========================================================= Geni: Days of the Blade - Version 2.5 - 8/24/2007 ========================================================= This FAQ may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. Written by: Daniel Acaba GameFAQS ID: Misfit119 Contact me at: [email protected] System: PlayStation 3 This FAQ Copyright 2007 Daniel Acaba Lists of sites that may host this FAQ: www.Neoseeker.com www.gamerhelp.com www.honestgamers.com www.cheatcc.com www.supercheats.com www.neoseeker.com Places to find the current version of this FAQ: www.GameFAQs.com www.GamersTemple.com ========================================================= Index ========================================================= 1 - Update History 2 - About This FAQ 3 - Controls 4 - Characters 5 - Walkthrough 6 - Enemies 7 - About the Author ========================================================= 1. Update History ========================================================= v. 1.0 - 2/15/2007 - First uploaded v. 1.5 - 2/16/2007 - Fixed some errors v. 1.6 - 2/17/2007 - Fixed some really silly errors on my part. v. 2.0 - 3/05/2007 - Added another strategy for the final boss fight. v. 2.1 - 3/26/2007 - Added a readers strategies to the FAQ v. 2.5 - 8/24/2007 - Fixed up the guide a bit and cleaned up some errors. ========================================================= 2. About This FAQ ========================================================= While Genji isn't the hardest game, there are more than a few areas where it can get frustrating figuring out what to do. Thus, I put this FAQ together to help out. Hopefully people will read it before posting to the message boards. When playing Genji, I prefer to use Yoshitsune at all times when I can, so you will notice that I present things mostly from his point of view a lot of the time. It's a simple matter to adapt the strategies to other characters. ========================================================= 3. Controls ========================================================= Left Analog - Move Character Right Analog - Dodge (evades in whatever direction pushed) Square - Attack 1 Triangle - Attack 2 X - Jump Circle - Special Action L1 - Unleash Kamui R1 - Block L2 - Change Weapons R2 - Focus D-Pad - Switch Character ========================================================= 4. Characters ========================================================= Yoshitsune ========== Yoshitsune is the main character in this game. He is the leader of the group you will be controlling and is also the best character in the game. He is fast, but not as fast as Suzaku, and he is strong, but not as strong as Benkei. This goes for their weaknesses as well, being stronger than Suzaku and quicker than Benkei. Overall, he is probably the best choice for most situations. - Don't forget to use Yoshitsune's mobility to your best advantage. Use his ability to leap off walls, or enemy heads, to maneuver around the enemies and find your best place to strike them. Don't get cornered if you can help it. - His jumping circle dive kick is one of his best moves. If you use it and then hit the square button repeatedly, he will juggle an enemy. This is very good for breaking up groups of enemies while picking them off. ========== Benkei ========== Benkei is the slugger of the group, slow and incredibly powerful. He has the most health of the main characters, but he also risks getting hit more with his slow dodges. Your best bet when using him is to play aggressively as much as possible so that you kill enemies before they do too much damage to him. More than anyone else, his hits carry the greatest chance of stunning your enemies or even flat out knocking them down. A very useful character when the right situation comes up. - Benkei can keep swinging his weapon, even if he is hit mid attack. This is a crucial ability to learn as it is his only chance of hitting enemies when he is being badly swarmed. - When first using him, abuse his triangle attack, fully charged. It's his only method of crowd control. - When jumping do not use the square button. This does a belly flop type of maneuver. Instead use the triangle button, which does a slam with his club. The belly flop does a lot of damage yes, but it takes too long to recover from. This leaves you open to being beaten on by the enemies. ========== Shizuka ========== Shizuka is a bit faster than Yoshitsune and seems to do a bit less damage. But her speed and the range of her weapon more than make up for this. If used to her fullest, she can zip around a battlefield, beating on enemies as she goes. You have to be careful with her though and not let her get too overwhelmed. Due to her low strength she is something of a liability in large scale and chaotic fighting and she will die easily to some of the stronger bosses. Use her with extreme care and do not stop moving and blocking while controlling her. - Shizuka's basic square attack combo is great for crowd control, but be very careful when using it. She can easily get snuck up on from behind and beaten on while doing this attack. - Her triangle attack attaches something of a bomb to the enemy. To activate the bomb, you have to hit the enemy again with any attack. It will blow up in a puff of bluish smoke and send the enemy skyward. ========== Buson ========== Buson is an odd character. He reminds me of Yoshitsune, but with much worse attacks. However, his shockwave is very impressive, but it can only be used fairly sparingly. But he does some nice damage, but his moves are hard to hit the enemies with. Overall, he's kind of like a jack-of-all-trades, but not very good at anything. I only use him when I need his Kamui or I don't have a choice in the matter. - Use his shockwave only when you must, as the recharge on it can be prohibitive in large fights. Also, only use it in the air, as his ground based one is a simple, and useless, twirl of his sword. - His square attack is pretty bad unless you're in an enemy's face, so be wary of how you try to use it. - The most effective way to use Buson is to make generous use of the right analog stick to dodge. While dodging his moves change and are actually fairly decent. This, paired up with his ability to dodge up to three times in a row, makes him a very mobile character that just so happens to have a pretty high damage rating. However these moves are awkward to use and even harder to aim in the thick of serious combat. Practice on the weaker ones if you plan on using Buson very often. ========================================================= 5. Walkthrough ========================================================= - As a starting tip, never use any of your Kamui recharging items throughout the game, ever. They are far too useful to ever waste on a simple boss or a group of enemies. Never use them. Only the final boss is worth it. If you ignore this then you will likely suffer for it late in the game. - For that matter, also hold onto any of your Vajra crests exclusively for the harder boss fights such as the named members of the Heishi, especially Tomomori and the last boss. They are serious pains otherwise. **************************************************** Conflagration at Suzaku Gate - Suzaku Gate **************************************************** - Pursue the Heishi at the fires at Suzaku Gate. It doesn't take much past the first cutscene before the Heishi are attacking, heck it happens in the first cutscene. When you gain control of Yoshitsune, you will find yourself in front of the palace. Practice your controls of the game now when you have the chance. Get comfortable with it before you start to head towards the burning palace. Watch the cutscene. Fight the four enemies and a chest will appear once they are dead. Grab the weapons from it and choose whether you wish to use them or not, I'm not too fond of them though. Once you take the weapon more soldiers will come so fight them off as well. These basic soldiers shouldn't be too much of a nuisance at any time so whatever strategy you wish for works just fine. Now head into the burning building, follow your map if you need to. Some rubble will fall into your path, but don't worry. This is basically showing you how to use your double jump so press against the rubble and leap before pressing jump a second time. You will kick off and leap on top of, if not over, the obstacle. Now run to the Tamayori Sigil, the blue glowing thing. These will refill your health and also act as save points, so do so if you wish. Now head through to the next area, but watch the ceiling, it will fall in on you. There's nothing in the small room to the south, so head north. You must fight about 8 of the Heishi warriors. Just keep moving, using his special attack while jumping (the circle button) if you need to juggle them in the air. Beware though, this is your first chance to taste the horrendous camera. There are some more straight ahead after you finish these guys off. Once all the chumps are dead, continue to the north and a cutscene will play. Now its time for the Kamui tutorial. It's a fairly simple button pressing game, so it shouldn't be too hard. Now its time for a large horde of enemies to attack so either use what you have learned from the Kamui tutorial or just kill them as normal. Defeat them and move forward some more where you will be introduced to archers. They're not that hard, more annoying than anything. Take out the lot of them, jumping up onto the walls when you must to get the two hiding up there. Now backtrack along the left wall and you will see your Amahagane on your hip begin to glow blue. This means that there is a Essence of Amahagane nearby. So start swinging your swords at the tops of the lanterns until you find it. Make your way to the gathered pots on the left side. Destroy them and you will find a Kurama Herb, a healing item. There is another one on the right side of the screen, hidden in the crates. Continue north for another cutscene. Defeat the spearmen and sword wielders. Be careful of those spears, they can break your block when they hit you, allowing others to use you as target practice. Now run to the door and check it with the X button. Read what the game says. **************************************************** Benkei's Imposition - Alleyway **************************************************** - Benkei is late in reaching the Imperial Palace. Help him join up with Yoshitsune. Time to use Benkei! Break the boxes if you choose, but make sure to save your game at the Sigil. Now head north and you will get a tutorial on breaking stuff with Benkei. Do so and watch the cutscene. A bunch of enemies will jump out at you now, so get to killing. Take note that Benkei doesn't have a combo like Yoshitsune does, so your best bet is to get into a corner and use his Triangle attack charged up as much as you can. He will spin in a number of circles, knocking the crud out of anyone in his way. Beat them and then continue west. You will see a cart ahead of you, move to it. This will show you how to use Benkei's kick. Now continue towards the bridge to fight more enemies. Once again, the best method of fighting is to use the dodge function of the right analog stick to get some space, fully charge a triangle attack and then whip the enemies with it. Even if you get hit mid attack it wont stop him like it would to Yoshitsune. You can intersperse this with jumping triangle attacks if you like. Now open the chest and take the Scarlet Clefstone. Break the objects near the bridge where you will find another Kurama Herb. Now proceed to the west further and you will see another cutscene. Huzzah! Now you can choose between party members on the fly. This is a nice change from the first Genji game. Now a group of enemies will assault you. I chose to use Yoshitsune to fight here onward. After they're done, to the left of the stairs is a Ghost Water. Now go back to the cart and have Benkei kick it back to the damaged door near where the cutscene happened. Have Yoshitsune double jump on top of the cart and then leap over the fence with the damaged door. Continue east until you see a passage to the south, go that way and kill the archers. Head out of the alley and destroy the crates in front of you for the Kurama Herb and then kill the enemies here. Now head to the north for a cutscene. Kill these enemies as well. There is an essence of Amahagane in the lantern to your north east, so get that before doing anything else. From here, to the North are the Treasure Vaults, which are open and to the east are a Masho ward and the entrance to the Royal Hall (exterior). Head towards the Masho ward, but watch to the north and you should see another alleyway. Switch to Benkei and head towards it. Now use his club to knock down the barrier. There is a treasure chest, which has a Loving Crest in it, and a Roaring crest hidden in the pots just north of the chest. Get them before doubling back towards the Treasure Vaults. ========================== Treasure Vaults ========================== Kill all the enemies that come for you, but beware that Benkei's lack of speed is a serious problem in this room. Use him for his Kamui if anything before you switch to Yoshitsune. Air attacks and blocking is key here. When they are all dead, get the Cerulean Clefstone. The door is locked, so head back the way that you came. Head back to the Alleyway. ========================== Alleyway ========================== Head on over to the Masho seal and then use the Cerulean Clefstone on the door. Watch the cinema and now it is time to fight something of a boss battle. These are Mashogane samurai. They are powered by that weird crystal you saw the guy jam into his chest in the