My personal issues with Perfect Guard.

[Series_oc]

Let's get this done with..

1. Timing. Probably the simplest one, but also seeing tons of different 'tips'. It seems like the attack animations (With the enemies having weird, robotic animations) is mostly the cause for having trouble figuring out the patterns. Still, it feels like just pressing the buttonn 0.1 seconds late/early will fail it.

2. Damage/reward. This is the damage taken considering the damage given. I'll be using two games that this game is drawing inspiration from to explain.
First, Darksouls 3 parry: I haven't used this much (Either not being required or straight impossible with my build.), but the times I've played with it show me that you only need 1 perfect parry, and in return you do a good chunk of damage even with dex weapons. In return, you either lose some health or die depending on your build.

Sekiro Parry: The game is built on this, and most parries are fluid. You can follow pretty well. If you fail, you lose stamina and/or health. You can die quickly from repeat failing, but you have minimum one revive as well as healing. And, with exceptions, most bosses only need to be staggered 1-2 times.

P: You're parry keeps your health and durability from falling, but failing and you lose a chunk of health and that durability. If you guard through an attack, you lose less health and get some recoverable health. But, if you miss a guard, you lose a fat chunk of health and that recover bar. If you perfect enough, the enemy doesn't stagger. You have to time a fully charged heavy for it too stagger, THEN you can take some of the boss health, a meager amount. (Using Dex weaponry, this amount is almost nothing compared to just bonking.)

3. Requirement: How much this game requires you to use this.
Darksouls 3: Never in my experience have I been required to use the parry. It's an optionable attack in a game that gives you many options to kill with. None of the bosses I've faced (All but the wolf guard) have required it.

Sekiro: Literally the point of the game. You can use the basic attack on bosses, but that requires more skill than learning to parry. They also give you options with the parry, such as the funny stab and tools to help you gain distance and recoup.

P: Yes but also no? This game sits in the middle, but doing so undermines how important the parry should be according to the game. They give you a warning that some attacks can only be perfect parried, but you can still just out range them. They also don't mention reflecting with it (I think at least). See, you can perfect parry, but the game gives you dodge, expects you to attack, and keep up your weapon durability. Still, there's almost never a point where the game requires you to master it until a specific point, instead you can fight, spam consumables, dodge, and/or summon helpers. That last part is my biggest oof in my eyes.
Darksouls also has summons, but it doesn't make learning the moveset in such high regard (For parrying purposes). Sekrio doesn't, as you NEED to learn how these bosses move in order to defeat them.
P tries to play it both ways, but by doing that it removes the need to learn how to parry correctly until it's too late.

Now let me dump my thoughts for a second on P personally.
One of my other gripes with it is that the damage in P is just too high to learn perfect parry when you have other options in the game. Failing a parry but block, you get some health down. Hold guard in a combo after failing, you lose a good chunk of health and durability. Try to dodge out and you have a big chance of being hit regardless and losing a lot more health AND the recoverable health. That's if you hold guard, instead of attempting another parry or just not blocking in time.

It's not poorly made, it's just not in the right game. You aren't ever forced to learn it until the end, and at that point your fighting style has been ingrained in your head. Where this becomes a massive issue is the last few bosses, mostly 2. Funny shock girl and G's love child.

Lightning girl's second phase has attacks you can parry back at them, and learning how to do so helps a lot in this fight. That's mostly it, as you still get a summon.

G's love child, sadly, doesn't work as well.
Second phase specifically, it becomes a Sekiro boss in a Souls Game, probably because Demon of Hatred took its place. Again, this wouldn't be an issue if the game didn't give you plenty of other options of how to face the game, options that become almost meaningless at the end. It's not good game design, and why I think the Perfect Parry doesn't work well in P. Boost the damage of stagger attacks, or slightly open the timing and it'll make it feel better, but it still feels like a main game mechanic added in at 3/4th of development.

In Regards,
-Me and my split personalities.

[Malecite]

The parry sucks.

Plain and simple.

I just came from finishing Sekiro and the Ishin fight is challenging but fair.

This game?

Let's have a boss with no telegraphs attack you 8-10 times in succession with a parry mechanic that seems to be less about reaction and more about just rote memorization. Looking at you walker of illusion.

Honestly I don't get what they wanted here. You want to force people to parry but instead of being frame perfect it's gimped and frustrating to use.

I can beat most Sekiro bosses with no damage taken and yet in this title it feels like half the time the parry is working and half the time the delay causes it to fail.

[Photon Shield]

Personally, when I played SIFU, I can relate with you on "I often opt for dodge (and the game let me), but on the final boss I had a rough time because I can't really use parry well; I have to in order to beat the boss." Now, sifu is a souls "sekiro" like which the parry is the core mechanic, but somehow let me off with dodge almost all the time? Turns out, if you want to really "beat" the game, you have to dominantly use parry on all the bosses.

Back to LoP, does it have a compelling reason to use the parry? Later, the game does offer power ups that lets you regain health (which normally only by attack) or restore weapon durability by parrying. But nah, I can't really say "That's why you should learn to parry!" just by that reason; and I can't think of any other reason. Ultimately, you can still dodge all day long.

So, I think the parry mechanic is implemented to this game because it's becoming more and more ubiquitous to have parry on action game. I can look at my game library (action genre) and see that most of them have parry while I can't say I used it often in those games. But to be fair, it's better to have more than less imo.

[MundM]

My god, so much text... the parry is fine. This isn't Sekiro. Stop demanding this game plays like another game, when it clearly does its own thing! Do you want just plain copies of existing games, or what?

Boot up the game, take the new Glaive weapon, and have a blast! Stop being overly critical about such minor things that are just personal issues for your playstyle!

