I just can't get my head around the confusing combat mechanics. This is from someone who loved the first game and played through it on the hardest setting.
I have just defeated the second boss in the factory. But I'm struggling to figure out how to power my blue sword or keep it powered or even be able to use it!
The game doesn't always let me use my blue sword but I don't really know why? You need to have the red meter charged up some right? But how do you get it higher? What makes it go up and down? The tutorial told me once but theres no way to check all this info again.
Sometimes the red meter goes up by itself other times it only goes up when I suck in those red orb thingies floating around after I kill a enemy (which also are confusing because I don't really know what they are for either?).
There are so many button combinations to select different abilities and weapons and different combinations of moves depending on what you have equipped its all a bit too obtuse and fiddly for a action game.
The focus meter goes up when you use unique combat moves, and it goes down 1) when you take a single hit, or 2) if you don't hit anyone for a while. Sometimes it'll go down when you feed on someone too.
So the trick is to find moves that will rapidly increase the focus gauge, and then to not take any hits. Once the focus gauge is full, any attacks will spit out red orbs. So, using some of the weaker, wide range attacks on several enemies will spit out a ton of orbs.
I've found that counter works really well at rapidly filling the focus gauge. It seems to be worth a lot of points. Usually one successful counter with the follow up hits, and then one or two more attacks of some kind other than standard attack, and it'll fill up.
It can definitely be tricky.
One thing that really takes a while to get used to is that the dodge doesn't really grant you any safety or invincibility. And the enemies track your movements extremely well. So if you dodge too early, they often will completely track you and hit you.
The other thing that threw me off for a while was thinking that attacks were unblockable, even if they weren't. For example, the shotgun enemies were destroying me until I stopped to block their shots when they reloaded.
Another tip is that the somersault attack is huge in this game compared to the first. There are so many more enemies with shields or armor, and if you don't have any chaos that is basically the only way to hit them besides counters.
There are also a ton more enemies that require a "guard break" now, even without shields. The move where you hold square down, then hit it a few times is now much, much more useful. It's useful with all 3 weapons.
