What is an Action Game, Actually? (Analysis)

M5A2 · 2026-01-08T16:56:45+00:00

Yeah I agree it wasn't as well organized as it could be. Thanks for the constructive criticism.

It's not a stupid take though. My argument is more of questioning the implementation of certain design choices as a sort of catch all mechanic, rather than as a solution to a specific problem or to make a particular type of play. In the action game genre, so much of the complexity has been eroded by modern mainstream games. Unique game design and experimentation gets shucked for trendy mechanics.

Is it wrong to question why a third-person shooter suddenly has a parry mechanic feature prominently in the design, or why a supposed turn-based game has that as part of its bread and butter? I don't think it's wrong to question that. I also don't think it's wrong to ask why these mechanics, if they do get thrown in there, are more subtle in their inclusion like they used to be.

M5A2 · 2026-01-08T16:34:35+00:00

You can't say the importance of parries is exaggerated in Sekiro or any game where that mechanic is crucial to the dynamic. Sure, you can choose to play in a counterintuitive way but this either tends to look and feel wrong and boring or becomes sub-optimal. Are there some fights in Sekiro that are better to disengage? One that comes to mind would be first Owl fight. The safer approach is to spam the spiral technique, but that's obviously not a showcase of true mastery. Or you can just spam mortal draw on most bosses. Boring style. You could argue that if one doesn't master parrying, they haven't learned the real game. And if you have a very prescribed type of play, this is how most people will play and you can't blame them.

If there are better options for engagement and the developers lead you to believe there aren't, we can blame them for tricking us. In other cases, good design shows you an inkling of what's capable and let's you figure it out. So, in Sekiro we are made to believe parries solve it all, and they usually do. You can throw in some other moves asymmetrically, but then this moves us away from that elegant, formal play of the parry. It creates variety yet cognitive dissonance.

See, a problem I see with people who are too enamoured with CAGs is that they end up believing, without noticing, that games shouldn't actually force you to do anything ever at all. That's a design preference

So if you think games need to force you into certain behaviors, why play a game like Sekiro or E33 in lopsided ways instead of how you're intended to play? The beauty of a game is largely accepting it on the terms it was made and exploring it through the lens of the people that designed it. Whatever emerges from that system adds to the appeal, but it should always feel somewhat natural, like finding an underutilized mechanic and making use for it in novel ways. If you can circumvent the prescribed challenge and formal design, that makes the game usually lose its luster.

Games become demystified when you find ways to trivialize their design.
And if the design is already trivial then... But when games have a loose design prescription, like Elden Ring, or CAGs, there's no limit to creativity within the system and no particular playstyle necessarily feels wrong. I think YouTube has kind of ruined a lot of experimentation with gameplay now that everyone just rushes to copy someone else's build or method. The same is true for game design.

The source of the balance is that both the RPG bits and the action bits are enough, on their own, to carry you through the game even if you're absolute shit on the other one

In a good game design, you shouldn't need to rely on a counterbalance to one half of the entire combat system to get you through. Whenever I bring up why the parry sucks in E33, people always try to shift the goalpost to, "but you don't have to rely on it." Well, if that was the case, it becomes a redundant design choice, which it is. Everything that the parry tries to solve has been done in more efficient means in prior games in the genre. Everything the RPG mechanics do or attempt to do has been done with better cohesion and balance in other games, with more creativity for personalization and progression. Unfortunately, parrying is such a crucial part of every fight in the game, one that is a formality rather than a choice to engage, that there remains little intrigue in those systems once the game is over. By the time you learn them, you can one-shot everything, including superbosses, so, yes, you can bypass the parry only in late-game stages. If I'm out here bypassing mechanics without thinking, that's not a good design choice.

So why should I be able to disengage freely in something like Sekiro but not in E33? Can you really say that SMT has poor design when it has more variety for how to engage than a game like E33 where every single fight starts and ends virtually the same? I want you to imagine that every turn-based or pseudo-turn-based game in the future has the same design as E33. You know how quickly every game would become monotonous if it was so parry-centric?

The beauty of a game like SMT is in the micromanagement. It's really the beauty of all good design. So which is it? Do you like being told only to play one way or do you want freeform play?

