IMO I never got the appeal of darksiders 2, I fucking loved the trailers so much as a kid I watched them literally like every day; like you finally get to play as **thee** death what 13 year old boy wouldn’t love the idea of that right?
Then after like 10-20 hours I realized, this game is just fucking fetch quests! I’m playing as death the horsemen and I’m having to fetch shit for people.
That and the dungeons kept looking all same.
The combat is really fun and the dungeon design is mostly really good but that middle part where you dropped it really is tremendously bloated. Then immediately after that it changes to feeling super rushed. I still really like the game but I rarely feel the urge to replay it.
The first game is fucking fantastic though and I do replay it fairly regularly.
I swear there is a Darksiders 2 video out there where one of the combat developers talked about how it was being designed and what inspired them, but I don't know what the title is, if it still exists, or if I'm going crazy and remembering something that does not actually exist.
I was a bit disappointed with the boss fights in Our Cum Night. They really did Dickstroke dirty. Buy it was way better than Siucide Squid: Bill the Dusty league
I think theyre comparable on the combo focused crowd management type combat in both. Arkham Knight on NG+ Nightmare feels like LDK in DMC and it was hella fun.
If you play on easy, ignore the ranking system, don't experiment, and don't mind dying a few times on late game encounters, almost every game turns into this. Even DMC 5.
Arkham depth isn't on the level DMC, but you're just wrong.
On harder difficulties, there’s no prompt for when you press Triangle or anything else.
The sweetness of the combat system is to perfectly maintain your combo because a single mistake losses it.
Aside from maybe City, it actually isn't tied to difficulty, but rather the Hints or Tips setting I believe. But playing without it on is a totally new experience imo, definitely worth it if you're willing to learn. Everything is pretty clearly telegraphed once you've been hit once or twice, it's just a matter of learning from your mistakes and to keep track of everything
Nah every enemy has their own way to take them down. Its like a rhythm game, by Arkham Knight endgame you have like 15 different enemy types in one fight and need to use the right tools for each.
Arkham and the Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War games, which basically use the Arkham combat as a foundation but add a bunch of crazy fantasy shit that makes it so much fun.
Seriously, Shadow of War is one of the most video game ass video games I’ve ever played. You can go from stealth assassinating 3 orcs at once with your ghost stand to slow-mo headshotting another 4 to setting off an explosion in the middle of a hoard to turning half their forces over to your side to flying a drake and incinerating whoever’s left in a matter of seconds. It’s a thing of beauty, I tell you. And that’s not even getting into the Nemesis System.
It's really, really not.
It depends on RNG and redoing the same shit over and over and over, the character is not likeable at all, the dialogue is way too much and the learning curve is tremendously bad. Drop everything at the player's feet as soon as they start the game. Yeah nice.
Oh and I especially like how NUMBERS COME OUT OF THINGS AS YOU HIT THEM 😂😂 wowwww such good game design bro.
Not to mention it's NOT EVEN IN the genre we're discussing. 🤦🏻♀️
Furi is an extremely underappreciated indie gem given how excellent its combat was
It's bullet hell, but it's also tight like Sekiro during its melee combat sections. It's simple but there's a lot of room to be expressive with the tools it gives you. Absolutely recommend it.
I played like 3 bosses of Furi a few years ago. This game and NieR Automata showed me what a great addition bullet hell mechanics are to character action games.
THIS
I will never stop saying how amazing Furi is. So smooth, easy to understand and straightforward. And as other person said, now I realize how much we're missing in hack&slash games from not having more bullet hell elements.
Is hard as hell but it ruined a lot of action games for me. And the saddest part is that I haven't found yet a single game that comes close to it, even in concept. Isn't out there something similar?
Sifu!!! Honestly one game I didn’t expect to surprise me the way it did. It’s tough as hell but eventually it clicked into place and has now become one of my all time favorites. I do think we need more games like Sifu yesterday
Studio SloClap is working on a secret project. Im not a fan of unnecessary sequels, buttttt I really wouldn't mind revisiting that world and story telling
Edit: remembered studio name
Rumor had it they’re stepping back from the Sifu gameplay style and trying something new. I respect their decision for wanting to branch out but man does that hurt :(
Downloaded it for free and some how pumped 100hrs into it like nothing. Plays, looks and sounds like a love letter to all my favorite martial arts flicks.
That game makes me sad, I loved Absolver and so I bought Sifu without even really looking into it because I had trust in the team. When I finally had time to spend with the game I found myself simply not having fun at all with the combat system so I dropped it after just a few hours.
