What's up with the janky combat in this one? The previous games were all pretty smooth/fluid but this feels a bit awkward. I hope it'll be improved. Not just the sliding past enemies and the randomly only punching once instead of using the combo that's the issue. Enemies being able to permanently lock you down with gunfire from a mile away is fucked. Worst balanced game by him so far, I hope the combat is largely a wip. Last game you could deal with bullets way better. You may have been a bit overpowered in the previous game (Hounds of Blade), but this went a step too far in the other direction.
Spamming jump kicks and hoping you don't land when an enemy is opening fire on or attacking you is all you can do against some enemies here. Why even give us floor combos when they'll just get you killed against most enemies. The auto zoom during combat should really chill out too, either less zoom or just turned off by default. You need to see ranged enemies at all times to avoid getting your ass shot.
Right now this game feels like the first time the dev has tried a melee only fighter like this against ranged enemies, but it's clearly not his first time since Hounds of Blade exists obviously. It's like he regressed a bit. Seems he went a bit overboard with the nerfs, slowing the player down and making them less tanky/able to deal with bullets creates a really terrible combo. Shoulda gone with one or the other or made the changes lesser.
It's still playable, but I feel like I'm fighting the controls and the awkward balance more than the enemies. Only reason you'll get hit by melee enemies right now is if you accidentally slide past them for example. Melee enemies could also use some special attacks, like they temporarily become immune to knockback and lunge at you, forcing you to dodge or block or something. I haven't seen anything from him like the dogs in Nanocrisis in a long time, now those were good melee enemies. The way they charged at you from out of screen and could lunge at you and stuff kept you on your toes. Not sure you could even do that as well here since the MC has no ranged attacks. I miss that thrill from his games.
Basically tldr: Ranged enemies too strong, melee enemies too weak, lol.
Combat is actually fine, just poorly explained.
You should be holding the attacking button instead of mashing it. If you hold the attack button she will always do her full combo. You can also turn where she's facing for the final attack of her combo, so if you slide past an enemy mid-combo you can still hit them.
Ranged enemies are meant to be blocked. Rena has a Guard button, use it. Guard allows you to close in on ranged enemies, when they dash away is when you dash in to close in on them and then you can full combo them to death. Also if you stick close to enemies (and not have one flank you), then ranged enemies can't attack as friendly fire exists.
While Hounds of the Blade was mostly spam dash attack to win, this combat tries for a hit-and-run mechanic. You dash in, do your combo, back away to avoid counters if they're all grouped together (or the enemy will back away from you), then close in again.
All the while conserving your suit's energy, as once it's 0 it's basically game over (though if you're fighting melee enemies you can jump attack cheese).
I know combat can feel bad at first, I definitely thought it was unresponsive as heck. But once I got used to holding the attack button, I kinda prefer it to Hounds of the Blade in the sense that I'm actually using most of my moves.
tldr: hold the attack button