Ashina has three lives and two forms that he will use during the course of the fight. You'll need to execute him twice in phase one and he'll gain his second form, 'Way of Tomoe' in phase two. You'll want to aim to take down his posture as he has a huge amount of health, so you'll need to be relatively offensive during this fight. He will also fire arrows at you if you try to get some room to regain health, so be careful.
Phase one
You'll encounter Genichiro Ashina in a fairly open area but you'll want to keep as close to him as possible to prevent him from using his bow. You can dodge or deflect most his attacks but you'll want to chip away at his health to make depleting his posture much easier. Using the Loaded Axe Prosthetic Tool is useful here as it deals a lot of posture damage. Bait him into an attack then deflect and counterattack as much as possible. It's possible to press Genichiro into a corner or up against one of the statues on the edge of the arena. From his position he will find it difficult to launch any of his jumping attacks without being struck down by your sword.
Keep an eye out for two unblockable attacks when he jumps into the air. The first is a thrust attack and the second is a slashing attack. The latter is more common after you've depleted one of his lives. You can use the Mikiri Counter ability on the thrust, or simply dodge away if you're not confident enough to use it and want to play it safe. Genichiro also has a palm strike grab attack that's very easy to spot. Use the pause after this attack to heal if necessary, or punish him with the axe. If you learn the timing of his long nine-hit flurry combo you can deflect every blow for a good dose of posture damage.
Once you've performed one execution on Genichiro Ashina, his move-set will remain the same, though look out for that unblockable slashing attack which will be more frequent now. Keep deflecting and countering until you can execute him for a second time.
Phase two: Way of Tomoe
Genichiro Ashina keeps the same attacks as his previous versions but he's much stronger, has more range and has additional lightning attacks. If you see him jump into the air, he's either winding up a lightning attack or about to do one of his unblockable moves from the first phase. The charged lightning arrow can be deflected but it's safer if you can get behind him. His other lightning attack will cover an area of the floor, so either dodging away when it hits the ground or getting behind him should help avoid these.
To deal the most damage quickly, you will want to redirect Genichiro's lightning attacks against him. The trick is to make sure you're struck by a lightning attack in mid air. In the window between being struck and landing on the floor, you can press the attack button to slash Genichiro with a lightning-infused blow. This does massive damage and stuns him.
As Genichiro Ashina has removed most of his armour in this phase, his posture is much easier to deplete. Keep countering his normal attacks as you did in the first phase and stay on the offensive. If you can avoid his unblockable moves and lightning attacks, you'll take him down in no time.
If you're still having trouble, check out our handy combat tips for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
As a fan of giving games with stupid names even sillier ones, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has me stumped. Stumped in name and stumped in-game, where a big drunk man with a sword and poison grog keeps slamming me into the ground until I’ve got a good idea how Loki felt in that scene from The Avengers.
Speedrunner “Danflesh111” is not stumped. He’s beaten the game in 52 minutes. Of course he has.
"I see you're no stranger to cruelty," observes a character later on in From Software's predictably astonishing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Hearing that, I couldn't help but reflect on how many games are strangers to their own cruelty, wilfully blind to it - exhorting you to kill and pillage while insistently styling you a do-gooder. Consider The Division, a game about massacring the dispossessed for guns and T-shirts which hails you throughout as a hero, decorously concealing the faces of your victims beneath gasmasks and goggles. Set in Sengoku period Japan, a realm of blood and fire where no field is without its crop of dropped swords, Shadows Die Twice admits no such disunity of theme. It embraces the fact that you are a malevolent presence, if not beyond redemption, and, like its spiritual forebears, Dark Souls and Bloodborne, plays this out at every level of what is probably the year's finest game.
You'll usually see the faces of the people you're killing, for one thing - close enough to watch their mouths stretch wide as blade slithers under collarbone - and it's obvious from the outset that Sekiro himself is no angel. Look at that lump of frozen granite he calls a head, that shrapnel-burst of witchy white hair from sideburn to top-knot. Look at his threadbare coat tails, that dead cat of a scarf - more Fagin than Hattori Hanzo. Look, above all, at the prosthetic arm he acquires after failing to save his young retainer Kuro from a rival lord - a blood-caked tangle of iron and wood you'll endow with a variety of fold-out killing instruments, switching between them with a flick of the wrist. There are poison blades for quick, corrosive strikes, firecrackers to paralyse crowds for easier dissection, and a clump of mystic raven feathers to spirit you away from a killing blow. These aren't the weapons of a warrior - they are the tools of a murderer, albeit an outlandish one, happy to seize any advantage in a fight.
