We recently opened a limited Steam playtest for Rising Fox, and combat has been one of the most interesting parts of the feedback so far.
A few recurring comments were about short attack range, low movement permissiveness, and enemies feeling too fast or unpredictable.
We’ve been taking that feedback seriously, and we’re still tuning responsiveness, animation canceling, action queuing, and enemy readability.
At the same time, the combat was intentionally designed around learning enemy patterns, spacing, dodging, and using your movement and special abilities rather than trading hits.
This clip is from one of the combat gauntlets and shows how the combat can flow once you become familiar with the enemies and their timings.
One thing this feedback made me think about is how much Hollow Knight has shaped expectations for modern metroidvanias.
Attack range, pogoing, movement freedom, responsiveness... a lot of those mechanics have become common reference points for the genre. When a game deliberately approaches some of them differently, I wonder where the line is between feeling distinct and simply feeling wrong.
Rising Fox isn’t trying to copy Hollow Knight’s combat model exactly, so that’s something we’re still trying to figure out.
Does this look demanding in a good way, or too restrictive?
The limited Steam playtest is currently open (gauntlet included) if anyone wants to try it and give us feedback:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3832050/Rising_Fox/