cutscene. Defeat them with a Kamui to make your life simple, but take note, they will require up to five hits in the Kamui mode to kill in some cases. Defeat them and you will acquire Mashogane. They can be used in large amounts to temper your weapons, increasing their damage. Once the lot of them are dead, another chest will appear. Open it and take the weapon for Benkei that is inside. Now it is time for another character switch. **************************************************** Shizuka's Dance - Royal Hall (Exterior) **************************************************** - Defeat the Heishi Warriors who have infiltrated the Royal Hall. Those who played the first Genji will remember Lady Shizuka. Remember her role as support and Amahagane combiner? Well those days are over. Read the tutorial on her abilities before fighting the enemies. It may be beneficial to read my notes on her in the character section above before continuing. In either case, kill the enemies in front of you before heading up the stairs and over to the other side. Ignore the door for now as it is barred to you by a force field of some kind. Defeat the enemies on this side as well and break all of the objects to find another Kurama Herb. Once the enemies are dead, a chest will appear. This weapon is good for fighting single enemies with its quick and fairly strong attacks, but it is not that good for groups. So for now it is most important that you get good with switching between weapons on the fly. Now continue forward until you get to another cutscene. Now drop down into the moat directly behind where you start. You will find a treasure chest down here as well as an essence of Amahagane. It is located near the pillars to the west. Now make your way out of the moat and back up on top of the bridge. Now head to your right and you will see some crates to break, do so. There is another Essence of Amahagane in the torch brazier over here, so swing at it and get it before heading back to the where you were after the cutscene. Now head to the right where you can save your game at the Sigil. Head further north and watch the new type of Masho ward appear. Now you have to find each of those "flowers" that appeared and destroy them to continue on. Destroy the one that appeared right behind you and then go down both sets of stairs, to your right and left, and defeat the enemies. Now double back to the area where you started the stage and head to the west of the barrier. Search the corpse here for the royal hall key. Now head to where the seal was put and enter the door to the left of it. ========================== Royal Hall (Interior) ========================== Follow the corridor and do your best to fight the enemies, even with the camera working against you. Keep fighting the enemies, open the chest and grab the Celestial Light and head upstairs. Enemies will come from both sides when you reach the top so fight carefully and grab the Tengu Herb from this chest. You will see a pit that requires you to grapple across it. Do so and be aware that there is an Essence of Amahagane in this area. I'm not sure where, but I simply used her first weapon to make lots of wide swinging attacks and I got it eventually. Head through the open door, ignoring the lattice ahead of you. This will take you back outside. ========================== Royal Hall (Exterior) ========================== Head south of where you appear and defeat the spearmen and archers. There is a Masho flower here to destroy. Now double back and head past the doorway. You will reach a treasure chest, and just south of it is the last flower, guarded by some Mashogane samurai and archers. Defeat the lot of them and then get the last flower. Now drop down. Defeat the enemies out here and backtrack a little to save your game before you head on through the door. ========================== Shinsin Temple ========================== Hey, the gangs all here! Watch the cutscene. So, now that Yoshitsune gone and got himself trapped. Well, while the others go get that paper charm, its time for you, as Yoshitsune to get to kicking some serious butt. Your best bet to handle this and live through it is to abuse your Kamui attacks. Do one as soon as you can and then try to get it refilled so that you can do it again. Take note that there is a Celestial Light and Kurama Herb hidden in the jars in this area. Check the corners of the arena and destroy the jars there to find these items. **************************************************** A Great Barrier Forms - Royal Hall (Exterior) **************************************************** - Find the Tamayori talisman in the Treasure Vault so you can break through the enormous barrier. Read what the guard tells you and then fight your way through the enemies to save your game. Now defeat all of the enemies that you find in the area as well as in the moat to make your life easier. Now head back inside the building that Shizuka had to enter a bit ago. ========================== Royal Hall (Interior) ========================== I suggest using Benkei in here as he handles being in a small area much better than Shizuka. She needs space and a good camera angle to be useful, neither of which does this area provide. Benkei on the other hand thrives in here; his fully charged triangle attack will wipe the floor with an entire hallway worth of enemies, knocking them all over. Follow the same path you took with Shizuka, using Benkei until you need her to go across a chasm and then switch back to Benkei. Now head over to the lattice that was blocking her path before and bust it open. Save your game while you are in this room. Grab the Miracle Pill from the chest. You can either try to hit the switch or wait to do so, but take note that there is a treasure chest tucked into a corner at the bottom of the stairs ahead. There is also a Celestial Radiance if you go past the doors downstairs and destroy the items there. Also, you will need Benkei to hit the doors to unbar them. Hit the switch, literally with Benkei and then follow the path ahead of you, the one near the save Sigil. I failed this the first time but I got the items, went back, saved and tried again. It was then that I realized the best path to take. Choose Benkei, unbar the door just past the save Sigil, hit the switch and then quickly switch to Shizuka. Now run out the door you just unbarred, jump off the ledge and run for the secret door. Huzzah, easily done. ========================== Treasure Vaults ========================== I suggest that you ignore the enemies for just this moment and run to the save Sigil to north the so that you never have to do that run again. You can find a hidden Essence of Amahagane near the well in the easternmost corner of the area you start off in, hidden over the well. Now head on into the vaults. Defeat the enemies and head down the flaming corridor. Take the door to the west to get an Essence of Amahagane and a Vajra crest while the door to the east has the jade clefstone you need to move forward. Open the door with the jade clefstone and defeat the warriors in the room. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden near the bookshelf in this room. In the next room, go around the corner but beware the falling debris. Then head into the southern room and grab the key from the chest to get the library key. Fight the enemies that appear and then head across the hallway into the next room. Defeat the enemies and bust up the items to get the Roaring crest. Then head back into the original hallway and head towards the burning stuff in the background and follow the passage until you see a door to your west. You can unlock this door with the library key you got in the other room. Go inside. Use the save Sigil and then exit the other door. Now head to the west and kill the enemies over there. There is an Essence of Amahagane near the southern corner of the room. Then head through the southern door and make your way to the east. There is another Essence of Amahagane hidden in one of the bookshelves near the other end of the room. Then exit the room into the small hallway and then head to the west. Kill the archer and warrior over there and swing around to get the Essence of Amahagane. Then enter the doorway nearby and you will find the Tamayori Talisman you came for. Now double back and make your way out of this area, but beware that enemies will have spawned into your path so it's not just a quick run. Also, there will be some falling debris on the way, so watch out for that. Make your way back to the area you started off in, use the save Sigil and then unbar the door (either character can do this) before heading through it. You will find yourself in the room where you got the Cerulean clefstone before. Head out into the alleyway. ========================== Alleyway ========================== Kill the enemies here but take special heed of the archers who are going to be firing at you from off screen. Then make your way to the east where the entrance to the Royal Hall (Exterior) is and head on through. **************************************************** A Treasured Sword Stolen - Royal Hall (Exterior) **************************************************** - Use the Tamayori Talisman to dispel the Great Barrier. You will appear behind that strong force field that was blocking you out of this area before. Walk up to it and examine it to use the Tamayori Talisman to dispel it. Save your game and then head back into the large area, where Shizuka started her gameplay. The enemies out here are going to swarm you and archers' further back will keep picking at you, so I suggest dashing past the enemies and going to the archers. Once you are near them, activate Kamui and slaughter the lot of them. Then, using Shizuka, make your way over the gaps and defeat the enemies here as well. Once again, there are archers, but these guys are up above you and out of reach so you are going to have to ignore them. If you wish to even bother fighting the enemies outside, head directly under where the archers are standing and use that as cover while fighting the others. Then head through the door to the Shinsin Temple. ========================== Shinsin Temple ========================== Head straight north and save your game. If you wish to explore a bit, there are some enemies and a Kurama herb to the east and there are yet more enemies and an Essence of Amahagane to the west. Either way, head through the open doorway towards the barrier when you are done out here. Watch the impressive looking cutscene, and the silly voice acting. Now it is time for a boss battle. I found that the best way to approach this fight was to make sure you use all of your Essence of Amahagane as soon as it starts. Then switch to whomever has the biggest Kamui gauge (mine was Shizuka and Yoshitsune with a 550) and then have them Kamui. This should seriously damage the boss and kill most of his minions. If you want, Kamui again with another character and the boss will most likely be dead, if not nearly dead. Now simply continue to kill of the minions once he is gone and that will be that. The boss never even got a chance to hit me. You will receive an Unsullied Amahagane once you have killed enough of the enemies. These increase your entire groups health and kamui bars, as well as increasing how much Essence of Amahagane you can use to increase your hero's health. Watch the next few cutscenes, I thought they were pretty cool. As a note, I would suggest not using the Unsullied Amahagane just yet, unless you feel you absolutely must. You will have a four-man party eventually and I wait until I have the entire group before using these. **************************************************** To The Peak - Base Trail **************************************************** - Cross the mountain so you can strike the Heishi camp from their rear. You will start using whichever character finished the last fight, so change to whomever you wish before defeating the enemies. Read what the samurai have to say once that is done. Read the tip on Yoshitsune's wall run ability before you save the game. Start heading along the path and the first soldier to rescue will be to your left hand side, shortly after you get into the water. Keep moving forward and fight through the enemy ambush. The next two soldiers to rescue should be easy to spot once the fight is over. When you see the waterfall, run into it and you will enter a passage behind the waterfall. There is a ghost water in here as well as another soldier. There is yet another soldier directly across from the entrance to the waterfall. Near him there is a hidden Essence of Amahagane, I found it easier to locate it by using Shizuka's square attack combo. The wide arcs of it hit the hidden items easily. Now double back along the path until you see a moss covered wall that is pushed in a bit away from the river. There is a hidden Essence of Amahagane here as well that you will need to jump to reach. Now make your way back towards the beginning of the level and look closely at the left side of the screen, closer to the save Sigil. You will see three small rocks to use to get onto the upper level. Rescue the samurai before you and start heading forward. You will have another fight on your hands, so dispatch them. Now you will need to use Yoshitsune's wall run to get across this gap, they showed you how to do this in the beginning of the level, so if you need a refresher simply go to obtained information in the start menu. When you cross the first pit, you will see the seventh samurai to rescue and once you do so, you will get ambushed again. Dispatch them and then wall run over the next pit. If you can't seem to