Even in fantasy works, the understanding of "swords" and "swordsmen" differs significantly between Western and Eastern contexts. In the former, we often first imagine knights clad in heavy armor, wielding two-handed greatswords or heraldic shields, battling cyclopes and fire-breathing dragons. However, in the Eastern context, the "sword" represents a more agile concept. Unlike blades focused on chopping or spears designed for thrusting, sword combat tends to utilize its omnidirectional edges to counter attacks, using finesse to compensate for the sword's lightness and fragility, deflecting enemy offensives and exploiting their openings...
Therefore, the image of Eastern swordsmen in people's minds is often one of light attire, graceful movements, and exceptional lightness skill. More concretely, it resembles Li Bai's poem: "Ten steps, one kill; a thousand miles, no trace left. Done, he brushes his clothes and leaves, hiding his body and name." To specify a sword school, it would be: "In youth, I learned sword arts, surpassing the White Ape Master."
Unfortunately, such imagery is not common in video games. Constrained by the relative lag of China's game industry and culture over a long period, this agile and graceful combat style has never been well-represented. In the gaming world, "sword moves" either appear alongside the concept of "parrying" or are simply broad, Western-style sword swings.
However, at the Bilibili "You Xian Kan" demo event, I encountered an action game striving to recreate the combat style of Eastern sword immortals—"Yuan Gong Jian."
If I were to summarize the combat experience in four words, I would choose the core system: "Avoid Blue, Enter Red." This term originates from the sword section of the "Emei Fist Manual," roughly meaning avoiding the solid to strike the void, dissipating enemy force, and attacking their weak points. In the game system, this manifests as a combination of "dodge-counter."
"Yuan Gong Jian" does not feature the traditional invincibility-frame rolls used in action games for dodging or creating distance. The only universal basic operation for neutralizing enemy attacks is the "Parry" bound to the left shoulder button. However, parrying consumes significant weapon durability, which is also depleted during attacks. Once durability runs out, the protagonist's precious sword becomes useless scrap until reforged, unable to parry or deal significant damage.
Considering players also need to actively attack to deplete enemy health bars and induce stagger, weapon durability often drops to dangerous levels. Taking just a couple of hits might cause the blade to shatter immediately, putting the protagonist in peril. Although reforging weapons isn't too slow, in the game's relatively fast-paced combat, even brief vulnerabilities could be fatal.
Thus, rather than parrying, the game encourages players to choose a more stylish and charismatic Eastern swordsman method to handle attacks: the so-called "Avoid Blue, Enter Red." All melee attacks from enemies in "Yuan Gong Jian" are distinguished by high, mid, and low stances. By pushing the right stick during a parry attempt, the protagonist performs a corresponding stationary dodge based on the direction, dissipating the enemy's attack through footwork without consuming weapon durability. This is called "Avoid Blue." Although failing "Avoid Blue" leaves the protagonist vulnerable, it is essential for preserving weapon durability and continuously neutralizing enemy offenses in high-intensity combat.
If the direction of "Avoid Blue" doesn't match the enemy's attack direction, the dodge ends there. However, if the player precisely executes "Avoid Blue" in the same direction as the enemy's stance, the protagonist will follow up with the next part, "Enter Red," neutralizing the enemy's offense while landing a counter-hit that deals damage and significantly reduces the enemy's posture bar.
Unlike traditional parries—where most enemy combos are interrupted—players can chain "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" moves, executing dazzling counters in quick succession to efficiently deplete the enemy's posture bar. The entire sequence is fluid and dynamic, offering strong visual appeal.
Most of the time, players need to visually interpret enemy movements or rely on experience to judge whether an attack is high, mid, or low. Fortunately, even if "Enter Red" fails, players usually just miss out on accumulating resources but can still perform normal dodges. However, some elite enemies and bosses intersperse powerful attacks marked with text cues like "High," "Mid," or "Low" among their regular moves. These attacks can only be neutralized by precisely inputting "Avoid Blue, Enter Red." Success triggers a cool execution animation, forcibly staggering the enemy and interrupting their offensive turn.
Additionally, "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" accumulates casting resources used for weapon skills while dodging, countering, and reducing enemy toughness. Breaking an enemy's guard and performing execution moves also generates this resource. This means that by precisely reading every enemy move, players can neutralize attacks, weaken enemies, and snowball their resources, allowing them to unleash powerful skill outputs during their offensive turns.
Meanwhile, the action models based on Emei sword techniques and kicking skills greatly enhance the combat experience. The demo featured two weapons: the Three-Foot Sword and the Zhanmadao (Horse-Chopping Saber). The former is a traditional fast Emei sword with quick attacks, long combos, fast dodges, and many kick-based combo extensions; the latter features more charge mechanics, delivering heavy, powerful blows that build momentum with each move, growing stronger as the battle progresses.