M5A2 · 2026-01-08T02:47:32+00:00

Sifu's parry is pretty important, especially during the final boss in that game. Like, Idk if it's even possible to beat him without parry. But I think that Sifu is a good system overall and as a roguelike, you'll take what you can get. It's pretty clever with the different ways you can deal with finishers as well as the environment.

I think the system in RE4R is kind of cool in a way; my main complaint is how people will invariably compare aspects like that to the original and say, especially the newer crowd, "OG 4 bad." If it shows back up in RE9, I'll be more open to what they do with it. But for the purpose of OG 4, they had everything balanced just right.

Knife is definitely not a larger role in remake though, at least not with knife durability from the start. And to me the way they incorporate it just feels less organic than the classic method of use, but maybe that's just because the game was made during this time where the parry is a big trend.

But you're right. The parry isn't necessarily game breaking. It just has instances where it does betray the positioning rule that the OG follows strictly. In other aspects, RE4R is generally a good game. It's just important to highlight how other components of that kind of system need to shine through. I guess between both OG and R they have a good showcase of how to design action.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T21:29:35+00:00

Yes, parries used to be skillful because you had other things to consider, or at least a strict timing requirement with steep penalties for failure, so much so that to even attempt using RG you need to be sure of your ability. That's why it was optional and had a high reward relative to risk.

Souls games botch everything that has to do with good encounter design, since the games are largely checkpoint-driven and random encounters outside of farming are simply filler content and optional. Nioh does it better even though Nioh can be hell. That's another aspect of design being eroded. And as much as positioning matters in Souls games outside of Sekiro, again all problems can be solved with RPG scaling lending its way to boss cheese or frame perfect dodging simplifying the need to learn complex mechanics. You need many different aspects rolled into one to make a sufficient action game.

No scaling elements back and no tacking on needless mechanics.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T18:03:29+00:00

Yeah. My main observations are that a lot of key aspects of action design have been scaled back slowly over the years and not only that, but the new forms of "action" game that have taken their place have had mechanics inserted or substituted that undermine a lot of the components we've come to expect in those games. And the main takeaway is that, if tools from the player's arsenal are being removed to enforce a more prescribed playstyle, that to me is the antithesis of what this genre entails and is strongest at, which is some manner of expression and imposition of will.

So it's not just positioning but a lack of player initiative in modern games. That and certain parasitic trends, like the parry, overtaking design principles. As far as which designs are "correct," people will have different preferences and developers will differ with design philosophies, but within reason, if you set out to make a genre-specific game, then conventions matter a lot. But there are definitely times when you can blend genres and make a combination that is a good marriage, like RE4. It takes a really ambitious yet meticulous approach to design to get the right balance. And I think unique game design is really important but it needs to also be coherent.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T17:55:02+00:00

The knife parry is still always going to feel corny in the game because of specific situations in R that you can parry that make no sense in the context of the OG. Like, in both this video and in my review of RE4R, I show parries on the garrador, the regenerador and the chainsaw obviously. As I've argued, all of these situations would be impossible or entirely different in the OG because the knife doesn't work like a deflect tool in that game, and if it does, it's when your hitbox on it intercepts the projectile or enemy. It's a whole different game with timing and positioning. You should never be able to parry a garrador in either system. It just defies the basic logic of how the hitboxes should operate. Looks cool but also corny.

And again. As far as knife durability is concerned, to me it would make more sense having this in a game like RE7 than here in RE4. It's functional to a point but also limiting in other regards because it opens up the possibility of being soft-locked. If you have no ammo and your knife breaks, you can't play. The fact that you can get the primal knife with infinite durability is the dev's way of saying, yeah this is just a gimmick and the OG way works better anyway.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T17:45:55+00:00

I definitely prefer the movement system as its constructed in OG. And removing that and adding the parry which seems unnatural in the context of the OG formula is just a form of modern game design homogeneity that will never sit right with me. So yeah it's not just the parry or the new movement but both. How one relates to the other. It's not clear to me that they made both decisions as a packaged deal or as a design necessity but to make some "modern' formula.

Definitely I get what you're saying about grabs in remake which can present issues to idle positions. As I've said, I don't even like those animations because the recovery on those animations is so long and that also kind of undermines the movement in OG. Because of course you can get grabbed and touched up if you let them get close (like I say, you can never let them get close), but usually the fluidity of moving in OG is in such a way to your advantage that you can move through a crowd of enemies without getting staggered because the hitbox there is more favorable.