do it without falling down, run at the wall that you are going to wall run against and jump before you do so. This gives you a higher start on the wall so that when you start to come down, you will have more room to at least grab the ledge and pull yourself up. In either case, when you get across, run forward until you reach an area where the path gets wider for a bit. Look to your leftmost corner and you will see a small area to jump up to. Use Yoshitsune's double jump off the wall to get up there and get the loving crest. When you reach the waterfall, drop down and start to hug the right wall of the river path. You will eventually see an area where you can jump up and get to the last samurai. Do so. Now your guys are going to wait until night to actually go for the summit, and you will appear in the waterfall cave, near a save Sigil. Use it and head out. You are going to face a horde of Mashogane crabs out here. I find the best way to defeat them is to use either Yoshitsune or Benkei. With Benkei, you can use the charged up spin attack to decimate them. For Yoshitsune, you will want to use his diving kick attack to knock them into the air where you can hit them with a square button combo. This will allow you to take them out one at a time with a lesser chance of getting hit. Benkei lets you kill them quick, Yoshitsune gets a lot of Mashogane from it. Your choice really. The SAFEST of the characters to use is Shizuka as she strikes a middle ground, killing them in about three hits of her disk... thing, and she gets a fair amount of Mashogane for it, but not as much as Yoshitsune. Continue further and you will fight more crabs, but watch your left side for any brown logs. You will want to destroy these to make your life easier. Keep on going until you reach the end of the path. There you will fight two winged Mashogane spearmen. They are easily to kill, just wait for them to come to your level and combo them or jump up with either Yoshitsune or Shizuka and combo them in the air. Either way, get rid of them and then open the chest. Now start your descent up along the left side like you did earlier. When you reach the first gap, switch to Benkei and walk over to the edge of the platform you are on. Power up a square attack and destroy the fallen log if you didn't do so before. Use Yoshitsune to get across the first gape. There is no way to destroy the second log from up here if you didn't do it earlier. Either way, get the Essence of Amahagane to the right of the wall that you are going to use to get across the pit. Now head across. Go back to where you got the chest before, using Yoshitsune's double jump, and get the next Essence of Amahagane up there. Now use Shizuka to get across the next path and you are at another cutscene. ========================== Mountain Trail ========================== Head up the trail but keep your eyes open for another Essence of Amahagane that you will come across fairly soon into the area. Take note that you CAN fall off the ledge here. This does damage and sends you back to the beginning of the level. You will find yourself having to fight giant wasp type Mashogane creatures. The best way to fight them is to use Shizuka's range to its best advantage and keep away from the ledge. As you move, watch the left wall. You will soon see a ledge sticking out, so jump onto it and head that way. You will find a Healing Breath item, these are very useful items. Now head back and continue along the path. Soon enough you will come to a place where you need to jump onto a big rock to proceed. Keep moving forward carefully before you do so and attack to find another Essence of Amahagane. Now go up. Keep moving forward and you will see a gap in the road ahead. Kill all of the wasps before leaping over it or using the wall run if you're paranoid like me. Now you will find yourself needing to jump from ledge to ledge. Keep killing wasps before making any risky jumps. Go to the left most platform and you can find another hidden Essence near the bottom of the ledge, just use Shizuka and swing wide. Now get to the next ledge to the north and you can find a Tengu Herb in a breakable crate. Jump to the last ledge and get away from this damnable area. You will see a rock bridge in front of you. Switch to Yoshitsune and run to it. As soon as you step on it, it will begin falling apart. Scramble over it by running and jumping as fast as you can before it falls apart under you. Ignore the bugs completely. When you get past that, watch the cutscene. I suggest that you use Yoshitsune here as well. Just have him run up and dodge the rocks by running to the left for the right one and then dodge to the right to dodge the left one. It's easy when you get the hang of it. Even if you get hit, you can likely make it to the top before a second pair hit you. Now you have to face a boss, but read what the game tells you carefully. It is going to be important. You have to circle the boss and dodge an attack. While he recovers from his swing, attack his back with a combo and then back off or he will likely hit you. Repeat this until you take him out. If you are daring, you can use Yoshitsune and get really tricky on him. Charge him, double jump off of his HEAD and you will dodge an attack by him. You can now turn and hit him in the back. Take note that you can hurt him as normal if you use Kamui mode to fight him. It does seem a waste though as he is so easy to fight. Watch the next cutscene, and it is a shocker to any who played the original Genji game. I thought it was pretty freaking cool. Now you control Buson. Defeat the four winged spearmen however you choose, I just kind of flubbed through it as Buson was hard for me to use. After you beat them, open the chest and get the weapon. Back to the others. Head along the east path, towards the save Sigil. Once you save the game, start heading along the northwestern path. When you see a rock to the left, head over there and use Benkei to destroy it. At the end of this small path is another Essence of Amahagane. Get it and head along the main path again. A masho ward will block your path, so time to find the flowers again. The first is along the small path where you got the Essence just before. The second one is located near the save point, behind a large rock to the right of it that Benkei must destroy. As you head that way, the little Mashogane spirits that emerge from defeated warriors are going to horde you. Use Shizuka's Fleck weapon, with the square combo to defeat them quickly. Now destroy the second, and last, flower and save again if you so choose. In either case, head back to where the ward was blocking you before. You will have to fight three more of the winged spearmen when you reach where the ward was. Head forward and Buson will catch up to you. Watch the cutscene and then beat the enemies that attack you. You will need to defeat a fairly decent amount of them before this ends. Another cutscene follows. **************************************************** Ichinotani Battlefield - Ichinotani Beach **************************************************** - Combine your four comrades strength and defeat the Heishi forces. Once you regain control of your character, you are going to be in for a fairly tough fight. I suggest using your kamui attack to thin the enemies. There is a Essence of Amahagane hidden to the north of where you start, it is inside one Of the braziers. Kill the group of enemies in front of you and then head to the right. You are going to be fighting off group after group of enemies so keep changing whom you are using to keep health's high and using Kamui when needed. Keep beating on the enemies and making your way forward into the fighting. It is important that you keep on killing the enemies as fast as it is possible or you will overwhelmed by them. After killing the enemies to the right, head back the way you came, killing enemies all the while. Use Kamui wherever possible and look for the two hidden Essence of Amahaganes here. I would love to be more descriptive, but this level was so chaotic I had no idea what was going on. The basic gist of it is to head to the right and beat the enemies there. When you get the warning that their is an attack on the Genji camp, run back to the area where you started the level and defeat the enemies there. Then you will have to run all the way back to the rightmost area on the level and beat the enemies there. This takes awhile. Eventually, you will come face to face with the boss, a giant skull faced crab. Use whichever character you like to destroy its claws, but dodge them before trying to attack them. You cannot block ANY of his attacks. Once the claws are gone, he will start dashing at you. Switch to Benkei and use a charged attack to break the face off of him. Now that his purple "face" is exposed, target all of your attacks on this, but beware his dash attacks as they do a fair chunk of damage. I prefer to wait till this moment and to Kamui, this wears his health down good, but if you use the circle attack finisher, it will likely miss him so simply pound him to death. If that doesn't work, just one Yoshitsune and use the diving kick, do a combo and then dodge away rapidly. It will wear him down. In either case, when that's done you get another Unsullied Amahagane. You also get a weapon for every character. *********** architeuthis submitted this tip on this fight ********** Hopefully I got the order correct: NOTE: Always use the Kamui to thin out the enemies as you said or on the boss crab; use the unsullied Amahagane stone to increase your health and kamui level; you will most likely need to use some of your artifacts that you picked up along the way to restore your health from time to time. -use Yoshitsune as he is very quick and as you say his melee combo is the best compromise for this. the first thing you should do is try to take out the enemy (Mashogano Elite?) as these guys can summon additional enemy warriors. These are the guys with the little golden rods/wings on their helmet. Kill off the rest of the enemies and then head over to the right side and you will find another Mashogano Elite and about 4 or 5 Mashogano Spearman. Kill them all. -if the enemy is not attacking the Genji camp yet use Buson to kill the enemies that are behind the two log fences by pressing jumping (x button) and then the square button to use his shockwave attack to kill all or most of the enemy soldiers. This will even weaken the heavily armored Mashogano General if you get him to come to the log fence - if you don't want this heavily armored Mashogano General to break through the fence yet, after doing the shockwave, Have Buson run to the left side of the field until the camera angle changes or Loses sight of this enemy area and the heavily armored leader will return to His initial position. This will reduce the effort needed to clear this area out. Note that you should wait for at least one wave or two of the Mashogano Spearmen to come running up from background fight scenes. They can't get pass the log fence and the sonic attacks will kill the Mashogano Spirit too. For the most part, these Spirit will be trapped behind the log fence but they may once in a while shoot an energy burst from their mouth and it do a little damage to you. -change to Benkei and use his charge triangle attack to break the log fence and kill the heavily armored Mashogano General and the one or two remaining enemy Mashogano Spearman. Note that when Benkei does his charged triangle attacks, you can control the direction of his path and therefore do a lot of damage to the Mashogano General. This should end very quickly and it really will take only two or three of these charged triangle attacks to take out the general if you direct Benkei correctly. -after you beat off the enemies that are attacking the Genji camps on the right-side of the field, you will get another round of the Mashogano Elite and about 4 Mashogano Spearman approach from the right-hand side. Kill them all. head back to the right side to fight off the additional enemies, it is important to note that you should use Benkei and head towards the log tower in the top-right side of the field. Just to be safe, Benkei should charged his triangle attack and break all log fences. This is how you get to the next stage. WARNING: if you don't do this, you will literally be fighting an endless wave of 6+ enemies coming in from the lower-right hand corner. I did this for about _two plus hours_ before realizing that it was never going to end and the Boss Crab would never appear. Of course, fight off these few warriors allow you to rebuild your vitality level and max up your Kamui (on all four characters) in preparation for the Boss Crab fight. Only one or two of these enemy warriors will leave an energy circle to restore your health. I used Yoshitsune to do the battle then change character right before picking up these energy rings in order to restore their respective health level. -use Benkei and start to destroy all the log fences and this will open the next mini next stage. A couple wave of enemies come in and then finally the Boss Crab. I did not make any attempts to break the claws but concentrated on simply breaking the face and then kill him after that. I mainly used Benkei's changed triangle and circle attacks in addition to Yoshitsune when Benkei's health level is running a little low. You can use your herbs and artifacts to restore health if you need to. **************************************************** Chasing Rainbows - Dilapidated Shrine **************************************************** - Unravel the mysteries behind the Heishi's power. Save the game once you get control of your