When I learned I’d be playing Stranger Than Heaven at Summer Game Fest my brain went WILD imagining all of the things I hoped to do. It was like freakin’ IRL sugarplums dancing in my head, except it was Daito, Yu and Snoop (he was c-walking). I wanted to EXPLORE. I wanted to PRODUCE MUSIC. I wanted to NEGOTIATE WITH A PROSTITUTE. (Hey, it was in a trailer!)
Giiirl, I was fanta-sizing because the demo only focused on Stranger Than Heaven’s combat. WHICH OKAY, while I was bummed upon learning this, made sense considering the combat is a huge departure from prior titles and sounds funky on-paper, so yeah, getting hands-on impressions out there ASAP is smart. I just had lofty hopes and dreams okay?
By the time I waltzed into the SEGA booth – my last appointment of the day – I’d already heard quite a bit about the Stranger Than Heaven demo from colleagues. “It’s very difficult.” “Only half of the room beat it.” “It took me, like, ten tries to win.” Sooo let’s just say I was fully prepared to have my ass handed to me on a platter. A bloody, rusty, cracked and chipped platter. But first we watched a presentation showcasing the combat controls, including how to block, dodge, tips for surviving, where to seek therapy afterwards, etc. (I made that last part up.)
Stranger Than Heaven’s combat is interesting because it’s not like, “Oh, press X a bunch to punch and then grapple with B and kick with Y!” Nay, in this game, you control each arm and leg separately. So the LB/LT buttons control Daito’s left arm and left leg, and RB/RT controls his right arm and right leg. Holding B causes Daito to block, and pressing LB+B or RB+B will perform a directional block. Pulling off a perfect block or dodge causes an enemy to stagger, and if you can deplete an enemy’s stamina by thwacking them enough you can lay the smackdown with LT+RT. Pressing Y will open a weapons menu, and health and stamina can be replenished mid-battle by using item shortcuts assigned to the d-pad.
I sat down at the demo station with a sound strategy in mind: button mash. Aaaand it went as well as you’d expect. Instead of looking like a seasoned fighter, I looked like a thrashing baby giraffe and the fight was over before I hardly knew it had begun. But on my second attempt I was smarter about which side of Daito’s body I used and I made sure I was, y’know, close enough to actually hit the enemies I was flailing at. And shocking absolutely no one, that made a huge difference. I even managed to pull off some sweet head-knocking combos and shoved some fools to the ground! I also learned that dodging is your friend – you cannot take beating after beating like one Kiryu Kazuma – and once I got the dodging (more or less) down I was able to progress to the final, advanced battle where I faced off against a solo swordsman in the streets of Osaka.
And here is where I was deeply humbled.
My strategy of dodging and smartly flailing was inert. I learned this the first three times I failed. The next two times, I knew I was doing something wrong. Then a kind staff member gently reminded me that a BLOCK button exists. See, Stranger Than Heaven’s combat isn’t all about “PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH KICK A MILLION TIMES RAHHH!” there’s a lot of defensive strategy involved. You gotta learn the tells of the enemies and know when to hold a block, attempt a dodge, take a hit or be the aggressor. And that, my friends, takes a LOT of trial and error.
And as someone who typically doesn’t enjoy difficult combat encounters, I gotta tell you, this fight got my blood PUMPING. Once I knew I stood a chance (y’know, thanks to that block button) I was locked in, and I actually enjoyed not only the challenge, but experimenting with different weapons, methods and techniques. My fists weren’t shit against a sword, so I wanted to use a weapon. I tried the crowbar, but it was too slow against this fast SOB. And for funsies I did try my fists, but…yeaaaaah. The knife was the most dexterous, so I settled on that.
Over the next three attempts I learned if Swordsman Dude was crouched down that meant he was about to strike HARD (ask me how I know!) and that sometimes it was far better to take the gnarly hits while blocking rather than trying to pull off a perfect counter. I also learned that playing with half-health was flirting with death because this guy could instantly wipe that away, and not to get TOO greedy when pummeling an enemy whilst straddling them – because they can absolutely punch back. I had to make smart judgment calls on whether to wind up a powerful punch or use a faster, but weaker, attack. Also, with this guy, it was safer to dodge sideways instead of backwards so I could stay closer, but if I needed to consume an item there needed to be PLENTY of distance between us.
It’s a tale as old as time: the more I failed the better I became. Eventually every move became calculated, and every action had a pre-planned reaction. And FINALLY – F I N A L L Y – I watched the swordsman’s HP fall to zero. My heart was pounding. I slammed the controller down and literally said “I need a drink.”
So with ALL that said: I never thought the combat felt unnatural, or weird, or anything negative like that – the hardest part was just trying to learn an entirely new control scheme, but it didn’t feel wrong if that makes sense. I’m hoping the average bout of fisticuffs will feel more like the intermediate battle, where it’s not necessarily HARD, but you have to play smart, rather than that last guy because JAYSUS that was intense. That last bastard would be perfect, for, like, a coliseum battle.
We’ll all need a lot more time with this new combat system before we can make any definitive calls – I still have lots of questions about crafting weapons, using items mid-battle, how intuitive fighting feels once you ACTUALLY get a hang of combos and whatnot. But so far, I’m encouraged by what I’ve played! I mean, if I can defeat that swordsman, I guarantee a lot of you can too.
Stranger Than Heaven releases January 15, 2027 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.