God of War: How to Parry

The new combat system in God of War is a lot different than previous games.  Kratos gets more up close and personal in combat encounters and he’ll be in a lot of situations where he’ll need to block and parry attacks.  Due to the nature of the new over-the-shoulder camera angle, Kratos will be squared up with enemies where he can make use of his Spartan Shield.  He’ll use this to block attacks as well as parry which allows him to follow-up with an attack of his own.

The parrying skill in God of War is something that takes a little bit of practice, but if you’re looking for the right on-screen indicators you’ll be mowing through Draugr in no time.  When fighting enemies you’ll notice that there are red and yellow circles that pop up just prior to being attacked.  These mean a couple of very different things.

Red circles mean that an attack is so powerful that it cannot be blocked.  Yellow circles mean that it’s an attack that you can block or parry.  If you don’t time a yellow attack correctly or just try to block it outright, Kratos will be stunned.  If you successfully parry the attack you’ll stun the enemy.  Using the right bumper (L1) you can block and parry.

It’s really all about the timing of the button press.  You’ll want to focus on pressing the button just as the enemy is about to hit you.  There’s a short window between when you’ll see one of the color coded attacks and when you should be pressing the L1 button.  Alongside the red and yellow attacks there are normal attacks that can simply be blocked or parried with no penalty.

The thing to keep in mind here is to get out of the way by rolling or dodging when an enemy shows a red attack.  On yellow attacks make sure your timing is correct or you may end up stunned.  For non-color attacks you can block or try to parry without worry.