BASIC MOVEMENT

• Walking and climbing is slower than jumping through a level. This is especially noticeable during turn-based combat when your basic option for movement is to jump. However, you do have access to a zipline from the start that is essential for going fast. Get used to using it for swings and how gravity affects retracting to the attachment point. While the extent of your zipline reach does show as a circle around you when you pause the game, this is slow and you should get used to the limit intuitively.
• Make heavy use of the pause feature of the game (default button, spacebar). Being paused reveals various options you can perform on enemies or to the environment. It also makes it a tiny bit easier to click on the same point on the screen for when you want to attach a zipline and retract to it in quick succession. Clicking while holding pause advances time by a consistent amount versus re-pressing the pause button which can help in tight situations.
• You can walk past enemies and civilians without them knowing in the shadows. Jumping into them knocks them down, needing three turns to get back up. Nearby enemies hearing the knockdown will be suspicious, as well as the stunned enemy when they get back up. Knocking someone off from a high enough height (approximately two floors) will have them die on impact instead of being stunned.
• Your character, on landing on the ground or the wall, can sometimes take a second before they can start moving again. This can be avoided sometimes by the angle of your jump or zipline that kills the speed at which you're approaching the obstacle, the shallower the better.
• You can flip across corners on walls and ceilings without having to jump off and reattach. You can also clip through wall corners in windows by how your zipline anchor is attached, to end up clinging on the other side and in a better position for further movement.

ENEMIES & CIVILIANS

• Both enemies and civilians will turn to investigate windows breaking, someone else dying or falling down when in the same room. At least one will start a scan which shows up as a red line moving up or down starting from their eyes. This red line sharpens their vision so that they will see you as if you were lit up. Avoiding the red line or being far enough away from the person is enough to not be detected. After a scan finishes, typically one of those suspicious people will then start calling in an alert.

• An alert takes 10 seconds to be called in by an enemy or civilian. Only one person can call it in at a time and killing them or otherwise interrupting their count resets it. Having an alert called in means all enemies will have their weapons readied instead of needing a turn to pull it out. In NG+, a called in alert fails the mission but you can still complete the level successfully during the countdown.

• When civilians see you they will alert enemies in line of sight of your presence but will cower in place. If no enemies are present, nothing happens while you're still in view. Once you leave, that civilian will start calling in the alert.

• It is usually faster to deal with enemies while they are unaware of your presence than going through the turn-based combat; avoid being seen as much as possible.

• When in turn-based combat however, a turn is approximately a second of action and alternates between you and the enemies. All enemies take their turn at once. For some jumps the trajectory indicator may turn red further out, indicating that if you do move that way you will end your turn in the air where it changes colour. There is some fudging due to the physics engine.

• WARNING: Some jump trajectories down through platforms, particularly shallow ones, may end up being eaten and leave you barely moved from where you started.

• All enemies need a turn to face your direction before aiming at you again. This lets you have at least one turn of safety from that particular enemy's attack.

• The fastest kill animation is to either be in the air or clinging to the wall or ceiling before attacking for standing enemies. Attacks on prone enemies or those that are getting back up have similar animations so it's not necessary to reposition beforehand. The longest animation is being on the ground and initiating an attack on a standing enemy. Sometimes this type cannot be avoided, typically when you are forced into view to progress.

• There's a certain radius around enemies where you can initiate a sword attack on them directly, revealed during pause while in real-time or always visible at the start of your turn. There is ample leeway and can be used to move out of an enemy's line of fire in certain situations.

• WARNING: When enemies are really close to each other and you can attack both, the buttons to do so may be jumbled up and you end up attacking the wrong enemy. Thankfully this is rarely an issue since you usually want both of them dead!

• Pistol enemies have six shots before needing to reload and will always prefer to aim at your current position if they can see you. Sometimes their aim is off which seems to be RNG and affected by distance.

• Red visor enemies will never shoot while you haven't failed alert status for that level, preferring to call it in while their comrades are trying to kill you. After the alert is called in they will pull out their gun and be ready to attack immediately when you are revealed. Their aim is not as good as the pistol enemies, tending to lead their shots too far. This behaviour does not carry over to the last level where they have the same capabilities as normal pistol enemies.

• Machine gunners are there to deny you space on the floor; their spray of fire lingers into the second turn and can do this twice before needing to reload. In NG+, they will swing their bullet stream closer to your position over those two turns making them far more dangerous. Because of this you generally want to deal with them first before other enemies.

• Samurai take two attacks to kill, the first only knocks them away and dazes them for three turns if they survive the fall. Since this is slow, most speed tactics involve coaxing them out of windows to fall to their deaths or only engaging them in real time. They are ready to attack anything that tries to knock them down, including you or flying enemy bodies. Samurai also are the most RNG heavy enemies; the red line drawn for their attack is only their angle and not the distance of their sword dash. Where they stop may be influenced by where you are at the end of your turn and does not appear to be consistent.