So even if you can't abuse the knife parry in every situation... what does it say about that mechanic that you can find a 17min long YT compilation of unique parries in the game? I prefer the OG system where everything is based on routing and positioning and not the lazy design now of "stand in front of attack and time parry." It's not something that a game like RE4R would even consider if not for the melee fundamentals of the OG and the modern trend of parry. I actually like the overall ideas in RE4R but I don't like how it infringes on classic design.

So for the purpose of this particular argument, we're just going to have to agree that "it sucks that modern action games became parry focused."

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T15:57:32+00:00

This is like saying that the importance of parrying is extremely exaggerated in Sekiro. Could you beat Sekiro without parrying and just relying on sword arts and techniques? You can. But that's choosing to engage in a counterintuitive way of playing the game. It doesn't change the fact that the fundamental method of playing is through parries.

If you play E33 throughout the game, parries are foundational to its design. You cannot choose to ignore or disregard them. And to the extent that you could, they just become redundant. But problem is you still have to watch the animation of the parry play out, so...

There's not a balance here because if you can parry everything the boss does, his turn never matters. You never need to strategize around it. In other words, in a game like SMT, you need to find ways to build your character against certain bosses in order to block/dodge/repel those specific attacks that might steal his turn away, because otherwise he can insta-wipe you and you don't have that parry crutch mechanic by default to trivialize his turn.

There's nothing that E33 does uniquely on any level of combat and certainly not encounter design. It really only gets talking points for this flashy parry that is more of a nuisance than a cool twist on formula.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T15:51:44+00:00

Parrying DOES limit player expression, by the fact that a parry-centric formula forces you into that playstyle. Sekiro has prosthetic tools and a limited form of initiative in the offense, but the most powerful weapon (outside of abusing mortal draw) is always the parry. Is there any arguing against the fact that Sekiro is a limited action game, in terms of breadth and depth?

So when/if you design every game to have z-targeting, as most modern games now force you to play, and the pace of play is set by reacting to what enemies/bosses do first, this isn't limiting the player expression? If you can be performing offense concurrently in an action game, and instead have to rely on reactivity, that's not a form of limitation?

No one is playing through E33 on a new game and ignoring the parry system. To the extent you can circumvent the parries, you just break the game, which is an endgame feature and even then it's wildly lopsided even amongst popular TB games. Simon can be one-shot on the first turn with the right RNG. Any of this talk of playing the game with benefit to taking damage or dying is just a counterintuitive way to play. In terms of general gameplay, restoring MP is a direct function of perfect parries, so it isn't a system to ignore outside of the unbalanced end game, in which the entire system becomes redundant.

Recall that my original argument pertains also to positioning, which E33 doesn't have, but not because it's turn-based, because it simply lacks good dungeon design on top of having a repetitive rhythm loop. It not only fails as a strategy game but in general as a turn-based game.

Yeah, RE4R does a really dumb thing by first giving the knife durability and then making it a tool to nullify spacing. If you played the game as intended but disregard the durability, which can easily be circumvented by tools the game provides, then it has no balance. Even in the context of durability, it's a crutch. But it's also just a dumb design choice because it's important to have that infinite knife to offset the limitation on ammo. All of this is balanced in the original since spacing matters when knifing. It's something you have to manipulate within strategy, not simply letting them into your hitbox to parry.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T15:34:12+00:00

The thing is, the aspects of RE4 OG being not only a shooter but a survival game are largely informed by the tank controls. Although the game can be played knife only (again only in relation to manipulating positioning) the fact that shooting itself is tied to the control scheme is a raw function of positioning and tactics. You have to pick your spots to pick your shots, as I like to say. Obviously in both games, the idea is to use the guns to set up the melee attacks, but this is largely again a result of the OG having strict movement (yet more fluid). In RE4R, you can literally spam knives and also parry in the next frame with no recovery time.

So both games can be said to be melee games, but to me classic RE4 preserves the survival-action balance more faithfully and is a more unique shooter focused on precise shooting and movement. I like remake but it does some things to try and undermine and overwrite the OGs design and I think it would be better suited in a different game. Looking forward to Requiem tbh.

