Rider Warrior starts out with a number of attacks

Rider Warrior starts out with a number of attacks, such as light and heavy strikes with his chains wrapped in hellfire. These can be strung together for combos, which also power up two separate gauges that let the rider pull off specialized attacks like shotgun blasts and radial energy strikes.

Filling the spirit gauge lets the Rider enter Retribution mode, which boosts his speed and his damage, and gives him the opportunity to perform his ultimate move, known as the Penance Stare.

Regardless of how you choose to dispatch enemies, the result is the same: you'll receive souls for each demon you kill, which can be used to purchase new skills and abilities for the Rider to use in the game. What's more, if you manage to vary your attacks, you can increase your Vengeance Bar, which will increase the number of souls you receive from downed beasts as long as you don't take any damage from incoming strikes.

The depicted chain attacks are obviously stolen from God of War, just as the battle rating system is snatched from Devil May Cry. For the most part, it doesn't really matter what kind of rating you receive during battle, because you'll still gain enough souls during a stage to unlock just about every move early on in the game. The times where the rating does matter is when certain demons are protected by energy shields, which require a specific level on the bar to break through the defense. Not only is this a skewed system because it forces you to constantly launch attacks against this "impregnable" shield until the game registers enough damage, but it is way too easy for some monster from off screen to hit you, eliminating the Vengeance Bar and forcing you to start over from scratch.