SKILLS

• Action points or AP drain at one per turn/second. You gain one point for knocking someone down with your own body, and two points on a direct kill. You get none for deaths caused by falling or by hanging. The skill tree lets you use these points for alternative attack and movement options. Let's explore them:

• One particular skill that's always on by default is "Limit Break." When you collect 5 or more AP at the end of a turn while in turn-based combat the screen flashes and a Limit Break occurs. Enemies have their turn skipped and all your action points are drained. Do note this does not happen during real-time, allowing you to carry 5 action points without using them automatically. An extra turn is valuable and should be taken in most cases, even if it means having to build up your AP again.

• The first tree deals with "Sword Throw." While you're in the air and you have 2+ AP you can throw your sword at any visible person no matter the distance away. Visible in this case means not blocked by solid walls in-between them and you. However, while you may be able to "see" a target your sword is thrown at the center of a person's hitbox; the skill will not guarantee the sword won't get caught by a wall along the way. All enemies except for samurai struck by the sword will die; a samurai will instead reflect the sword off in a different direction. The icon to do so will always appear when valid during turn-based combat and when pause is held during real time.

• The bottom branch of this tree leads to "Sword Recall," allowing you to return the sword to your hands as long as its visible. When recalled, the sword is sent flying in your direction, just as deadly as if you had thrown it. One effective tactic using this skill is throwing to a far enemy of a group, then recalling it back through the rest in quick succession. Its flexibility makes this a high priority when spending skill points. WARNING: Due to the physics engine, recalling your sword too quickly after touching the ground will sometimes make it zip through solid geometry entirely out of reach. Give it a little extra time for it to settle, especially if you're holding pause, before continuing the recall.

• The top branch of the tree is "Unarmed Attack" but does not require action points to perform. Instead, you are now allowed to kill stunned (ie. knocked down) enemies without having your sword in hand. This has some use in the NG+ category but is otherwise ignored as a poor investment.

• You need 1 AP to generate a "Decoy" while you're not in the air. Using it on the ground will launch you straight up into the air, on the wall will launch you on a 45 degree angle away, and from the ceiling it will launch you straight down. All enemies that can see the decoy will aim at it instead of you for the 3 turns it's active. It is hard to gauge when it's best used since a ground launch requires at least two turns to get out of the air. Due to the speed it launches you, it can also sometimes propel you past machine gun fire though it's a gamble if it works.

• The bottom branch leads to "Unlimited Decoys." Before, if you used the decoy you would have to pick it back up before using it again. Now whenever you can create a decoy, you can. It is pretty much ignored in every run category.

• The final ability is "Teleport" which lets you instantly shift position to where the decoy was last used as long as it's visible. It does not need action points to perform and has one massive use to skip a lengthy elevator ride during the NG+ run. Otherwise it is not as useful as another repositioning skill.

• The last skill tree starts off with "Stealth Kill," allowing you to hang any person if you are on the ceiling and they are below you. This will show up as a new icon above their heads and doing so will reel their body up your location silently. A strong single point investment because other enemies will only react if they saw it happening in lighted areas.

• This is followed by "Shuriken Rain," another air ability that shows up as a purple icon underneath your body when valid. For 2 AP, all visible enemies within a considerable range are stunned, giving you three turns to follow up. Samurai are unaffected and closer enemies can block the stun for others. Very limited use for speed because it does not kill or return you to real time.

• The final ability, "Shadow Strike," takes 3+ AP while on the ground to appear in front of an enemy, showing up as a purple icon next to other people. If you hold pause while performing this, you end up hovering at roughly head height close to them with enough speed to knock them over after unpausing. You can prevent the knockdown by carefully ziplining backwards which is useful in one tight situation. It is also useful clearing out rooms safely: SStriking the furthest enemy of the group means the other enemies need a turn to face you again, letting you freely follow up with a kill. In those two turns you are back to 3 AP, allowing you to repeatedly SStrike until no one is left.

• In a normal game, you start with only "Limit Break" and need to unlock the rest one at a time. Completing all the objectives of a level will give you a skill point to spend on one of these three trees. In New Game+, all skills are unlocked and available for use.

NAVIGATING MENUS

• Menu wise for the end of levels, during the objective breakdown you will want to aim your cursor in the center of the "Kill all enemies" text. The next menu's "continue" option is in that same location, so clicking rapidly while the level finishes off will speed you through into loading the next level.
• If you need to access the "skills" option for Any% and All Objectives%, position your cursor instead on the first visible horizontal line of the background city scape below the "Kill all enemies" text. Do not be alarmed if the skill trees screen is darker than usual, it is a temporary display bug.
• Clicking on the icons for interaction that can also be interacted with through keyboard presses (taking stairs, elevators, etc.) is slightly faster if you're precise. They show up earlier than a successful keyboard button press and don't care about waiting for animations to finish.