Combat is the star. Foes carry a sha-chi gauge, essentially a stamina or stagger meter, and draining it opens a window to unload your best combos on a vulnerable health bar. Red-glowing attacks call for a perfect dodge, blue ones for a parry, and black-flashed moves should simply be avoided. You carry two weapons at once, each with its own moveset, and swapping between them charges a combination attack that can catch even full-sha-chi enemies off guard.

The bosses earn particular praise. Each fights in a completely unique way, from wire-fu-style nimble warriors gliding around the arena to armoured brutes whose recovery animations are themselves attacks, complete with hitboxes on the act of lifting a mace back up. The game is also surprisingly forgiving: multi-phase boss fights do not force you to repeat a phase you have already cleared.

The main complaint is that combat is so fast that single parries become impractical. One button press deflects a whole barrage of incoming strikes, which the reviewer says sometimes reduced encounters to mashing the parry button and hoping, rather than nailing timing. Even so, it still worked.