Tips for new players!

[Catbus]

Sorry for the length. I guess I could submit this as a game guide or something. Other Rising veterans, feel free to correct me. Anyways.

1. Play on Hard! - Yes, I know that sounds like a terrible idea, but if you consider yourself an adept gamer in any way, normal will be disappointingly easy, and when you go for a second playthrough on hard with all your upgraded equipment it'll be yet another cake walk. Start on hard and there's much more satisfaction coming your way.

2. Parry! Block! - Right away you are gifted with the ability to block incoming attacks by tapping the light attack button (X on a 360 pad) and flicking the left stick. If your timing is spot on you will perform a parry move which deals some damage, slows time, stuns your enemy, and sets them up to be cut to shreds. Most of the time this will also an optional button prompt will appear that will trigger some fancy animation. Neat. If your timing isn't so great, you'll block an incoming attack, but if the enemy is coming at you with a flurry of attacks, you'll have to repeat the blocking motion.

3. Dodge!...? - If dodging is more your style, or you'd like to mix some dodging in with your blocking/parrying, there's a move available for purchase after the prologue chapter called 'defensive offensive'. This move involves hitting light attack and jump at the same time, plus the direction you want to dodge to. Dodging grants you a split second of invincibility, allowing you to pass through attacks and wind up in a good position to strike.

4. Zandatsu - You don't need to perform a zandatsu (exposing their spine and hitting B) on every single enemy. During ranked fights (fights that give you a rank at the end) there will be a certain number of zandatsus you'll need to perform to get the most points, but doing more than that won't do much good. There are also a decent amount of areas with enemies where you simply aren't ranked, so there's no need to zandatsu there either, unless you need to fill up on fuel/health.

5. Don't get hit - The easiest way to boost your score/rank is by not getting hit. Getting grazed by even one stray bullet can rob you of the 'no damage' bonus. If you're going for an S, you can pause and restart from the beginning of the fight at this point and not be penalized. However, it's usually still possible to get an S, even if you get hit. This requires you to get the maximum number of points possible from all the things you are scored on. You'll need to work quickly, pull off a bunch of zandatsus, keep your hit combo high, and get a decent amount of BP (either through cleanly dismembering your human opponents, or collecting pickups off the ground that convert to BP if you're carrying the maximum amount of that item). You could also go the 'non-lethal' route but this requires unlocking the wooden sword, and I'm not going to get into that here.

6. Cheat items - If you'd like to experience this game the way it was meant to be, stay away from any of the 'wig' items, and the 'fox blade'. They break the game. So. Save them for later playthroughs if you must. You have better things to spend your BP on anyways.

7. Hidden mechanics - There are a few things the game doesn't outright explain. Things that are worth knowing.

7a. Dodge offset - dodging during a string of attacks doesn't force you to start at the beginning of that string, allowing you to pick up where you left off. There's a combo that goes 'Y Y X X Y'. If you perform a dodge after inputting 'Y Y', when you hit 'X' after the dodge you'll be doing the attack for 'Y Y X', you can then follow up with the rest of the string, or another dodge. Sounds complicated, but it's something you'll probably notice on your own. Here's a video of the mechanic in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ2jSwamiCo

7b. Walking in Blade Mode - This isn't a big deal but... have you gone into blade mode just to see an enemy jump backwards? Click in the left stick while in blade mode and tilt it forward. Time will still be slowed, and Raiden will be walking forward, putting you back in range for a precision slice! Like I said, not a big deal, probably something you could go without knowing, but it's there. Just keep in mind that you can't move while Raiden is making a cut in blade mode, so it may feel sort of clunky. Here's a video of this mechanic in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIPGgRYDPas

7c. Dodge cancel - You can input the dodge command (A+X) and immediately afterwards input the block command (X + flicking the stick). This will give you a brief period of invincibility followed by either a block or a parry, depending on your timing. Pretty tricky to pull off, but it can be done, so I'm mentioning it here. You can see this mechanic in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuGtRU1A7G8

8. RULES OF NATURE!

[Yesiamaduck]

'Play on Hard'

NO WAY HOESAY I got killed by dem giant robot chicken cow things on medium

[SimonG]

Thanks! Those were helpful. Currently I suck at parrying and normal is enough for me ;-).

[Haros]

pfft. medium is too much for me and I can't seem to NOT get hit every single dude. Also... " Zandatsu" was mentioned, but not explained how to do it.... atleast not where I am at the robo dog boss.

[AlucarD]

is there a harder mode than hard after you finished the game ? Like in NGB the Master Ninja difficulty :D that one was freakin brutal....

[Bravesou1]

Nice video for you

[Catbus]

Originally posted by Cheesecake:

pfft. medium is too much for me and I can't seem to NOT get hit every single dude. Also... " Zandatsu" was mentioned, but not explained how to do it.... atleast not where I am at the robo dog boss.

You can't perform a zandatsu on Blade Wolf. To perform a zandatsu, hold the left trigger (going with 360 controller inputs since I'm not familiar with the keyboard and mouse controls yet) to enter blade mode. You'll notice a small box in the center of the enemy. Line up a slice using the left and right thumbsticks. You can either cut by moving the left thumbstick around the adjust the angle, then 'release' the stick and let it return to the center, or you can hit either X (horizontal cut) or Y (vertical cut). Then a prompt will appear, hit B (or whatever).

[Catbus]

Originally posted by AlucarD >:):

is there a harder mode than hard after you finished the game ? Like in NGB the Master Ninja difficulty :D that one was freakin brutal....

After hard there is Very Hard, which mixes up the enemies you face, shortens the parry window, and some other things. It doesn't just buff the enemies or make you weak. Enemy AI is more aggressive with their attacks.

Then there's Revengeance. Very easy to die, parry window is even tighter but if you manage to pull one off it does a huge amount of damage. So if you have great timing, in a way Revengeance might be a bit easier than Very Hard.

Anyways, its totally worthwhile to play this game three times. Hard -> Very Hard -> Revengeance is a very satisfying progression.

[Dead Dragon]

Normal is fine for me thanks and I'm not even new to this game or the genre. I would suggest playing whatever difficulty you want because you cannot switch the difficuly once you've started.

[Catbus]

Originally posted by Dead Dragon:

Normal is fine for me thanks and I'm not even new to this game or the genre. I would suggest playing whatever difficulty you want because you cannot switch the difficuly once you've started.

Was just making a suggestion. To me, normal is pitifully easy. It's impossible to fail.

[Dead Dragon]

Wait nvm you can chapter select the difficulty. Impossible to fail no not quite. Not hair pullingly difficult either. Just the way I like it :p

[Catbus]

Originally posted by Dead Dragon:

Wait nvm you can chapter select the difficulty. Impossible to fail no not quite. Not hair pullingly difficult either. Just the way I like it :p

When you have 5 (10 if you're wearing the white armor) medical gels in stock, yeah. Pretty impossible to actually get a game over screen. But I'm not going to argue it further, it was just a friendly suggestion

[Down8]

Good post

[Catbus]

I've also submitted this as a guide. I may expand on it/improve it later.

[Toast Father]

Originally posted by Catbus!:

1. Play on Hard! - Yes, I know that sounds like a terrible idea, but if you consider yourself an adept gamer in any way, normal will be disappointingly easy, and when you go for a second playthrough on hard with all your upgraded equipment it'll be yet another cake walk. Start on hard and there's much more satisfaction coming your way.

Yeah, as if I went looking for tutorials to figure out how to get my ass kicked harder.

[Quattro Bacheema]

oi mate this is steam, the least you could do is add pc controls