With the movement system mostly done, it's time to work on the battle system! This devblog I'll be explaining the basics of Life's Impetus's battle system.
Basics of Battle
The unique aspect of Life's Impetus is that your health is not determined by hitpoints, but instead by seconds. The focus of the fight isn't just beating the enemies, it's beating them quickly. The battle system of LI takes a lot of inspiration from the Mario RPGs, particularly the Mario and Luigi series. The game is played in a field with enemies, and the battle starts when you encounter one of these. An RPG-like menu opens up but the battle takes place in real time. You can choose from a list of different attacks, which are executed by short animations that require timing, aiming, and other type of skills. The enemy can also attack back, but you can dodge their attacks with proper timing.
The other threat enemies pose is that they also sneak closer to you as you fight. If you don't attack them they will get close enough to you to unleash a devastating and unavoidable attack. The last mechanic in the battle system is one that favors the player: knocking the enemies down. Every attack you land wears down the enemy, but some more than others. By pulling off enough successful attacks without getting hit you can get the chance to knock down an enemy, which prevents from moving and makes him more vulnerable to attacks.
Battle and Souls
The gameplay of LI revolves around three main types of enemies: corrupted, soul guardians, and mighty corrupted. To finish the fight you have to defeat the mighty corrupted, but they are normally invulnerable. The only way to open a small window where you can hurt them is by taking the souls of the dead and bringing them to the Fountain of Life. The problem with this is that souls are protected by soul guardians, which you must defeat before picking up the soul. But, there's a way you can become stronger: corrupted souls.
You gain corrupted souls by defeating normal corrupted. Corrupted souls can be used for powerful attacks and special skills, but one of their main uses is for buffs. The enemies in LI have three kinds of affinities: Lux, Umbras, and Tenebras. You can use the souls to give you temporary boosts in any one of the affinities, making you stronger against enemies that are weak to the affinity. It's basically like rock paper scissors, as you can see in this chart:
So that's all the basics there is to know to the battle system. What do you think?
Bonus Question
Which games have had battle systems that you liked a lot?