As mentioned earlier, weapons in this game have durability, requiring players to frequently repair or replace them during combat. Players can equip two weapons simultaneously. After unlocking certain paths in the skill tree, players can guarantee a critical hit when a weapon is about to break, perform an "unsheathed" attack when switching or reforging weapons, follow up combos with an "unsheathed" strike, and even derive a backstep to create distance and dodge attacks, significantly reducing switch times... Once mastered, players can fully utilize the durability of both weapons to maintain relentless offense, combining it with "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" to firmly suppress enemies.
From the lengthy description above, it's clear that this game presents an action system with considerable operational density and difficulty, yet offers high rewards when utilized correctly. Although it has a steep learning curve, successful execution provides substantial positive feedback and satisfaction...
At least, this holds true for one-on-one battles outside of high-difficulty boss fights.
Although "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" is a coherent and elegant action system, its high barrier to entry means that if traditional systems like rolling or parrying coexisted with it, players would likely prefer the easier-to-use defensive options, leaving "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" unused. Therefore, the developers chose to drastically remove the rolling system, making "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" the sole option for neutralizing attacks.
However, while most players can effectively counter attacks in 1v1 fights, their attention gets overwhelmed as the number of enemies increases. Attacks from multiple mobs and off-screen threats often render "Avoid Blue, Enter Red" ineffective. The lack of mobility options makes it difficult for players to create distance from knockdowns or pressure situations to recover and re-engage in footsies. Similarly, when facing harassment from ranged enemies, players lack quick ways to bypass frontline foes and rush down ranged units for kills.
It feels like playing a fighting game.
When your opponent engages in proper footsies, and you precisely punish their whiffs with combos, it feels satisfying. But when they corner you and start playing mind games, or keep you at bay with projectiles from a mile away, while you're just an old Sagat without an invincible Shoryuken to reverse... Everythinggj becomes frustrating.
Of course, players have ways to cope. According to the developers, later stages will provide counter-spells to reduce pressure, invincible jumps, and AOE spells/skills to handle such situations. For players who cannot adapt to "Avoid Blue, Enter Red," the developers have prepared an "official cheat" that automatically dodges attacks from any direction. There are plenty of ways to "skip class."
Similarly, compared to the stunning action system, the boss fight design is clearly unsatisfactory. The final two bosses in the demo, "Stone City Wild Dog.exe" and "Yuan Gong," both have significant design flaws. The former creates large areas of knocking-down flame terrain in its second phase while spamming a "dragon charge" that can only be dodged with a low dodge. Players lack mobility, struggle to avoid the terrain, and must split attention between the environment and the charge, resulting in a very frustrating experience. Additionally, the "Stone City Wild Dog.exe" has excessively high stats. Without fire-resistance talismans, players are often killed from full health by a single charge-plus-getup combo, while the boss's health bar is disproportionately thick... Of course, numerical issues are easy to fix, so the "Wild Dog.exe" in the full version probably won't be so tanky.
The "Yuan Gong" boss represents another extreme. Its design concept is intriguing, portraying a master far superior to the player. Most of the player's active attacks are directly neutralized, and the boss only reveals an opening after the player precisely dodges its combo three times using "Avoid Blue, Enter Red." The problem is, the reaction window is extremely short. Perhaps the developers forgot to add cues; the first attack has no indication other than the startup animation, requiring pure reaction. The second attack has a voice cue, but it coincides almost exactly with the strike, leaving almost no reaction time. Only the third hit, marked with "Danger," is easier to react to. In practice, players without lightning-fast reflexes can hardly create offensive opportunities except by luck.
Compounded by clearly unbalanced numerical design, the "Yuan Gong" boss fight often drags on for several minutes to ten minutes. The entire process feels like the player is being constantly tested and punished. Although the boss concept is interesting, the actual gameplay experience is far from enjoyable.
Fortunately, these are issues stemming from a lack of design experience and unbalanced numbers, which offer ample room for correction in the full release. If the developers can provide a well-balanced challenge, the combat in "Yuan Gong Jian" will surely not disappoint.
Additionally, it's worth mentioning the game's map design.
Although the game adopts a traditional level-based map structure, individual sandbox maps retain considerable connectivity. One-way doors, elevation changes, and reusable bonfires provide an exploration experience above the standard baseline.
Exploration rewards are also quite generous. Besides weapons, the maps are filled with "Magical Items" that can influence combat. For example, during the demo, I picked up the "Golden Bell Cover," which has a 30-second cooldown but unlimited uses, automatically reflecting the next normal attack. This alleviated the pressure defense issue to some extent.
Of course, it doesn't grant immunity to "Danger" marked skills. So when the boss uses a charge attack to pin you down as you get up, you can only pray your timing is precise. If the developers could provide more such magical items in the full release to alleviate pressure issues, the combat experience would likely improve further.
Overall, "Yuan Gong Jian" is a surprisingly delightful game. Despite drawbacks like poor group combat and boss fight experiences, suboptimal optimization, and average graphical fidelity, these are issues that can be optimized and resolved during further development. What these flaws cannot overshadow is the game's stunning action system and smooth, satisfying combat experience. For players long craving an Eastern sword immortal-style battle, "Yuan Gong Jian" is definitely worth adding to your watchlist.