characters again. I suggest you try out the new equipment while you have the chance. Then go down to the south and go near the tree before you use Shizuka to jump up and attack. You should find a hidden Essence. Once you have that, head past the red barriers and make your way back to the weird glowing thing beyond them. Watch the cutscene and prepare for a boss fight. This chick is quick and hard to hit, but there is a way. I find the best way to fight her is to use Yoshitsune as his melee combo seems to have the best chance to hit her. Use a Kamui attack to start and try to do as much damage as possible. Now chase her around the battlefield, trying to hit her with a combo after she either tries to hit you and you dodge it, or after she has just jumped away from you. In either case, after a few missed swings, if you keep moving with her, you should be able to land a combo. Just beware of her when she starts to glow red. This is like her Kamui mode and your best bet is to simply dodge her attacks. Even if you hit her, she will hit you back, so avoidance at all costs is best. After you take about a third of her health, she will summon in some of the winged spearmen. Use them to refill your kamui bar and dispatch them. She isn't that hard once you get used to her. Beat her silly and watch the cutscene. This lady is insane. She is now going to attack you again, but this time she can fly around. This is the harder fight. Your kamui attacks aren't going to do too much to her, so don't rely on them now. The best thing to do, is use either Yoshitsune or Shizuka and keep moving about as she tries to charge at you. When she stops, charge her and start trying to hit her with a combo again. It might take a bit, but you will hit her. Keep up doing this until you hurt her enough and then she will land. This is similar to the first part of this fight, so don't relent and use what has worked so far. Eventually, she will take to the air again and attempt to use her own version of the kamui mode, Masho Kamui. Here you must once again hit the correct buttons as shown on the screen. If you fail, you get hit hard, if you succeed you will eventually knock her out of it with a counterattack. If you find that you are having a lot of problems with this strategy, especially late in the fight as she gets so fast, switch to Benkei. Hold block while dodging around her. When she stops, use a jumping triangle attack to try and knock her out of the air. While she is down, either hit her or charge a square attack and paste her in the face when she gets up. This is a more dangerous way to fight her, but it works and it is less tedious. After you kill her, watch the cutscene. Well, several cutscenes. They sure are pretty, aren't they? **************************************************** Separated - Netherworld Cult Chamber (Primary) **************************************************** - An enemy trap has left Yoshitsune and the others separated. Unite them and escape from the Netherworld. You will start this level controlling Yoshitsune. Save your game at the Sigil and break the jars nearby for a Kurama herb. Ignore the way to the west for now and head to the north. Fight the Mashogane warriors in here and destroy all of the jars to find a Vajra crest. Ignore the large dresser for now and head north yet again. There is another cutscene for you. Continue to the east fighting off the enemies you encounter. When you see a passage to your west along the corridor, break the two giant pots in front of you and leap attack to get another Essence of Amahagane. Then head down the passage. In the room, hit the crystal to activate it before dispatching the enemies that appear. Now break all the objects in the room to get some items before you leave. Now head to the north and defeat all of the enemies along the way. When you reach the dead end, break the objects to get another crest before you head back to where Master Kiichi spoke to you. Now head to the west in this area. You are going to have to navigate via wall run to get past the pit. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden in the jars right in front of your character. Get it and continue along the passage until you see a door. Go inside and activate the crystal. Dispatch the enemies and then go to the southwest most corner of the room. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden inside the large dresser. Get it by using jumping attacks on the dresser, regular ones will just bounce off. Now head back the way you came from. Beware though, when you enter the doorway to get back to the save Sigil and the portal, you will be attacked by a new enemy type. They're nothing all that special, but their charge attack is pretty killer. So get rid of them as fast as you can. Now use the save Sigil and then head to the portal. Time for a character swap. ========================== Netherworld Cult Chamber (Centre) ========================== You start this section out controlling Buson... lucky you. Make sure you are using a weapon that does his silly square spinning attack. Run up to the floating ball things and use this attack on them to destroy these nests as fast as you can. Then dispatch any of the bugs flying around and break all of the jars here to find another Kurama herb. Yoshitsune, yay! You may want to save your game and heal your characters, as you like it or not. Then head through the portal to the next area, which is the Netherworld Cult Chamber (Secondary). ========================== Netherworld Cult Chamber (Secondary) ========================== Dispatch the enemies in here and then head for the door. Switch to Yoshitsune and wall run over the gap, defeat the enemies and then break the large jars for another Kurama herb. Now head over the next gap using wall run. Continue down the path and ignore the right turn at the intersection, continuing straight. Defeat the enemies, enter the room and defeat more enemies in here. Now break all of the items in the room to find some items. Exit this room, go through the small hallway and into the next room. There are some items hidden inside of the jars here, but more importantly there is an Essence hidden in the upper left corner of the room. The enemies in here are no pushovers however. There is a Mashogano General, several Mashogano samurai and even a few of the Mashogano claw soldiers. Be very careful fighting them as they can keep you perpetually blocking and then the General can hit you... hard. Keep moving and I suggest you use Yoshitsune for his speed. Beware the camera in this room, it is a very bad one for fighting a general in. Head out of this room, down the next small hallway and into another room that is chock full of enemies. Kill them and then exit using the east most door. Take note that if you would rather not fight all of this, and I'm sure many Will be smarter than me on this, take the right hand turn at the intersection and switch to Yoshitsune. You will now have to wall run over a succession of gaps in the floor. This is tricky, but a bit smarter than wasting your time fighting all of the enemies. In either case, use the save Sigil and continue onward. There is an Exuberant crest hidden in a small alcove along the path. Use the door and be ready for a headache. You do not have to fight any enemies in this room and that's good as they are never ending. This is a good place to build up Mashogane pieces to use on your weapons, just run to the save point to heal whenever you get hurt. Do not make the mistake I did and use healing items here. Do what you will here, and then move on. In this hallway, stop off in the first alcove you come across and attack the light on the left wall to get an Essence of Amahagane. There is a Ghost Water stashed in the second alcove inside jars, grab it and then head through the door. This is another infinite spawning room, so kill however many you choose but beware; there are Mashogano Generals in this room. Head onward when you are ready. This next part is a serious pain in the rear. You have to wall run over a series of pits, while archers are shooting explosive arrows at you. There is no real best way to handle this. Just try to block their attacks and wall run when there is an opening. Do your best to not let yourself fall in, because if you do, you're going to have to fight a horde of enemies before you get teleported back to the beginning of the area and have to start over. ========================== Netherworld Cult Chamber (Centre) ========================== Step onto the candle lit area and watch the little cutscene. Now jump onto the moving platform and then wall run to the next ledge. Enter the portal to the Netherworld Gojo Bridge. ========================== Netherworld Gojo Bridge ========================== Watch the cutscene. Remember this guy from the first game? He was a pushover then, but now, with his Soul Edge looking spear, he is fairly tough. You have to avoid being hit at all costs or you are in for a world of hurt. If he hits you with one of his poke attacks, he is going to follow it up with a bunch of rapid-fire mini-hits, these take about a third of your health bar if most of them hit. His charge attack and flaming charge attack are easy to dodge, just be ready to evade at all times. The best thing to do is hit him after he misses an attack, trying to hit his back if possible. If it hits, combo him, if he blocks it, back off and then try again later. Don't take very many risks in this fight or you will find yourself dead rather suddenly. I didn't need to use any healing items against him but I did need to switch to Buson for a bit. After he is dead, you get a piece of the Yata Mirror, the Blue Violet Shard. Take it and go back through the portal to the Cult Chamber (Center). **************************************************** Wandering the Chaos - Netherworld Cult Chamber (Tertiary) **************************************************** - Benkei and Shizuka have come to. Help them as they hurry to Yoshitsunes side. You will be controlling Shizuka and Benkei for this section, which is a much better team than Yoshitsune and Buson. There is a Kurama herb in the jars here as well as an Essence of Amahagane hidden in the bookshelf on the west wall. I used Benkei to knock the books off the shelf, this revealed it to me. He can also kick the big dresser looking things to shatter them. Save your game and head out the door. Hit the crystal to make pillars appear. Shortly after doing this I got an Essence of Amahagane, but I'm not sure where it came from to be honest. Use Shizuka to get across the pit, or go fight the enemies down there. Either way, get across the pit. Head into the next room and defeat the enemies. Use Benkei to destroy the stuff in the room, getting you a Ghost Water. Now head to the right, into the next room and drop into the pit. You can find a Kurama herb in the crates down here, but then climb back up on the other side of the pit. Hit the crystal to make more stone columns appear, this lets Shizuka go back the way you just came. Now drop into the pit again and enter the northern door. Break the rest of the things in the room for a few items and another Essence of Amahagane. Go through the west door. Kill the enemies in here and head all the way back to the room where you first went to the east. Go north. The advantage to going to the east first is that you get plenty of Mashogane and there are less enemies to fight should you fall in this room. Jump onto the floating box and use Shizuka to grapple to the pillar across from it. Head to the north towards the door and enter the room. Kill the enemies in here and break the dressers to get the two tengu herbs and continue through the west door. Break the two barriers in your way and defeat the two shield warriors. You can actually destroy the left wall about halfway down the corridor and fight one of the Generals, but there is a treasure chest in there as well with an Exuberant crest. Keep moving down the corridor. You will see two more barriers, break the first one and kill the enemy and then destroy the right wall. There is a jar with an Essence of Amahagane in it. Then destroy the next barrier and kill the enemies before going through the door. Break the objects in the room to get a Tengu herb and then hit the crystal. Destroy all of the enemies and double back until you reach the room at the beginning of all these hallways. Now instead of going west, go east. Destroy the wall to the left as soon as you break the first barrier for a Miracle Pill and then break the next one and kill the enemy. Go to the next pair of barriers and break the first one before destroying the wall to the right. Kill the enemy inside the little room, hopefully before he summons more, and then grab the item from the chest. Destroy the next barrier, kill the enemy and head through the door. Break the items in this room to get a Kurama herb before hitting the crystal. This calls out TWO waves of enemies, so dispatch them and head back to the room at the end of the hallway that led you here. Use the portal. ========================== Netherworld Cult Chamber (Centre) ========================== Back in this area, but with Benkei and Shizuka this time. I suggest immediately entering the portal near where you come out. This will take you to the area Yoshitsune started it, but more importantly to a save Sigil. Go back to the Centre area after that. Find the floating platform that Yoshitsune activated, ride it up to the top and jump off to the right. Get up on that ledge and jump to the next moving platform to reach the middle ledge. Fight off the enemies that appear here, I like to use Shizuka as she can get LOTS of Mashogane from these guys if