[Suguru]

Decided to give this game another go on gamepass, since Wo Long update, met the first boss again. Summoned companion, coz I'm tired of this game "difficulty" (XDDD), went for it. Glaive is pleasant weapon, so I decided to attack from a bit far away, coz you know... glaive is long.

NPC started aggroing boss, so I went for his back. ALL THE SWINGS MISSED, COZ THEY FORGOT TO IMPLEMENT HITBOXES ON THE BOSS LEGS.

10/10 game of the century!!!111

Honestly, I'm gonna give this game up for the last time, as beating bosses is as unrewarding as taking a ♥♥♥♥.

Or might as well open WeMod and finish it, but for what purpose? I'd rather beat Sekiro for the 10th time.

[Series_oc]

Originally posted by MundM:

My god, so much text... the parry is fine. This isn't Sekiro. Stop demanding this game plays like another game, when it clearly does its own thing! Do you want just plain copies of existing games, or what?

Boot up the game, take the new Glaive weapon, and have a blast! Stop being overly critical about such minor things that are just personal issues for your playstyle!

And thank you for being a great example of a person who can't accept other's opinions, while completely ignoring the main point of what I tried to say.

By comparing the game, I can use them as examples of how other games use this mechanic. Like I had said, this game's style of parry is a mix between the two games I had as an example, yet lacking the better features of both.

And I don't think I've implied I wished this game was like every other soulslike, just that this parry mechanic didn't fit with the way it is. The excuse that you shouldn't share your opinion because it's only yours is also benign, excluding that I am not the only one with this opinion.

Regardless, I enjoy most other aspects of the game, its that the game allows you to have a vary playing style, but that the game doesn't put emphasis on how important Parry is and that ends up blocking almost any other way of beating the final few bosses.

I can't have a blast with the game if the way I play and have allowed to be played is moot before I can beat it, no offense.

[Ashenran]

* eat pop corns will baby's are crying * aaaa woke nowdays :p

[𝙷𝚘𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊]

Both dodging and parrying in this game are just poor imitations of BB and Sekiro mechanics. That's a fact.

[Series_oc]

Originally posted by Ashenran:

* eat pop corns will baby's are crying * aaaa woke nowdays :p

...whar?

[Elymnir]

While parry timing is indeed tight, it's quite okay in fact. The janky, puppetty animations also work, even though I agree it's sometimes hard to decipher. The only thing ruining the whole equilibrium is that enemies hit directly at frame 1 instead of hitting when the attack actually reaches you.
The game was already more momery-based than reaction based, so you can adjust your timing, but it does make it a bit unfair. Especially when facing Nameless Puppet.

[Series_oc]

Originally posted by Elymnir:

While parry timing is indeed tight, it's quite okay in fact. The janky, puppetty animations also work, even though I agree it's sometimes hard to decipher. The only thing ruining the whole equilibrium is that enemies hit directly at frame 1 instead of hitting when the attack actually reaches you.
The game was already more momery-based than reaction based, so you can adjust your timing, but it does make it a bit unfair. Especially when facing Nameless Puppet.

Worst is that im way more of a reactionary fighter than a memorizinger

[Gunaraj]

Well yes, everything about the parry is bad in this game, it's my only complaint, and dodging is not very good either, even so the game is fantastic, I wish they could improve the parry.

[enigma]

git gud or uninstall.

[Kashiro]

I just finished the game beating the nameless puppet with a heavy blunt weapon. I went full heavy. I found NP to be quite easy once you learn it's movement. It was way easier for me than Laxasia.

Ignoring how many enemies have spring-like movement (heide knights from DS 2 would be proud) perfect guards on freshly met enemies is mostly impossible. You need to take that hit and learn the combos if you expect to take no damage.

What i embraced is taking damage through guarding. It's not Sekiro and you aren't meant (imho) to go unscathed. Once i knew enemy moves i could perfect guard maybe one or two moves in a combo and the rest i had to take on the guard counter regain. This quickly breaks enemies opening them for a fatal attack.

[Chacheya1G]

The perfect guard is much better and much more rewarding than the deflect in Sekiro, and subsequently requires more skill to use. You can LITERALLY perfect guard anything an enemy can do, there are no exceptions. With a good P-Organ build, it can stagger enemies, it can refill your guard regain instantly and much more. It is incredibly rewarding to pull off, and both visual and sound design are immaculate.
The mistake the game does, is that it doesn't force you to use it for 90% of the duration, so people just drag themselves to the final 3 bosses without learning how to use it, and then come to the forums to cry about it's "flaws".
Otherwise the guard/perfect guard mechanic is so good and ubiquitously implemented, it alone puts Lies of P head and shoulders above disappointing games like Elden Ring.

[ExWhiteWolf]

Originally posted by Chacheya1G:

The mistake the game does, is that it doesn't force you to use it for 90% of the duration, so people just drag themselves to the final 3 bosses without learning how to use it, and then come to the forums to cry about it's "flaws".
Otherwise the guard/perfect guard mechanic is so good and ubiquitously implemented, it alone puts Lies of P head and shoulders above disappointing games like Elden Ring.

I agree with you 100%. I dodged the whole game. I got to Laxasia and was completely man handled. Didn't know what to do. Looked up tutorials and used a cheese build for her and Simon. But then got to Nameless Puppet and couldn't do anything. Every build said to throw things and I just couldn't see how that would work after trying it. Different video said guard and parry. Started doing that and after several tries got it. Now I'm at NG+2 and perfect parry is easy.

I wish they forced us to guard and parry more. And I think they tried with a few of the mini boss mobs in tight rooms. But when dodging and running is still possible I don't think it works.