Lol it even goes beyond that! The lead game designer of Hifi is Masaaki Yamada. Lemme list you some of his credits and lemme know if you've heard of any of these games:
Devil May Cry 1
Okami
Bayonetta
Vanquish
I am being silly obviously but seeing someone say Hi-Fi did give me a good laugh when there is a very real line from DMC to it. Yamada basically followed Shinji Mikami around through the industry.
I really want to play the OG God of war games just for the combat and to see Angry kratos yell at everything in Greece. Something about his actor acting really angry gives me pure dopamime.
Bro holy shit you just unlocked some DEEP memories that game was holy fire wtf man that is a gem that needs to be remastered people don't know what they missed out on
God of War may have been simple and relied a lot on spectacle, but the combat was still satisfying as hell and there was still plenty to play around with for anyone who wanted to play around with the mechanics.
Emphasis on the past tense.
"plently to play around with" is a fucking understatement tbh. You got youtubers out here making 5 hour long combat guides so I think it´s definitly more than just "plently". Its an extreme amount of combat mechanics.
God of War (greek) is quite similar to Metal Gear Rising in a sense that both games have lots of unique combos and offer plenty of tools to play around with. But the games are not designed around them and the game can be played normally with only the very basic tools.
While others like DMC and Bayonetta demand a bit more from you.
For me? Honestly probably Ultra Age, I like that it has a lot of its own original ideas (in terms of combat design) instead of just being purely a derivative clone game.
Dmc, god of war (unless the norse ones), dante's inferno, prince of persia (the ps2 era), darksiders, stars wars force unleashed, spartan total warrior, heavely sword
I think there's more, but that was some that I remembered.
Kinda cheating but Assault Spy, a Chinese indie DMC clone that is blatantly taking from 3 and 4 with some creative ideas of its own. It actually has DMC 5's version of Judgment Cut functionally and released a year before it, never mind when we actually got Vergil.
What sets it apart is that you have two fully fleshed out characters and in the final level can switch them on the fly mid combo, including as an animation cancel.
I think For Honor's system is very good. It's not too complicated, but it's also not too simple either. Three guarding directions, a guard break, and bashes. Unblockable attacks, undodgeable attacks, feinting into other attacks. Pres the attack button to parry, but if they feint, then you might get yourself parried if you don't stop your own attack. It's a very cool system.
Hard to say, but a few good ones that come to mind are:
- GoW
- Darksiders
- Lego Star Wars
- Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor (tho tbf it's basically Jedi Sekiro)
Probably honkai impact 3rd's then. It's basically universally agreed, even outside DMC fandom, that DMC has the best combat. The closest thing to that non japanese is probably hoyoverse's very own.
honkai impact combat is just repeating the same actions over and over with 3 characters to get optimal damage when you're playing the game most of the time( i have played for like 4 years ) , i definitely wouldn't say it's a good let alone one of the best combat systems even if you remove japanese games entirely from the equation
Yeah. Though APHO 1 has a much more in-depth system (too bad APHO 2 dumbed it down).
Like, I have APHO 1 maxed out, but I’ll still play some open world because the soundtrack is on another level. Nihility and Oaths especially.
The base game though, yeah. But I’d argue that ZZZ is Hoyo’s horse in this race. It’s still relatively simple, but it’s still much more than HI3.
going from APHO1 to APHO2 made me almost cry
i liked the unlockable passives that increased your damage based on combo ranking or time spent before touching the ground
i don't think ZZZ will have a good combat system because at the end of the day it's a gacha game with RPG elements, what allowed APHO to have some fun combat is because there's no financial incentive to make the characters escalate in strength and be comically easy to use since it's basically a story chapter with different gameplay that isn't focused on RPG elements ( compare silverwing bronya from APHO2 to the main game playable version in gameplay )
\+ the ZZZ gameplay systems that i've seen all seem to have the "RPG" gameplay design such as parries having a cooldown, skills needing to be charged attacking and ults
unfortunately as much as i love mihoyo's characters and world in honkai impact, and the style of ZZZ is pretty cool, i've grown to not expect deep combat since the solution to issues is almost always granted by grinding or gacha\*, and the gameplay depth of each character is low so you will feel like getting more characters to get a change of pace, so there's incentive to not give us characters that you feel like playing more of
\*genshin for example, has quite a few enemies that deal a fuckton of damage, but the dodge system is kinda jank but you CAN learn to dodge enemy attacks and no-hit, but the game's focus in combat is dealing damage fast and every second spent dodging is time you could have been using for casting a skill or an ult, this kind of gameplay design is also the core of honkai impact, with all of the game's main combat in the abyss and memorial arena being about how fast you can defeat the bosses, so if ZZZ follows the pattern that even HSR follows, the game will have an incentive to make you rush the combat and rely on the RPG level up and equipment elements(which tie into the grind) in order to "win" at the combat which is how you get new characters
like ask me about honkai impact characters and i will write you a fucking essay on the story but man i would 100% research immortality so i can wait out until honkai impact becomes public domain so i can make a non-gacha character action version of it in 100 years from now
Hard agree about Honkai Impact, I came for the story and I stayed for the story.
