>>5352
"in most the enemies are hell-bent on killing you"
"it should you give a decent idea"
How the fuck did I even manage that...

>>5358
These are all valid points, of course.

Apropos of the panicking / surrendering enemies, sure, it wouldn't be a groundbreaking concept. I'm mostly thinking of situations like when a group of 2-3 enemies jumps you, a badly wounded one would be less likely to actively fight you. They might still swing at you occasionally, but mostly they would be concerned with their injuries, since you'd be busy with the remaining ones.

Fair point about how realistic combat reduces the available room for mistake. I'm mostly concerned about things like a sword's movement that looks like it basically cut someone in half. Perhaps the middle ground could be found in a more nuanced system of injuries that result from the same attack, depending on the context:

Spin around with a sword, swinging at your opponent horizontally:
* If they have armor around their midsection, it results in a bruised rib which is unpleasant but that's it (visually, the sword stops there upon impact, unlike in that video from Severance that I linked above where it goes all the way through)
* If they don't and the sword slams into their side, it would be a nasty cut, but not a literal slice in haif (similarly, the sword stops upon impact)
* If the distance is just right, then you can succeed in slicing all the way across their stomach (with the sword actually going all the way and exiting the body).

Kick the opponent in the groin:
* Really close distance: knee them
* Close: a kick upwards, hitting them in the crotch with the instep
* When the distance is just right: a kick upwards, hitting with the toe instead (perhaps with a blade mounted on the boot)
* Too far: a forward kick (think Leonidas) in the general groin / lower stomach area

This would make it fairly easy to influct bad-but-recoverable injuries, but you'd have to time things right to obliterate the enemy with just a couple hits. Similarly, the enemies would have a hard time destroying you within a couple seconds unless you fuck up. I still think, however, that injuries should impact how a character fights; i.e. you can't run if your leg is hit, or you can't use a shield efficiently if your left arm is.

>>5357
It absolutely does. I even wanted to write a list of the features of the combat system that this game does very right, but it ended up looking like fanboyism. But I'll say this: it feels even better than it looks on video, so give it a try if you can. It's abandonware by now and runs on modern Windows without many issues (you'll need something called OpenGL Raster, most likely, and FogFix - or a GOG version that has both bundled, iirc).