Shing!

Shing! reminds me of Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks for the PS2 & original Xbox. Quick, launch, and air attacks can be comboed in layers. Finishers leave enemies dismembered. Special attacks are flashy and sometimes result in rapid combos. Local coop doubles, triples, and quadruples the fun. Backgrounds have atmosphere and give a good since of where you are in the map. Characters are fully voiced with amusing personalities, and additional characters and skins can be unlocked. A Challenge mode allows you to hone your skills. Linux and Mac are fully supported with modest hardware requirements. Played in Linux Mint 21.1 on a laptop with Ryzen 3500U integrated Vega graphics and on a desktop PC with Radeon RX 5500 4GB (GDDR6) graphics, with a wired XB1 controllers. Both ran Shing! fantastic.

Fun, fast pace combat with multiple combos to learn.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED IF: you are okay with a casual content length of 5 hours and know that you are getting a style-over-substance product. Most importantly, the GOG version has no online co-op (only local co-op, assumedly by plugging in USB controllers and pressing buttons in the character select screen, I have not tested it). The levels are varied and their content has minimal overlap. There are character voice acting, fleshed out character development and humor, so it is not just "rush to the right" kind of ultra deja-vu adventure. It has unique flavor worth recommending. There are different difficulty modes for challenge. The "challenge" mode is generally easy except for the 6th one involving 2 extra difficult enemies and not being allowed to get hit. You can probably triple the game length to 15 if you do all the difficulty modes needed to unlock all the extra character skins. There are a couple of technical glitches in the game. 1. The control scheme goes back to Alternate every time you boot up the game and you need to switch it back. 2. If you disable Bloom in graphics options, all you will see is a blue background. 3. Sometimes the attack keys get disabled until you on-the-fly change a character. Also, it is a 3D Unity game and 3D Unity is badly optimized. It will burden the CPU core like crazy even when in menus. It might lag you enough to make you get hit when you otherwise would not. The gameplay is pretty simple. You have two attack buttons, of which one you mostly use against cannonfodder hordes and the other one for everything. You can do an air juggle with up + attack. You can attack high-mid-low of the enemy bodies depending on what you press. Yes, you can hit downed opponents in this one - SoR4 this ain't. The fighting system works, thouh there is about 0.5 s delay before moves other than parries extend. You can parry hits and projectiles to create a counter attack and you can also dash. The parry / guard stuff w/ a keyboard strains fingers.