I've been playing through from where i left off up to the snow platforming stage earlier today.
I think i get it now ;D i was approaching the gameplay wrongly. Generally, i am used to run around and hit enemies, or run and jump attack them, not specifically various enemies at once except when the opportunity shows up, and i never block, because most beat em ups don't have that feature.
After coming back to the game with a fresh set of eyes i realized you have to be more tactical about it, like moving around waiting for enough enemies to crowd up and then try to combo them all at once as much as possible. The last hit of the combo is the one that deals the most damage, so it pays off to try and pull off the full sequence.
Also it is pretty necessary to block once enemies with projectile weapons show up, as they will knock you down while you are trying to combo characters across another part of the screen (it takes some time to pull off the whole combo, sometimes depending on how close they are, that gives the enemy with the projectile enough time to walk aligned to where you are and hit you.)
But this is specially true in the platforming stage, as you cannot walk up or down. Also the special moves are more for tactical kind of use than to try and deal damage without thinking, like i was playing xD subzero's for example, comes very handy for crowd control in the platforming level, where you have both monsters and skeletons attacking you (and the ninja if you already broke the stone pilar)
Monsters are quite slow, but the skeletons will get in the way because they're faster in relation to them, and more importantly, they have a projectile attack that'll stop you from trying to deal much damage. Bust out sub-zero's freeze moves tho and you'll have a much easier time switching between knocking down the monsters, and knocking down the pesky skeletons ;D
Overall i had a lot of fun with it now!And it's an interesting gameplay system for a change. I will probably replay the first 3 stages again soon now that i took this into account hehe.
