Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy Combat & Gameplay

Attack colours matter: yellow attacks must be perfectly parried, red attacks cannot be blocked or parried, dodge them.

Combat system overview

Resonance deliberately abandons the stealth-and-rats survival of Innocence and Requiem. Sophia is a fighter, and the game is built around fast, melee-first combat: sword and dagger, block and parry, dodge, kick, charged attacks and critical strikes. The core loop is simple to describe and hard to master: parry or dodge an attack, destabilise or stun the enemy, then land a critical strike.

Reviews compare the feel to action-adventure games like Uncharted or Tomb Raider in scope, but with a much tighter, parry-centred combat model. The shift away from stealth was widely welcomed, though some reviewers felt the unforgiving parry system sits awkwardly inside what is otherwise a narrative puzzle game.

Parry, block & dodge

How to parry in Resonance

Parrying is the single most important skill in the game, and Chapter 1 teaches it early. The system rewards reading the animation rather than reacting to the flash, which is why it feels unforgiving at first and fluid after an hour. The full method:

1. Watch the enemy's weapon flash, yellow means a parryable attack.
2. Press block/parry just before the strike lands. A perfectly timed parry destabilises the enemy, leaving them staggered.
3. While staggered, land a critical strike with your dagger for big damage.
4. If you mistime on a regular attack, the same button still blocks it, so rhythm-spamming is safer than it sounds.
5. Red attacks can't be parried or blocked, dodge instead, or invest in the skill that lets you parry them.

The common mistakes are worth naming: mashing the button early (the window is tighter than it looks), treating every attack as parryable (reds punish that), and forgetting that the same button blocks, a mistimed parry on a normal swing usually costs nothing. Once it clicks, the flow becomes: parry → stagger → crit → reposition. That loop is the whole combat game, and everything else, kick, throwables, Focus, exists to set up more of it.

If you're chasing the Untouchable trophy (parry 6 attacks in a row), farm it early against a lone sword enemy in Chapter 1 or the early Chapters 2-4 fights. Mixed groups later throw reds and grabs into the rhythm, which makes an uninterrupted six-parry chain much harder.

The health system

On Normal difficulty Sophia has only 3 HP. Killing an enemy restores 1 HP, which rewards aggressive play and keeps fights flowing, but it also means one or two mistakes can end you. Player reviews repeatedly describe her as "agile but fragile": three hits kill, and she fights like a thief, not a knight. Boss encounters can also reset to full health if you die, which some players found frustrating.

Tools of the fight

• Dagger critical strikes, attack stunned or destabilised enemies with the dagger for big damage; the basis of the Sharp Enough for You? trophy (25 crits).
• Throwables, bottles and battlefield objects stun enemies and set up critical strikes (No Holds Barred: 20 stuns).
• Grappling hook, pulls archers down from vantage points and lets you traverse gaps.
• Kick, the Swiss-army tool: stun, break through shields, and shove enemies off ledges (Overboard: 20 ledge kills).
• Focus Attack, builds a charge during combat; when full, unleash a sweeping AOE. Unlocks around Chapter 4; killing 4 enemies at once earns Inherited Brutality.

Enemy types

Skills: Resonance Points and the six mastery branches

Resonance Points are glowing pickups earned after fights and found in the world. They buy skills across six mastery branches, and each branch has a binary either/or upgrade. Standouts reported by a 100% reviewer:

• Parry normally unparryable attacks, a game-changer for red-heavy fights.
• Absorb damage (defensive option).
• Redirect and throw enemies, the basis of Echo's Return (Skilled Maneuver: stun 3 enemies at once).

Charms: the equipment layer

Charms come in sets of five per type (Beads, Arm Bands, Bracelets, Trinkets, Seals). Each charm visibly equips on Sophia and raises the proc chance of its associated ability, extra critical damage, surviving a fatal hit, and so on. The Heritage Pack's Alec's Pendant boosts all charm stats, which makes it genuinely useful for the trophy grind.

Blades: swords with personality

You fight with a sword and dagger, and pick up different swords over the course of the game, reported as eight in total, not counting the pre-order Heritage Pack blade (guide totals differ slightly; verify in-game). Each sword carries a special ability that changes how you use it, and the Adaptable trophy asks you to kill at least one enemy with each.

The Creature chase sections

In certain areas, walking leaves blue trails behind you. The Creature breathes in those trails and charges toward them. Crouching and moving slowly avoids leaving trails, but the spores on you still give you away if it breathes in and you're not in cover. During chases you'll sprint through platforming, reach light, and jump gaps to shake it (Unpredictable: 25 gap escapes).

Difficulty & accessibility

Difficulty is fully adjustable, from a Narrative mode (effectively immune to damage) through Normal to a super-hard mode. Steam lists a strong accessibility set: adjustable text size, camera comfort, color alternatives, contrast controls, custom volume, adjustable difficulty, playable without timed input and subtitles.

Puzzles

Almost every puzzle in Resonance is about guiding light: holding up a lantern to reveal hidden puzzle pieces, aiming a beam through lenses, splitting it into red/blue/green rays to hit multiple targets, and later using concentrated light to burn away corruption. Critics praised the early puzzle design as ingenious, but several noted the light-guiding formula gets repetitive by the final act.

What players think

• Backloggd (reliquiaen): "The combat itself is robust, with plenty of tools at your disposal including a grapple for pesky archers, a kick to break enemy blocks, a parry, a block, and charged attacks that always crit." Not Souls-level demanding.
• Backloggd (Renoir): "Combat feels fluid and satisfying. Once you learn the dodge and parry timing, it clicks really well... It felt fair and challenging in a good way." Bosses resetting HP on death was the annoyance.
• Backloggd (unidentified): "Sophia is quite agile but fragile. Just three hits are enough to kill you... you're more of a thief than a knight."
• Polygon: combat "flipped from fine to fun" once the kick moves arrive; the game opens up after the early fighting-pit tutorials.
• Mortismal (100% review): the combat is smooth and enjoyable in isolation, but the unforgiving parry system "feels very at odds" with a narrative puzzler; some fights throw 20+ enemies at you.

Combat tips

1. Master the parry in Chapter 1, it's the whole game. Yellow attacks must be parried; red attacks must be dodged.
2. Use kick to create space and farm Overboard progress at every ledge.
3. Bank throwables: they stun and set up critical strikes (and the 20-stun trophy).
4. Weaken enemies before popping Focus Attack so the AOE finishes groups (4-kill trophy).
5. In Creature sections, crouch-slow for stealth and jump gaps to break pursuit.
6. If combat feels unfair, drop the difficulty, there are no difficulty trophies.

Combat questions

Sources: Steam, official description, Eurogamer, Ch.1 tutorial walkthrough, Mortismal Gaming, 100% review (transcript), Backloggd player reviews, Polygon, kick combat. Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy content and assets remain the property of Asobo Studio and Focus Entertainment.