8 total or 8 of each? If so how does that work. Are you saying there is some sort of left/up, rightup, leftdown, and rightdown swings and blocks (corners?)
my old ass won't be able to handle that much stuff going on I tink...gonna need autoblock 2.0 enhanced version
8 each. 8 attack directions with 8 fitting block directions.
But it ain't as bad as it sounds. The game will (probably) differ between a full block where you hit the full appropriate block and a "half block" where you generally got the right direction of the block but "just" parry due to the physics. Something like that...
But as ptx wrote, everything is more or less still changing and moving. I'm just trying to give a general idea about it.
I think the 360° thing is different than one might think - iirc the animations are supposed to blend in a way that it looks like a 360° system but with 8 directions? That's just me more guessing than knowing tho.