Combat System

Fights are decided on the bar under your health, not on the health bar. Five resources move every second, and every attack is either plain or lit. Read the light, spend the right bar, and most encounters stop being hard.

The five resources you are managing

1. Health. Memory Flowers raise the cap by 10% each. Nothing in the loop restores it for free, so potion bottles carry the load.
2. Sha-Chi. Your main gauge. Sha-Chi amber raises the cap by 10% each. It drains while you hold guard stance, while you throw Sha-Chi attacks, and when you eat a hit. Stop spending for a beat and it refills on its own.
3. Sha-chi Essence. Drain an enemy’s Sha-Chi gauge to full and you bank 1 point. Weapon ultimates are paid out of it, and each weapon asks for a different amount. During the swing you gain armor and interrupt most enemy actions.
4. Remnant Sparks. Phantom Edge ammunition. Kills have a chance to drop them, so Phantom Edges stay a burst tool rather than a second weapon.
5. Potion bottle charges. You carry 2 potion bottles at a time. Mob kills can refund a charge, which rewards clearing trash instead of running past it.

Slot pressure is the other half of the loadout. Two blades, six accessories. The accessories sit still; the blades do not, because every one of them carries its own numbers, its own breaker value, its own finisher and its own kill animation. That is why the swap matters more than the stat line.

Three flash colors, three different answers

The light over an incoming attack is the whole quiz. Block the wrong color and you lose the bar; dodge the wrong color and you lose health.

Ghost Step is what the game gives you for a correct read on blue-light or red-light. You blink behind the attacker, their guard is off, and your next hits land clean. Treat it as the reward, not the plan: it only exists if the read was correct.

Black mist is the odd one. Blocking it drains your bar to a sliver — enough to survive, not enough to keep playing. Until a parry payoff is confirmed, spend a dodge on it.

How a guard break happens

A guard break is not a damage threshold. It is a bar reaching empty, on either side of the fight.

1. Chip the enemy gauge. Only three inputs do it: Sha-Chi attacks, parries, and the small chip that guard stance generates while you hold block.
2. Empty it. Their guard drops, they stagger long, and every hit in that window lands for extra damage.
3. Watch your own gauge. Yours breaks by the same rule, and while it is broken you cannot enter guard stance or fire a Sha-Chi attack.
4. Fix it with a swap. Changing primary weapons instantly clears your guard break, refills the gauge, and puts the swapped-out blade on cooldown.
5. Chase it. After a parry on a blue-light, a dodge on a red-light, an emptied gauge, or a kill, your next Sha-Chi attack lunges you into the target. That is the follow-up hit a break is for.

Point 4 is the one players skip. A second weapon is not extra damage; it is a free escape from the worst state in the game.

Your first two hours

Spend the tutorial area on mechanics, not on clearing it.

1. Parry plain attacks until the timing stops feeling like a guess. Ten clean reps on the same enemy type.
2. Move to blue-light attacks. Do not hold guard stance through them; parry them.
3. Learn red-lights last, and dodge late. They track, so an early dodge lands you back inside the hitbox.
4. Bind weapon swap into your defensive muscle memory before the first real boss.
5. Only then start holding guard stance, and only to buy time while your gauge can afford it.

Where deaths come from

Park these for later

• The 32-ability tree. Three rows of 8 plus two rows of 4, no branches. It resets for free with a full refund, so a wrong pick costs you nothing.
• Phantom Edge counters. Some break heavy shields, some punish specific enemies. They matter on the second pass, not the first.
• Crowd choreography. Empty a mob’s Sha-Chi gauge with a main-weapon combo while other enemies are close, and the game plays a scripted multi-kill; you stay invincible through it. Strong, but you cannot plan a run around it.
• Execution and stealth. Low-health enemies and some bosses can be executed; crouching behind mobs does the same job. Both are shortcuts, not the core loop.

FAQ

Is a parry the same as a precise block? Yes. One timed block, two names. This site uses parry.

Does dodging cost Sha-Chi? No, and it does not touch the enemy bar either. Dodging is free but gains you nothing beyond survival.

Can I dodge everything on repeat? No. Invincibility frames have gaps between them, so mashing dodge loses to fast strings.

What do I do when both weapons are on cooldown? Hold guard stance, parry plain attacks, and stop swinging. Cooldown is short; a panic Sha-Chi attack is not.

Do the three special pickups stack? Each pickup applies its own permanent bump, and each one feeds a separate cap. Amber for the offensive bar, flowers for health, stone for damage and shield pressure.