Grappling in sword fighting arts is something that is completely lost on the media. This is done even more poorly when it comes to Medieval armored combat.
So far Hellish Quart is the most realistic sword fighting game done to date, and they were wise enough to include grabs and shoves in the gameplay thanks to their study of original source material and use of legit practitioners for motion capturing.
I couldn't agree more, hellish quart looks like a breath of fresh air but Falls prey to a couple of the silly tropes we see so often in video gaming like small attractive women competing with gigantic Burly men... if you're going to put a woman in a fighting game she needs to look more like a Russian Judo Champion not a gap model
I've always studied medieval blade combat and it's clear the vast majority of people die at the end of a spear and very very very few actually die in a sword on sword stand up fight rather they get knocked down and skewered at the end of a blade that's shoved between the gaps of their armor or struck a debilitating blow while they're trying to get back to their feet!
realistic non mechanized combat was so geniusly implemented in the movies Braveheart and Gladiator as both these films dispensed with the classic notion of sword fighting likely pushed upon media buy some Mincey choreographer and replaced it with a more bar room brawl type of contest where our hero spent as much time on the ground struggling to get up as he did on his feet
It's one of the most neglected aspects of non mechanized combat as knocking someone to the ground and taking advantage of their position in one of hundreds of opportune ways was literally the standard operating procedure of ancient Medieval sword combat, it's just not that cinematic compared to the bloodless swashbuckling pirate duels Disney throws at us
Back in the day I forced my friends to play Bushido Blade and it soon became a house favorite but it's arcade Graphics couldn't keep people interested that long
I think the most fun you could have was turning your energy way down and going at it using the few realistic characters from Soul Calibur as this may be the only game in history that featured fantastic grapples and throws right alongside blade Combat albeit in a childish and silly package designed to appeal to 12 year old prepubescent boys as so many games that feature incredible levels of adult violence are LOL
* give the ghost of tsushima character a couple sacrifice throws and a couple forward and backward throws that effect the Mongols around him in different ways and you've just amped up your combat by an exponential grade!!!
This could also really lend itself well to a PVP fighting system
While I'm at it Jin could use a wall jump as well especially in his ninja armor... wouldn't it be cool if his stance has affected the way he moved and jumped