How's the combo system and gameplay depth in this? It's hard to tell from the trailer and there's barely any English reviews for it.
The game has a light attack, heavy attack, jump, and Screen clear special button on the face buttons. It also has a macro command trigger for the Jump+Light AOE clearing attack. This attack takes health, but is your key to escaping enemy combos and grapples.
The Screen clear special is like that of Golden Axe: lvl 1 is weaker, and a different animation than lvl 2.
The combos are 4 lights in a row, or 1 light, and then 3 heavies. Each of these can be upgraded 4 times, with different animation and effected added on at each level. Heavy by itself is a knockdown blow.
There's also a double dashing light, or heavy attack. For the Water element guy, one dash attack is a beast-summoning scream, and the other throws a Umidouken.
Light jump attacks are for hitstun for follow-ups, heavy are for knockdown. Applies to ground and jump attacks.
Grapples work with neutral being repeat blows, and left and right + attack being different throws / shifting to the enemies back. Much like Double Dragon, the best way to land grapples is to punch until healthy stun, then move in and grab.
The real combat depth of this game, however, comes from the enemy reactions.
Some enemies can only be hit by one air attack, and hey'll fall out of grounded combo attempts. Others this leads to a full button combo. Enemies have unique re-stand animations, which shifts how fast they return to action. As soon as they get up, they generally try to use their own style of combo on you.
For examples of enemy combos, you have one guy who does the FF / SOR "infinite punch" loop attack on you. One does a quick 3 or 4 hit combo. The big guys use Andore-like run and belly-bash that have some invincibility, once they reach a certain distance. The cook has solid anti-jumps with her frying pan attacks.
All the bosses basically have a gimmick (that I've seen so far, in 4 out of 6 main stages, with 2 bonuses in there.) Beating them comes down to finding their vulnerable state, hitting them a bunch, and then escaping before they use a clearing attack.
The game is more about spacing and making good openings. It actually compares well to Final Fight in how fair it feels (there's lots of tells / patterns, but they're occasionally inconsistent, leading to surprise hits.) Leveling / getting score leads to powering up attacks and buying extra lives, no stat distribution stuff. Abilities earned are permanent, so you could start from the beginning with a maxed out character, after grinding stages. Yet I'd like to say the game could be beat with default stuff, though it'd be more of a chore in MP, since they love to up the enemy count, and they seem to hit harder too.
The game is more old-school, in that it doesn't have crazy juggles at every opportunity. Knockdowns and enemy-management through jump kicks, throws, and dash attacks are your main focus, not keeping someone in the air.
It also doesn't have any block, parry, or evasive roll mechanics that I've seen.
The game is definitely a pixel animators funtime, in that everything is fluid, full of personality, and not always snappy. This is different from many games, which have few frames for the attacks, which makes them basically instant. Especially noticeable on dash attacks, which have solid start-up. I do feel like the hit detection of lining up with enemies is pretty solid, though; Even when jump-shifting to land jumps on enemies more "up" or "down" on the screen, I can hit them pretty reliably.
Hope that gives a decent idea of it's combat depth! I haven't unlocked a single character yet, however, so there may be a lot more hidden behind them.
