Unlike previous games in the series, which were 2D 1-on-1 fighting games, Overture is a 3D Hack and Slash game with Multiplayer Online Battle Arena elements.
This work shows examples of:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: The game drops nearly all the bounty hunters, and instead focuses on the story of the Gears. Of all seven playable characters, only one is a normal human (Ky).
- Background Music Override: When two Masters start attacking each other, the current stage music is replaced with The Fate Broke Down
until one of them is defeated. - Badass Army: The Servants come in different types.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each character and their Servants are associated with a different color:
- Sol: Red
- Sin and Ky: Blue
- Dr. Paradigm: Green
- Izuna: White
- Valentine and Raven: Purple
- Combo Breaker:
- Pressing R3 will perform a Cyclone Blast. It costs 35% of your Tension, and sends all opponents in the blast radius flying away. It's also possible to counter a Cyclone Blast with your own, which can be repeated until both sides run out of Tension.
- The game also has an infinite prevention system of sorts — combos that consist of too many of the same string can be teched out of.
- Cycle of Hurting: While Masters have plenty of ways to prevent combos from spiraling out of control, Servants have no such luck. This allows for "Servant Loops" — long, elaborate, looping combos that can kill them from full health. The only real restriction is the fact that combos on Servants are also affected by the infinite prevention system.
- Foe-Tossing Charge: Pressing L3 while standing still and not locked-on will perform a Blast Drive — your character starts running forward incredibly quickly, and if they collide with a Master or Servant, they'll be sent flying.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Strange things happen during online play if the connection between both players isn't stable. This is known to include desyncs, attacks repeating themselves, combos randomly dropping, randomly teleporting large distances, and even outright crashes
- Lag Cancel: Pressing L3 while attacking will perform a Modern Cancel, canceling the attack at the cost of 20% of your Tension bar. Unlike Roman Cancels, they can't be used if the attack whiffs, making them strictly a combo or pressure tool.
- Magi Babble: A lot of terminology related to the series' magic system, including aspects of it that were introduced in this game, gets thrown around in dialogue.
- Oddball in the Series: This is the only game in the main series that is not a fighting game, instead a strange mixture of Multiplayer Online Battle Arena and Hack and Slash.
- Secret Character: Ky becomes playable after completing the Campaign once on any difficulty.
- Video Game 3D Leap: This is the first game in the series to utilize 3D graphics.
