Idea - how to remove the cheese from Zangetsu

You know you can stay out of the range with dagger/ thrusting swords, right?

Just dodge. It's really the best thing you can do against a Katana in real life with a thrusting sword cause many weapons are too light to properly parry a strike and the two handed motion of the katana means there are at least split second opening which they have to retract their blade. Besides our own ranged weapons like bats or arrows far out class his(shards, not the stupid gun which at that point is still quite worthless)

I don't think one should be justifying game design by comparing it to SOTN. As amazing as that game was for its time, no one in their right mind could possibly claim that it was balanced properly. The Doppelganger/Stopwatch thing is just one example out of many.

What I mean in this example is that I think that was intentional for how Iga likes to make these games. They're not per se about forcing you to "get good" to beat something by default with intentional choices to make things easier on players if they so choose to use them.

While further Igavania games moved further toward satisfying the core audience who were stronger and more familiar players, clearly Iga values capturing the wider audience who want to enjoy things at their level of ability.


Source

SotN's famously "low" difficulty doesn't necessarily come from the ease of navigating its enemies' patterns or dangerous stages (it certainly has those, especially for a first time through), but rather how there is both strong RPG stat/equipment progression and more than that, incredibly strong attack options. I don't think all of that was a mistake, while some of it might have been. Stopwatch vs Doppleganger was kept in for every version of the game as well as many other things, and I think it's for the best like that.

As the very core-est of fans, I think we have to carefully evaluate what the meaningful and lasting impression of these games are/were on us and preserve that as an ideal over them being as challenging as they could be, to make them lasting experiences for new audiences. Iga's games niche'd themselves into a corner before and they need a new start before they zero in again, to me. I'd like people to see the how/why these games are "slower" than the current main indie metroidvania game and carve out its own place rather than "get with the times" of the trend. I'd see it rather as an entry point and new beginning for people to get into this very specific design than the very specific design start anew at a level no one outside us understands or wants to play.

Changing Zangetsu wouldn't affect that all too much, just speaking broadly here. My thought was merely that a lot of the time, these things might be fine, even by design. It may be the first of multiple Zangetsu encounters as well, with more along the lines of you guys' suggestion the second time, or more aggressively defend his back in Nightmare.

Thrusting sword (the stinger one with poison) with the lion shard should do over 25 damage before level 10, cause poison, attack very quickly and you can stay out of Zengetsu's counter right in front of him while countinously poisoning him and doing damage. That, and the fact that it add poison to your arrow shard as well.

Are we talking blitz as soon as the fight starts Zangetsu? The AI was relentless to the point actually hitting him from behind became a valid weak point in defeating him.