With loads of games out there focused on beating up, maiming, or outright destroying your enemies, sometimes it’s nice to change things up. In Bloodless, you’ll play as Tomoe, a formerly pretty ruthless killer who has returned home in the hopes of making things right by defeating her former master, but doing so without violence. Of course, the trick is that the people you’ll be facing aren’t on the same page, so you’ll really need to be on top of your parry and counter game to succeed.

In terms of the combat this actually reminds me a lot of another indie, Way of the Passive Fist, but since this is in the format of an adventure the similarities end there. Since you won’t be using a weapon, your primary means of battling your foes will usually be your dash move, which when timed right will block and disarm your foe, even knocking weaker ones out. Of course, not everything is quite that simple, as you’ll also face foes that fire projectiles at you, ones with unblockable moves you’ll need to dodge, and some that you’ll first need to soften up with your powered ki attacks.

For the most part, this keeps things pretty active and intense throughout, and I’ll admit that initially getting the timing down with different enemies and their attack patterns can be tricky. Where the real difficulty kicks in is when you face packs of different enemies, and then are having to deal with different attacks from multiple directions at once sometimes. If you’re clever and quick you’ll sometimes get a thrill by knocking out more than one enemy with the same move, but more often than not you’ll be simply trying to spread things out and stay alive by taking them on one-by-one as much as possible. You’ll also get the opportunity to tweak and tune your skills and abilities with crests as you go, which will allow you to lean into what you either enjoy the most or find works best for you, and that was appreciated.

While there’s a little more substance here than your typical beat-em-up, and its art style is absolutely distinctive, overall this works out to feel very much in that same vein but with a slightly more defined story. I suppose the combat could be a love or hate proposition, as you’ll obviously need to let things play out more in a reactive manner than active, but the change of pace is nice. If you’ve just been looking for something a bit different that has some challenge to it, this could be a great choice!