you are careful fighting them. When they are gone, grapple across to the right and enter the red portal there. ========================== Netherworld Myogyoji Temple ========================== Remember this guy? Easy wasn't he? Well thanks to the stupid changes they made to the kamui system, get ready for him to kick your butt. You cant really combo him, nor do much damage to him without a kamui, and even that doesn't do all too much. The best thing to do is to try and get to his side and have Benkei use jumping triangle attacks. Its slow, but its one of the only things that keeps you from getting hit by cheap shots from him while you desperately try to do anything to him. I hate this fight. Shizuka is also totally worthless in this fight, unless you are using her for her Kamui attacks. Other than that, don't use her. Keep with Benkei. If you see an opening, go for a charged attack as these will sometimes stun him long enough for you to block so you don't get hit, but don't rely on this. Also if you hit him with a charged attack in his legs sometimes it will knock him flat on his face. If this happens, do a jumping attack to his purple horn on his head and you will do some decent damage. But this also happens so sparingly that you may as well not rely on it either. Get the piece of the mirror and head out of here. A cutscene, yay! And you are finally all reunited. It also looked like Shizuka and Yoshitsune are about to kiss as well. Watch the cutscene and then it is time to fight Kyojiro again. Do not let him fight Buson as he will whup on him. He will teleport about the area, simply follow him with Yoshitsune and start trying to combo him whenever he appears. If it misses, stop and try again next time he appears, if he blocks also stop. But if you hit, beat him with the combo as long as you can. Its very simple and you will only likely have any sort of difficulty if you let Buson or Shizuka fight him. **************************************************** Escape From The Netherworld - Netherworld Cult Chamber (Centre) **************************************************** - Chase after ghost of Kagekiyo and reclaim the mirror fragment. I suggest you go save your game once the fight is over. Head back over to the red portal, the one Shizuka and Benkei used and then wall run over to the ledge to the left. You will ignore the rising and falling one if you do it this way, but it saves you two risky jumps. Now leap from ledge to ledge here until you need to wall run. Do so and then double jump to get on top of the rock. You will have to repeat this in the next area as well, wall run then double jump. Now look to your left and have Shizuka grapple over to the pillar before you attack it carefully. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden inside of it. Get it and then jump to the platform. Fight the enemies and then grapple across to the next platform. This part is tricky. You need to double jump up on the right wall and bounce towards the left wall when you do this. You then need to kick off of the left wall and bounce on top of the right pillar. Just so its said I hate these game developers. They obviously went to the school of "it can't be challenging unless it's absolutely annoying." I can't tell you how many times I fell trying to investigate this stupid area to write this FAQ. In either case, head to the left and jump from the ledges to the moving platforms until you see a cutscene. Watch it and then wait for the platform to go as low as it is going to get before you have Yoshitsune wall run over to it. Wait for it to go up as high as it can and then double jump off the pillar to your left to get up on top of it. Head for the portal. ========================== Netherworld Cult Chamber (Sanguinary) ========================== Save your game once you get in here and then start chasing Kagekiyo where the game shows he went. Watch the little cutscene and then kill the enemies before hitting the crystal hidden in the alcove to your right. Now head back to the save Sigil and continue west. Kill all of the enemies you come across and then continue north. In this room, kill the enemies and then jump up on the left ledge to make your way to the top. Kill the enemies up here as well and then grapple across the pit and follow that path. Enter the door and kill the enemies. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden above the first bookcase on the east wall so jump up and attack to get that. Trash the room for a Kurama herb and then exit through the south door. Follow the path and when you reach the pit, carefully jump to the ledge to your left hand side. Hit the crystal and then grapple across the pit to the west. Head down the hallway to the west until you reach the pit where you saw Kagekiyo. Very carefully lean out and try to grapple the pillar to your left and then try to grapple the pillar to the west so you can cross the pit. Now follow this hallway. You will have to fight an enemy ambush so dispatch them, but there is a hidden Essence of Amahagane a bit further down the corridor. Grab that and then you want to continue down the passage until you hit the save Sigil. Do so and then head to the north. Jump onto the moving crate and then grapple to one of the pillars from there. Then carefully jump to reach the door. Go inside. Don't you love chases? Once you are in the room, watch the cutscene, save if you like and then head to the northwestern door. There is a Kurama herb in the small alcove almost as soon as you enter the hallway, it is hidden in the jars. Continue after getting it and head for the next alcove holding another Kurama herb in the jars. After you have this, go through the doors into the next room. Break all the things in here to get a Miracle herb and then hit the crystal. Kill the enemies and take the east door out of the room. Go down the hallway into the next room. Break all of the things in here to get another Miracle pill before hitting the crystal. The portal is now active. When the enemies pop in, Id suggest a switch to Benkei to kill the archers before switching to Shizuka to beat as much of the Mashogane that she can out of the claw guys. Then use Yoshitsune to kill the General. Now exit out through the south door. The two alcoves in this hall- way have Kurama herbs in them, so get those and then enter the main room. Save your game at the Sigil and go through the portal. You will find yourself in a very familiar location to those who played the first Genji. Time to fight Kagekiyo. This fight is basically the same as the last one. You basically have to chase him around and keep hitting him when he leaves himself open. Of course there is the whole issue of dodging his blast attack. He will sometimes teleport away from you and launch a blue wave attack at you. It is best to try and get behind him and then hit him some while he is busy doing this attack. Otherwise this is a fairly simple fight that is much easier than fighting him in the last game was. Watch the touching little cutscene and time to move on. **************************************************** The Battle of Yashima - Yashima **************************************************** - Aid the Genji army, who have been fighting a losing battle without Yoshitsune and the others. Time for a throw down. Keep heading to the north while fighting off the enemies. It's time to hunt down another Mashogano General and kill him to break this army apart. Luckily for you there will be health orbs here, unlike in the Netherworld. As you fight up the initial hill, there will be a horde of enemies, but also a weird armadillo type guy who I couldn't figure out how to hurt. Honestly I just ran away from him and bolted up the hill killing the other enemies. I learned later on that you simply have to damage him enough to break his breastplate open and then do enough damage to his exposed Mashogano stone to kill him. Once you get up to the top of the hill, watch the cutscene. Read what the game tells you and start fighting your way to the northwest. It's best to ignore as many enemies as you can since they don't stop coming and the big armadillo guys are actually incredibly frigging annoying to fight. Get to the Arbalest, it looks like a big crossbow, and use to kill the Living Weapon. Once that is done you are going to have to start moving around the battlefield and watch your mini-map. Your goal is to kill all of the larger yellowish arrows, these are the warlords. You have to kill all of them to get the General and the White Armadillo warrior to come out. They will be found to the north western most part of the map. So check there occasionally, but do your best to fight as little as possible. Also take note that there are at least 3 different Essence of Amahagane's to be found on the battlefield and there are several items to find inside of objects littered all over the place. Spend any breather time you get hunting these things out, they will help later. Once you kill him, the major war part of this fight is over. Time to watch yet another cutscene. **************************************************** Passing Rainbows - Heishi Fortress **************************************************** - Strike down Noritsune, the Heishi commander who awaits you in the fortress. Save your game at the save Sigil! Now head for the doors and go through. There isn't much out here, but there is a Celestial Radiance in the little area to the west in the courtyard. Destroy stuff to find the treasure chest it is in. There is also an Essence of Amahagane hidden along the western wall. More cutsceneage! This guy is a serious pain in the butt. He isn't all that Hard for you to fight, but his attacks are so rapid fire that he will break Your guard and get a pot shot in on you. The best thing to do is to evade his attacks and then pull off combo after combo until he blocks you. Then you must go back to dodging his attacks. Every so often, he will grapple his whip to the pillars surrounding the room, this rapidly recharges his Kamui bar. He will then use a kamui attack and try to pummel you, so do your best to get through these as unscathed as possible. Also, it is imperative that you hit him while he is recharging. This will stop him from recharging there. Once he's dead, there are many cutscenes to watch so enjoy. **************************************************** Waters of Dannoura (First Wave) **************************************************** - Cross over the ships covering the water and head for the Heishi's giant battleship. When the level starts, use the save Sigil to your left. Follow the path that is laid out for you by the ships and fight the enemies. Don't miss the Kurama herb on one of the boats inside a chest. After you get the herb, run up the plank and ignore the enemies here. Rush to the left and use Yoshitsune to jump up to the top of the ship and kill the archers up there. Then come down and handle the rest of them. Keep moving forward and read up on Yoshitsune's new talent when the game shows it you. Use that to go to the ship in the background to the west. Kill the enemies and have Yoshitsune climb the north part of the ship where you can find an Essence of Amahagane. Head back using the super jumps again and go to the next boat. From this brown boat take a careful jump to a boat to your right hand side. Follow this path and super jump at the end of it. Kill the archers on the new boat and carefully get the Kurama herb before super jumping to the next boat. On the next boat you will kill more archers and get a Tengu herb and the third boat will get you a Tathagatha pill and the last of the archers. Now head all the way back and continue north. When you reach the next area with the super jumps, take them and kill all the flying guys you encounter. Then head onto the last ship and kill the enemies. Now jump off onto the smaller ship to the northeast. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden up here, so jump up onto the middle of the ship and swing to find it. To get onto the main ship, you are going to have to get onto the wooden planks on the side of it and wall run along the ship to get to an area where you can climb up onto it. However, do not climb to the top of the scaffold, only go up halfway. From there, wall run back to the left and you will grab onto a ledge that you can get onto the ship from. This leads to.... ========================== Waters of Dannoura (Second Wave) ========================== You will be attacked as soon as this begins, so Id suggest using Kamui to kill them and then saving the game fast, more are coming. Head to the left and you will have a large swarm of enemies to kill, so do what you need to, to get rid of them. Take heed that there are a bunch of archers along the western edge of the ship so you may want to bum rush them. After you wipe them out, head along the northern side of the ship and wipe out the archers. Then head towards the back of the ship, this is to the west, and you will have to fight off a lot of enemies to make your way onto the upper level of the ship. Be very careful in this area, the two Generals can do some very serious damage to you very fast. Take note that it is very possible that I missed plenty of things in this area as it is so open, I found it hard to fully explore. Anyways, get onto the upper level of the ship and make sure that all of the enemies up here are dead. Now head back to the north side of the boat and some more enemies will hop down. This General wields a club like one Benkei would use and it does lots of damage, so be careful. Kill them and then look for the gap in the railing along the edge of the ship. Head through this gap and you should see wooden planks to walk on, do so and make your way down this wooden scaffold. At the bottom, there is a fallen mast from the other ship, carefully walk across this to get on that boat. There is a Kurama herb in a jar on this ship. Use Yoshitsune to scale the ship by double jumping to the west. From up here you can jump to the next ship to the North. Get onto that ship, yes the one you cant see not the other one, and then climb down onto it, fighting the enemies off. Watch the little cutscene and head across this ship to the next one, fighting off enemies. On this ship you will need to go to the south, climbing up the ship again, to kill an annoying archer and get another Essence of Amahagane. Once they are all dead, Head to the east and go onto the broken ship, on its north side there is a treasure chest. Get the loving crest from it and continue along the boat path. When you step onto the brown boat, head north and use the jumping points with Yoshitsune to get him across the water to more enemies you need to kill and the first boat Benkei needs to push. Do so. As a note, if you do not move fast they will kill the banner guy. So in this case, if you see nobody there, then you have to kick the north most of the two ships that are parallel to each other and right next to the big ship. Now head back the way you came and continue along the boats, past the brown one and eventually you will see, to the south, another jumping point. Use it. Now follow this path until you get on top of a large boat. Fight off the enemies, get the Essence of Amahagane near where the archers are and then have Benkei do an attack to the mast of the ship, creating a bridge to the next ship. Kill the enemies, but be careful of the General on this ship. Without all that much room to move around in, and with the awesomely bad camera, you're basically going to have to attack him blind. Once he's gone, break down this mast as well and get to the next ship. Defeat the enemies here and then make your way to the next ship by jumping over to the little side ledge of it from the top bow of the ship you are on. Its tricky, but once you get to yet another ship, you have a bunch of enemies to kill. Its actually best to use Benkei here against the General, a fully charged attack will break his armor clean off and a second one will kill him. Easy as pie. The ship that is sitting next to the ship you are on is the second ship that you need to kick. Hit it and start backtracking all the way back to where you had to use Yoshitsune's super jumps. Now if you head to the north most ship, it will now have a super jump point. Use it to get across the water. I chose to ignore most of the enemies in this area and simply to rush across the path that the boats make, but do as you please. Near the end of this path is another General, so dispose of him using whatever strategy you have come up with at this point. Now jump to the big ships ledges and from there you will have to get atop it like you did the last one, with a few well placed wall runs. ========================== Waters of Dannoura (Third Wave) ========================== Bah, more ship fighting. As a note, the save Sigil is a bit far into this area, so don't hold out on healing items with the hope that you can just heal up when you find it. You are going to want to eliminate all of the enemies on this ship by circling the outside of it and slaughtering everything you come across. Then head up onto the top level of the ship and finish the job. You may wish to hurry as far as getting to the top of the ship goes, as there are two shield Mashogano warriors who will non-stop spawn in while the General on the second level lives. After you dispatch of the enemies, there is an Essence of Amahagane hidden in the drum looking thing on the upper level. Just attack it and it should appear. From here on in, the path is pretty straightforward. There isn't much to really say about it as this shouldn't be too complicated for anyone. The only thing I can really say, is that you are going to get pelted by archers almost non-stop in some areas. Some of these areas that they appear in are times when you are going to have to wall run along bigger ships. Just try to focus on what you are doing and sprint across as fast as possible. Also, break all of the items you come across as there are plenty of minor items, such as healing items, to be found in this big ol' area. Basically you are going to need to do everything you have done before over once more in this area. So you will need to use super jump points, wall run across some ships and fight in tiny little spaces while archers pummel you. The only thing that really can throw people off, is that when you can't see where to go any further in the level, try to break the mast of the ship you are on. This usually will work and allow you to proceed with the level. Eventually you will climb onto a final huge battleship. You can either defeat the enemies here, which I do suggest, or you can run for the front most part of the ship because once you get there, the stage ends. **************************************************** Sink the Heishi Dreadnought - Giant Battleship Ingress **************************************************** - Infiltrate the giant battleship and destroy it from within. Head up the stairs and you will be getting ambushed by several warriors, which includes a few shield bearers, spearmen and an armadillo guy. Get rid of them and then search the southern side of the landing to find a ghost water. Now you can head inside. ========================== Giant Battleship Portside Passage ========================== Step inside and watch the cutscene. See that huge group of guys? Yeah... they are coming for you right now. Get rid of them however you so choose, I used the Kamui attacks here as there were too many of them AND a General. It saved me a headache. Just be aware that the Kamui attacks wont kill everyone in the room. After that is done, now you can either go to the north, which takes you down to the Bilge Pumps, or you can take the southern door and explore that area. I chose to go to the south because that led to a save Sigil. After you kill the archer, be aware that the ground is going to collapse underneath you (when you get onto the crisscrossed looking floor) so to navigate it now, you are going to need Shizuka's grappling. Continue south and a small cutscene will play, after which you will run into a group of enemies. Kill them and you will get the Red Gatepearl from the device that lowers from the ceiling. After you get the pearl, it will go back up and two archers will try to jump you from the direction of the staircase. Kill them but don't continue south, there is a bulkhead blocking your path, so head back to where the game showed you the red butterfly on the wall. Use the gatepearl here to open this bulkhead up. Kill the enemies on the staircase (Shizuka can handle the lot of them easily if you use her first weapon and keep hitting the square button) and then double back to grab another red Gatepearl. When you get this one, a purple armadillo guy is going to attack. He's like all the others, but just a bit stronger than the white ones. Get rid of him. Now make your way back to the staircase and enter the door. ========================== Heart of the Giant Battleship ========================== Watch the little cutscene that plays showing you the... thing in the middle of the room. Head to the east and grab the item from the chest there (a Celestial Radiance) and the head to the west. When you reach the wall, run into the small depression in the back of the room and you will fall down a pit, this is actually a lift to carry you back up. Stay on it until it goes all the way down and then hop off of it. From there, head to the west just a bit and go up the lift that is right there. When you get to the top, head west, but ignore the door. Break the crates at the end of the room to find another Essence of Amahagane. Now take the door. ========================== Giant Battleship Portside Passage ========================== Head down the staircase and then head north. Place the red Gatepearl in the depression in the bulkhead and then defeat these enemies behind it. Grab yet another red Gatepearl and head back to the save Sigil to heal up and save the game. Now head back past the Gatepearl holder and make your way to the south, killing the enemies before going through the doorway. You will have to cross the moving gears, making your way to the right hand side of the room to the door over there. If you fall down, you will end up in the Bilge Pump room and have to kill all of the enemies before you can get out. It isn't that bad and Benkei can wipe the floor with them, also there is a Miracle Pill and Essence of Amahagane hidden down here, so one fall isn't a bad idea. Just beware of the spikes that will try to hit you as you pass the third gear. It is fairly easy to avoid them, but you can easily not even see them. Either way, make your way across the room and go through the door. Go down the corridor and place the red Gatepearl. Continue forward and you are going to be ambushed by about 10 or more Mashogano spearmen. They're kind of a pain to fight so Shizuka and Benkei are your best choices. Charged strikes do some pretty nice damage to them, pretty fast but Benkei will get hurt. Shizuka can keep them mostly under control with wide attacks, but they will pot shot her every now and again. That should not be too much of a problem if her health is even fairly good. Keep following the passage and you will come upon a door. Enter it and be ready to fight some more archers, shield bearers and another General. I chose to make my life simple by using Kamui in here, but do as you please. You will get the Barrier Diffuse I after beating them as well as a chest with an weapon for Benkei in it. Grab that and then head up next to the weird Mashogano thing on the upper level. There is a treasure chest hidden to the left of it and a hidden Essence of Amahagane to the right of it, both behind the lattice walls. Now head back the way you came, and you will be attacked by a General and a group of shield bearers in the same area where the spearmen jumped you. Get rid of them, head back through the gear room and I suggest you go and save your game. You can also grab the final red Gatepearl now. A white armadillo guy will attack you as you do so, so be ready for him and his two archer buddies. Now make your way up the stairs nearby the save Sigil or the ones near the gear room to end up back in the Heart of the Giant Battleship room. ========================== Heart of the Giant Battleship ========================== Drop down into the main area and find the panel that asks for Barrier Diffuse I and use it on said panel. A barrier will disappear in the eastern part of the room, allowing you to use a new lift. Go up said lift and head all the way to the east, past the door and grab the Healing Breath from the chest. Now go in the door. ========================== Giant Battleship Starboard Passage ========================== Head down the stairs and at the bottom, place the last Gatepearl into the bulkhead to your north. Go that way and you will have to fight two regular armadillo warriors and a purple one. Kill them and a new device will lower, this giving you blue Gatepearls. Take one and continue to the north. Some of the soldiers are going to try and sneak up on you from the south, so get rid of them and then head further south. You will reach a room where the bridges you walk across fall apart, much like on the Port side of the ship. But as you try to do this, enemies will keep on coming from behind after you. So ignore them and start crossing the room. Near the other side, there are two archers who are going to try to shoot you off the ledge, so be careful and kill them as soon as you cross. There is also a hidden Essence of Amahagane near where the two archers stand. Use Shiuzka to find it by standing on the last bit of ledge to your north and swinging to the left. She should hit it easily. Now head all the way to the south and go down into Bilge passage. There is an Essence of Amahagane hidden on the left side of the room and a Miracle pill in a chest on the right side. So grab those and start backtracking to the Heart of the Giant Battleship. Some enemies will spawn in, so be careful as you go. ========================== Heart of the Giant Battleship ========================== Once you are in this room, drop down to the lower level and run for the south side of the room. You will see a door with a blue butterfly, so put the blue Gatepearl in it. Kill the enemies that are behind the door and run into the next room to save your game. But before continuing forward, head backwards to the Starboard Passage and grab another blue Gatepearl. As usual, you will be attacked by soldiers when you grab it, but they're easy. Now get back to the save Sigil in this room. Head to the left side of the room (east on your mini-map) and ignore the first room. Go into the second one to grab the item out of the treasure chest and go to the third room. This has an Essence of Amahagane hidden in it. Ignore the other rooms on this side as they are empty. Now head back to the save Sigil and head the other way (east on the mini-map). The second, fourth and fifth rooms have healing items hidden in them, so grab those and then continue south down the corridors. Head into the north door and defeat the enemies in here (beware the fact that there are THREE armadillo guys in this room) and you will get the Barrier Diffuse II. Also a treasure chest will appear that has Shizuka's final weapon in it. Head up to the second level and