why so many games have this combat system 

Ridiculous definition of Ik, it’s just a way of using the end of a bone system to move the entire bone chain as opposed to rotating each joint manually or through script.

(Insert Kiryu from Yakuza yelling at the air)

i looked at the comments just to see if this was mentioned

Dude same 💀 I just wanted to ➡️*⃣⬇️↘️+2⃣⚡⚡⚡

Fr lol I was just listening and half confused on if she was talking about fighting games or action games for like the first minute

This small nitpicking aside, she does a lot of great remarks.

I felt that I’d even be less mad if she said beatem ups

Too busy getting punched in the face

Let's mode the mobs to do so.

Would be so badass

It would be like pulling someone's hair in a fight, viewed as a cowardly move

​@@imhulki463Ganging up on Batman isn't cowardly then?

I was suprised she didn't talk about Hack n Slash as a whole after mentioning DMC and GOW

I still remember the day that game released. I couldn’t put it down for weeks. That was the first PS2 game I remember convincing me that we were in the “next generation” at that time. It made the wait for MGS2 a lot easier.

@@omgyeti2049 I always enjoy hearing people talk about which game you played on the PS2 that made you realize we are in a new generation. For me it was when I first got a hold of Final Fantasy X and saw that blitzball cutscene in Zanarkand for the first time

What games do you take inspiration from for your games, if it's alright to ask?

@@jurtheorc8117 Devil May Cry, Sonic Frontiers, Muck, Elden Ring, Sonic Adventure 2 (i added a platforming mechanic inspired by SA 2), and probably more in the future when my game's development will progress

Aaaaas to... What not to do? That's what I got from it.

Dev here as well kinda, I’m always thinking of something that can take the genre further but it’s hard. For me Punishing Gray Raven has innovated the genre the most with its ping system. Nioh and Rise of Ronin implemented stance based combos where with the press of a button you can have a different moveset mid combo. Honkai Impact 3 started the trend of playing as 3 characters that can swap during battle. Stellar Blade has a large amount of defensive tools to mitigate damage and punish the enemy. Vindictus has all sorts of characters with different mechanics. I like Vella, she has a counter stance that lets her slash through an enemy while being attacked in the stance. Vindictus had an interesting thing where attacks didn’t auto track or soft lock an enemy, you kind of had to strategically whiff the air in order to land your power attack on the enemy safely. Freeflow combat is different though imo. I like to think of it as cinematic combat where it’s just a lot of enemy interactions and pressing a button to counter and takedown an enemy. Games like Sleeping Dogs, Ghost of Tsushima, Sifu, SPINE, Assassins Creed II~Black Flag. As an indie those are harder to make because you have all these specific enemy interactions, you need some sort of animation pairing system, and the combat unfortunately isn’t as complex or challenging as a usual hack and slash since all you have to do is press a button to takedown. But hack and slash and action games have been able to implement takedowns as like finisher moves or like Stellar Blade, as a move to use when the enemy’s balance bar is depleted.

@@TakiGamesOfficial oh hey i remember you man i checked out the alphas of your project

If you're up for some games that don't have the magnetizing thing and are more in line with older styles of gameplay, like DMC, Bayonetta, Darksiders, 3D beat-em-ups, here's a list of games that may be interesting. Some are of fairly recent years, most are still in development. They won't hit the level of intensity as Ninja Gaiden but i still want to spread word to give the little guys a chance and just... help out different types of combat styles. - Soulstice (personal favourite. *Not* a Soulslike) - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos (personal favourite. Zeno Clash prequel but there seem to be some God Hand inspirations in the combat) - Immortal: And the Death that Follows - Genokids - Enenra Daemon Core - Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Mightreya (a game by the dev of Assaulst Spy) - Kings of Hell (fair warning, looks cartoony but is quite spicy and has El Swearing) Hope there's stuff to your interest in here!

I 100% Batman Arkhum Asylum and that was pretty difficult for me, it's not easy chaining combos to achieve the challenges highest scores and dodging when few enemy hits can kill you

Exactly

Games with free flow combat are not inherently easy, they just tackle difficulty very differently from other games. 2 important things about free flow combat is that: 1. Almost at any point of in the game, you can avoid any incoming attack if you press the right button(s) 2. Once you get into a combo, distance is not a big factor anymore. But as soon as the combo stops, so does the magnetism. These 2 things mean that as long as you can keep up the combo, you can maintain fight with a bunch of enemies (the fact that they don't attack all at once also helps). And these games do exactly that. Throw you in a room with a bunch of enemies, some even with specific ways to defeat/counter, so you can't just spam and blam your way out. In a hard encounter, you are essentially multitasking with a variety of enemies, some of them being quite different from the rest. Meanwhile, if I am not mistaken (since I haven't specifically played Ninja Gaiden, but a few games with similar reputation), ideally, an important part of the gameplay is to lure out enemy one by one so that you don't have to take out all at once. In fact, fighting multiple enemies at once is highly discouraged. There's a reason why gank is a term used to refer to these fights. Overall, fighting an overwhelming number of enemies (not just 4 or 5 enemies) is bread and butter of free flow combat while even the concept of this is not entertained in games like Ninja Gaiden.

The thing is, are you really fighting 10 enemies if only 2 of them are active at a times or are you just fighting a small group while knowing all the waves you have to fight at once ? Free flow combat strenght is in its ease to use. Doesn't mean you won't get difficulty but it's not the focus at all. The magnetism allows to keep your combo going easier yes but also and mainly make it so you can't just throw a random punch in the air since seeing Batman fighting a fly isn't really super heroish. And the ability to cancel anything into a counter is in the same veins, Batman don't get hit by random thugs so he can counter at all times, you (almost) never take risks. But the important thing is to know what you want the player to feel. Is it mastery over Batman or feeling like him ? If it was the first then it would fail completly since the games cover most mistakes you can do and you loose control of him very often (when he is switching target, when you start a counter, finishing moves, ect). It also comes with it's own set of challenge, because it's overly animated, you need enough space, making a lot of the fight happening in very similar arena. No cool fightscenes in a giant stairways or in a thight corridor for Batman, gotta be in a big enough spherish arena. If the rooster of enemies isn't strong enought it can become extremely repetitif and down right boring. And the enemies design themselves is hard. If he doesn't force the player to change his fighting style, what even is his point ? But since the free flow is actually quite stiff with it's rules they can also just force the player to do 1 set of actions for this enemies and that's it. for example shields ask you to double press X/A coz that's what you have to do. You can also loose to much freedom making the player feels like the fight are closer to QTE than actuall fight. In AC the best options you had was wait for the attack, parry and times your next attack to chain one hit kills. While it looks cool it also become incredibly mind numbing. Batman way to handle that was quite... dumb. Enemies would need to take a giant beating before going down forcing you to rely on finishers and since the normal punisher takes forever and (if my memory is right) you can't counter while doing it you will be seeing the same 5 specials takedowns again and again making it extremelly repetitive. Funilly enought the last man standing got his life reduced so much that he goes down after one heavy hit. Making Batman feels very inconsistent in his strenght. Tldr: Free flow is about empowering the player.

:P

And that's why people appricate Soul likes. I understand it now.

The thing in the arkham games the counter dosent do any damage so you still have to fight the enemies to win combat encounters, a small but important thing that a lot of other games miss.

Shadow Of Mordor is the classic example of a free flow combat system that basically ruined the game once you unlocked enough moves, because you could just spam the same four buttons over and over and win every single encounter with zero effort.

Ac4 and shadow of mordor are examples of this. Works fine on flat terrain. But that's usually never the case. Hand to hand combat on ships in ac4 is super jank at tends to stop working at points. And in shadow of mordor, elevated terrain is a great way to break the combat to your disadvantage

Now I wanna mention an interesting what if scenario. During the development of bully back in 2005-2006, someone at Rockstar developed in his free time, a new context sensitive combat system which changed combat moves and combo chaining depending on the player or enemy's state, for example: if the enemy was on a regular position, jabs and hooks would be thrown, if the enemy was below a certain height, uppercuts would be thrown and so on. His combat system also featured a "brawling mechanic" which made it so that you couldn't spam combos and counters, since stunlocking was almost completely removed, have you seen people fighting IRL? where both parties land hits until someone gets knocked out? literally that, enemies would also have the capacity to counterattack just like the player. This combat system never made it past the developer's workstation but I wonder, what if Bully had released with this combat system? would we see more games with a similar system to what I described? Me personally I really prefer the idea of a game where fighting actually involves strategy instead of combolocking and counter spamming.

It's one of those things that seems simple from the outset but actually has a lot of subtleties to be careful about.

don't try to please everyone, unless you wanna make a game with multiple mutually exclusive systems (and having to balance the game accordingly)

Get this to top comment people PLEASE

exactly, these are just ways to animate animations NOT program a combat system which i was eating some tasbihim as to why she mentioned that in the video when talking about god of war cuz i was like "HUH!!!" im also an indie dev programming a combat system for my game and i havent animated any animation with either IK or motion capture i was simply rotating each bone, keyframing, and changing the interporlation to make each animation so IDK why she mentioned animating techniques when talking about gameplay-ish combat system

"akschoully ☝🤓" _If you watch the video_ you'll see that she isn't saying it as a singular genre, but as in games in which you fight.

@@walterh2113 While I get what your trying to say but that is a gross misnomer, as for gaming "Fighting Games" is a specific term so using it as a blanket statement leads to confusion and would seem amateurish which is not a good look.

@@walterh2113 By your logic, Super Mario Bros is much closer to actual fighting games because beside fighting Bowser and his minions, the game is 2D. Fighting game is a specific genre with it's own audience. If she can't even understand that simple fact, it undermines her authority and devalues everything she says about games.

Beat me to it. This video shows a pretty bad case of trying to pass personal experience and opinions for fact. I was a bit set aback by the way the games mentioned previous to "Arkham Assylum" are pretty much talked down.

@@XanderVJ It's not even that honestly. If it was a video about somebody's personal opinion I would be okay with it. But this is not that, this is just somebody with very little knowledge about the subject teaching false information which is a lot worse.

Im on the same page as you about mostly everything you said, but there seems to be a consensus around the argument that Spider-Man combat is just like Arkham, that I just can't see. In Arkham you deal 1 hit on an enemy, they get knocked down, and then you imideatily switch to a different one. If youre about to get hit you can either counter or dodge over or away from enemies. The combo strings are timed very tightly, if you wait just a bit too long the combo ends. Even the gadget usage has to be slipped into the combos as seemlessly as possible. Usually the fights happen in tight rooms, keeping you very close to your enemies, who keep trying to surround Batman. In Spider-man you can string multiple hits on 1 enemy, and keep comboing them almost infinitely. you cant counter (not like batman), you can dodge or parry ( parry is only on spider-man 2), and then you can hit back, which feels completely different IMO. You can swing around and manouver for a long time before the combo counter expires. You can quick-fire gadgets, but you can also aim manually and go into slow-mo to plan things out. You can pull enemies away from fights, or even take them up to the air. And you can instantly defeat enemies just by webbing them onto stuff. There might be some similarities like the takedowns and jumping around between enemies, but it always felt so different to me I could barely call it a free-flow system, much less an Arkham clone, which some people do. It might fall in the free flow type of combat, it definitely takes more from Arkham than DMC or Dark Souls, but among games like Shadow of Mordor, Mad Max or AC, it feels like the ugly duckling among them.

@@johnsoom You are spot on. I would even argue that most games that are known for using freeflow combat have very little to do with how the arkham games work. This combat system is still unique to batman. The reason why I mentioned these two games is that even with their differences have some resemblence to the fundementals of freeflow combat.

Calling these action/action adventure games "fighting games" is what got me.

There's a game from 2022 called Soulstice that does something interesting with the "animations based on enemy attacks". First off, it's NOT a Soulslike. It's a game more in line with the genre of DMC, Bayonetta, Darksiders and such than Black Myth: Wukong, Stellar Blade, GOW2018/Ragnarök etc. Primary and Secondary weapon buttons, launchers, aerial attacks, slam downs, a mix of a Style/Special/Devil Trigger meter, seven total weapons with quick switching and their own animation movesets and more. Got a really good story too! Has its rough spots but i would still recommend it. Got a lot to offer! In any case, to explain what i get at with the combat: The player character is technically two characters in one. The Ashen Knight named Briar is the one who wields the physical weaponry. She wields the sword, hammer, flagellation whip, punch daggers etc. The Shade is a ghost on the Knight's shoulder. In Briar's case it's her dead younger sister, Lute. Enemies can have a Counter Button prompt pop up for certain animations. Pressing it in time will perform any of three Counters: - Deflect (return a projectile) - Freeze (what it says on the tin) - Disrupt (makes the enemy stagger out of the animation) You can't choose the Counter but they're not random either. It's only particular attacks. Here's the thing: It's the Shade that does the Countering. Briar can be performing any animation with any of the weapons or be dodging, and as long as you press the button in time, Lute will perform the counter. No disruption to Briar's animations whatsoever. (Counters can be missed, but there's an optional skill that can give you a freebie if you were too late in pressing it. Has an invisible cooldown. All Skills have full currency refunds-- if you don't jive with one, you can use the currency you used for it to invest in other skills) Any Counter move builds up that Style/Special meter too, called Unity. It's a fairly fleeting resource for either weapon-unique Finishers (done by performing a pause combo and ending with your weapon of choice) or entering the Rapture Mode, the Devil Trigger equivalent. Therefore, succesful counters help in potentially getting extra powerful and stylish options later Outside of Lute's Counters, though, Briar has no defensive options. Aside from the Fist of Retribution. It's a metal gauntlet/buckler shield weapon and the only weapon with a Parry move in the entire game. I don't use it much. I prefer to use it and its charge-up move, which give extra power and reach, to knock Armor and Barriers (shields and forcefields) off the enemies that have them. All weapons can be used in any situation against any enemy just fine, though may prove a bit weaker or stronger against particular foes. - Aforementioned Fist of Retribution for example stands tall alongside the Ashen Enforcer (big warhammer) in breaking Armor and Barriers, yet the Hammer is even better against Barriers while the Fist excels against Armor when charged up. - The flagellation whip, the Tearing Penance, hits many times at once in a wide range and gives a bit of stun, making it nice against the speedsters that swarm around you, but the damage is fairly low. The stun doesn't apply much if the enemy is wearing armor. Oh, and it has a Grappling Hook move too. No range limit if you're locked onto an enemy. There's some other subtleties to the weapons and this isn't really about the initial subject anymore, i'm just trying to get word of Soulstice out there. Games in this genre are so little-catered to and Soulstice has proven one of my favourites in recent years, so i'm trying to help them out where i can. Others in the genre --and some fairly adjacent upcoming ones-- would be - Genokids - Enenra Daemon Core - Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Kings of Hell And Clash: Artifacts of Chaos may be interesting too. Combat's a bit more in the vein of God Hand, of all things. If you took the time to read this all through, thank you for doing so, hope this proved interesting, and have a good one.

Yeah, it's super repetitive and gets old quick

Yes and enemies helth bars just feel spongy adding salt to the injury. Thats why Souls like are such a breath of fresh air

Weird, for some reason the comment i posted here didn't go through. To repost it in a smaller and more concise way: There's a cool and solid game from 2022 called Soulstice, in the genre and gameplay style of DMC, Bayonetta, Darksiders and such. Seven different weapons you can quickly swap between, Style/Special meter hybrid, aerial combat and launchers, quick "get back into the fight" moves like a Stinger, quite big enemy roster, etc. Anyway: it did something interesting with "respond to the indicators" while not compromising the gameplay influences from those other games. Namely by having the player character be, thematically and in practice, be two characters. Generally you directly control the Ashen Knight, Briar. She does the physical fighting and gets around seven different weapons, all with their own unique animations, utility and differences. On her shoulder is the ghost of her sister, Lute, referred to as a Shade. Lute you cannot directly control for any offensive moves, except for pressing the Counter button. Lute operates *separately* from Briar. For some animations, enemies will have a Counter button prompt pop up. There's three varieties: - Deflect (return a projectile) - Freeze (what it says on the tin) - Disrupt (prevents an attack from happening and staggers the enemy out of their animation). You don't have control which counter Lute will perform: it depends on the enemy's animation. The Stinger's tail swipe will always be a Freeze for example, so you have to react by getting away and rushing back in with a Piercing Lunge or other Stinger-type move, or getting over it and using moves that hit below you, then perform a slamdown when it's finished with the swipe, to start some new combos. As said, Lute operates separately from Briar. Which means that whatever animation, combo, launcher, aerial, grappling hook, charge, slamdown, dodge, etc. you're performing with her, Lute's counters do not interrupt or cancel whatever you're doing. There's a skill tree too where you can upgrade Lute, with stuff like perfect counters giving some currency, some health shards to heal, a speed bonus, sending out powerful homing spirit bolts or even launchers from a distance, making these launchers affect enemies of Medium and Big class enemies too, etc. Even one where you get a freebie It's a lot more substantial than just number/percentage-based upgrades. And --i'll keep it at this for now-- doing Counters boosts the Unity meter, which is like a hybrid of a Style Meter and Special/"Devil Trigger" meter. It's used for performing weapon-unique Finishers (done by ending any Pause Combo with a particular weapon) or entering the Rapture state. Or even a third option you get late in the game... In any case, Unity is a fairly fleeting resource if you don't hit anyone for too long or get hit yourself. But the Counters help keep up some momentum to perform more stylish and impressive damage later on, provided you can keep up the pressure without getting hit. I very much love Soulstice. Has its rough points but I can certainly recommend it. Clash: Artifacts of Chaos too. A Zeno Clash prequel with seemingly some God Hand and 3D beat-em-up influences this time around. Here's some other upcoming action games without combat systems like those of the Batman Arkham series or GOW 2018/Ragnarök: - Immortal: And the Death that Follows - Genokids - Enenra Daemon Core - Mightreya - Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Kings of Hell If you read this all the way through, thank you for doing so. Hope this was interesting and that you may look more into the games in question.

@@jurtheorc8117 that happens alot, it's an issue across all users on RU-vid, only about half of my comments actually post and stay up.

Zenless zone zero be like

I'm pretty she said Batman game mastered free flow combat. God of war already had free flow combat but the npc do the same action same with ps2 spider man 2 the npc are dumb

Alright calm down semantics police. She's talking about the fighting mechanics in games if anything they might be more hack and slash or beat em ups than action games but whatever.

@@Whywe.lovegames Hack and slash is a subgenre of action game. Regardless, fighting games and action games are too completely different genres, and if people walk away from this video thinking that action games are called "fighting games" then it can have a negative affect, especially for such a niche genre

🤓👆 actually

​@@owencmykyeah, makes you wonder about a scenario where you would want targeting in a fighting game, though. Don't think I've ever seen that done. Might be interesting to consider. I'm super smash bros when you're doing one of the 1-to-many fights for instance

This is a fighting game, main part of getting through missions is, you guessed it, fighting

