Basic Combat

Learn the essential combat controls, meters, and encounter types in The Lullaby of Life. Master Rush Combos, Heavy Attacks, Heat Actions, and more to dominate your foes.

Compared to more recent games, The Lullaby of Life has reverted back to a more basic form of combat with a few flourishes for style.

Combat Controls (typical)

PlayStation | Xbox | Control

• Move your character
• Move the camera
• Light Attack/Rush Combo
• Heavy Attack/Finishing Blow/Heat Action
• Evade
• Grab/Throw enemy/weapon
• Guard/Change Grab while holding someone
• Fighting Stance
• Extreme Heat Mode
• Center Camera/Hold to negate Heat Actions
• Pause the game

Combat Display

This section covers the meters and things you should be monitoring as you battle:

By far the most prominent part of the display is the Heat Gauge, represented by a silver dragon coiling around several blue orbs.

• As you hit other people, the orbs will fill. When an orb is full, you can spend that Heat to perform a Heat Action.
• At any time after filling an orb, you can press R2/RT to invoke "Extreme Heat", giving you a major boost to your damage, speed, and toughness. This will spend your entire set of Heat Orbs, and the more you spend, the longer Extreme Heat lasts.
• You begin the game with three Heat Orbs, and you can add more through the Stats menu.
• Your Heat will decrease as you take damage, are grabbed by enemies, are knocked down, or simply with time spent not punching.

Just above that is the Health Bar. At the top of your screen is a big red bar. That's your health, and when it's depleted, it's game over. Your health will flash as it gets really low. You can restore health using food and energy drinks, and you increase maximum health by purchasing upgrades in the Stats menu.

Other things to look out for are your minimap in the lower-left. It will point out enemies in the area relative to you as red arrows. Also, enemy health bars are visible above each enemy's head so you can monitor who has how much health left.

Encounters

There are essentially two types of encounters in this game: Scripted and Random. Scripted encounters occur as a result of something you've initiated as part of a story, whether it's the main story, a substory, training, or a minigame.

Random encounters are those that are placed around the city. These encounters are further subdivided into two types:

• Aggressors - You can find these guys on the map pretty easily. They're represented as red arrows and there are usually three to five walking around as a group. If you want to avoid fights, then avoid the group entirely, because once they spot you, they'll charge at you to initiate combat. They can also be "seen" as red markers on the side of the screen if you're not looking directly at them. When they notice you, you'll hear a small noise alert and hear them gruffly call out to you. If they get close enough, combat begins.
• Trouble - You'll get these alerts through the Troublr app. Go to the indicated location and you'll engage in a fight with some local hoods.

Once the encounter begins, your controls will switch to combat. Defeat the enemy to the best of your ability. If defeated yourself, you'll be reloaded from your last autosave.

It's worth pointing out that this is the first game in the series where you can actually run away from combat, even after it begins, just get some distance between yourself and your foes and try to hide behind corners. It's not easy to do, but it is an option. No more "arenas made out of bystanders" in this game.

Once you win the fight, your foes will vanish into The Lullaby of Life heaven and you'll be back to just walking around. Watch out for enemies to drop something, because you can find items or cash on the ground.

The Basic Moveset

Kiryu uses his well-known "Dragon" style in this game. It has been slightly modified in appearance due to his advancing age. The movements are as follows:

• Rush Combo - Press Light Attack up to four times. These are fast and weak attacks. Very useful as openers to combos or quick jabs against enemies that are tougher. For the first time in the series, Rush Combos can also strike enemies that are on the ground.
• Heavy Attack - Press Heavy Attack. This is a single blow that's useful for causing slightly more damage than a Rush Combo. You can also use this against enemies that are prone on the ground to strike them.
• Finishing Blow - Press Heavy Attack up to two times after a Rush Combo. This will change depending on when in the Rush Combo you use it. For example, Light-Heavy is different from Light-Light-Light-Heavy. This typically causes really good damage and usually results in a knockdown.
• Heat Action - As you fight, your Heat Gauge will fill up. When it fills at least one orb, you can press Heavy Attack to perform a Heat Action as long as there's a blue flame icon in the middle of the screen. Information on how to perform all the Heat Actions are in their section. NOTE: If you want to preserve your Heat, hold down L2/LT and you can press Heavy Attack without risking using a Heat Action.
• Grab - Press the button to grab an enemy and hold them in front of you. Once you grab an enemy, you can move them around if you wish. Careful, because while grabs cannot be blocked, everyone has a grab "limit", and some enemies can bust out of grabs much easier than others. To reverse your grab to the enemy's back (or front), press L1/LB. Once you've grabbed an enemy, you have other options:
  • Pummel - Press Light Attack a few times to smack your enemy while you've got him helpless.
  • Knock Away - Press Heavy Attack to kick your enemy away. This can cause damage and knockdown to other enemies in the area.
  • Throw - Press Grab again to spin your enemy to the ground, putting them prone. This can knock down several foes in the area. It's actually very good for crowd control and you'll find that if the enemies are swarming you, this can cause a lot of damage, if not knocking some out right away. Some tough enemies are resistant to this, thou