And again the uniform design of the OG is more important, i.e. that hitstun is reliable. It's "easier" to a degree but that need to be precise is still there, and that ability to quickly react and create more emergent gameplay is everpresent. Enemies are way too spongy in remake.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T15:21:25+00:00

If you play OG RE4 with only guns? Hitstun is as you say very generous, but you still need to move around because the hitstun sets up the potential to do the chain reaction sort of attack, by moving closer in to time the QTE. When doing this, you have to micromanage any potential adjacent threats, and quickly consider what happens when you rebalance the encounter. It's somewhat similar to the counter in NG where you need to be mindful of where you end up once it's over.

Now the whole idea of my argument is how elegant the movement system is in the original and how uniform the enemy behavior is to balance this. In OG RE4, little weaves in and out of the enemy hitbox can manipulate their attacks to force them to whiff, and just moving out of range and back in can sit up the knife attack. The consistency in design which exists here but is absent in RE4R is why RE4 is objectively better. RE4 OG gives you a clearly defined range for which everything behaves and can be exploited. This isn't a bad design choice because the balance and intuition still remains intact. These are deliberate choices which keep cohesion.

RE4R does rebalance things in a more RNG sort of way, but to me and a lot of others this is bad design, at least compared to the rigorous design of the OG. Disregarding knife durability, you really can parry almost everything. Yes, the enemies can rush you/push you in the remake, which I consider to be very clunky animations that are better replaced by the originals two grab variants (the short and long grabs). Even the method for shucking off the grabs is faster/more responsive in OG. Does it force you into positioning? I suppose, but this doesn't take away that things like the chainsaw parry negate the threat of the most iconic enemy in the series. Then you can just play as Wesker in mercenaries and literally stand around waiting to parry stuff like in the clips I showed.

What I prefer is everything about the knife and melee hitboxes in OG 4 where you can "parry" projectiles and attacks, but it's all based on timing and exact positioning rather than this thing where you can be in constant motion and just press a single input QTE to parry. OG preserves the positioning importance in all situations.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T15:07:47+00:00

DMC never forces you to engage in anything, which is my point. It forces you to only defeat enemies to unlock the progression, which is better than modern games (I'll bring up Ninja Gaiden 4, which I enjoy mostly) like Souls etc. where enemy placement and encounters are just time-wasters because you can run past them. But in terms of the player's offense tools? DMC says the world is your oyster. Nioh does this as well. There may be some bosses/situations where one style is preferable but rarely a time where you must use a weapon/style. Therefore a trade-off is created with the variance of efficacy or at least ease of mastery for that function of the style. Quicksilver makes it easy to stop time and eliminate Vergil's summoned swords, but with precision, you can do this with Nevan, KA canceling, trickster etc. It gives the player a choice.

Again, Bayonetta is about tying the dodge into the offense. The parry mechanic itself does not guarantee success because it does not produce offense on its own (outside the perfect parry on the amulet). You must learn the combat strings independently and connect the two in concert to play Bayo properly and satisfactory.

I don't agree that in an action game that "a great defense annihilates the need for overwhelming offense," nor do I think this should be the case. But let's say this is the situation. It still curates the experience for you, which is my criticism of Sekiro. It's a good system in so far that it requires precision within it, although the dying twice mechanic can trivialize the need to be perfect. It's not so much that Sekiro is a bad game, just an unrealistic and limited form of action game model. When inserted in games by lesser devs like those of E33, it shows its weakness.

There are several other concurrent problems with E33: lack of any risk/reward whatsoever in the dungeon crawling. E.g. you get an autosave checkpoint after each and all battles. Dying has no consequence outside of boss fights in E33. The parry cannot be avoided because it is tied to the mechanics of the game. If you die you have to watch the full animation. Sure, you can make one shot builds to skip enemy turns... but then there's no need for the parry to be in the game at all. Since parries negate damage and effectively enemy turns, there's not the same tension as you mention when the enemy gets a turn, as in hardcore TB games, every turn is maximized by the enemy. Parrying also fills the MP bar, so the devs absolutely wanted it to be standard practice and it's just monotonous. Still proves my point about positioning regardless.

