Flash Guard

I need video games with an Instant Guard/Dodge mechanic that rewards the player for well-timed blocks, parries, or dodges.

Bonus points for

So anything by Platinum? Try MGR:R.

I've never liked Platinum games, and I've played almost all of them to some extent.

any sort of pvp game where you have freedom of movement should deliver if you play it on the edge

Questionable design decision, only good in fast games that build on it and have reasonably hard parries. You fuck it up and there's literally no risk involved in the game because you can just flail around and do stupid risky shit without getting punished for it because you parried.

Definitely needs good enemies to balance this out. Enemies that bait a guard with ambiguous attack windups.

What about a flash chop

Slain has a pretty good parry mechanic that kind of breaks the game near the end.

You just described Ys: Memories in Celceta.

Chivalry, the game is still ridden with gamebreaking exploits though.

What? How? It's the core mechanic of almost ever game they make.
I guess the Mario RPGs count. So does No More Heroes

Paper Mario TTYD.

The last singleplayer game I played with really satisfying parries and instant blocks was Dragon's Dogma, but that's well known and might be too old, no idea when it first released.

Lightning Returns' combat kinda hinges on parries, if you git gud you can beat the whole game without caring about stats, those just enable one to win without mastering parry.

Yeah, fuck that. Get yourself an emulator and play the Onimusha series and Shinobi.

this is pathetic

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I gave up on XIII, should I skip XIII-2 and just try Lightning Returns instead?

YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO FUCKIN DODGE
THE REWARD FOR DODGING IS
YOU DID NOT GET FUCKING HIT
YOURE SUPPOSED TO DODGE
AND YOU WANT A FUCKING
REWARD FOR IT?

Damn straight. Give me some bulk and reward me for taking hits instead.

Star Ocean 3

Smash

Onimusha?
Early games have a timed block and quick counter attack that rewards good counter kills with more HP/EXP/MANA drops. But the timed block counter thing is more of a stepping stone to timed counters.

I just wanted an excuse to recommend it anyway.

Dragon's Dogma has a few skills for timing parries, if you're going as a sword-using Assassin.

PSO2

It really depends on the game and its mechanics. Would attacking result in an interruption of the enemy attack animation? If so that'd make it a better choice than dodging/parrying and as such there needs to be an incentive for performing those actions compared to taking an offensive one instead.

If the enemy can't be interrupted then there has to be no other alternative to avoiding the attack, i.e playing smart and not overcommitting to your offense so you can simply outmaneuver an attack instead of relying on a mechanic to make up for your mistakes. Only in the event that attacks have no other way to be dealt with are you SUPPOSED to use those mechanics and thus the dodge/parry itself is the reward.

The most recent example I can think of is Elex. It has a dodge system with enough immunity frames to faceroll through the game, and an active parry system that interrupts whatever your current action is (except maybe dodge rolling). Both consume a substantial chunk of your stamina comparable to the amount used in a single regular attack. However the enemies in the game aim at where you're going to be in an attempt to connect a blow rather than where you currently are, thus you can use the predictive aiming to bait an attack and then simply avoid it with regular movement. This means that baiting attacks and simply avoiding their follow through results in no stamina loss whilst also avoiding damage, making parrying or dodging pointless beyond allowing you to avoid the repercussions of your own poor choices.

Flash Guard in Ys Seven was gay as hell. You'd just wait until an enemy was about to hit you and then you'd mash L+R like mad which not only strains your hands, but each time you Flash Guard the game slows down as an intended effect which gets multiplied to a ridiculous degree if you realize how often you can Flash Guard a single attack. You can always dodgeroll out of the way if you aren't too sure, but since timings can be learned and Flash Guarding fills your SP and EXTRA gauges much faster than any other method in the game on top of giving you a damage bonus which ideally should be acquired before you perform any EXTRA attack so you can put out maximum damage, there's literally no reason to never Flash Guard.

The unfortunate part about Flash Guard is that because it cancels any kind of attack, all attacks are the same before it because you can just Flash Guard everything from incoming projectiles, falling rocks, and fucking lava rising from the fucking arena, which makes too many bosses play out the same. Flash Guarding only becomes really difficult when enemies attack in combos, because it is easy to be spamming Flash Guard until time starts moving again and you're parrying nothing which leaves you wide open, after which the boss rends you to shreds with double damage because you do take double damage if you mess up a Flash Guard, however not all bosses do this.

It makes every boss too easy, simply because dodging boss attacks otherwise is too much of a pain in the ass and because it's a handheld game bosses have assloads of HP.
I don't get why there's a block and dodge button. It worked just fine in the earlier games, dodge using your normal movement abilities and that's it. Adding a dodge, and a block ,and then giving those options an insanely overpowered and spammable upgrade that completely nullifies the damage makes the game way too easy, especially when the game can become way too hard without them because movement options are gimped in the 3D Ys'es.

Demon Souls and Dark Souls.

RBO's Merchant has an ability that works like such.
You use it to block an incoming move, then create coins. Totally breaks some multihit moves/projectiles
You can't cancel into it, but can combo into it. Whiffing results in a long recovery though.

Totally, brah, get right on that.

Nioh releases on PC in less than two weeks.

Osu!

How about you go out and join a fencing club, you can make some friends, get some exercise, get outside, and you can block, parry and repose to your hearts content.

Yeah, LR changed the formula completely, made an actually dynamic combat system, gives you four open world zones to fuck around and do sidequests in according to a day-night schedule that's extremely permissive so you can easily do everything.
Lightning is every bit the cringeworthy she-cloud she's always been but now you can dress her in ridiculous ways at least.

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Rakion
Onigiri
PSO2

MH4U

The reposing comes if you really fuck up a block or parry.

Ys 7 and Celceta are pretty shitty. Dana fixes things up by re-adding jumping. Best Falcom game is Nayuta no Kiseki though

I played through all of Seven without knowing Flash Guard was a thing. Then I saw a youtube vid of someone cheesing everything with flash guard. I wasn't even upset though because it actually made the bosses way more fun to fight against.

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Dragon's Dogma. There are several timing sensitive attacks you can use across the various classes available.

In Pharaoh's Rebirth you get a parry kind of late into the game. It's has lenient timing, you can accidentally proc it from attacking at certain times and can completely negate any sort of damage that isn't falling in spikes, so it's pretty strong.

Yeah nigga. You fuck up a block or parry, you gonna be reposing for a long ass time. Probably in peace, possibly in pieces.

Dumb anime poster.

Mount and Blade

IT'S REPOSTE, YOUR FUCKING MORON, I DON"T EVEN DO FENCING

That's a boy, isn't it.

Isn't riposte?

aren't you a bit too much of a demanding faggot

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This