break the wall to the lattice to the left of the weird chunk of Mashogano to get another Essence of Amahagane. The south door serves no purpose right now, so ignore it and head back to the save Sigil. Heal up, save your game and go back into the main chamber of this area. Head inside the room and find the panel to use the Barrier Diffuse II on. This, as you would expect, causes another barrier to fall. Head to where the barrier was and go up the lift. Once up the lift, ignore the door as usual, and go grab the Roaring crest from the treasure chest all the way to the west side of the ledge. Then use the door. ========================== Giant Battleship Starboard Passage ========================== Head straight to the south when you get down the stairs and you will see yet another bulkhead. Use the blue Gatepearl to open it up and then run down the steps to grab the last blue Gatepearl. Beat the two armadillo guys that come out after you do this and then head all the way to the north to the second gear room. This room is a bit more complex to move through than the last one so take your time about it. Head further down the corridor and you will be ambushed by a horde of spearmen much like in the other part of the ship. When you head into the room at the end of the corridor, a giant gray crab is going to attack you. ========================== Giant Battleship Cargo Hold ========================== The crab is going to break the ground where he lands and send you two falling down into the Cargo Hold. Once down here, the fight begins so get read to go after him much like you did the last one. I prefer to use Benkei and to do two fully charged attacks to break his claws and then a third one to break open his face. His purple "face" is exposed, so if you can hit it with about three fully charged attacks from Benkei, he will die. He drops the Barrier Diffuse III. Once he is dead, head to the west side of the room and climb up to the top level, only stopping to open a treasure chest all the way on the left side. Now you can head for the door all the way on the south side. This leads into the Bilge Passage. ========================== Giant Battleship Bilge Passage ========================== Head across the hall from the door to the save Sigil. Head up to the south when you reach the intersection and you will see a slightly elevated part of the ground. Stand on it and use this to go back up to the Heart of the Giant Battleship. Make your way back to the Starboard Passage to the room that the gray crab attacked you in. Go up to the upper level once there and you will want to destroy the lattice walls on both sides of the Mashogano chunk as there are two Essence of Amahagane's hidden here, one on each side of the chunk. Now make your way back to the Heart of the Giant Battleship however you choose (I decided to drop down into the hole towards the Cargo Hold and make my way going this way, but do as you choose). ========================== Heart of the Giant Battleship ========================== Head into the main chamber and drop down to where the panels are. Find the panel that you need to use the Barrier Diffuse III on and watch the cutscene. Now head for the south door and use that to make your way to the lift that will take you down into the Bilge Passage again. ========================== Giant Battleship Bilge Passage ========================== Head into the north door and you will be in yet another room of gears. This one is way more complex than the others, so be very careful and move slowly through it... well as slowly as you can with some of the floors falling out underneath you. If you fall down, which I did, you have to fight another big crab, so I am going to cover that now. If you don't fall, skip past this. ========================== Giant Battleship Cargo Hold ========================== This crab has brought some of his little buddies along for the fight, so this isn't going to be as easy as the last one. I suggest that you dodge him and use Shizuka to kill off at least some of the little guys. Then switch to Benkei and begin to clobber the crab like you did the last one. He's not as hard, only taking two fully charged hits to the exposed purple Mashogano, as opposed to taking three of them. Once he's dead, get out of here and back to the Bilge Passage. ========================== Giant Battleship Bilge Passage ========================== Now make your way through the gear room and grab the ghost water at the end of the room. Head through the door. There are a group of enemies in here, which includes two Generals, so I would suggest using Kamui to get rid of the enemies or the archers will pick you apart while you fight the Generals. Kill them off and you will get the Barrier Diffuse IV and a treasure chest that has the last weapon for Buson. Go up the ramp on the right and break the lattice there to find another Essence of Amahagane. Now make your way back through the gears to get to the Heart of the Giant Battleship. This way is a bit tougher as all of the ledges that fell are still gone and the camera sucks for this area real bad, but if you are slow, then you can make it across. Just note that you will be sticking mostly to the left side of the room. Now take the platform up to the Heart. ========================== Heart of the Giant Battleship ========================== Save your game at the Sigil when you come across it and go into the main chamber. Find the panel to use the Barrier Diffuse IV on and the final barrier will disperse. Now head through where the barrier fell, to the north of the room. Keep going north and when you get into the large room, you will have to fight a group of enemies including THREE Generals. Annoying much. Head up the stairs to the west and make your way to the save Sigil before going through the door next to it. ========================== Giant Battleship Top ========================== Watch the cutscene that plays here. Once the cutscene is done you will have to fight Tomomori himself and a group of guards. I heavily suggest using a Kamui attack to get rid of the little guys and to injure Tomomori a bit. He will use a stomp attack before charging you with his blade. If you are dodging or simply jumping when he stomps, you will not be affected and you can then charge in to get him with some cheap shots. Only combo him once and then back off or he will likely hit you. He will summon in more Mashogano warriors after a bit, but they are nowhere near as important as he is. Kamui them to death if you need to or just ignore them fully. Once he is defeated, he will change forms and get quite a bit more impressive looking. He will punch you with one hand while the other attempts to pummel you with the freaking ship anchor. Nuts I say. His punches are easy to dodge, but the anchor attacks are harder, with him capable of a slam attack with it or doing a spin attack where he whirls the weapon in a circle. I found the best way to beat him was to keep moving around, using Yoshitsune, and take your attacks whenever you could get behind him or he missed you with an attack. These openings will allow you to hurt him without fear of being walloped (the anchor does about a good 900 damage or so). If he blocks you are going to want to dodge away from him as quickly as you can so he doesn't get you with an attack afterwards. He also has a charge attack and his stomp, but the stomp is negligible, simply evade as normal. The charge attack will hit you through your block, but if you can evade it, he leaves himself open to being hit for some time afterwards. If he does a Kamui attack to you then you must not let him hit you or it damages you something fierce. I believe the pattern to it was X,X,O in that order. After enough damage, a cutscene plays and he leaves a treasure chest behind for you. Take the Unsullied Amahagane from the chest and then go through the door. ========================== Giant Battleship Bilge Passage ========================== Kill the enemies that swarm you in this area and then make your way to the save Sigil before fighting off the enemies here. Make your way to the lift back to the Heart of the Giant Battleship. ========================== Heart of the Giant Battleship ========================== Fight through the enemies and save your game at the save Sigil before going into the main room. It seems that Tomomori has possessed the giant heart of the ship. So now you are going to have to destroy it. There will be three floating Mashogano idols that move around the platform. They will start by pelting you with fireballs, all the while moving away from you. From there they will start flying around high speed trying to knock you down and then they will go up high into the air and try to slam down on you. It is actually very easy to beat these guys, just keep chasing them and doing any damage you can do to them. Once the three of them shatter, the hearts defenses will lower and you can now attack it. I used Yoshitsune and was able to roughly take half of its health in one go. You can even jump and do air combos so that you can hit it both before its defenses are fully dropped and before they are fully raised up. Once you take out its health bar, Tomomori appears. The three floating statues are still going to be there, but they mostly only shoot out the fireballs now. Tomomori is going to try and stomp on you a lot , so use a dodge and then hit him while he recovers. After he loses almost half his health, he will start to go into the fetal position to charge up an attack. He will then start shooting off energy blasts in all directions. I would suggest that you keep moving while this is going on or you will take quite a bit of damage. After some damage he will go and teleport himself on top of the crystal in the center. While up there he will start to heal and hurl off electricity attacks. Attack the crystal to make him stop. Destroy the three floating guys twice and they will stop coming, so get rid of them and then concentrate on him. Watch the little cutscene now. ========================== Giant Battleship Bilge Passage ========================== You're now using just Benkei, so get moving. Exit the room you are in and then watch the cutscenes that will play. Shock of shocks, eh? This really made me loathe this game. **************************************************** The Battle of Hiraizumi - Hiraizumi Fortress **************************************************** - Help Hidehira's army exterminate the demon horde. Rush forward and enter the gates. Head up the staircase immediately to your west and defeat the enemies in the room. After a bit, a cutscene will play, so go to the rope it indicated and examine it. You will cut it and lower the gates but it will also trigger a bucket load of armadillo warriors to come after you. I suggest running from them out the door to the north. Once you're along the northern wall, upper level, you will see a bunch of enemies guarding an arbalest. Kill them and then use it to kill off one of the Living Weapons. There is a second arbalest further east along the wall, so once you kill the first guy, go get the second one. Now follow the wall all the way to the east and then head south until you reach another guard house. Kill the enemies in here and then examine the rope that you are shown to cut this one as well. The Central Gate is now going to get pushed open. So get out there in the central courtyard and run to the south. Kill all of the enemies that appear and you will see a cutscene of the door being closed. Now you must use Yoshitsune and his double jumps to scale one of the rock embankments to either side of the gate to get on top of it. Kill the archers up here and then go down into the central courtyard again. Watch the next cutscene. Make your way up on top of the wall once again. Top priority is to kill all of the archers lining the wall and then to kill all of the other red guys that will come after you. The gray ones are irrelevant for the most part, but kill them so that they don't cheap shot you. After they are all dead, a giant crab will march his way into the courtyard along with a bunch of soldiers. Kill them and fight the crab, I chose to use Buson and use his jumping combo attacks as well as his basic weapon's shockwave attack to shatter the claws and mask of this one. When he dies, he calls for two more crabs and a bunch of soldiers. The best way to fight these guys is through the use of Kamui. One good combo from someone with a kamui bar of at least 750 should kill these guys no problem. Once they are dead the fortress fight is over, but there's still another boss fight. This big guy isn't anywhere near as hard as he looks as long as you use Buson. He has three attacks: a blue flame breath attack, a claw swipe and a claw stomp. The flame breath will do a nice chunk of damage, but you can actually block it and it will do no damage, but it will smack the crud out of his little cronies that are surrounding you. The claw swipe he will only do if you are close and you can easily see it coming and dodge far back enough so that it is no threat to you, but it will likely hit his cronies, yet again. The stomp is only done when he has little health left and you can avoid it by simply staying far back enough not to get hit. The best way to fight him is to use Buson and run to the three arbalests. Fire one at him and it will knock him down to the ground, so run over to him and start to smack him in the white spot on top of his head. This is where you can do the best damage. I liked using Buson's triple thrust attack with either his original weapon or the Sword of Susano-O on his head, this did some nice damage to him. When you need to ward off