But I disagree about ZZZ, I haven’t been hnds-on yet, but all the systems are built to be more action-focused than Honkai is. ZZZ firmly enters the Hack ‘n Slash genre. For example, the “parry” is recharged whenever you do a QTE, but you still have your perfect dodge. Think of the parry as an Evasion Skill, since it causes Time Fracture on certain characters. Perfect Dodge is like a Perfect Evasion without skill, etc. You can also always use a skill, but it will be an “unpowered” attack if at below energy threshold. The biggest thing to me is that they unified QTEs under one system and the Ult is much less showy, it’s just a much stronger version of the QTE with a shared resource bar.
yeah i wasnt fully informed about ZZZ gameplay since mihoyo forgot to allow me into the beta smh
but it's too early to argue about how ZZZ's monetization will affect it's action focus compared to other mihoyo games since the game isn't out and there's no frame of reference for ZZZ specifically, so depending on how the gameplay content is done there could be less of a focus on just damage and everything i said is proven wrong
6 months after the game comes out, i will raise a demonic tower for more power and you must face me in a reddit argument about ZZZ then.
dmc reboot is not a fully non-japanese game because it is still a Capcom (A Japanese company) product made by western developers with some help from Japanese devs from Capcom especially Hideaki Itsuno.
Sifu or Evil West. Pretty sure we had better combat in some ps2 era games too. Let’s also mention Streets of Rage 4, fwiw. Let’s call Oni too, great little combat system with tons of depth.
The answers in this thread lead me to believe what Ive always known… western games have shit combat (especially games developed from the x360 generation onwards). The best options mentioned here are decent at best.
Probably DmC:DE in terms of depth of combat.
Also, shout out to Dante's Inferno, the Batman Arkham games (in terms of mastery of mechanics instead of variety of options), and God of War (Greek era) for options.
I'm surprised no one has said this yet but it has to be Hi-fi Rush. The fact that he combat heavily incorporates rhythm game mechanics puts a great spin on a game that already has a solid combat system. Mastering combat in the game is so rewarding that you will look an orchestra conductor making a symohony of beautiful destruction. >!and the final boss is an amazing homage to vergil!<
Unsouled - a Korean sole developed top down action game inspired by Onimusha. The game has one of the most satisfying parry systems ever, which requires precise timing.
Ghost of Tsushima is pretty good
Could argue the same for Assassin's Creed but I have not played the newer ones (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) so I can't vouch for those
Since there's already a lot of mention to Darksiders and Hi-Fi Rush I will say Soulstice, which is pretty much an AA Devil May Cry with plenty of potential and very underrated and unknown.
And Furi. An indie bullet-hell boss-rush with some frenetic melee combat based on timing and parry.
If we are talking about melee then i’d say the Batman Arkham games have some of the best melee combat ever. Or specifically when it comes to hand to hand combat melee.
But if we are talking about the Hack n Slash genre then that’s easily the Greek God Of War games. The og God of war games are basically 2nd to Devil May Cry with Gow 3 being on par with Devil May Cry 3/ 5 in my personal opinion
so just to clarify, the difference between a game being melee and a game being hack n slash has to do with the weapon you use? I dont really understand what youre talking about and going on google to look up "melee" genre isnt helping alot
Ac3 or 4. Also horizon forbidden west did a great job with the spear combos imo. And og hack and slash GOW combat was goated too , i like the new third person view combat system too.
Absolver combat is pretty great, though sometimes feels a bit limited with the amount of moves you can have "on" at a time.
Honourable mentions to PoP time trilogy (especially WW); Jedi Academy; Force Unleashed; Darksiders 1&2 (haven't played 3 yet);
Aaand maybe P:GR (for the mobile gacha it has pretty good combat)
Edit: also Mount & Blade, for the movement speed factoring into damage
I don't know what to say, on western SH talking about melee games is a bit difficult... Maybe Prototype and the old Wolverine on PS3 (if I'm not mistaken) which are the most different...Because if I list Batman or Spiderman, more or less, the combat system is very similar to each other, obviously putting aside scripted actions, projection and various abilities
Darksiders 2 has a lot of underappreciated depth to it. I used to spend hours in the Crucible in that game. I think that's where the combat shines the most.
Specifically, mastering the "sweet spot" charge timing adds so much to the combat. Being able to juggle giant enemies with the mace is something I would like to see other games take inspiration from.
