Talk:Backstab/@comment-208.54.4.177-20140414224804/@comment-85.138.248.47-20140824234046

In fact, there's a slight delay after lowering your shield during which you are no longer guarding but still can't backstab.

Dark Souls combat in general seems to make movement and responsiveness subordinate to playing back its motion-captured animations. If the animation hasn't finished playing, it won't respond properly to your input. Coupled with the horrible camera behavior and narrow fixed FoV, it turns a lot of fights into a struggle against the interface, rather than a struggle against your actual enemy.

At least most of the enemies are pretty slow (and get stuck into long animations as well).

DS2 seems a bit more fluid, but I haven't played it yet, so maybe it's just a faster (and not actually more responsive).