his minions, either use the shockwave of the original weapon or let his breath attack hit them. After the three crossbows are used up, he will need to be taken down off his feet by your damage alone. So you're going to need to go to his feet, preferably his right one, and start hitting it. This is really very easy, just attack when he's not paying you any mind and dash away from him when he goes to hit you. If his minions become a pain back up and let him use his flame breath to knock the crud out of them, if not flat out kill them. Just keep doing this and he will die easily. You don't even need to waste Kamui on him. **************************************************** To Takadachi - Road to Takadachi **************************************************** - Hurry to Takadachi, site of the Overworld Gate, to put a stop to Kuyo's ambitions. As soon as you appear, switch to Shizuka and attack to your southeast. She will likely uncover an Essence of Amahagane. Now use the save Sigil. Head just a bit forward and then to the left and attack the tree over there and you will find a second piece of Amahagane. Defeat the enemies in your path and you will be ambushed from both sides. Then run into the cave. Once in here go explore the first level and get all of the healing items you can get and any Essence of Amahaganes you can find, but there is an infinite spawn room right in front of you. The same goes for the cave on the second level. Continue up to the third level by going to the east when you go up the first ramp. You will soon see light along the path, head that way. ========================== Valley of Ordeals ========================== Ill start this section by saying one thing, do NOT USE ANY MORE of your Essence of Amahagane until you reach the final boss, I will explain why this is so when you get there. If you have some just sitting around hold onto it for the time being. Keep going forward and you will see a cutscene. Watch it and then now it is time to fight Yoritomo. He is actually pretty easy if you can stay in his face. He can fire some seriously damaging blasts and he can also do some very powerful charge attacks. But if you can keep in his face, doing combo's he will lose life very quickly. An added benefit is if you knock him off side he will jump back up and leave himself open. If you keep hitting him and knocking him back off the side he will basically be perpetually on the defensive. A cutscene will play and then the fight continues. Keep it up and he will be dead in no time flat. But of course a cutscene is going to play and now you have to fight him again. This form, a much stronger and more imposing version of his last form is a pain in the rear. You can't really stun him no matter what you do, unless you catch him after he has finished his melee combo. You must do your best to dodge him and only attack when he is vulnerable or he will very likely hit you while you are still in the middle of a combo. He will simply power on through your attacks and pound on you. Now is the time to use some of your crest items, preferably the ones that let you do double damage or the one that halves the damage you take. The Vajra crest, the one that lets you halve the damage you take, can be good for just going toe-to-toe with him and pounding on him. Do whatever it takes, but don't waste it all, you still have a final boss. When the game is over, be sure to scour the battlefield. There are at least eight pieces of Kamui to be found in this area alone. Also to the extreme left or right sides of this area, you can find a Celestial light hidden inside of breakable jugs. Go back and save or continue ahead. In either case, watch the cutscene when you go forward. ========================== Where the Blossoms Abound ========================== No matter how big she is, she is actually incredibly easy so long as you stick to using Yoshitsune. She has a variety of attacks, one where each head will use some sort of breath attack, one where she will shoot out a blast from the big chunk of Mashogane that is under her and the last, and most important one to you, an attack where she slams her four tentacle heads into the floor. When they impact the ground that is your chance to attack them. Basically all you really need to do is dodge her attacks and hit the heads when they come down. They don't take much damage, so it is kind of slow going, but it's not really all that hard either. Use any crests you have that will assist you and don't be cheap with the healing items, the game is almost over. After you beat her, watch the cutscene. Time for the final fight. She is actually incredibly easy, so long as you took my earlier advice and did not waste any of your Celestial Light or Celestial Radiances over the course of the game. Simply spam her with your kamui attacks, using all of your Kamui recharge items over and over again. You can even use any of your Essence of Amahagane that you listened to me and held onto. Just keep on using your Kamui attacks and she will never even get the chance to harm you. ********* This strategy was posted on the GameFAQs message board and is reposted here with permission. Credit goes to Stryfe1 for this: ********** The first phase of the fight with Kuyo is really simple. Just dodge her fireballs. I've heard someone say to strike at her legs. I tried that and it hardly did anything, but every so often she will slam the ground with one of her heads. Rush it and whack it as fast as you can. I used Benkei and the Indomitable (leveled up to 4) and pressed the triangle button to make him spin. This takes out a lot more of her energy than just a whack. It's a slow process but you need to save your items for her next and last form. If you can help it, save your Unsullied Amahagane for Yuko's second form. If you haven't used ANY of your unsullied Amahagane, use them one at a time when your life bar is low and red. This will refill both your life gauge (and extend it another 250 points or so) and kamui gauge to FULL. But as much as possible save your refill items for Yuko's second form. For Kuyo's second form, unleash all of your kamui attacks on her to lessen her life to at least a half or even a third. If you run out of kamui, use this technique. Stick with your strongest fighter (Benkei for me). Get underneath the crystal belly but not directly under it. This will stop the green lasers from tagging you and Yuko will use only the pink energy ball to blast you. Take note that these pink energy ball will target you when you are stationary. Use the right analog stick to dodge in a circular or diagonal pattern under the crystal and by doing so, the energy blast will miss you almost 100% of the time. Now use the pause in between blasts to strike the crystal once (use triangle button preferably) and then repeat the dodging pattern. If you're quick and lucky, you might get a second hit before you get blasted. Using Benkei, I jumped and used the triangle button for a stronger hit. I also used my double damage item or my half damage effect items. One last cheap but effective technique is when you're life gauge dips low, run back and forth at the perimeter. Take note that your kamui refills quicker when your life gauge is near death (very risky if you get hit). When it is full, unleash the kamui attack! Best of luck! There it is, game over. Watch the final cutscenes and then congrats! ========================================================= 6. Enemies ========================================================= Heishi Samurai - Basic swordsmen, they're not really all that hard to fight or figure out. They will take only a few shots to kill and should pose little to no problem for you. Heishi Spearmen - These guys are a bit trickier, especially when you are using Shizuka. They can break her block with a hit, which will get her hit hard by another enemy. They do a fair amount of damage and they take a bit more. Archer - These guys are nothing. They are a nuisance when they can hit you from a distance, so get in close and take them out. Only one or two hits will kill these guys as they have no stamina whatsoever. Some of them will pull out katanas when you get too close, but they are still just as easy to kill. Mashogano Swordsman - This is where the enemies get less easy. These guys don't just take one swing, they do two hit combos if not more later on. Move around quite a bit, pull off combos when possible but do not stand still too long. These guys can knock you around and they will stab you while you are downed. Once you kill them a Mashogano spirit will rise up out of the body, so you have To kill it before it either attacks you or it creates a new swordsman. Mashogano Spirit - These little guys don't take too much to kill, but they are fast and hard to hit at times. You don't fight them too often on their own since they will usually rise from the corpse of a fallen Mashogano warrior. They are more of a nuisance than anything else. Get them as quickly as you can. If left alone for too long they will either disappear or create new bodies. Mashogano Spearmen - These guys are hard and annoying to fight. They do a lot Of damage, they knock you down and they block quite often. Be quick on your Feet when you are surrounded by these guys or you will take damage rapidly. Benkei is my actual favorite choice to take out these guys. By putting some Space between you and them he can charge a regular attack and then hit the crap out of them. Mashogano Archers - These guys aren't really all that hard, they're kind of Like easier Mashogano Swordsmen. However, their arrows do a lot more damage than you might appreciate. They will also shoot exploding arrows at you, but you have to ignore that, dodge in close and beat the crud out of them. Just be careful when you are dealing with them or the damage will add up. Winged Mashogano - I hate fighting these guys. Not only are they very strong and do a lot of damage, but they are hard to hit while they are flying about. It is usually a better idea to let the lot of them dive at you, while you block. They will linger about the floor for a bit after this, so hit them while you have the chance. Id seriously suggest not letting Shizuka fight them as they tend to knock her around like she's a baseball. Mashogano Elite - These big guys are like beefier versions of the regular Mashogano warriors. They come in sword, spear and archer varieties. They are not all that hard to beat, but they take far more damage than the regular Mashogano warriors. They also do a lot more damage than them. Be quick on your feet and use kamui to help get rid of them. Be aware that they can summon in regular enemies as well, so while they arent as hard to kill as a General, they are actually more dangerous due to them summoning in fodder. Mashogano General - These guys start off as a boss, but they start popping up as regular enemies a bit after that. These guys are nearly impossible to attack from the front, so you have to get behind them. Using Kamui is usually a waste as it doesn't do all that much damage to them, but use it if they are doing too much damage to you. A slightly easier way to kill them, but it usually gives you less Mashogano, is to use Benkei and use two fully charged attacks to kill them. The first will shatter their armor off, allowing any normal attacks to hurt them, but a second hit by Benkei will flat out kill them. Clawed Mashogano - While they are very fast, these guys aren't too big of a threat. Sure, they might surprise you every now and again by slamming into you from off screen, but they don't have a lot of health, they don't do all that much damage and they are fairly easy to kill. If possible, use Shizuka against them and watch her ranged attacks keep them under control easily. Mashogano Armadillo - These guys are one of the few enemies where I consider Shizuka the only real choice to fight, at least to start. Its best to use her first weapons triangle attack to plant a bomb on them and then hit them with a hard attack to blow them up. After a few more shots their armored chest plate will shatter. Repeat this again and you will kill them. Mashogano Warlord - These guys are basically tougher versions of the Mashogano Elites. They are pretty strong, do a good amount of damage and they are mostly located in an area of the game where you can't use Benkei. So basically you are going to need to combo them with Yoshitsune to keep them off balance. Shizuka doesn't do enough damage to stagger them, so keep to using Yoshitsune and don't stop hitting them once you get through their block. On the bright side, they don't summon in more enemies for you to fight. Take note that all of the enemies come in a variety of colors. The different colors are basically an indication that they have more health, do a bit more damage and will sometimes have different attacks, so beware. ========================================================= 7. About the Author ========================================================= My name is Daniel Acaba, I live in Groton, Connecticut, USA and I am 24 years old. I'm a huge video game fan, although I don't have the time to play as much anymore. I love writing reviews, but I'm going to start trying to do more FAQs as well. So far I've written the following FAQs: Genji: Days of the Blade - PS3 Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom - PS3 Bloodrayne 2 - PS2/X-Box Sims 2 Career FAQ - PC Resistance: Fall of Man - PS3 Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony - PSP Brave Story New Traveler - PSP Working on: The Darkness - PS3 TES IV: Oblivion - PS3 Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - PSP
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