>>14744028
I really do love this series, so with that bias in mind.
The core gameplay is that you fly fall through the sky kicking your enemies combined with some ground attacks and throw attacks to mix it up a bit. You "fall" by changing the direction of gravity allowing you to walk/slide on any surface and orientation. The second game adds two additional styles (Lunar - Light and Jupiter - Heavy) that changes the types of attacks that you do. These styles are one of the greater improvements over the first game since if makes the combat much more varied.
>Normal:
The gravity kick is a standard flying charge towards the enemy that you can chain for additional damage if you initiate another one right after the attack. The standard ground combo is just a button masher with no real depth (technically there is a very small variation if you slow down the button presses but the only difference is that you skip some of the attacks mid combo). The stasis throws in normal mode are just standard throws towards the enemies, the upgraded version that spends some SP is a piercing throw where the projectile chains/homes through several enemies instead of attacking only once.
>Jupiter:
Makes you very heavy and slow with the exchange of increased damage. The ground attacks are functionally the same as normal. The jupiter gravity kick is a charge up move with slash damage and area of effect when you land a hit. It's throw attack is a very powerful bomb projectile with it's SP upgrade being an even larger bomb.
>Lunar:
Makes you light and nimble. You gain two types of super powered jumps, a horizontal and vertical jump that greatly enhance your mobility. The ground combo is changed to an auto-tracking/auto-homing attack, again it's a button masher with no real time-input variation. The throw attacks cause weakened damaged, but you gain a stun/freezing effect on them and some DoT. The gravity kick is a teleporting/warping kick that once you land a hit on the enemy instead of recoiling back for another attack you continue an air combo on them.
There are some other minor attacks but their use is incredibly niche to the point of uselessness. In normal and lunar style you dodge to avoid enemies and can do a counter attack after doing so. In jupiter style you block instead of dodging but the counter attack is functionally the same as the other styles. You can also do a gravity slide in any of the three styles to help you speed along the ground. Lunar is slow but has very high control, normal is balanced, and jupiter is the fastest but you have the least control and turning ability. You preform a sliding kick that has no meaningfull difference between the styles and is fairly useless otherall.
You have three special/super attacks that drain you SP bar for each style. Normal super is a homing drill attack and that chains through several enemies, lunar super is a large barrage/wave of projectiles towards enemies, and the jupiter super a very large spherical AoE attack. These three attacks also appear in the first game with weakened versions with the exception of the lunar special which is significantly more powerful in the first game. Another difference in the first game besides the lack of the lunar and jupiter styles is that there is no piercing throwing too.
The stasis throw is probably the second greatest change between the two games. In the first game it was fairly weak and not very useful. However the second game got a huge buff to the point of it being OP. If you had multiple objects grabbed there was no punishment for just spamming throws at enemies nor is there any nuance/strategy for timing your throws, pretty much spam circle.
That's the overview for the combat mechanics. Now you may have noticed that I used the words: homing, tracking, auto-target, and chaining quite a bit. The consequence of this that the game is fairly easy and there are only a few instances even on hard difficulty where you are truly challenged. There are plenty of instances in the games where one type of strategy is preferred/the key to victory, but this is more a puzzle element rather than tactical difficulty. The core problem from this is that while the game repeatedly asks you for competence of its game mechanics, it never asks/requires your mastery. Because of this the combat isn't the deepest, the multiple styles helps quite a bit but there is no synergy beyond that. Though I did mention a fair list of attacks, you could make some stylish combos and battles by constantly moving and zipping around, switching styles often, and mixing your throws with your other attacks, but it's never required. The game doesn't punish you for using the same tactics over and over again and doesn't give you a lot of incentive to not do so.