Japanese Steam reviews of Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition: 90.2% positive
This sample holds 2,542 Japanese-language reviews for Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition. The period covered spans from 21 Mar, 2019 to 04 Oct, 2026.
Own research by 648 News. Every figure in this article was counted by us from 2,542 Steam reviews written in Japanese, collected between 2019-03-21 and 2026-10-04.
Overall numbers
The collected sample contains 2,542 reviews. Players writing reviews in Japanese recommend the title at a rate of 90.2%. This matches the 90.2% positive rating recorded by Steam for the whole history of the game, which was fetched on 06 Oct, 2026. The confidence interval ranges from 88.9% to 91.3%. The review score description assigned by the store is Very Positive.
The numbers
What praising reviewers mention
Gameplay, combat, core mechanics appears in 62.0% of reviews that recommend the game. Reviewers describe the combat as relying on a parry system rather than a stamina bar. Players note that jumping and using a grappling hook change movement. They also mention that bosses require players to learn attack patterns and time their strikes.
戦闘はシビアだが爽快
Combat is severe but satisfying.
Amount of content, length, replayability is mentioned in 26.9% of recommending reviews. Reviewers observe that the game lacks deep RPG progression systems and relies on fixed skill trees. Difficulty, balance is discussed in 24.5% of recommending reviews. Players write that the game demands patience and reflexes. They observe that falling off a cliff does not cause permanent death.
相当に難易度の高いゲームであったが、
It was a game of considerably high difficulty.
Characters, character design is mentioned in 8.6% of recommending reviews. Reviewers praise the Japanese world setting and the design of named enemies. Story, scenario, writing appears in 7.0% of recommending reviews. Players note that the narrative is straightforward compared to other titles from the studio. Graphics, art direction is discussed in 5.8% of recommending reviews. Reviewers appreciate the dark fantasy aesthetic and the visual clarity of sword clashes.
What critical reviewers mention
Gameplay, combat, core mechanics is mentioned in 77.2% of reviews that do not recommend the game. Reviewers write that the combat feels restrictive because target locking fails when enemies leave the screen. They also complain about camera angles that obscure characters during parries. Difficulty, balance appears in 49.6% of non-recommending reviews. Players note that named enemies often kill the player in two or three hits. They feel that mistakes frequently lead to instant death.
技術が身につけば神ゲー。
Once skills are mastered, it is a masterpiece.
Amount of content, length, replayability is discussed in 38.4% of non-recommending reviews. Reviewers state that the game lacks the variety found in previous titles from the same developer. Performance, optimization, bugs, crashes is mentioned in 16.0% of non-recommending reviews. Players report long loading screens after dying and occasional crashes on PC. Graphics, art direction appears in 8.4% of non-recommending reviews. Reviewers mention that environmental design sometimes clashes with the camera system. UI, controls, key bindings, controller support is discussed in 6.8% of non-recommending reviews. Players note that key bindings feel unintuitive on certain controllers.
Who wrote these reviews
The median playtime behind these reviews is 52.9 hours. The sample consists entirely of Japanese-language reviews. Players writing reviews in Japanese who recommend the title focus heavily on core mechanics and pacing. Those who do not recommend it discuss combat and difficulty at higher rates. The gap between the two groups is most visible in performance mentions. Only 1.7% of recommending reviews cite performance issues, compared to 16.0% of non-recommending reviews. The divide is also clear in how reviewers view the amount of content. 26.9% of recommending reviews mention it, while 38.4% of non-recommending reviews do. Music, sound, voice acting is mentioned in 1.7% of recommending reviews and 0.4% of non-recommending reviews.
Methodology and sources
Data
Steam user reviews, retrieved with Steam's public review listing between 2019-03-21 and 2026-10-04: 2,542 written in Japanese. Steam's own all-time totals for Sekiro™: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition were read on 2026-10-06.
How the reviews were classified
Every review was read by a language model, which rated how positive it is, how much concrete detail it gives, and which of 15 fixed topics it talks about. The counts and percentages in this article were then computed from those labels in ordinary code, not by the model. Automatic classification makes mistakes, so single percentages should be read as approximate. Reviews of fewer than 15 characters were not sent to the model; they count as positive or negative from the reviewer's own recommendation and carry no topic.
Limits
People who write a Steam review in Japanese are not a representative sample of everyone who plays in Japan, and the language of a review does not establish where its author lives. Steam's default filter for off-topic review activity was left on, so periods Steam marked as review bombing are excluded from the counts in this article. Reviews that arrived after the retrieval date are not included.
Links
Data from Steam. Steam and the Steam logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation.