Way of the Samurai had a brilliant combat system. On the hardest difficulty it was extremely easy to get smoked in any random encounter.Mcface said:
So anyway, here's how the system breaks down for those not in the know:
You attack with the Square or Triangle buttons. Square is a short combo, Triangle is a strong attack. Where things get interesting is when you start blocking (R1). When you block you can hold either towards or away from the enemy, or keep your stick in a neutral position. A neutral position does nothing and merely stops you from taking damage. Useful, but your swords still has a durability meter and too many attacks will eventually break that weapon. Too many attacks taken OR initiated without letting your sword cool will do that.
Now, if you hold back that's like intercepting and sweeping the attack behind you. If successful, the enemy will lurch forward so that you can chop him as he passes right in the back. If you hold forward that's like setting up a sort of forward shove. If you're successful you'll push his guard up and can stab him in the gut. But you might not be successful. You can hold these directions while ATTACKING, too. So if somebody attacks with forward momentum while holding forward (to push) and somebody else blocks while holding back in order to pull, the guy moving forward will be caught and trapped by the guy holding back. Get it? Works in reverse, too.
Add to this that weapons directly influence how much health you have, defense and attack attributes, AND they learn new abilities and techniques based on how often you use them, and you have a pretty complex system. And as I said, on Hard mode you'll die in a mere handful of slashes. So yeah, it's a realistic and highly strategic system.
Supposedly WotS2 ruined all this by completely changing the way the combat works.