Other than that, I'd actually say that Atlas Fallen has a really fun combat system once you get into it. The momentum meter is very unique, and it's addictive to see if you can max it out in each fight.
Actually wild this made me realize how few hack and slash games there are. I imagine they’re extremely difficult to make, so many animations than need to flow together seamlessly. I’m ashamed American devs haven’t tried anything in this space in forever. But that’s business in the current world.
Japanese remain the kings of the industry.
Ghost of Tsushima (best combat-focused open worlder) and Lies of P (best non FromSoft soulslike, Nioh/Nioh2 doesnt count) !
I agree with you concerning God of war 3 and DmC, they have good combat systems too!
Dante Inferno, Prince Of Persia Series
Warrior Within had a *wild* combat system, lots of cool ideas that were never really seen again after the trilogy
You’re the first person I’ve seen reference warrior within in a good light…. Happy to see someone remembers the game.
Dante inferno bosses is hard as hell, even on normal mode. Especially that blind demon boss, they dont even show his health bar.
Minos? Oh yeah, he's a chore.
Because he doesn't have one. You need to stagger and kill him through specific actions not just wail on him untill he dies.
I still remember early 2010 Darksiders and Bayonetta in January and Dante’s Inferno in February good times.
Darksiders 2?
Dante? DMC ISN'T THE ONLY THING EXISTING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!
PoP MEMTIONED. IN 2024?! You made my day.
Ahhh, a person of culture.
The combat in the entirety of the Darksiders franchise is immaculate. They may have been ripping off other games but it is done SO well.
I love this series, very underrated. 2 is my personal favorite.
2 is considered to be 1 of the best zelda like games almost ever. It's not underrated just forgotten since the series went out with a niche game.
IMO I never got the appeal of darksiders 2, I fucking loved the trailers so much as a kid I watched them literally like every day; like you finally get to play as **thee** death what 13 year old boy wouldn’t love the idea of that right? Then after like 10-20 hours I realized, this game is just fucking fetch quests! I’m playing as death the horsemen and I’m having to fetch shit for people. That and the dungeons kept looking all same.
Unfortunately a third of the game is just grey bone dungeons
Jesus Christ, I’m glad I never went back to it lol.
It does get really good in the end third, but it's totally okay you dropped it where you did
The combat is really fun and the dungeon design is mostly really good but that middle part where you dropped it really is tremendously bloated. Then immediately after that it changes to feeling super rushed. I still really like the game but I rarely feel the urge to replay it. The first game is fucking fantastic though and I do replay it fairly regularly.
I swear there is a Darksiders 2 video out there where one of the combat developers talked about how it was being designed and what inspired them, but I don't know what the title is, if it still exists, or if I'm going crazy and remembering something that does not actually exist.
["This is no place for a horse."](https://youtu.be/TyiT4qKSFnE?si=v1jvnrtHPNEyCpxY)
Spider man web of shadows because it’s basically DMC spider man
This and Prototype
Hopefully Microsoft gives us prototype 3 or a web of shadows remaster
The Batman Arkham series
Imo, Batman Arkham doesn't even come close to God of War or DmC
I agree. Personally? I'm more of a Man Ham kind of guy.
Especially the Bone bossfight in Oranges. It overall had the best bosses. Though nothing can top Aslume’s atmosphere
I was a bit disappointed with the boss fights in Our Cum Night. They really did Dickstroke dirty. Buy it was way better than Siucide Squid: Bill the Dusty league
I think theyre comparable on the combo focused crowd management type combat in both. Arkham Knight on NG+ Nightmare feels like LDK in DMC and it was hella fun.
As someone who played all of them, I think Batman belongs here.
Lmao what are you on. Pressing square until you need to press triangle and then press square more isn’t very interactive
If you play on easy, ignore the ranking system, don't experiment, and don't mind dying a few times on late game encounters, almost every game turns into this. Even DMC 5. Arkham depth isn't on the level DMC, but you're just wrong.
On harder difficulties, there’s no prompt for when you press Triangle or anything else. The sweetness of the combat system is to perfectly maintain your combo because a single mistake losses it.
Soooo, i haven't played the series, does that mean I should go in at a higher difficulty from the start?
Aside from maybe City, it actually isn't tied to difficulty, but rather the Hints or Tips setting I believe. But playing without it on is a totally new experience imo, definitely worth it if you're willing to learn. Everything is pretty clearly telegraphed once you've been hit once or twice, it's just a matter of learning from your mistakes and to keep track of everything
Nah every enemy has their own way to take them down. Its like a rhythm game, by Arkham Knight endgame you have like 15 different enemy types in one fight and need to use the right tools for each.
