En Garde! Combat Guide – How to Parry, Attack, and Swiftly Take Down Foes

Sometimes it is nice to take a break away from the challenging stuff that can often leave you breaking a sweat in your gaming chair or getting a cramp in your thumb. For those looking to get satisfying kills on completely unaware enemies, En Garde! takes the drop kicking from Death Loop and times it by 1000. When gamers and developers alike speak on the gameplay mechanic of using your environment to your advantage, En Garde! takes this to the next level and provides you with using the environment in its more literal sense. Being able to continuously kick tables into the backside of enemies or throw a bucket flawlessly onto your confused foe is some of the best combat mechanics ever used in video game history. This is Vincent’s combat guide for En Garde! and the sword-wielding novices.

A Fluid Combative Experience – En Garde Combat Guide

Consisting predominately of small arenas swimming in enemies, you will have to keep your wits about you and stay focussed so that you do not take any unnecessary damage. Being all about slashing gameplay, your sword will be your most crucial piece of equipment. However, you will want to utilize the environment whenever given the opportunity to. If there are any objects in the game, assume that you can interact with these to your advantage. Anything can be pushed, kicked and manipulated for you to either jump onto, off of or into one/ multiple enemies at once. Get creative with it as there really are no rules with how the environment work.

How the Combat Works in En Garde!

But let’s get into the basics. En Garde! looks at your reactions and memory. Focussing purely on colors that indicate what attack or defence (parry) is incoming, you will need to remember which means which so that you can appropriately react in time. When the enemy is able to attack with their sword the sword will emit a White circle around it that explodes when executing a move. When you are looking to parry, this can be done against attacks that emit a Blue color.

Basic attacks are done with X (Xbox) or Square (PlayStation), whilst you are able to parry with Y (Xbox) or Triangle (PlayStation), this is all about timing. Just imagine you are in a Dark Souls game and you will be okay.

Using the Environment to Your Full Advantage

You can kick objects such as crates or tables into enemies using RT (Xbox) or R2 (PlayStation). Not only can you kick objects but you can also knock out unsuspecting enemies with the right bumper if their back is turned away from you. This can be used to throw them into water or used once the enemy is stunned so that you can annihilate with your blade immediately after. To stun an enemy however, you will want to kick objects into them or throw buckets onto their heads which will result in a dazed state indicated with the dazed symbol.

Dodging is just as important as parrying as it helps you in situations where multiple swordsmen attack you at once. When this happens you will need to dodge with B (Xbox) or Circle (PlayStation). The most important part of the dodging mechanic is that it is crucial to use when the enemy is initiating a Red attack. If you try to parry or attack before them you will be punished, meaning that the only correct mechanic to use is to dodge.

Alongside the dodging mechanic, B B or Circle Circle can be used to roll. This is helpful for getting underneath obstacles or getting out of harms way if the dodge is putting you into another dangerous path. To interact with objects, use RB (Xbox) or R1 (PlayStation) which can be used to get through other obstacles in the game or directly use an object to change the pace of the combat. Right trigger works well when picking up buckets that can be used to daze your enemies. Simply pick up with right trigger and hit it again when you are facing the enemy you want to throw the bucket on.

That was our full combat guide for those getting started in En Garde! For more on the latest video game releases, be sure to see all GJ guides written here. Thank you for reading this guide.