I played through most of Vanquish and the design sort of works when you realize it's its own beast.
The melee attack takes your entire energy meter-but it does a shit-ton of damage, and more importantly doesn't care how much meter you have left. Similarly I don't think powerslide bullet-time takes up noticeably more meter than regular powersliding. So that gets you your general combat chain. Start off in bullet-time, use powersliding to close, and either duck back when you're on your last sliver (I think the bar might regenerate faster if you don't totally deplete it? Fuck if I know) or just smash someone's face in with the last bit. You're supposed to use cover to start up bullet-time combos, because it doesn't count the bullet-time moves you do through cover. I think you get a shit-ton of damage resistance while doing those too, so there's a purpose to them beyond just slide-bullettime.
Like I said, Platinum games really need good documentation. It's got mechanics which are very weird for a shooter, yet doesn't understand that if you're not going to make a Call of Duty-alike, you need to tell your players that.
The melee attack takes your entire energy meter-but it does a shit-ton of damage, and more importantly doesn't care how much meter you have left. Similarly I don't think powerslide bullet-time takes up noticeably more meter than regular powersliding. So that gets you your general combat chain. Start off in bullet-time, use powersliding to close, and either duck back when you're on your last sliver (I think the bar might regenerate faster if you don't totally deplete it? Fuck if I know) or just smash someone's face in with the last bit. You're supposed to use cover to start up bullet-time combos, because it doesn't count the bullet-time moves you do through cover. I think you get a shit-ton of damage resistance while doing those too, so there's a purpose to them beyond just slide-bullettime.
Like I said, Platinum games really need good documentation. It's got mechanics which are very weird for a shooter, yet doesn't understand that if you're not going to make a Call of Duty-alike, you need to tell your players that.
