Melee combat in Mushroom Men is the bread and butter of the combat system. The most basic form of melee combat is the three-hit-combo. Players who connect with all three hits of their combos will deal more and more damage to the enemy. Each hit of the combo becomes more powerful than the one before (50%, 75%, 100%). After the three hits of the combo are over, the player has a chance to do something different, like jump-attacks, blocks, rolls or spore powers. This mix of vastly different physical combat actions allows players to use their own unique styles throughout the game and be strategic in how they go about it.
In Mushroom Men, you can also turn any enemy attack into a roll to help prevent injury (similar to the way a game like Soul Calibur allows you to perform “ukemi” by landing on your feet after being knocked down if you press block at the right moment). A lot of work went into the timing aspects of the animations as mapped to user input. If players attack during an attack animation before the next combo is possible, it will buffer that input and remember that the player intended to chain the attack. If they delay their attack input until after the previous attack is over, then there is a window of opportunity upon which their attack input results in an instant transition to the next attack animation. This ability to delay attack chains allows players to control the rhythm of the combo however they please.
The core aim of the combat system is to avoid making players feel like they are fighting the controller. After all is said and done, Mushroom Men is in no way intended to be a hardcore fighting game; it simply incorporates some elements of fighting games in order to lend freedom to the player in plausible situations.
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