New Metroidvania Spirit of the Samurai offers you whole combo management

One take a look at new stop-motion Metroidvania The Spirit of the Samurai is greater than sufficient to seize your consideration. Mixing the side-on 2D motion of Hole Knight or Ori and the Will of the Wisps with a spooky, horror-tinged Japanese setting harking back to Nioh, its lovingly handcrafted animations make it one of the crucial eye-catching video games I’ve seen shortly. But after sitting all the way down to take a better take a look at Gamescom 2024, the extent of management you’re given over the way you battle is what’s actually gained me over.

Constructed by Digital Thoughts Video games and revealed by Kwalee, in The Spirit of the Samurai you battle towards once-dead warriors introduced again to life by a strong Oni. You step into the function of three characters – samurai Takeshi, tiny spirit Kodama, and warrior cat Chisai – every of whom brings a distinct side to the gameplay. You’ll should make the most of each weapon and trick at your disposal to tackle the undead warriors and monsters rooted in Japanese mythology as you discover this distinctive 2D Metroidvania.

The main focus of fight falls, as you’d anticipate, to Takeshi, who could make use of a spread of weapons together with katana, bow, and spear. The important thing right here is the way in which that strikes are chained collectively. As you progress, you’ll unlock a lot of totally different assaults, every of which may have its personal specialties. A few of these is likely to be extra apparent, equivalent to a quick swipe or a long-ranged poke, whereas others would require some experimentation. Maybe a sure transfer is superb at coping with shield-bearing enemies; you’ll should strive it to search out out.

Crucially, it’s as much as you the way you select to mix these abilities. You should use your unlocked assaults to construct customized combos, every of which may be assigned to numerous directional inputs. This provides you full freedom over the way you battle – when you’ve ever been up towards an Elden Ring boss and wished you can strip that slower third hit out of your combo string, in The Spirit of the Samurai you’ll be able to. You may also use the precise stick as an alternate approach to ship assaults, permitting you to manually make use of any directional combo no matter your present dealing with.

Whereas The Spirit of the Samurai’s distinctive look was already sufficient to seize my curiosity, seeing its combo system in motion completely grabbed my consideration. I spend in all probability extra time than I ought to serious about the nuances of weapon movesets, so that is very a lot enjoying to my pursuits. It jogs my memory a bit of of the swap abilities carried out in Monster Hunter Rise, or – to return a bit of additional – the equally designed combo system of stellar however oft-overlooked 2006 PS2 motion recreation, God Hand.

The Spirit of the Samurai is about to launch within the fourth quarter of 2024. Kwalee says it’s best to anticipate it to be round eight hours in size, that includes roughly 1,500 handmade animations together with animated cutscenes and full voice appearing all through, carried out in English by voice actors of Japanese heritage. I’m actually wanting to see extra – when you’re in the identical place, you’ll be able to wishlist it now on Steam.

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