Perfect Parry

It's a game-changer. What seems to be a very simple addition, transforms the game into something different.

After watching the players in the last two events, I noticed that some exchanges could be long and not interesting. Attacks and defenses are the keys to the game, but so are footsies, timing, and canceling. More players than I would like to see kept spamming attack after attack and even though, defending gives you the head start on the next attack, it was clear that it was enough to create interesting moments. The perfect parry comes to add a new strategy to attacking because defending is a lot more interesting now.

How does it work?

Now defending with perfect timing opens the opponent to a light attack.
The defense animation is now changed: It starts as usual, with some preparation frames, but then it shines and the weapon will flash a reflection. It's subtle but visible. That's the window of the perfect parry. After that, the defense continues normally, finishing the defense finally with some vulnerable frames.

Effects on the fighters:

The attacker that hits a perfect parry will play the strong reverb animation. So a long punishing animation.
The defender will continue their defense animation until the end like no attack was defended. Meaning the defender will have a bigger window to decide what to do next, going for an almost certain weak attack hit, preparing a strong attack, etc.

Duel Clash

This new feature added to the game now eliminates the double knockouts. Two Strikes duels are usually pretty fast and the DKOs instead of creating memorable moments like in most traditional fighting games with lengthier fights, were doing the opposite. To fix that and continue to build up tension in the duels, I've created the Duel Clashes.

How does it work?

Now, if the two players hit each other at the same time (0.1 seconds window after connecting attacks) the fight will stop for half a second (the cinematic effect will play) and then the fighters will be separated.

Effects on the fighters:

Now, the fighters don't take hits after being separated. They are pushed back the same distance and are ready to fight at the same time, once it finishes.

Character Voice Overs

Yes! I am adding voice-over to the characters in-game. For now, only our beloved Kenji has it. I want your opinion on it! Tell me what you think in the comments. The voice actor for Kenji is no other than Sora the Troll, a very famous Japanese YouTuber. Go check his channel, he is pretty funny.
Kenji attacks also have names, now. Can you guess what he says?

General Changes

• Kenji, Tomoe, Goemon, and Ayai defense animations have more vulnerable frames at the end to avoid defense spamming, making them a little bit longer. Since defending got buffed, I didn't want players abusing the defense as well.
  
• The game's beautiful songs can now be played more and without being interrupted so many times. The game over or won matches will not reset the songs any longer.
  
• New sound effects for when slashing the enemy and a super new cool sound effect for the final death. Much more impactful.
  
• New sound effects for perfect parry and duel slashes.
  

Bug fixes

To begin with, I would like to thank all the players sending bugs on our discord channel, you are key to the development of this game.

• The oldest bug in the game was finally fixed. When defending, sometimes you could get hit as well, at the beginning or the end of the active defense. It took me years to finally squash this one. I thank you for all your patience.
  
  
• Ayai was missing a frame after being defended, which made her disappear for a millisecond.
  
• Some scenarios were not filling the screen entirely, leading to some weird effects. You shouldn't see this anymore.
  
• Song overlapping and looping were stopping for 1s and sometimes not restarting. Now the music transitions are seamless.
  

Game Balancing

This was pushed to next week.

Why I didn't release Yasuke in April?

Well, I'm sorry about it, but with that many changes, it was impossible to work on him too much this month of April. Also, with the new perfect parry mechanic, his design became a little bit stale and needs some rework, but don't worry! He will be released for sure at the end of May.