Fair question. To this day there's debates on the name of game genres and combat types like those of DMC, Bayonetta, Darksiders, God of War, etc. There's Character Action, Spectacle Fighter, Hack-and-Slash, "An evolution of Beat-em-Up games", etc. If you're interested, here's a list of various action games from recent times that use different combat systems from the modern Arkham games' type combat and stuff. There's things that are more in line with stuff like DMC, Bayonetta, Darksiders, Ninja Gaiden, 3D and 2D beat-em-ups and even a way of mixing a die-and-cards system with realtime action combat. Many of them are still in production, though. Some of my favourites: - Soulstice. Not a Soulslike, it's in that vein of DMC, Bayonetta and Darksiders-type stuff. Has seven total different weapons, for one. A mix of a Style and a Special meter (at the highest "rank" tresholds you can perform weapon-unique Finishers or enter the monstrous Rapture mode), Counterattacks from a distance that don't disrupt animations, and more. - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. Prequel to the Zeno Clash games but from a third person perspective this time. Has you finding different Martial Arts styles and special attacks to assign to the protagonist to mess around with. Like the weapons in Soulstice, all of the Stances have their own unique animation movesets and utilities. - No Straight Roads. Short, boss-centric, all about music. Bosses attack in rhythm with their own boss theme and have different attacks for different elements within the song. - Cookie Cutter. This one keeps it fairly simple. 2D beat-em-up combat in a beautifully 2D animated Metroidvania. Some different weapons and "spells" plus a costless "push back" move. The weapons and spells are used by consuming Void, which is built up by hitting enemies with normal attacks. There's a Parry too that can allow for instantly Executing an enemy if you pull it off. Void and Health is rewarded for Executing an enemy. Others: - Immortal: And the Death that Follows. A friend of mine described this as a Hindu Mythology Mad Max Beat-em-Up. Has a Roguelike element where dealing with a boss in a particular way can give a bonus or affect the difficulty, and it seems like you may unlock different moves in different runs. Main character's a cool monstrous creature without a head and with his face on his abdomen. - Lost in Random. This is the one with the mixing of a die and playing cards during realtime combat. Had a new game announced a few days ago! Many people are decrying it as ruining the original game because it's a different combat system (from the looks of it), sadly, but i'm excited and want to try it out. Help the devs and such. The gameplay is not the only thing that made the first Lost in Random special and memorable. - Hi-Fi Rush. The world moves in rhythm: your attacks and those of enemies. Same genre as DMC and stuff. - Genokids. You play as an entire rock band where you can switch between characters, who all have their own weapons, Specials and a Special Form. Same genre as DMC and stuff. - Enenra Daemon Core. Cyborg ninja shenanigans. Same genre as aforementioned two. - Mightreya. Don't know much about this one, seems to be a similar genre to aforementioned two. - Gori: Cuddly Carnage. Syntethic toy cat riding a hoverboard that is both the method of movement and offense (the board gets used as a weapon in various ways). - Kings of Hell. Quite spicy cartoonish 3D beat-em-up demon shenanigans. - Yasuke: A Lost Descendant. Cartoonish cyberpunk samurai shenanigans. And I want to mention Decline's Drops and Kraino Rebirth. The first one seems to be an action platformer with some more emphasized combat, the second may be similar-- but i just think it looks cool. Hope this list has proven interesting!

This type of combat system is designed to be easy to learn, but they can have a pretty deep skill ceilling

@@jurtheorc8117 Hey, big thanks for the list, man! In return I'll recommend Aztez. It's an indie 2D game inspired by DMC and Bayonetta. The combat designer gave a long-a** talk at GDC about Bayonetta combat, which I think is very interesting for any combat design nerd.

Hack and slash. Bayonetta, Kingdom Hearts, NieR, God of War, Devil May Cry

Thank you! I hadn’t played Sifu, maybe I should!

Yeah I agree

Have you tried "Sifu"?

@@paulochf I have. It’s one of my favorite games.

Make sense for huge ips like spiderman. You have to appeal to EVERYBODY, so it makes sense the challenge is low. To be fair though they tried more with the parry mechanic, more aggressive enemies, enemies that can interrupt attacks, and harder bosses.