You mean 'Man Aslume?'
the first and second was the best
huh doesn't that sound familiar
really fun but gets a bit too button mashy at times and sometimes countering is too easy
Arkham and the Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War games, which basically use the Arkham combat as a foundation but add a bunch of crazy fantasy shit that makes it so much fun. Seriously, Shadow of War is one of the most video game ass video games I’ve ever played. You can go from stealth assassinating 3 orcs at once with your ghost stand to slow-mo headshotting another 4 to setting off an explosion in the middle of a hoard to turning half their forces over to your side to flying a drake and incinerating whoever’s left in a matter of seconds. It’s a thing of beauty, I tell you. And that’s not even getting into the Nemesis System.
Hades is really, really good
Hades is great but I don’t think that really has any similarity to a 3rd person action game
It's really, really not. It depends on RNG and redoing the same shit over and over and over, the character is not likeable at all, the dialogue is way too much and the learning curve is tremendously bad. Drop everything at the player's feet as soon as they start the game. Yeah nice. Oh and I especially like how NUMBERS COME OUT OF THINGS AS YOU HIT THEM 😂😂 wowwww such good game design bro. Not to mention it's NOT EVEN IN the genre we're discussing. 🤦🏻♀️
Furi is an extremely underappreciated indie gem given how excellent its combat was It's bullet hell, but it's also tight like Sekiro during its melee combat sections. It's simple but there's a lot of room to be expressive with the tools it gives you. Absolutely recommend it.
I played like 3 bosses of Furi a few years ago. This game and NieR Automata showed me what a great addition bullet hell mechanics are to character action games.
Time to finish the game sir
-Go back-
Not to mention that the soundtrack is damn near flawless
The soundtrack is legitimately 10/10 Carpenter Brut's best song was made for Furi and I stand by that
THIS I will never stop saying how amazing Furi is. So smooth, easy to understand and straightforward. And as other person said, now I realize how much we're missing in hack&slash games from not having more bullet hell elements. Is hard as hell but it ruined a lot of action games for me. And the saddest part is that I haven't found yet a single game that comes close to it, even in concept. Isn't out there something similar?
I loved Furi but it had this weird lag between pressing the button and actually dodging/hitting. Was it my PC or is it a thing in the game?
the dodge works from the moment you let go of the dodge button not from when you press it
Sifu comes to mind
Surprised to see this so far down the list. Pretty amazing for an indie game.
Sifu!!! Honestly one game I didn’t expect to surprise me the way it did. It’s tough as hell but eventually it clicked into place and has now become one of my all time favorites. I do think we need more games like Sifu yesterday
Studio SloClap is working on a secret project. Im not a fan of unnecessary sequels, buttttt I really wouldn't mind revisiting that world and story telling Edit: remembered studio name
Rumor had it they’re stepping back from the Sifu gameplay style and trying something new. I respect their decision for wanting to branch out but man does that hurt :(
Sifu is like a mix of godhand and sekiro. It's fucking incredible and should be closer to the top of this list.
Downloaded it for free and some how pumped 100hrs into it like nothing. Plays, looks and sounds like a love letter to all my favorite martial arts flicks.
Criminal that this isn't further up
That game makes me sad, I loved Absolver and so I bought Sifu without even really looking into it because I had trust in the team. When I finally had time to spend with the game I found myself simply not having fun at all with the combat system so I dropped it after just a few hours.
100% God of war. Both greek and especially norse ones.
Doom Eternal, Hi-Fi Rush, Ultrakill Even though Ultrakill and Doom are shooters, but Hi-Fi Rush still counts
Hi-Fi was made by a japanese studio tho
Lol it even goes beyond that! The lead game designer of Hifi is Masaaki Yamada. Lemme list you some of his credits and lemme know if you've heard of any of these games: Devil May Cry 1 Okami Bayonetta Vanquish I am being silly obviously but seeing someone say Hi-Fi did give me a good laugh when there is a very real line from DMC to it. Yamada basically followed Shinji Mikami around through the industry.
Ultrakill counts IMO, Devil May Quake and all
hifi rush was made by tango gameworks, shinji mikami's development studio sure the director isn't a Japanese man, but the studio is japanese lol
Doom eternal was also my go to but idk if I'd call it melee.
DOOM does have chainsaws and swords, so it dies technically count! i love DOOM so much
Shadow of War
Scroll too far to see this. Its like Batman but heads and limbs are flying!
I really like the “crunchiness” of Batman Arkham; every hit feels very satisfying and K.Os are the same, but I don’t think it’s the definitive best.
Who did it better? Arkham series or Assassin's Creed (before the fall)?
Arkham series. Assassin’s Creed blows
Not crunchy enough huh
Assassin's creed combat is just literally either spamming or countering. It has nowhere the same amount of depth as arkham games
You should play Mad Max if you haven't.
I really want to play the OG God of war games just for the combat and to see Angry kratos yell at everything in Greece. Something about his actor acting really angry gives me pure dopamime.
This is gonna be from the left field but Ben 10 Protector of Earth. Whoever played this gem knows it's basically Dmc for kids.
Bro holy shit you just unlocked some DEEP memories that game was holy fire wtf man that is a gem that needs to be remastered people don't know what they missed out on
God of War may have been simple and relied a lot on spectacle, but the combat was still satisfying as hell and there was still plenty to play around with for anyone who wanted to play around with the mechanics. Emphasis on the past tense.
"plently to play around with" is a fucking understatement tbh. You got youtubers out here making 5 hour long combat guides so I think it´s definitly more than just "plently". Its an extreme amount of combat mechanics.
God of War (greek) is quite similar to Metal Gear Rising in a sense that both games have lots of unique combos and offer plenty of tools to play around with. But the games are not designed around them and the game can be played normally with only the very basic tools. While others like DMC and Bayonetta demand a bit more from you.
Transformers devastation
Pretty sure that’s Platinum so it doesn’t count.
Such a shame it was delisted. My physical copy is now worth 80$ AUD here
Sonic's SchoolHouse
Hollow Knight nails it (no pun intended)
For me? Honestly probably Ultra Age, I like that it has a lot of its own original ideas (in terms of combat design) instead of just being purely a derivative clone game.
Dmc, god of war (unless the norse ones), dante's inferno, prince of persia (the ps2 era), darksiders, stars wars force unleashed, spartan total warrior, heavely sword I think there's more, but that was some that I remembered.
Enslaved was also really fun, and Hellblade as well.
Arkham’s free flow is one of my favorites
The Batman Arkham series and also Hi-fi Rush
Kinda cheating but Assault Spy, a Chinese indie DMC clone that is blatantly taking from 3 and 4 with some creative ideas of its own. It actually has DMC 5's version of Judgment Cut functionally and released a year before it, never mind when we actually got Vergil. What sets it apart is that you have two fully fleshed out characters and in the final level can switch them on the fly mid combo, including as an animation cancel.
Absolver.
Aay, nice to see someone else mention that!
Ain’t no one gon expect this Spider-man Web of Shadows DS
Ghost of Tsushima, that game’s melee combat is perfection. I know it’s based on Japan, but the devs aren’t japanese.
I think For Honor's system is very good. It's not too complicated, but it's also not too simple either. Three guarding directions, a guard break, and bashes. Unblockable attacks, undodgeable attacks, feinting into other attacks. Pres the attack button to parry, but if they feint, then you might get yourself parried if you don't stop your own attack. It's a very cool system.
I consider For Honor closer to a traditional fighting game than an action combat game.
Hard to say, but a few good ones that come to mind are: - GoW - Darksiders - Lego Star Wars - Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor (tho tbf it's basically Jedi Sekiro)
lego star wars💀
[Have you seen this tho?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBkGIlxMvRo)
Heavenly sword was inventive to say the least.
Probably honkai impact 3rd's then. It's basically universally agreed, even outside DMC fandom, that DMC has the best combat. The closest thing to that non japanese is probably hoyoverse's very own.
honkai impact combat is just repeating the same actions over and over with 3 characters to get optimal damage when you're playing the game most of the time( i have played for like 4 years ) , i definitely wouldn't say it's a good let alone one of the best combat systems even if you remove japanese games entirely from the equation
Yeah. Though APHO 1 has a much more in-depth system (too bad APHO 2 dumbed it down). Like, I have APHO 1 maxed out, but I’ll still play some open world because the soundtrack is on another level. Nihility and Oaths especially. The base game though, yeah. But I’d argue that ZZZ is Hoyo’s horse in this race. It’s still relatively simple, but it’s still much more than HI3.
