In this guide
Learn the difference between your defenses
Guard can absorb an attack, but blocking also fills your Structure gauge. A timed parry deflects a strike and can create room to counter. A directional avoid lets you evade a high or low attack while staying close. The game also has a separate dodge for making space; it serves a different purpose from a close-range avoid.
Pick one response to practice against a familiar attack. Guard first to recognize the rhythm. Try a parry once you can see its timing, then practice avoiding the high or low strike. Watch both Structure gauges: breaking an opponent's Structure opens a takedown. This is a more useful goal than pressing attacks through every exchange.
Use practice before another full run
In updated PC and console versions, combat tutorials are available from the main menu or the training dummy in the Wuguan. The Training Room also lets you replay tutorial material. Practice against specific enemy types and bosses becomes available after you have beaten them in the story, so begin with what your progress has unlocked.
- Choose one move or defense to recognize.
- Repeat it until the timing feels predictable.
- Return to a chapter and use it against a real encounter.
Weapons and throwable objects can help when available. Pay attention to armed enemies and consider taking a weapon rather than letting that advantage stay with them. The useful habit is recognizing the opportunity, not assuming every room has the same tools.
Make retries and chapters work for you
Reviving after death raises your age. Completing a chapter records a point you can replay; in the base campaign rules, it resets the death counter without restoring your age. Later difficulty options can change death-counter behavior, so judge your run by the settings you are playing.
Continue through a difficult first clear if you are still learning. You can revisit an earlier hideout after gaining experience and improve the age at which you finish it. Exploration can also uncover keys and shortcuts that make a later return to a boss quicker. Use a first visit to learn the route, then decide whether a discovered shortcut helps your next attempt.
Follow actions, not a borrowed button map
Controller layouts and keyboard bindings can differ or be remapped. This guide names actions such as guard, avoid and parry; check your current control layout for the matching prompt. On Android, the mobile release offers touch controls and controller support, so PC or console button instructions should not be assumed for touch play.