boss fight to walk away and go looking for some lowlevel goons who could just about hold a sword by the blunt end fallen dynasty does have a level structure and its all technically linear if a little sprawling and mazelike at times so i retraced my steps and just spent some time honing my slicing arm on enemies who aspired to be as threatening as baby ottersthis exercise was less about training muscle memory or farming for xp as it was about understanding what the game actually wanted from me the tutorial had been no use for explaining any concept more complex than stabbing is good so i carefully experimented on the poor schlubs nearby seeing what actions got a positive response from the ui and discovered through trial and error that there are actually some very clever ideas here its just the game has no idea how to convey them its a parryfocused soulslike meleeengine where spirit aka stamina can actually be improved by landing hits and counters successfully so rather than flailing and dodge rolling constantly youll have a much better chance of success if you carefully pick your moment to retaliate when done right you can deflect a sequence of spear strikes in rapid succession decimating the enemys spirit and boosting your own enough to perform a deadly finisherimage credit koei tecmorelatedhow team ninja drew inspiration for its bastard hard boss battles from the history booksand in the moment it feels pretty sweet admittedly the overlybusy animations and ui can make reading enemy movements tricky again this game has a real issue with presenting poorly but getting the counters right does feel undeniably satisfying especially when you can hack limbs and horns off certain foes in the process next time a spiky tentacle went for me i simply vaulted over it severing it at the shoulder with a flash of steel along the waymore elements began to demystify over time all players and enemies have levels as per usual but you can earn temporary bonus levels on top of those simply by pulling off difficult attacks and combos never having to spend xp to do so likewise getting utterly humiliated in battle can take those bonus levels away from you so it means fighting well in the runup to a boss can leave you with a little extra panache to press against them and if you can play especially well in the boss fight itself it drains levels from them as a reward making the rest of the brawl easier is it me or is all this actually quite solid designrise and fallimage credit koei tecmoi went back to the twostage tyrant whod abused me before feeling flush with confidence and got creamed against the menhir again but this time it was only because it was a hard boss not because i didnt understand what i was supposed to do and after a few more attempts i eventually emerged the victor suddenly