>>40980013This encounter is my one major criticism of Sekiro.
It's a hard fight, and it's a big step up in difficulty from the previous monkey fight. Even if you know the spear trick, it's still hard. It's especially difficult if you're facing it with only the attack power/hp available before unlocking swimming or reaching the palace. Double monkey is harder than Corrupted Monk (true).
But if you take the path that Koyori took through the game, which is also the intuitive path the game itself guides you on, then you will be forced to face double monkey as a mandatory boss. It's certainly doable, but it's a weird spike in difficulty, an endgame optional fight that you end up forced to take on in midgame. And of course, being pushed to fight the same major boss twice back to back with basically nothing in between, especially when it's a difficult boss you'll likely spend a lot of time on, is weird pacing. A lot of the game's challenges, like the first ape fight itself, are built around this stage of the game being open, with other routes of progression available to you in case something walls you. But because of the conditions incumbent to this fight, you encounter it only when you're essentially completely out of other routes of progression--it's a hard wall to seeing more of the game. They do this same thing again with Corrupted Monk (false) and Corrupted Monk (true) right after.
I enjoyed the fight, because I did Mibu Village first and only backtracked later looking for beads I'd missed. If I had been forced to fight it earlier right after the first monkey fight like Koyori I would have hated it.
