I just tried the combat system and so far it works pretty well for an alpha. They’ve put some thoughts into it which I’d like to share from what I’ve experienced.
It’s quite easy to block and attack, but you can’t hack’n’slash your way through an enemy as your stamina goes low pretty fast. Even without stamina you can do certain moves like getting close to the enemy to go into a “clenching mode” where you can kick or punch your enemy away to get more distance and time to recover.
What I really like is the collision detection which can be quite useful for tactical reasons. For example if there’s a wall to your right, you can’t attack from the lower right direction (means the direction is disabled / not lit and can’t be triggered). Same goes for the NPC who can’t attack from his lower left direction. This collision detection also works for wood poles in front of you. If you’re too near to the pole you’re probably only getting the upper left and upper right attack direction (depending on enemy position of course) or even no possibility to attack, because all directions would be effectively blocked by the wood pole. But you can still hit objects if they’re further away.
Fluent combos were not possible to perform in the version I played. Perfect blocking with slow-mo effect works quite good and it’s challenging to trigger that event. This slow-mo allows a quick attack so you should aim for such situations as often as possible when you’re trying to block.
A one-on-one is challenging enough, but you’re able to switch the focus on the enemy by using the scroll wheel and also de-activate the focus so you can freely move around. However the sword is not in your hand anymore if you’re not focussing on an enemy so once you re-enter the battle mode, you have to draw your sword again which takes some time of course. So for people who want a two-on-one fight, it’ll be a very tough challenge.
Of course it’s in an early stage but it’s fun to play around with it.
You need to die now!!
