For years now, I’ve parried parrying.Sekiro: Shadows Die Twiceasked me to learn to repel attacks, and I said, “No, thank you, sir,” and quit the game at Lady Butterfly. The Souls title I like the most is, not coincidentally,Bloodborne, where traditional parrying is replaced with shooting people with guns.
But this year, three of my favorite games have placed heavy emphasis on parrying. And, in two of the three, I’m surprisingly into it. And, I’d better be, because there’s no way forward without it.
But First, The One I Don’t Love
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get with the program inKingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which sucks because it’s my favorite game of the bunch. In this medieval RPG, the combat system fully revolves around tilting your sword in the right direction to block your opponents' attacks, and I just can’t get it right. No matter how much I swivel and pivot and wait for my chance to strike, I just end up running out of stamina and having to start all over again.
If you nail your timing, you can perfectly parry and do serious damage to your opponent. But, I’ve played a lot of, and still I can’t fight well enough to even win the practice fight that earns you the ability to perfect parry in the first place. I’m a lost cause… which is basically fine because the game does everything else so well that I don’t mind.
Challenging The “Turn-Based” Part Of “Turn-Based RPG”
In this year’s other parry-centric games, I enjoy the challenge.Clair Obscur: Expedition 33was easy to adjust as a fan of turn-based RPGs because it’s building on a long tradition in the genre. In games likethe Mario & Luigi series,South Park: The Stick of Truth, andSea of Stars, timing a button press correctly allows you to take reduced damage or even land a powerful hit on your opponent. Clair Obscur takes this idea much further than its predecessors, though, with a combat system where you absolutely cannot be victorious if you don’t learn to block.
So much so that it’s the big thing that’s slowing my progress. Each enemy has its own attack patterns and, mostly, that’s a good thing. Every fight is a rewarding learning experience because I repeatedly fail encounters at least once before I succeed. In most turn-based RPGs, learning a new fight is an intellectual exercise as you figure out which attack the enemy is weak against, which of your characters will have a solid chance of defeating them, and what their different skills do to your party. You need to learn all those things in Clair Obscur, too, but the parrying mechanic adds another layer on top of it, requiring that you master each monster’s unique timing across multiple attacks. In that way, each battle is a little like learning a new track inGuitar HeroorRock Band.
Doom Slayer The Block Purveyor
Doom: The Dark Ages, which invites you to “stand and fight,” but which really wants you to “move and parry,” is the easiest to get to grips with. Enemies behave in different ways, sure, but the attacks that you can return all glow bright green before they send them out. Helpfully, they’re not hit-scan, either, so you have time to react as the beam moves toward you from across the arena.
The game isn’t as acrobatic as its predecessor,Doom Eternal, but I ended up enjoying its slower, more methodical pace. You’re constantly watching your opponents, waiting for them to go for the parryable attack, and picking away at their health in the meantime. All the while, you’re keeping your head on a swivel so that no nasty beasty can get the jump on you. It’s a ton of fun and the rare game that had me wondering if I should play it through again on a higher difficulty setting to see all the mechanics have to offer.
Though this is the year I’ve learned to parry, there was one attack I was powerless to stop. I let the parry mechanics get in close, and they have landed a hit on my heart.
