So to elaborate on the stance system and my initial concern with the "one-button combat", all of your attacks involve square. Hold square for a charge attack, press forward and square for an advance attack (gap closer) or jump and square for a plunge. No sprint attack. Hit square 4-5 times (or 1 with accessibility on) to do your combo, typically follow up with R1 and a face button for an martial skill (abilities), by this point enemy is gonna block or parry you most likely, so you need to hit triangle and get multiple consecutive parries (called Counterspark in game) to panic them, at which point the process repeats. Martial skills are mainly used as follow-ups after panicking an enemy to cause more Ki damage. Stances fall into one of 3 types: Ten, Chi, and Jin. The in-game descriptions are below. Ten is effective against katanas and other normal weapons / ineffective against sabers and other lightweight weapons. Chi is effective against odachis and other heavy weapons, ineffective against katanas and other normals weapons Jin is effective against sabers and other lightweight weapons, ineffective against odachis and other heavy weapons. Having the correct stance will cause more stagger/ki damage or less with the wrong stance. Because of this you don't really swap between stances to carry combo strings, or if you really want to you're swapping between Advantage/Neutral/Advantage. The main combat loop is spam square, parry until you cause panic, use a martial skill, repeat process. Expect to repeat this 4 to 5 times against bosses on hard, 3-4 on medium, and usually twice on easy. It's simple. For a casual audience this sounds great. If you're looking for advanced depth like the differences between light/medium/high in Nioh or even flashy follow-ups or weaving magic like in Wo Long you won't get it however. This is the core of my problems with the combat loop. It's simple and casual user friendly, but it's not what I expect in a Team Ninja game. In fact it's the opposite of what I expect in their games.
