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Why Are Modern Games Obsessed With Parrying? | Semi-Ramblomatic
🕑 Added 2025-05-29 15:35:09 +0000 UTCThis week's episode of Semi-Ramblomatic is now available!
Comments
Swift Justice
Combat style as characterisation is a key thing that's underrated; Yahtzee's mentioned before about not being into fighting games but appreciating them as a spectator sport, and absolutely right that they lend themselves to colourful, lively characters whose characterisation is in how they move, act and fight even more than what they say and do in whatever passes for the story. There's probably material for its own video in that; the Yakuza games alone have a lot of fun examples, and IMO in some ways do a decent job presenting fighting skills as something that needs to be developed and maintained, with the protagonists actively learning from various sources in some games to develop particular styles and skills. And it probably does say something that the big game to popularise parrying is Arkham Asylum, where a major part of the appeal is that you're not just literally playing The Goddamn Batman, but the way he moves and fights makes you really feel like it. That is, an incredibly skilled and experienced combatant taking on larger numbers of usually far less skilled foes, with a fighting style built around turning the tables on them. You can't just transpose that moveset onto a different character without having to justify it, at least not without feeling out of nowhere.
Swift Justice
Nah, probably a definition of QTEs is they are specifically scripted moments with no alternatives, while parrying is a reaction you choose to do in the middle of standard gameplay and usually one of a set of options you have.
Ando
Lightsabers are the ultimate parry tools (though I can't right now remember whether any of the JK games required a timed button press or whether just just had to have the saber equipped).
Jason Youngberg
Aren't parries just a form of QTE?
David C
No Yahtzee, they did not add a parry mechanic to the Silent Hill 2 Remake. There is dodging, but no parrying. I just finished the game myself, so it's fresh in my mind.
William Alexander
This was a fun semi-sequel to the rogue-like discussion from a few months back.
Mr.and.Mrs.Monarch
Alien versus Predator allowed human soldiers to parry Aliens and Predators. Yeah that would not work, I feel like.
Major Ward
First place my mind went was Prince of Persia, too. I recall playing it on my 286 back when I was small…I don’t want to think about how long ago that is.
Tim Wilson
It was something I appreciated to a degree in Like A Dragon. Yeah, pressing a button at the right time reduces damage and knockdown/some status but A: it was pretty hard to do it consistently and B: never essential and didn’t actually nullify damage. Enemies would still splatter you into paste in short order if all you did was try to block and neglected everything else.
Jeremy
oh i suck at it too! haha
Jeremy
Gotta admit, I for one am sick of all the damn parrying in games these days
Insomnia Inc
I hate the trend, but that could be cause I'm terrible at the mechanic. might have had a coniption trying to wrap my head around the combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