The prosthetic is literally animated by death, with abilities performed using spirit emblems reeled like fish from falling bodies. It's bestowed on Sekiro by a sculptor who spends his days obsessively carving Buddhas, each contorted by rage, reflecting a colossal karmic debt (if you're feeling curious, or kind, you can fetch him sake to hear a little of his life story). This penance will one day be your own, the sculptor warns, but in the meantime, the wrathful Buddha idols have a certain utility. They create places of respite throughout the game's mountainous landscape where you might enhance your ninja skills, top up your flask of healing waters and fast-travel, much like Dark Souls' campfires.
Depending on your point of view, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is either a difficult videogame, or else it's easy and people who cannot complete it are scrubs. But I reckon no matter which side of that divide you fall on, the current speedrun record is impressive.
Twitch streamer danflesh111 has managed to complete an Any% run of game in under an hour. To be precise, they've finished it in 50 minutes and 52 seconds (50:52). Considering it took me 20 hours to clear the first major boss encounter, it's frankly baffling that people have managed to whittle the game down within the space of a week. This does opt for the ending that completes the game the fastest, but that hardly diminishes the feat.
Danflesh111's achievement is unlikely to hold for long though: there are plenty of people vying for the record, and even a relative amateur can see room for improvement in the run (embedded below). The playthrough will no doubt be finetuned ad infinitum over the coming months and years, and who knows: we might even see someone complete it with a Guitar Hero pad at some point. I have my fingers crossed for that.
We play games for different reasons, whether to watch numbers fly off of demons with friends in Diablo 3 or to give up our career, friends, and family to study the blade in Sekiro. Games can be simple toys we fiddle with to pass the time or tests of patience and persistence that make us feel capable of anything.
We don’t blame anyone for thinking Sekiro is too difficult for them. But with all the talk about Sekiro’s difficulty, we’ve been thinking about what good difficulty means—how you’re punished and whether that punishment suits the task—and how Sekiro succeeds or fails in this regard.
Is it fair? Is it actually fun to throw yet another corpse on the pile? Let’s talk it out.
First impressions
James: Let’s open with the big question. Tom, you’ve finished the damn thing, so your perspective will be the most valuable here. Steven, you and I are still somewhere in the sprawling mid-game. We’ve experienced plenty of whiplash in coming to understand Sekiro, but is it too hard? Quick answers, then we’ll dive into the specifics. Our real answers will be much more complex, but let’s see those quick takes.
For me? No. It’s challenging, especially in the first few hours, and there are some questionably designed arenas, but so far Sekiro hasn’t made me want to throw my controller. It has made me want to try out Gamer Goo, even if it burns my skin off. My hands are dripping after some of Sekiro’s fights.
Steven: I definitely felt like Sekiro was too hard at first, before I intuitively understood how its subtle changes to combat actually have massive implications on how I fight. This is especially grating because, early on, you have so few resources to help in a fight. With only one charge of my estus—sorry I mean healinggourd—to start, those early combat encounters felt punishing in a way that I don't ever recall Dark Souls or even Bloodbourne being. But maybe my memory is just faulty?
Either way, I really was frustrated by Sekiro in the beginning, to the point where I openly questioned whether I even liked the game. What did you think, Tom?
Tom: Difficulty isn’t just about the number of times you die, but the progress that you lose with each death, and the amount of your human meat life that gets eaten up repeating areas. On these counts, Sekiro is a fairer and less draining game than the Dark Souls series and Bloodborne, and generally far more accessible to new players.
I had fewer of those moments when I yelled bullshit! at the monitor because Sekiro s combat system is so consistent.
James: I will say that I’m not a fan of the big arenas spilling over with enemies orbiting a miniboss. Boss time and mob time are two distinct playstyles in Sekiro, and they rarely mix well. Taking out the little guys is easy. I can do that. Don’t make me show you again, Sekiro, please. Just let me fight the drunkard.
Steven: I'm with you, James. As much as I love Sekiro, I think that there's definitely some issues with its encounter design, especially early on. There's a few mini bosses in the Hirata Estates level that are surrounded by lesser enemies, and you'd have to be a god-tier veteran to take on the whole lot in open combat. It's maddening.
These encounters usually demand that I spend a good five minutes slowly picking off these underlings (often by cheesing the stealth system, killing one openly and then running away, waiting for them to drop aggro, and repeating the process) before being able to attempt the boss. Because it's still early in the game and I suck, I usually die pretty quickly, requiring me to repeat that whole process from the beginning. It's really hard to learn a boss when you only get 10 seconds of practice, die, and then have to endure five minutes of annoying stealth. It's less an exercise in skill and more a trial of patience.
Fortunately, these poorly designed fights seem to not be all that common. But because they appear near the early sections of the game, it was easy to conflate these with Sekiro being, overall, far too difficult—which I just don't think is true anymore.
