Sekiro vs Onimusha vs Metal Gear Rising: Best Parry System?

A Reddit debate asks which game nails the parry — Onimusha, Sekiro, or Metal Gear Rising — and whether parrying is even a good mechanic at all.

Which game has the best parry? That's the question a Reddit post just dropped into r/CharacterActionGames, pitting Onimusha, Sekiro, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance against each other — and throwing in a spicy bonus question: is parrying itself just a bad mechanic?

Naturally, the replies blew up. Players went back and forth on timing windows, game feel, visual flair, depth, and whether these systems are really just fancy QTEs in disguise. So let's break down the three camps.

The Onimusha crowd argues its parry is the coolest-looking and the deepest, pointing to multiple parry and defensive options that they say are presented better than Sekiro's. Others pushed back, noting that chances to chain consecutive parries are pretty rare in practice.

Sekiro fans came out swinging for feel. For them, the back-and-forth clashing feels like a real sword fight. They also shut down the "just mash the parry button" criticism, arguing that mashing won't even get you past regular enemies — and that the parry window is 12 frames, which shrinks to 6 and then 4 frames if you keep spamming.

Over in the Metal Gear Rising camp, the appeal is directional input and the sense of positioning it gives you. Even they'll admit, though, that it doesn't feel as good as Sekiro. Meanwhile, a fair few commenters argued parrying isn't a broken mechanic at all — it all comes down to how it's implemented. Devil May Cry 5, Stellar Blade, and Ninja Gaiden 4 all got name-dropped as worthy additions to the conversation.

So where do you land? Which game has the best parry in your book, and do you think parrying is a flawed mechanic or a great one? Sound off in the comments.