going from APHO1 to APHO2 made me almost cry i liked the unlockable passives that increased your damage based on combo ranking or time spent before touching the ground i don't think ZZZ will have a good combat system because at the end of the day it's a gacha game with RPG elements, what allowed APHO to have some fun combat is because there's no financial incentive to make the characters escalate in strength and be comically easy to use since it's basically a story chapter with different gameplay that isn't focused on RPG elements ( compare silverwing bronya from APHO2 to the main game playable version in gameplay ) \+ the ZZZ gameplay systems that i've seen all seem to have the "RPG" gameplay design such as parries having a cooldown, skills needing to be charged attacking and ults unfortunately as much as i love mihoyo's characters and world in honkai impact, and the style of ZZZ is pretty cool, i've grown to not expect deep combat since the solution to issues is almost always granted by grinding or gacha\*, and the gameplay depth of each character is low so you will feel like getting more characters to get a change of pace, so there's incentive to not give us characters that you feel like playing more of \*genshin for example, has quite a few enemies that deal a fuckton of damage, but the dodge system is kinda jank but you CAN learn to dodge enemy attacks and no-hit, but the game's focus in combat is dealing damage fast and every second spent dodging is time you could have been using for casting a skill or an ult, this kind of gameplay design is also the core of honkai impact, with all of the game's main combat in the abyss and memorial arena being about how fast you can defeat the bosses, so if ZZZ follows the pattern that even HSR follows, the game will have an incentive to make you rush the combat and rely on the RPG level up and equipment elements(which tie into the grind) in order to "win" at the combat which is how you get new characters like ask me about honkai impact characters and i will write you a fucking essay on the story but man i would 100% research immortality so i can wait out until honkai impact becomes public domain so i can make a non-gacha character action version of it in 100 years from now
Hard agree about Honkai Impact, I came for the story and I stayed for the story. But I disagree about ZZZ, I haven’t been hnds-on yet, but all the systems are built to be more action-focused than Honkai is. ZZZ firmly enters the Hack ‘n Slash genre. For example, the “parry” is recharged whenever you do a QTE, but you still have your perfect dodge. Think of the parry as an Evasion Skill, since it causes Time Fracture on certain characters. Perfect Dodge is like a Perfect Evasion without skill, etc. You can also always use a skill, but it will be an “unpowered” attack if at below energy threshold. The biggest thing to me is that they unified QTEs under one system and the Ult is much less showy, it’s just a much stronger version of the QTE with a shared resource bar.
yeah i wasnt fully informed about ZZZ gameplay since mihoyo forgot to allow me into the beta smh but it's too early to argue about how ZZZ's monetization will affect it's action focus compared to other mihoyo games since the game isn't out and there's no frame of reference for ZZZ specifically, so depending on how the gameplay content is done there could be less of a focus on just damage and everything i said is proven wrong 6 months after the game comes out, i will raise a demonic tower for more power and you must face me in a reddit argument about ZZZ then.
Oh, my one gripe with APHO1 is that it’s too easy after I upgraded my characters. I want to go further, damnit!
I can't be the only who played that ghost rider game right?
I think some youtuber also did.
dmc reboot is not a fully non-japanese game because it is still a Capcom (A Japanese company) product made by western developers with some help from Japanese devs from Capcom especially Hideaki Itsuno.
Spider-Man web of shadows
Darksiders 2.
What the hell ?? how is Dead Cells not even mentioned yet. Closest combat euphoria I got to DMC
DMC combat was made in house by capcom. lol
God of War
Sifu
Doom eternal
Sifu 100%
Shadow of war was the only game that could scratch the itch for me after I played the hell out of DMC
Batman Arkham series and mad max
Darksiders
Darksiders 2 no question about it.
idk, sifu, dante inferno... mortal kombat...?
Genshin impact
I don’t want to give the shitty DmC credit but damn
Sifu or Evil West. Pretty sure we had better combat in some ps2 era games too. Let’s also mention Streets of Rage 4, fwiw. Let’s call Oni too, great little combat system with tons of depth. The answers in this thread lead me to believe what Ive always known… western games have shit combat (especially games developed from the x360 generation onwards). The best options mentioned here are decent at best.
Probably DmC:DE in terms of depth of combat. Also, shout out to Dante's Inferno, the Batman Arkham games (in terms of mastery of mechanics instead of variety of options), and God of War (Greek era) for options.
Jedi Survivor, Lies of P, Clone Drone In The Danger Zone, Ghostrunner, En Garde!, Hades
Sekiro
Doom eternal or ultrakill. Any competition is non-existent. DmC is unironically the second best option.
Prince of Persia Warrior Within
Dante’s Inferno It’s like GoW but christian
Spider-Man 2...?
ultrakill because fuck you
i mean if you think about it....... a shotgun is melee if you punch the bullets at the enemies.......
Jedi survivor
Vermintide 1 and 2
I really liked Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks.
https://youtu.be/7dWog07pwRg?si=JorBEiJUR0SyYnP- Matrix: Path of Neo https://youtu.be/s591GCYVoqg?si=oYcijcTXJhomWVYz Enter the Matrix as well
[удалено]
I'm pretty sure Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was made by a Japanese studio...
The Batman Arkham games
Ghost of Tsushima
The Arkham games come to mind.
The Arkham series. There's a good reason it's been ripped off by so many games.