Don't give them a chance to swing that thing.
When combat clicks
Tom: The combat can still be brutal—you can rarely take more than two or three hits—but anyone can learn Sekiro’s parry system and become proficient with time, and I think this game does a better job of giving you all the tools you need up front. There aren’t invisible mechanics determining how fast you move based on your armour. There aren’t secret tiers of roll you get depending on what you wear. There’s no stamina bar to manage and upgrade with souls. There are no bullshit collapsing floor boss fights (curse you, Witch of Izalith). You’re a ninja: you can slash, parry, jump, and grapple—techniques that are simple to grasp.
I had fewer of those moments when I yelled ‘bullshit!’ at the monitor because Sekiro’s combat system is so consistent. There are a few hard teaching points—you’re supposed to just deflect some enemies to death, for example—but for the most part this is a game about skilling up through practice.
The difficulty we re talking about is just the difficulty in understanding what the hell Sekiro is.
James: Yeah, I’m with you so far, Tom. Sekiro’s thesis is practice, patience, and mastery. The Souls games are more aimed at survival by any means necessary, dragging yourself across the finish line even if it takes dozens of hours of grinding or calling out for help (humility is key in Souls, too). How you get there is up to you.
In Sekiro, you can fill out your arsenal and juice your health up to allow for a mistake here and there, but everyone needs to take the same path to success. Parry, dodge, jump, grapple, and strike. That’s about it. It’s more prescriptive, sure, but this isn’t a game about carving out a playstyle. Adapting to the design rather than trying to force it to fit your habits is what most people are having trouble with early on.
Steven: I really like that difference, though. Not that Dark Souls or Bloodborne isn't great, but there's a special kind of satisfaction in having to conform to one playstyle instead of finding your own niche and abusing the hell out of it (I am a pyromancy pansy in Dark Souls).
James: Oh, I like it too, it’s just players are coming into Sekiro with five previous Souls games under their belt, along with all their accompanying habits. I don’t blame anyone for trying to play Sekiro like a Souls game as it has plenty of the same motifs: bonfire-y checkpoints, lock-on combat, labyrinthine level design, and so on. It’s been amazing to see everyone have their own epiphany where they just say fuck it and get aggressive only to realize that’s how Sekiro is meant to be played. Steven, you captured exactly what I felt in your piece on the spear dude, who seems to be everyone’s favorite teacher.
In a Souls game, instead of learning the game s core skills, you can plough hours into repeating areas to grow your damage output and brute-force boss encounters.
The difficulty we’re talking about is just the difficulty in understanding what the hell Sekiro is. There’s nothing that plays quite like it. Halo was hard as hell before I knew what it was, too. And to be fair, even once you get it, Sekiro is still very challenging, but it stops feeling hopeless. Like, how wild is it that after we realized aggression is key we both, in a string of real time Slack messages, encouraged each other to try and successfully beat Lady Butterfly and Genichiro with relative ease? It didn’t hurt that I’d put together a few prayer bead necklaces and found some more gourd seeds, but they didn’t guarantee my success.
Tom: Sekiro’s structure and economy soften the difficulty of combat a bit. Sekiro’s economy lets you broaden your options with new prosthetic upgrades and combat moves; the souls and blood echoes you collect in other Soulsborne games allow you to directly increase your power. In a Souls game, instead of learning the game’s core skills, you can plough hours into repeating areas to grow your damage output and brute-force boss encounters.
Some people enjoy that, but I think it’s a far more grueling and unpleasant way to drag out time (though such a feeling works very well thematically in the darker universe of Souls and Bloodborne—both horror games in their own way). In Sekiro you lose half your money and some skill XP when you die, which is no big deal really, and the run-backs from idols to bosses are much quicker thanks to the level design and the addition of stealth and a grappling hook that let you skip encounters.
And all of that is why Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is easy-peasy. What’s the problem, guys?
James: I’m coasting now, though I’ve yet to meet a certain ape. I’m prepared to eat my words and go through this emotional roller coaster all over again. But this time I'll know the payoff is worth it.
Sekiro hurts. It is a painful, graceful game about being a sword-swinging barbarian who must learn how to dance. Even more than its Dark Souls predecessors, it forces you to play on its terms: learn the steps or die. Fools sometimes say suffering leads to wisdom or insight. Well, you won t gain enlightenment through the hundred deaths of this ninja follow-up. But you will learn how to do a lethal salsa. And when you finally stab your hairy dance partner in the eye, you will be awash in adrenaline. A deluge of battle endorphins that lasts long enough to enjoy after you ve samba d back to the rooftops to peer at the setting sun. For some of us, that’s nirvana enough.
