Executioner

Cool aesthetics and animations, although a few feel a bit clunky (not taken alone, but in relationship to the other fighter’s sprite or to the ground, it’s probably just some sync / root motion stuff). Are they hand-made based on martial arts move pictures? Impressive variation of moves, especially the low, mid, high and back kicks!

Nice cinematics between boss phases too. However for the 1st two bosses it was almost the only time they “hit” me, see game design feedback below.

Game design issues:

• too easy to chain stun the first 2 bosses by spamming punches or kicks, or a combination of both. 3rd boss starts getting interesting, but then it was a bit late to learn proper counters, so it became all hit-or-miss (since there is no low/high guard system, either just guard and get grabbed, or block and chain counter attack from there). Enemy grab doesn’t seem to have a startup lag (or a very short one) so there’s not much do dodge it. Also, fighters sometimes overlap in position (hitting doesn’t push them back enough, and there is no forced collider separation when both fighters reach the edge of the arena as in Street Fighter, etc.), so it becomes hard to see what the opponent is doing (esp. with silhouettes). So in the end there are many moves and animations but not enough incentive to use them all depending on the situation.
• all stat gauges start full therefore there is no point in exchanging stats (unless you lost many HP)
• speed affects ALL animations (but not gravity), resulting in ridiculous moves at very low speed. It’s still possible to beat the first bosses (but very slowly), but it must be too tough to beat the last one. That said, since it’s stats exchange, it’s the player choice to sacrifice such an important stat (but I’d rather have it affect walk speed and roll distance only - or only slightly attack speed). Anyway, it does look really funny to watch though, and could be like the ultimate challenge to fight at low speed. Since gravity is preserved, air attacks end up with character sliding on the ground and finishing the attack as if still airborne

Suggestions:

• tutorial: demonstrate block by making AI opponent auto-attack