@@suave9184 The system itself can be ok, I enjoyed some of the batman games, but they become too repetitive very soon, once you play a single game like that it's like you played all of them already. I stopped buying them years ago, they say: "A game for everyone is a game for no one".

You can be creative if you want they give you the option. Take devil may 5 for example you can just use one button to kill a monster learn the combo do your own way which is hard. Not every game has to be souls like game and lot's of people aren't interested mastering these movementsYou can be creative if you want they give you the option. Take devil may 5 for example you can just use one button to kill a monster learn the combo do your own way which is hard. Not every game has to be souls like game and lot's of people aren't interested mastering these movements. Also every game i played have different movement, attack and defence so it won't feel repeated. Spiderman and Batman game has free flow combat but both are not the same

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it was "Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time" in 2003. The first Spiderman game didn't have free flow combat it was more like melee combat from GTA3

Thank you!

Thank you!

I first encountered the term "free-flow combat system" in marketing and the back-of-box description of Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and that was quite a different beast entirely. A fun one though, and to this day i haven't seen anything quite like it. If you're interested, here's a list of various action games from recent times that use different combat systems from the modern Arkham games' type combat and stuff. There's things that are more in line with stuff like DMC, Bayonetta, Darksiders, Ninja Gaiden, 3D and 2D beat-em-ups and even a way of mixing a die-and-cards system with realtime action combat. Many of them are still in production, though. Some of my favourites: - Soulstice (not a Soulslike, it's in that vein of DMC, Bayonetta and Darksiders-type stuff.) - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos - No Straight Roads - Cookie Cutter Others: - Lost in Random (had a new game announced a few days ago! Many people are decrying it as ruining the original game, sadly, but i'm excited and want to try it out. Help the devs and such.) - Hi-Fi Rush - Genokids - Enenra Daemon Core - Mightreya - Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Kings of Hell - Yasuke: A Lost Descendant And I want to mention Decline's Drops and Kraino Rebirth. The first one seems to be an action platformer with some more emphasized combat, the second may be similar-- but i just think it looks cool Hope these games may prove interesting for you!

Unless you're using free flow combat as a blanket statement for all action games? Because to me free flow combat is very distinct and is used in games like Batman, AC, Spiderman

​@@Filmblanc They all take inspiration from each other, not saying that they are exactly the same. Fluid, responsive, timing, skill, gadgets, etc.

@@Filmblanc "Batman, AC, Spiderman" Those are the best selling and most successful action games/franchises. Stellar Blade only sold a million, Wukong just barely came out, and "From Soft games" refers to like 30 different games, none of which are in any way "standard" for the industry. What you're calling "very distinct" is actually the norm, and what you think is the norm is very much not.

@@peacemaster8117 If free flowing combat is the norm, then the games that just came out would have it in them. You just proved my point. The newest and latest action games do not use free flow combat. Free flow combat seems to be reserved for 3 franchises, AC, Batman (which isn't even a franchise anymore) and Spiderman. All other action games, action adventure games and action RPGs do not use this style of combat.

Freeflow combat only applies to batman arkham series. Thats when the term was officially coined. Spiderman 2018 has freeflow combat. All the other example you named are not free flow.

Thank you!

As I thought, I haven't played Black Myth Wukong yet and I'm surprised when she mentioned its combat is free flow, when in reality is more souls-like. I should've known she's making a huge mistakd when she mentioned GOW 2018 here😂 I'm glad she recognized Prince of Persia's free flow though. I remember when game manuals were a thing, it specifically mentioned this specific phrase to describe its combat.

Monster hunter and nioh's combat systems are far superior to dark souls, it's not even close

Dark Souls combat is mediocre at best.

DS combat has a good foundation but is too simple. It's held up by the games difficulty alone. Very few games even comes close to something like a Ninja Gaiden 2.

If you found Sifu fun, perhaps you may find something interesting in the combat of Clash: Artifacts of Chaos.

Thank you!