Just got it yesterday and I'm loving it. The thing is... I'm really bad at it. I think I don't get the game mechanics, so a little help would be appreciated.
My biggest problems are with the camera and parrying. Every time I'm at a slight angle I can't parry, only time I can pull it off is when I'm directly facing the enemy. A lot of times I attack instead of parry, because I'm running in ninja run. I let go of LT, but there is still a tiny window where you attack instead of parry. I also dash forward and attack instead of parry a lot of times.
Do you guys lock onto the enemies? When I don't lock on I'm just constantly fighting the camera and when I do lock on I find it annoying that you can't move the camera at all.
Is there a dodge button?
Really loving the game, just wish I was good at it. I don't really mind dying a lot, thanks to the music. First thing I did was turning down the sound effects volume and crank up the speakers.
I don't have the link to that super-helpful post someone had about Rising's various mechanics, but the single biggest tip for me was realizing that to parry effectively, you have to move the stick FROM CENTER at the same time you hit light attack. In other words, you can't already have the stick pointing in the direction of the enemy's attack and just hit light attack at the right time, you have to do both at the same time. It's more difficult at first but it was surprising to me how quickly it became a natural part of my repertoire. I'm not perfect at it (especially when certain enemies attack multiple times quickly) but I get the blue flash that indicates a successful parry a lot more now.
You may also have the timing wrong. You don't parry when you see the red flash, you parry when the enemy's attack is about to hit you. It's not like Assassin's Creed, you have to pay more attention to the people you're fighting. Not all attacks have the red flash (apparently that just indicates when you can counter an attack as opposed to just blocking it), but the red flash is useful for indicating when an attack is about to occur. Different enemies will have different delays between that red flash and the actual attack--there's a cyborg with a giant hammer that takes a long time after the red flash to finally hit you, whereas normal enemies are quicker.
Finally, stop using Ninja Run all the time. It's weird because the game initially encourages you to run everywhere (the very first tutorial is all "jumping's for losers, ninja run or gtfo!") but it's not very useful in combat. The only real reasons to ninja run when fighting is a) to get away from yellow unblockable attacks and b) to parry incoming weapons fire from distant enemies while you close the distance. You'll probably use it a lot when fighting Metal Gears and not much else otherwise.
FWIW I don't ever use lock-on (didn't even know it was an option until I read about it somewhere) and I don't ever dodge despite having the Defensive Offense move unlocked. I've been getting mostly Bs on Normal difficulty, i.e. I'm not actually that great but I'm not dying a ton, either. If I can get the hang of something like this, you probably can too! Good luck!