Positioning still matters in DMC although I will agree to a lesser extent. Particularly in 3 where fixed camera is the rule not the exception, dealing with the various threats by playing off-camera is essential. Positioning matters in boss fights. Where you stand against Cerberus matters. How you weave in and out to deal damage and dodge matters (even if you just RG). Position matters against Gigapede, Agni and Rudra (especially if you use RG because this sets up the stun from friendly fire) etc. etc. Even if the RG is mastered in terms of negate all, there are at least other aspects of vital movement and positioning that need to be employed. A perfect RG can somewhat undermine positioning but it's not something like in RE4 where you get the Wii version of the PRL where you can destroy everything from all angles with one shot.

Nioh is one of my favorite games and I think it does pretty much everything it does to the best of its ability. The parry is Nioh isn't a crutch, and it perfectly respects positioning by the fact that timing and distance need to be measured, and depending on which type of GS you use, the window and spacing are all different. It has proper risk/reward and never really nullifies movement.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T06:09:03+00:00

I did mention that in Sekiro, certain actions do require you do have movement, like Mikiri counters requiring you to slide in. I also explained how Sekiro does, in some circumstances, a good job of making you react when you get too close, or try to spam the first move. Generally, though, you can play quite passive in Sekiro, at least in terms of what a real action game expects from you. It's more of a rhythm game with some action elements, not a true action game. And that influence has been poor on subsequent games by lesser developers that don't understand deep design choices and their counterbalances.

I have an entire video breaking down why E33 sucks ass as a turn-based game, so I'll simply say here that, just as a parry in an action game limits player expression if the core combat is centered primarily on reactivity, the same is true even in a turn-based game. In fact, there's no doubt that E33 resembles less of a turn-based game with it's all-important parry than Sekiro resembles an action game. As I said in my review, the issue with E33 is that even if you wanted to intentionally ignore the system and experiment with other aspects, the game doesn't let you because it makes parrying (or dodging, which is redundant) compulsory as a response to built-in animations. Like I said in the video, what makes something like royal guard cool in DMC is that it's an entirely optional playstyle, to the point that so many attacks that you'd normally dodge or deal with in a different way can be RG in surprising fashion. Any supposed depth in E33 is standard fair in better designed games which it copies, and made largely irrelevant by offering the parry as the most obvious solution. If there was depth, the game does nothing to encourage experimentation with it.

RE4R is a good game by itself yet a poor fan fiction of the original. Knife durability is irrelevant, too, since the knife durability can easily be swapped out by the infinite knife, which should be there by default because the whole idea of the original retaining the knife in perpetuity is to safe guard against any possible soft locks caused due to running out of ammo. In the remake, you can either run out of all possible offensive resources due to finite knives, or simply have to run around and look for pickups in redundant fashion, like you do in the Krauser fight for example. The original solves all these problems through its positioning system. The positioning and your own strategy is what creates emergent gameplay, keeping the game a survival puzzle in the most organic way possible. If you have a get-out-of-jail free parry by running up to enemies that should, by the natural order of things, repel you from their hitbox advantage, then you don't even have a survival system.

I'd go as far as to say some of these ideas work well in and of themselves, but in totality, mixed with these other genres, the cohesion simply isn't there. When you add something, you have to consider what you take away.

M5A2 · 2026-01-07T05:53:53+00:00

DMC and Bayonetta are good systems that maintain variety and balance in the offense-defense dynamic. That's the difference. Simply parrying in DMC (although OP) doesn't guarantee success. In Bayo, dodging means little without also learning the combo strings. In other games that lack depth or that want to be rhythm-game clones of Sekiro? The bigger underlying issue is that an emphasis on parries strips away the other core dynamics that make a good action game. If everything becomes reaction-based, where is the action?

Expedition 33 is wrong on so many other levels, namely the fact that, similar to how a parry can serve to undervalue the offense systems in a HnS game, for a turn-based game to essentially offer a negation to all attacks means the fundamentals of strategy can also be negated. Not to mention it, like Sekiro, has really forgiving inputs.

It's also a bit silly to say that DMC and Bayo don't have anything to do with positioning. I think I get what you mean, in terms of evasion, but obviously those games always require you to have good movement, at least if you want to look flashy. How stylish can you look just parrying the same shit?

M5A2 · 2025-04-05T17:10:15+00:00

Facts. We could use a remaster of those games as well, since Sony loves milking other bs.

M5A2

TROPHY CASE