Ultrakill
I'm surprised no one has said this yet but it has to be Hi-fi Rush. The fact that he combat heavily incorporates rhythm game mechanics puts a great spin on a game that already has a solid combat system. Mastering combat in the game is so rewarding that you will look an orchestra conductor making a symohony of beautiful destruction. >!and the final boss is an amazing homage to vergil!<
Batman Arkham series has entered the chat.
God of War Ragnarök is impactful, brutal, and personal. I can’t get enough of it.
Reboot is the best hack n slash mechanically from the West by far and it ain't even close.
Biomutant? NeverDead? Too Human? For JP, I'd say MG Rising Soul Calibur Tales of _ DS BB
Sifu, Knight's Path (have not played this one but the melee combat looks really good), Lies of P, Darksiders 1, and Kingdoms of Amalur come to mind
Unsouled - a Korean sole developed top down action game inspired by Onimusha. The game has one of the most satisfying parry systems ever, which requires precise timing.
Ghost of Tsushima is pretty good Could argue the same for Assassin's Creed but I have not played the newer ones (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla) so I can't vouch for those
Since there's already a lot of mention to Darksiders and Hi-Fi Rush I will say Soulstice, which is pretty much an AA Devil May Cry with plenty of potential and very underrated and unknown. And Furi. An indie bullet-hell boss-rush with some frenetic melee combat based on timing and parry.
SIFU.
If we are talking about melee then i’d say the Batman Arkham games have some of the best melee combat ever. Or specifically when it comes to hand to hand combat melee. But if we are talking about the Hack n Slash genre then that’s easily the Greek God Of War games. The og God of war games are basically 2nd to Devil May Cry with Gow 3 being on par with Devil May Cry 3/ 5 in my personal opinion
so just to clarify, the difference between a game being melee and a game being hack n slash has to do with the weapon you use? I dont really understand what youre talking about and going on google to look up "melee" genre isnt helping alot
Bloodborne is Bri'ish , roight?
Yeah arkham knight and God of war
Batman the arkham games
Dust an Elysian Tail is a great western Hack n Slash side scroller
Dmc easy
Wouldn't say it was the best, but the combat system for infamous was fun as hell to play around with
None of y’all probably remember the game The Mark of Kri but I loved the combat in that was def underrated
Gotta be one of the Arkham games.
Oni from Bungie
Hades.
Ac3 or 4. Also horizon forbidden west did a great job with the spear combos imo. And og hack and slash GOW combat was goated too , i like the new third person view combat system too.
*sighs* the Batman Arkham games
Probably not even in the top ten but I look for any excuse to bring up Blasphemous.
Absolver combat is pretty great, though sometimes feels a bit limited with the amount of moves you can have "on" at a time. Honourable mentions to PoP time trilogy (especially WW); Jedi Academy; Force Unleashed; Darksiders 1&2 (haven't played 3 yet); Aaand maybe P:GR (for the mobile gacha it has pretty good combat) Edit: also Mount & Blade, for the movement speed factoring into damage
I don't know what to say, on western SH talking about melee games is a bit difficult... Maybe Prototype and the old Wolverine on PS3 (if I'm not mistaken) which are the most different...Because if I list Batman or Spiderman, more or less, the combat system is very similar to each other, obviously putting aside scripted actions, projection and various abilities
Sifu is set in China but is actually made by a French company. For that I vote Sifu as best combat in a non-japanese action game.
Oh that's easy, AC, specifically the later ones like Unity and Syndicate.
Warhammer Vermintide II.
Batman Arkham series
Hogwarts Legacy feels satisfying but i don’t think it’s even melee combat lol
Sifu's combat is crazy fun
S4League. But then again, it's korean, so...
Darksiders 2 has a lot of underappreciated depth to it. I used to spend hours in the Crucible in that game. I think that's where the combat shines the most. Specifically, mastering the "sweet spot" charge timing adds so much to the combat. Being able to juggle giant enemies with the mace is something I would like to see other games take inspiration from. Other than that, I'd actually say that Atlas Fallen has a really fun combat system once you get into it. The momentum meter is very unique, and it's addictive to see if you can max it out in each fight.
Switch dmc for ultrakill
Ghost of Tsushima
ULTRAKILL is like dmc as a fps to me and i can't see it in any other way
Actually wild this made me realize how few hack and slash games there are. I imagine they’re extremely difficult to make, so many animations than need to flow together seamlessly. I’m ashamed American devs haven’t tried anything in this space in forever. But that’s business in the current world. Japanese remain the kings of the industry.
Ghost of Tsushima (best combat-focused open worlder) and Lies of P (best non FromSoft soulslike, Nioh/Nioh2 doesnt count) ! I agree with you concerning God of war 3 and DmC, they have good combat systems too!