Sekiro meets God of War in A44's Flintlock, the developer's follow up to their previous game, Ashen.
Mechanically, Flintlock’s combat sort of looks like how you fight in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, with an armor system that works in a similar manner to Sekiro’s posture.
In Flintlock, enemies have two different meters that you have to worry about while in combat. The red bar is an enemy’s health, while the yellow bar above that is their armor. The yellow bar fills as you damage an enemy’s armor while the red bar empties as you damage the enemy themselves.
Attacks deal damage, while both attacks and parries chip away at an enemy’s armor. When the armor bar is filled, protagonist Nor is able to land a devestating execution attack against her foe. In most cases against normal enemies, it looks like these executions kill her targets outright.
However, stronger enemies and bosses can seemingly withstand multiple versions of these attacks. They’re still worth doing though, because when it comes to these more powerful targets, Nor can use this execution attack to rip away an enemy’s literal armor, like a shield or breastplate, that makes them more vulnerable to your attacks.
In Flintlock, an enemy’s armor meter begins to deplete if you back off, encouraging you to be aggressive in combat and rely on parries and dodges instead of blocks. In combat, you can combat Nor’s companion, Enki, to stun enemies and stop their armor meter from depleting, but it looks like you can only do this to one enemy at a time.
Nor has armor too. Powerful attacks, like unblockable attacks that are symbolized by a red aura, can cut into that armor and damage it. Once it’s broken, Nor takes increased damage from enemy attacks. Thankfully, there’s a way to replenish Nor’s armor, which leads us into our next point.